What kind of question is that? What do you mean?
I don’t mean have you heard about Him or even accepted Him as your Savior. I do mean, “Have you had an encounter with Him?”
We go through life every day passing by people on the road and on the sidewalk…but we don’t know them. We may never know who they are even if we pass them for many days or weeks or even years. But, what about Jesus? Do you just pass by Him in church? Hearing messages about Him but not really getting to know Him. You might ask me, “How am I supposed to get to know Him?”. By surrendering your heart to Him and reading the gospels about Him and what He did. That is the best way to get to know Him and actually have an encounter with Him.
Some of you might say, “I don’t need Him. Not right now, I’m too busy to worry about my salvation”. Do you truly believe that you have many more months or years ahead of you? Not one person on the Earth knows if they will wake up tomorrow morning…not even you or me. So, how can you just push Him or even the experience of Him away so easily?
We are living at the end of the church age. Jesus could come to take the church, those who have given their hearts to Him, at any time. He has loved all of humanity since the very beginning, although He has not loved their sinful ways. Can you say for certain that you will be a part of the church, the Bride of Christ when He comes to take her to His Father’s house? If you are not sure, then you need to make sure.
Jesus looked at those He ministered to with a love that we can’t understand because it didn’t require anything from those He was ministering to. He didn’t need money or jewels or a home. He already had access to all of that and more. God doesn’t require anything from us except our obedience and our devotion. No amount of work is needed for us to be saved from hell. Only our belief in Jesus and our repentance, turning away, from our sins. Why does an encounter with Him seem to frighten people away?
It could be that the price of following Him is too high. How could that be? He doesn’t require you to spend your entire savings to follow Him. All He asks for is your heart and your belief in Him to be His disciple. Then go and tell others what He has done for you. It’s not required but your testimony to others will show how much He has done for you and maybe they will want Him as their Savior as well. The blind men that He healed only asked for their sight back and He healed their blindness. He also gave them “spiritual eyes” to see Who He was and to know that they needed to follow Him and they did.
With everything that is happening in the world today, we need a Savior in more ways than we know. The Savior that can give you an eternal place in Heaven is Jesus Christ. Seek Him while there is time.
We want to ask this especially when we are going through a tough time. The bills can’t be paid because the money isn’t there. You can’t buy groceries, again, because of no money. You get a diagnosis that frightens you and surprises you at the same time…so when will You show up in all of this, God?
The days that we are living in and through today bring questions like this to mind. We may not voice them aloud but they are there. There is something that we need to remember in all of this: God is always here with us. He knows when a sparrow falls, so don’t you think He knows when you are having trouble? Even if you haven’t given your life to Him yet, He still knows and He is never more than a prayer away.
God loves every one of us. He loves us even more than we think anyone could and He does. So, why do we feel alone and abandoned at times? Don’t blame it on Him because He hasn’t moved. Most of our loneliness comes when we either push Him away or we don’t invite Him into our problems. We think that He isn’t interested. Realize this: If God knows how many hairs are on your head, don’t you think He cares about every other part of your life? God knows you and me far better than we know ourselves.
Your life is precious to God and He wants to treat you as such but when most people don’t believe in Him as their Savior why should you receive any help from the God that you don’t believe in? Many of us have made “god” in our image and that is the god that we worship, even in church. He is not judgmental. He doesn’t require us to do anything for His Kingdom. We have created an idol with our idea of who god is and we have placed him in a box to be brought out when we want him and need him. That is not God the Creator and Father of Jesus.
We have to follow our Savior, Jesus, every day. Make sure you read the Bible so you will know exactly Who you are following and why. God loves you!
There have been hundreds of sermons preached in America and around the world, maybe even thousands since the time that Jesus Christ was here. How much more preaching will it take to get people to realize that God’s Word is true? God inspired the men of Israel to write the books that they wrote and yet we think that the Bible is just some old, dusty book and nothing more.
Consider the parable of the pearl. A merchant found a pearl. Perfect in all of its dimensions and without a flaw. He sold everything he had in order to purchase this pearl. This is exactly how God views each of us. Our soul is worth more to Him than all of the wealth in the entire world and in today’s economy that would be in the trillions of dollars. I’m not speaking of the human race, I’m talking about your soul or my soul. God values each of us that much. So much in fact that if I had been the only person to be saved by the death of Jesus on the cross…He would’ve still died just for me or you or any one of the billions of people on Earth.
Not only does God value us that much but He loves each of us that much. It doesn’t matter if you are Jewish or a Gentile, God still loves you that much. Just think about that for a moment. Is there anyone that you would give your life for like that? I can think of a couple of people but to do it for someone I don’t know…I don’t think so. The thing that we have to remember is that God knows each of us and He knew us long before we were born. He knows each person intimately enough that He doesn’t wonder what kind of person we will become because He already knew that long before we were born.
I pray that each person that reads this will think about this for a few minutes. Consider how much God cares for you and that He would’ve died for you even if you were the only one that could be saved by His death on the cross.
Many times you read it or hear it said, “but, they followed their own way”, and that is when things go wrong. There are also places in the Bible where the writer says “but God remembered” and it is usually those “but God” moments that really make a difference not only in the nation of Israel but in our lives too. It is those times when we decide not to follow Jesus and we create our own “but” moments. “But I want to do it this way or that way”; the problem with this is if you have been called to be a Christian, you are supposed to be following Jesus in your daily life. Yet, we look at our lives and, if we are honest, we can see that our lives work with Jesus as our Savior until we decide that we know better and we come to one of these “but, I want to…” moments.
It is unequivocally clear that it is at those times when we get off of the pathway that Jesus is leading us on simply because we see something off to the side that we want to pursue. It might be a shiny new car or this new job but it isn’t what God was leading you toward. So we follow our own desires in that “but” moment. It is usually at this point that we find that this new path or job or whatever it is that we wanted isn’t what we thought it was. Then…we have to come back into a right relationship with Jesus and begin again on His path.
That little three-letter word “but” can bring a lot of heartache and misery into our lives. Especially when we are just starting our walk with Jesus. We will get distracted by something or someone and walk off into the briar patch and then realize that we have gotten into something that we shouldn’t have gotten into. Sometimes we realize it right away but most often it is after we have been off of the “narrow way” following Jesus for a while. The best part of following Jesus is that He never walks away from us. He is always right next to us and when we decide that our way isn’t working, Jesus takes our hand and we begin again.
While it is true that life is a highway, it is the narrow path that leads toward your eternal home. The highway may be smooth and easy but the path that leads to eternity, even though it is narrow, it is more productive and it doesn’t have the same dangers that are on the “easy path”. That little word and thought, “but…”, can lead you into some wonderful places but it can also lead you down some dangerous roads. Seek out and follow Jesus while there is time.
It’s not strange to note that God doesn’t have anywhere in His Word where He says “Oops”. He knows what He’s doing and He knows how things will turn out so nothing is a surprise to Him.
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmaments sheweth his handiwork.” – Psalm 19:1
He is the Creator and our Savior and there is no other. He is in control even though the rest of the world says that He is not and they don’t care to know Him. Everything that He made in the first chapter of Genesis was good. God’s creation has more beauty in it because that is how He made it to be. Don’t turn away from the One Who loves you more than anyone else can.
The Living Message of Christ 