Accommodating sin is wrong

Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD. Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD. And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. Jeremiah 23:1‭-‬3 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/jer.23.1-3.KJV

What can God do?

It seems that many people look around and see all kinds of problems like drugs and alcohol, and then they say “why won’t God do something about it?”. The problem isn’t God, it’s us. We were given the power of choice and the ability to choose our path. Just as the angels in Heaven were given a choice to serve God or not. Some did choose to and about a third of them didn’t want to and followed Lucifer in his rebellion against God.

When we make bad choices we are living in the same way. We are rebelling against His way of living because we want to do things our way. God created the entire universe. He created every atom and particle all the way up to the largest stars and galaxies so He can do ANYTHING! There isn’t anything that God can’t do except lie or go against one of His promises. Anything that would cause Him to be out of character, He won’t do. Other than that…He can do anything.

God loves us, He just doesn’t care for the sinful lives that we lead. Even if you are a Christian, you still sin every day. It may not be the same sinful things that you were doing before but thoughts and behaviors and words are not easily captured. We are forgiven but when you feel that you are being convicted of some thought or action that you did before you realized it, ask for His forgiveness and ask for the strength to resist the temptation of it the next time it comes around.

Jesus came to die for your sins and mine and He paid the price for all of our sins. He also conquered death so that we could live in eternity with Him when we accept Him as our Savior. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and you cannot come to the Father except through Him. Make sure of your eternal home before tomorrow because none of us are guaranteed to wake up in the morning.

He took your place

I saw this on Facebook and it seems to be needed today.

This should wake us up. One day, a man went to visit a church, He got there early, parked his car and got out. Another car pulled up near the driver got out and said, ” I always park there! You took my place!” The visitor went inside for Sunday School, found an empty seat and sat down A young lady from the church approached him and stated, “That’s my seat! You took my place!” The visitor was some……………what distressed by this rude welcome, but said nothing. After Sunday School, the visitor went into the sanctuary and sat down. Another member walked up to him and said, “That’s where I always sit! You took my place!” The visitor was even more troubled by this treatment, but still He said nothing. Later as the congregation was praying for Christ to dwell among them, the visitor stood up, and his appearance began to change. Horrible scars became visible on his hands and on his sandaled feet. Someone from the congregation noticed him and called out, “What happened to you?” The visitor replied, as his hat became a crown of thorns, and a tear fell from his eye, “I took your place..” Once you read this, say a prayer.. That’s all you have to do. There is nothing attached. This is so powerful. Just re-post if you want to, and maybe, just maybe, we can get the world to start thinking of WHO took our place!!!..

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom

Grace…

God gives us His grace. We, as Christians, have been touched by God through grace and it is because of His grace that we can be saved through faith in Jesus. God does this because He wants a relationship with us, which is why He created us in the first place. He doesn’t want us to mindlessly follow Him but to want to follow Him and love Him. That’s why we have been given the gift of choice. Although many of us choose to be stubborn and follow our own ways rather than His.

This is why there are so many religions. We create our version of “god” so that we can relate to him and still enjoy our own ideas of living a happy life. The problem with this is that the “god” that we create is a false god and it cannot help us in any way at all. God can help us in every way that we need. He is our Creator and Redeemer! God loves us and cares for us better than we know ourselves. When you are praying to God, Elohim of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you are speaking to your Creator and Redeemer who formed you in the womb. He knew you even before you were born.

These “gods” that we create in our minds, even if it is based upon our idea of Who God is, are false gods and are not real. People may say that they don’t practice idolatry but when you hear someone say, “my god would never send someone to hell”, that is exactly what they are doing! They have created a god that they can understand and who will allow them to be themselves without having to worry about “commandments” and going to church.

God gives us grace through faith in Jesus Christ and it is because of this that we can come to Him and know Him and be known by Him. It is not because of anything that we have done or any amount of attendance of services. We cannot be good enough to earn our salvation because it was paid for by Jesus for us. It is a gift from God the Father to each of us who will believe in Jesus Christ for our salvation. Period.

God is able to bless you!

Temptation is near you

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it. John 8:44 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/jhn.8.44.KJV

Whether you believe he is real or not doesn’t matter. What does matter is how you react to the temptation that you will be subjected to. Life is a journey through temptation. From eating candy as a child to buying things that you don’t need as an adult. Everything around us is trying to tempt us to do something or buy something, especially today. Our entire culture and our society are based around all of us being consumers of something. Whether it is food or clothing or books or electronics, we are supposed to consume.

God never intended for us to be consumers. We, as humans made in His image, are supposed to be the stewards of Earth and its resources. We’ve dropped the ball on that I believe. God loves each of us but He doesn’t like the sinful things that we do. We need to get back to Him and back to being the people that He intended but that is going to take a revival on a huge scale and it may not happen until Jesus comes to rule the Earth for one thousand years. Seek Him while there is time to do so. Don’t put it off because none of us are guaranteed even tomorrow.

Going through the motions

You can go to church and be baptized and read God’s Word but if you don’t believe in Jesus for your salvation and repent of your old way of living…none of that will do you any good when it comes to getting into Heaven. You may be a member of a church for many years and you might know some Scripture by heart but if you don’t know Him and, more importantly, you are not sure that He knows you then your eternity will be very different from what you think it will be.

It isn’t a hard choice when you know you need Him as your Savior but some people seem to think that they can or need to help Him to save their souls. There is nothing that you or I can do that Jesus hasn’t already done to pay the price for our salvation. He did it all. We only need to accept it when it is offered to us.

Going to church, reading God’s Word, prayer…all of these are good things to do but they won’t bring you salvation. That is only found in Jesus Christ and your sincere belief in Him for your salvation. Then…you need to read the Bible and become a true follower of Him for the rest of your life. Even the Bible says “do not forsake the assembling of yourselves“, the reason for this is you can be encouraged by other believers and you can pray together about things that are happening in your life and theirs. It doesn’t matter who said what to you years ago. You are an adopted child of God when you give your life to Jesus, don’t worry about old pains and slights that happened long ago.

Allow God to take care of those problems, you server Him from this point on.

Believe in Him

What does God want?

This is the question that I asked myself for many years before giving my heart to Jesus. What does He require from me to be a Christian? The answer is two-fold: one, He wants us to obey Him, and in regard to the second question, He doesn’t require anything more than your belief in Jesus as your Savior. There is nothing that you can do that will help you be a Christian.

Jesus did all of the work that needed doing, all you need to do is believe in Him for your salvation. That is it. There are no rules to follow or prescribed actions that need to be done because you and I can’t help Jesus save our souls. It is your faith in Him and your belief in His atonement for you that saves your soul from hell, with nothing required from you other than submitting your life and your heart to Him.

In my opinion, that is what keeps many people from believing in Him for their salvation. It’s too simple! Just believe in Him and be saved. That is what the gospel teaches. As Jesus told Nicodemus, “As the people believed and looked on the serpent on the pole to be cured, so they will only need to believe on the Son of Man”. Today, we want to have a part in our salvation but the only part that we have in it is to respond to the Holy Spirit when we are convicted of our need for salvation. Many people seem to push it away and decide that they aren’t ready yet. They think they will have plenty of time to do this later which is a lie from Satan.

Not one of us knows if we will even wake up in the morning so the thought that you have “plenty of time for that” is very deceptive. Although, people listen to that idea all of the time. When the day comes, and I believe it won’t be long in coming, the church and the believers who have died in Christ will be taken up to meet the Lord in the air. After that happens, there are going to be many who will regret waiting. Don’t put your salvation on hold, listen to that voice that is telling you that you need Jesus in your life.