Category: Believe like a child

The soul which sins will die


Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.  https://biblehub.com/ezekiel/18-20.htm
This law has not changed and will not change. God is sinless and perfect and so is Heaven and everything in it. Therefore, a sinner cannot enter into Heaven…period. You can’t set one foot into Heaven if you are a sinner. But, preacher, we are all sinners! Yes, we are BUT Jesus paid for our sins and His blood covers those sins IF you and I have accepted Him as our Savior.

SinSeparatesUsIf our sins are not covered by His blood because we have NOT asked Him to forgive us and we have not repented of those sins, then we will die. That doesn’t mean that we will die when we sin or maybe we will just a little at a time.

The point is this: sin separates us from God and keeps us separated until we realize that we need Jesus and confess that we are sinners and ask Jesus for His forgiveness and REPENT of those sins.

Recall that even when Adam and Eve disobeyed God (they sinned), He had to kill an animal and clothe them in skins, so a death had to occur to pay for their sins. God had told them that they would surely die if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He didn’t say that they would die immediately, just that they would surely die. Adam lived until he was 930 and I would think that Eve may have lived the same, but the Bible doesn’t record the age of the women in the Bible.

The point is this: God had never intended for them to die but since they disobeyed His command and sinned, they would die. Just as we do today. Death for those who don’t know God is a terrible thing. I don’t mean that they don’t know about Him, many people do know about God. Satan knows about Him and knew Him since he was created by Him, but in his pride, Satan determined not to obey God.

We do the same thing when we think we are smarter than God..when we think we know more than God or when we make plans without God in them. Sin gets into our lives in subtle ways. Sometimes it is through greed or pride or by us thinking that we are doing better than others. Problems arise when we are doing well in life because it is usually then that we think we don’t need God. But…that is when we need Him the most!

The rich man who thought he had everything he needed and built all those barns to hold his goods so he could take life easy…didn’t know that he was about to die. Just as we don’t know when we are going to take our last breath. God said that the rich man was a fool because his soul would be required that night. The rich man had allowed pride to become his god.

Any sin can separate you from God unless you have given your heart to Jesus and live your life following Him and not your own ideas and ways. It is the separation from God which is the “second death” because God is Life and eternity away from Him would be eternal death.

God doesn’t intend for us to be in eternity like this but if we choose not to give our lives to Jesus and follow Him and be changed by Him, then our eternity will be without God or the Life which only He can give. Will it be an eternity in fire and in the lake of fire? Yes, eventually it will be. That place was intended only for Satan and the fallen angels who followed him, but when we decide that we don’t need Jesus or we don’t want to live our lives in service to Him then we are no different from him. Which is why many will be cast into the lake of fire one day.

God has made a way for you to be saved from this and it is through the belief in Jesus and His atonement for your sins. Admit that you are a sinner in need of Jesus and His forgiveness. Ask Him to come into your life and your heart and make you clean and then live your life in service to Him and not indulging in your old life again. A changed life and heart cannot go back to living the sinful way they did before, but one who thinks they are changed and isn’t can go back with no regret at all.

Consider that your life, no matter how long it might be, is but a drop in an ocean. The ocean represents eternity. Which eternity would you rather be a part of? One that is full of Life and purpose serving God or one which is apart from God and in torment because of your decision NOT to accept Jesus as your Savior? It is your choice.

God thinks fondly of you!


Jeremiah 29: 10-13

10 For thus saith, the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. 12 Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. 13 And ye shall seek me, and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

God loves you deeply and He proved this when He sent His Son to die and rise again in order to pay for your sins and mine! Some people think that God chooses a certain number of people or just certain people to be Christians and some to be sent to hell. That is wrong! The Book of Life which our names are written in when we come to faith in Jesus is not already written!

God writes our names into it when we come to know Jesus as our Savior. John wrote this:  “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” John 3:17

Your story as a believer and your life in Jesus is NOT written in stone. You can come to know Him as your Savior and all you have to do is seek Him diligently and ask Him into your heart. God loves each of us, He just doesn’t love the sinful lives that we lead when we aren’t Christians and our heart is still a slave to sin! I pray that anyone and everyone who reads this will come to the knowledge of Jesus as their Savior and Lord.

Don’t put off the most important decision in your life! Our lives are extremely short compared to eternity. It’s like a drop of water in the Pacific ocean, your lifetime is the drop and eternity is the ocean. Make sure of your destination in eternity before your life ends because this is the rehearsal for that eternal home which is promised in God’s Word. So make sure of it before you get in your car or get on an airplane or walk down the street because you don’t know if you will arrive at your destination.

Bridge2Salvation

In Romans 1:16 Paul wrote this:  “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek”, and neither should anyone else who believes.

Be strong in your faith


There are so many things going on in our world today and every day. So much hatred and bitterness, some of it toward Christians and those who believe in Jesus even in America. In other countries, our faith is persecuted terribly in much worse ways than here. Life for Christians, even in the twenty-first century, is not easy because our faith and the One that we place our faith in is not very popular in the world today.

Many people cannot handle the Truth contained within our Scriptures or rather they don’t want to hear about its Truth, specifically because of its absoluteness. But…we must be strong in our faith and put your faith in Jesus. We cannot lose our faith, not now. Life is going to become harder and we cannot just give up. We must persevere and stay the course until our Savior comes.

God loves you and your life is in Him and in His Son, Jesus. Make sure your faith is in Jesus and is strong in Him. Follow Him, learn of Him, read His Word and pray for the strength to continue to follow Him until that day when the Trumpet sounds and the dead in Christ come out of their graves and head to the skies to meet Him!

Amen

You are not an accident!


We are not accidents!

Psalm 139

For the director of music. Of David. A Psalm.

1 You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,a God! How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you.
19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
God doesn’t cause accidents in His creation and each of us is a person that He caused to come into being for a reason. He has a purpose for you and for me and for all of those on the Earth. What that purpose is only He knows. He has given each of us gifts and abilities to be able to glorify Him and to be useful to Him in His Kingdom. So we need to start acting like we have a place in His Kingdom. If you don’t want to have a place in His Kingdom, that is fine. He doesn’t force anyone to be a part of His design and His will for His creation.

Our God and Savior is the only pathway to Heaven, there is no other. Seek Him while you can find Him because when the shout comes and the dead are raised incorruptible and the church rises to meet Him, the easy time of coming to Jesus will be over. The time of “Jacob’s trouble” will be upon the world and the act of giving your heart to Jesus will carry a death sentence soon after. I pray that all of you will be counted among those who rise to meet Him in the air. Amen

Is there something missing…


Many times when I was much younger, I felt as if something was missing in my life. Since my parents were divorced I always thought it had to do with my Dad not being in my life much. Which was likely since I didn’t see him much except during summer visits and two weeks doesn’t help much when your Dad is working and out of the house even when you are there. Still…I felt that my relationship with him wasn’t really what was missing but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

After high school, I found that the missing part of my life didn’t mean much, at least not yet. So I partied and played around with weed and sex and I still felt empty and confused because nothing that I tried was fulfilling at all and mostly left me feeling empty inside. Even though I thought I had found and accepted Jesus, and I may have invited Him into my heart, I don’t think that I had fully committed my life and my heart to Him at this point.

I didn’t have anyone to teach me how to become closer to God and to come to know Him in a deeper way, so I still felt like I was stuck in a rut and I didn’t know how to get on the right pathway. I don’t know if I am expressing this the best way but that is how I felt at the time.

Why am I opening my story up to you? Because our testimony is the story about how each of us came to know Jesus as our Lord and Savior and it is a story that each of us can express in our own words because it is personal. Each of us knows our own short-comings and our failures which brought us to the point of knowing that we need Jesus, because until we came to that point…we didn’t want to know Him.

My actual walk with Jesus began after my son was born. I had been given this gift from God to love and cherish and to be an example to, and I knew that if I wasn’t following Jesus from that point on then he wouldn’t learn about Him either. So, I began by reading the Bible at night while I was working in the lab at the hospital. I would read in between running samples or on my lunch (early breakfast) break.

Little by little, God’s Word began to make sense to me. I still didn’t understand it and even today after reading through the Bible many times I don’t claim to understand it yet, but I am walking with Him on a daily path. Do I stumble? Yes! Do I wander off the path or fall? Yes! But…He is there to help me get back up, ask for His forgiveness when I have failed Him in one way or another and then we carry on toward the goal.

What is the goal? The prize of being in His Presence! That is the ultimate goal of life. The life which each of us lives through and complains about here is just temporary but the Life in Him and in eternity is…well eternal! There won’t be anything missing when we are in His Kingdom and His Presence! The only “missing” things will be the problems which we have here, the time which we never seem to have enough of, our aches and pains and our glasses (if you wear them) or contacts. All of these man-made bits of help and diseases will be left on Earth when we leave this place, praise God!

If you need prayer for any reason or just an unspoken request, please leave it in the comments. I will pray for you in my prayers because I pray that this site and these messages have an impact in the world every day. Thank you for reading.

Amen.

Feed My Sheep…


Good shepherdOne of the misunderstood commands of our Lord was when He restored Peter to his place before He ascended to the Father. Jesus said to Peter, “Feed My sheep” and He said it not once or twice but three times. Granted, Jesus didn’t use the same wording for each time that He asked Peter to do this, but the meaning is the same. He asked him to be a shepherd to His flock and to tend to His lambs and feed His sheep.

This is what all pastors and just regular Christians are supposed to do because we have a responsibility to those who are just becoming Christians, like children or lambs in a flock. We are also supposed to help feed those who are still learning about God’s Word and what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

Being a Christian is not as easy as some try to make it seem. There are always obstacles, temptations, and darts which are flung at us each and every day from the enemy. But in Jesus Christ, we do have the power to resist them and to conquer them especially if we are grounded in His Word and know it well enough to use it as a weapon against Satan and his followers. We can’t do this on our own!

Even Jesus used Scripture to fend off Satan when He had finished His fast of forty days, so don’t think you won’t need to know it because you will. Feeding His sheep includes feeding our own souls so that our walk with Him is more productive. God loves us and wants the best for us, but His best for us doesn’t mean that we will become rich in money. We will be rich in blessings and in His Kingdom.

Have faith in Jesus and believe in Him for your salvation because He is the only way to have salvation in this life and in eternity as well. Don’t believe the lie that you can accept Him as your Savior and then go back to living your life on your terms and doing whatever you want to do. That is not how salvation works. The change which happens in your heart should translate into a new lifestyle and one which honors Him and glorifies Him! Going back to your old life and your old lifestyle after you have “given” your heart to Him proves only that you didn’t give anything to Jesus.

If you actually did give your heart to Him and then turned away from Him and being a Christian in your daily walk with Him, you are trampling His blood and His sacrifice under your feet like it doesn’t mean anything to you at all! All that you have is insurance against going to hell, but no works which would point anyone else in the direction of Jesus. That is a sad and unfruitful way of saying that you are a Christian when nobody can see it in your life.

Think about it and make sure that your life with Him is true and honest and one which will draw even a child to come to know Him.

Focus on God!


When you are in your home with your family, sit down and have a Bible study. Even if you only study a few verses or one chapter, this will show your children that the study of God’s Word is important to you. When you are at work, pray about your Bible studies and meditate on it so that your mind is focused on God during your day. You don’t have to do this for the entire day, but even a few minutes will keep your mind free of distractions.

Listen to Christian music during your drive to and from work or to the grocery store. This small thing will also keep God at the forefront of your day, each day. Why am I saying this? Because those who are against Jesus and His people study their “holy books” and writings much more than we do. We should be at least as versed in our Scriptures as they are in theirs so we could bring to mind any verses which will refute any of their arguments against Jesus.

Our life in Christ is given to us through faith which the Lord gives us when He draws us unto Himself. God loves every person, whether they are Christians or not, but He doesn’t approve of their sinful lives. Every person that is touched by the Holy Spirit and convicted of their need in Jesus Christ should give their hearts to Him, but if they do not then their outcome in eternity is on their own head.

By focusing your daily walk on God and His Wisdom you will keep your mind and your thoughts pointed in the right direction no matter what may be going on around you. God loves you and He does want the best outcome for you. The best way to achieve that is to follow Jesus and walk with Him on a daily basis. This will keep the “darts of Satan” away from you and help you to withstand any temptation which may come along too.

Featured Image -- 3119Remember when Jesus walked on the water and told Peter to come to Him? As long as Peter kept his eyes on Jesus he could walk on the water but when the waves and the storm distracted him, he began to sink. That is the kind of focus we should have in our lives every day! Keep your eyes and your thoughts focused on Jesus and His Kingdom and all of your endeavors for Him will work out just fine.

In this picture, Jesus was walking on a fairly calm water but this is just an artist’s rendering of His walk on the water. Peter was walking during a storm according to Matthew’s account, so the waves would’ve been much larger and likely the reason for Peter’s fear. God can carry us through many storms in life if we will just keep our eyes and our heart focused on Him regardless of what may be happening around us or in our lives.

Faith is doing!


That is why it says in James chapter 2, “18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works”. The Hebrew word for faith is Emunah, which is less about knowing and more about doing. The literal meaning of Emunah is “to take firm action”. To look at faith in the light of the Hebrew word is like a staircase, in your mind you know the stairs lead to another level but until you climb the stairs you won’t get there.

That is the type of faith which the church NEEDS today! Faith in Jesus which moves us toward doing His Work in our daily lives! Not the intellectual knowing of or about Jesus but the kind of faith which carries us from the sermon out into the real world so that others might see Jesus working in us and through us in our lives!

What kind of change needs to happen in your life today so that your faith is defined by what you do instead of what you know?Faith

Child-like faith


Jesus said to “suffer the little children to come unto Me for of such as these are those who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven“. I know that I didn’t write His words verbatim, but you get the idea. We are to have the same trusting faith in Him that children have in their parents who love them. Child-like faith is the type of faith which hasn’t been dulled by the cares of life and even though adults usually do have many “cares” to handle we should still trust in our Lord and Savior like a child.

God loves us more deeply than we can ever imagine although there are many who will not give their lives to Him out of stubborn pride or anger for some wrong which they lay at God’s hands. It is not God Who brings challenges into our lives, whatever they may be. It is usually our own stubborn pride or Satan’s demons who are allowed to bring suffering into our lives. Many times this suffering is brought to our doorstep not because God is angry with us but because it may be the only way to get our attention!

We are the ones who turn away from Him. God is always near and available to us in prayer and in our troubles yet many people will not bow their head or bend their knees to ask Him for healing or help in situations where it is sorely needed. A child trusts their parents and grandparents because they know that no harm will come to them as long as they are loved. There are exceptions to this because some children live in a home where they are not wanted or they are seen as a burden more than a blessing from God.

Jesus_Loves_UThese exceptions should not exist but they do in our fallen world. The entirety of Creation groans in anticipation of the return of Jesus and the restoration of order to its fallen state just as we do. He will return and restore our world and its order when His Kingdom reigns on this Earth one day, so keep your faith in Him until that event comes to fruition!

It is our faith in Him which Jesus was speaking of when He said that we must come in child-like faith to Him. Trusting in Him completely and knowing that He has always got our life in His hands and we are under His protection. Never doubt that He is completely in charge and in control of every good thing which happens in our lives. Seek Him like a child and in that complete faith, give your heart to Him because He gave His life for yours.

Jesus loves us because He gave His life for ours. All that we owe Him is that we should give our lives to Him in return and serve Him in all areas of our life until we go to Him one day.

False prophets and heresy!


2 Peter 2:

1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom, the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

If you listen carefully to the news and the commentary that goes with it, you will notice that we are hearing this type of speech today! Oh, they don’t call themselves prophets but their words are listened to as if they were. Every “false teaching” which is told in the news, from “free medical care” to “free college” and all of the rhetoric about “saving the children” at the border when there are thousands of babies aborted (murdered) each and every day! What about their rights? What about their life that is cut short because of convenience?

God will not look the other way because each of these children was sent here by Him for a purpose. They weren’t accidental and they certainly aren’t just “blobs of cells”! Of course, that is not the way that the media reports it. They try to report it as if a “fetus” is not a human being but if a woman is killed when she is pregnant the person who killed her is responsible for two homicides. Even if she is only a few months pregnant. What changed the “cells” into a person?

Our media wants us to believe that there is a difference and there isn’t. A baby is a baby from conception until birth and even further until they are a toddler. The law is clear about a child in the womb when you read God’s Word and He doesn’t change His view of your child whether you believe in Him or not. From conception onward, that is your child and a separate human being from yourself. Even if it is growing inside of your body.

The heretical teaching and media concentration in our world is brainwashing people into thinking that your body is yours to do with as you please, in all instances. God didn’t tell us this at all in His Word and if more people read it and studied it they would know this. God is our creator and it is He Who placed that child in your care, so unless you repent of this sin and become a Christian and ask Him to forgive you for it, how would you expect Him to treat you when you stand at your judgment one day?

Jesus told His disciples, “Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

We are known by God even before we are born, as the Psalmist said, “we are fearfully and wonderfully made”!

Every teaching, because that is what the “news” is today, is telling people to be your own god, do what pleases you and helps you with your career. Don’t worry about anyone else. No man or woman is alone in this world, at least not entirely alone, regardless of where they live unless they choose to be. God loves each person on the face of the Earth, but He doesn’t like the sins which we all commit each and every day. No person on the Earth is sinless, not even the Pope.