Category: Believe like a child

Disappointment


Have you felt disappointed when you attend church or after you leave? Let down by the lack of friendly people who noticed or didn’t notice that you were there? This is the way I would feel if I went to a BIG church, but if it happens at a church where there are fewer than fifty people it really hurts. This is the reason that many people attend once and then never return. Those in the church should welcome people who attend their services, especially those who are there for the first time. Don’t shake their hand like they have some disease that you are loathe to even be close to! Don’t look at their clothes and shoes and decide that they aren’t worth your time, God loves them or they wouldn’t be coming to your church for the first time!

Feeling disappointed and unwanted when you come to a service is the way that Satan wants you to feel so you won’t ever return. Listen to the message, if it is from the Word of God. If the sermon doesn’t come from the Bible with Scripture references throughout, leave when the service is over and don’t return. Make sure that you go to a Bible teaching church with believers who believe in the God of the Bible and in His Son. If the sermon is made up of “feel good” words which sound like they came from a book of self-help fluff, don’t listen to it! RUN from that church and never return!

God sent His Son, Jesus the Christ, into this world so that He could pay the debt by His blood shed on the cross and the whipping post but He overcame the death brought on by the crucifixion by His resurrection on the third day. This was planned and accomplished by the Lord long before we were born but God looked down through time and saw each of us struggling with sin and afflictions brought on by Satan and his demons. He knew that we couldn’t overcome these afflictions on our own and He made a way for us through belief in Jesus. Simple though this may sound, it is all that we need in our lives in order to be victorious all the way to our eternal home!

God loves you and He has made this way for you by His power and through the work of Jesus, the Son of God. If you have heard or felt His call on your heart and life, don’t turn away from it. None of us are guaranteed tomorrow so make sure of your salvation today because the work has been done for you. All that is needed is for you to believe in Him and ask His forgiveness of your sinful life. Ask Him to remove your pain and depression and all of your Earthly problems whatever they may be and in Jesus’ name, He will do it and give you the strength to tell others about your Risen Savior!

Does Jesus know you?


Knowing Jesus as your friend and your Savior is the most fulfilling relationship that you can have. So, why do we seek Him for salvation and then walk away from the relationship? Many people today do exactly that. They know they need Him and they know that they are sinful in their lives. They will seek Him out and feel His call and conviction in their lives and maybe even accept Him as their Savior but when things don’t work out the way they want them to, they walk away from Him.

Knowing Who He is and having Him as your Savior is the best relationship that you can have. But if you only want to know Him as a Savior and Lord and not as your Savior and Lord there is nothing gained for you except knowledge of Him. Knowledge doesn’t bring salvation. Satan and the demons know Who Jesus is but that doesn’t help them because they won’t serve Him. 

There are times that I think it is that word which turns people away. They don’t want to be a disciple or a Christian because they don’t want to serve Jesus. He gave His life and His blood for your soul to have a chance at salvation so I believe that we do owe Him our service and our life. God has given us all of the best, even though we don’t see it that way. He has provided us with a sun that isn’t too hot and a planet to live on that isn’t too hot or cold. He prepared it with lots of water and air to breathe and land that we could cultivate for our food and things that we need.

So many things that we have been blessed with, whether you live in America or anywhere else in the world because God loves us so deeply. I know there are diseases and wars going on and famines and earthquakes and hurricanes that happen from time to time, but God is still in control of it all. If He weren’t we wouldn’t be here. There are so many problems which we could have that He has prevented and then there are others which we have caused. Not “global warming”, but so many other problems in our societies just because we have refused to worship the One True God. 

Seek Him out while there is yet time to do so because there will be one day in the near future when He takes the church and all of those who have given their lives to Him to Heaven. When that happens, there will be hell on Earth until He says that it is enough. Think about it.

Joy in my heart!


Working and doing any kind of work for God is a joy! Whether you are a teacher or a preacher or a blogger! Just knowing that you are telling others about your Lord and Savior even if you never meet them or even know them, God will use your words and give you the words to say so that someone will seek out Jesus as their Savior. The idea of a Savior which is planted in their mind and in their heart (soul) will take root and God will cause it to bloom in their life. It may not happen today or tomorrow but when God is behind your words and the results which come from them, it can’t help but grow.

Jesus has such a powerful love for mankind, not just the Jewish people, until He gave His life so that we could all come to know Him for our salvation. True repentance and acceptance of His sacrifice along with believing that He paid for our sins and their penalties is what is needed for salvation. It doesn’t take a tub full of water for baptism nor many years of “works” for Him to be saved. Speaking in tongues is not required and being overjoyed with the power of the Holy Spirit doesn’t make a difference in whether your salvation is true or not!

In Acts chapter sixteen, Paul and Silas are in jail because of their testimony and because they had freed a girl from demon possession. Here is the story of it:

Paul and Silas in Prison

16And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying: 17The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. 18And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.

19And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers, 20And brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, 21And teach customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans.

22And the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. 23And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely: 24Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks.

The Conversion of the Jailer

25And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. 26And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed. 27And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. 28But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. 29Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, 30And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

31And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. 32And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. 33And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. 34And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.

What is entertainment good for?


Entertainment- an event, performance, or activity designed to entertain others.

Why are we so hung up on being entertained today? Is it because life is so boring that we can’t stand it if we are not entertained in some fashion? It seems that most of our television time is spent watching shows which are stupid in their content but they are entertaining because of that stupidity. All of these reality shows fall into this group and most of the ignorance which comes from the Democratic side of our government also seems to be in the same group.

Movies, TV shows, a good bit of the news, the list could go on for a long time. All of these things which take up our time and our money fall under the same category of entertainment. None of them inform or instruct anyone about anything.

In the seventies, our news programs told us the real news. The news which was happening in the world and in our country which might be important for us to know about. Most of it would help us to make an informed decision about our government or the people who were in charge of it. The problem with the world that we live in today is that we have so many ways of getting our information and our news until the TV is nothing more than an advertising box for drugs which will make us feel better about ourselves and the world around us.

Sounds kind of out of sorts doesn’t it?

In most newscasts today, the actual news only takes a few seconds of each broadcast. After the “headline” part of a story, we go back to three to five minutes worth of advertising (mostly for drugs). Why am I speaking about this and the problems which it creates? Because we get the idea that pills can solve most of our problems today whether they are physical or mental. God can take care of all of your problems. Granted, He doesn’t make you feel high like some drugs and He doesn’t give you the desires of your heart unless your heart is in tune with His first!

Just asking God for money doesn’t mean that you will get the amount you want but you may get the amount that you need. Our lives are not meant to be lived with the “stuff” that is all around us and in the world today. We are supposed to live by faith so that God can bless us and the works of our hands because it is by living by faith in Him that we glorify Him in everything that we do. Whether it is by being a carpenter or a painter or a preacher or a nurse, God can be glorified in everything that we do because we get up and give Him praise for giving us another day to serve others and Him while we are yet alive.

The praise of this world and the things which most people chase after in life do nothing to gain you access to heaven. It is only by the blood of Jesus and your belief in Him as your Savior which will allow you to stand in His presence and gain your reward of eternity. Seek out your Savior for your forgiveness and for your salvation while there is time because nothing on this Earth satisfies like knowing that you are forgiven and are eternally in His hands.

The night before…


Regardless of which day you believe that Jesus was crucified, the night before was His worst. It started out good with the meal with His disciples but then as the hours passed, He knew the time was getting closer. The time in the Garden of Gethsemane stressed Jesus to the point of sweating blood while He was praying. I mean, come on, sweating blood! You know that had to be some serious stress!

No, I’m not being trite with this. Jesus’ human side was truly scared and wishing, even praying that He didn’t have to go through with this. But, He did and He did it for you and for me and everyone else in this world. Why? Because His sacrifice and death on the cross was necessary to pay for ALL of our sins. He was the only man who could do this. Not the Pope nor any other religious figure in the past could pay for our sins because none of them could live a sinless life.

The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. That is Who Jesus was and who He still is. So why do people have so much angst over His name? Is it because He claimed and proved that He is the Son of God? Maybe. His suffering was prophesied many years before He was even born and yet the prophecies all were fulfilled in His Life and His death on the cross and by His resurrection after three days. Regardless of how you calculate His death and the feast which was taking place, He still fulfilled the prophecies about Himself. No mere man could do that!

Jesus, Yeshua, the Son of Man and the Son of God is the only man who could be the Savior of the world and the only begotten Son of God! If this bothers you enough that you never want to read this again…then don’t. Walk away from His Spirit which is touching your heart and letting you know that you need Him as your Savior. It will be the worst mistake of your life if you do. Why do I say that? Because you have no idea if you will ever have the chance to give your heart to Him and ask Him into your life. We are not given a guarantee of a certain number of years on this planet. You or I may die tonight before the sunrises tomorrow.

Don’t turn away from His call in your life because that is a call you don’t want to miss. It is like a call from a “lottery” about a number that could make you rich, it will likely come only once in a lifetime. Don’t pass it up. Giving your heart to Jesus is more valuable than any amount of money you could win because in eternity the money you have here is worthless. Please, don’t turn away from Jesus.

Jesus gave His Life so that you could have eternity.

What could you do?


If your life was going to come to an end and you knew it, what could you do about your eternity? Do you know where you will spend eternity and are you sure of that?

Truthfully, there is nothing that you can do on your own to gain an eternity in heaven. The only pathway lies through Jesus and your acceptance of Him as your Savior. Repentance from your sinful life and turning toward Him to follow Him the rest of your life is the only way. Regardless of what you have been taught or what you may have heard, Jesus really is the Way, the Truth and the Life and nobody comes to the Father except through Him.

Our idea of righteousness, whether it is through religion or our own works, is nothing. It will not bring you into heaven but it will bring you into judgement. You will stand before God and Jesus to give account for your life and your reasons for your decision to live the way that you did. If you gave your heart to Jesus and repented of your sinful ways in order to follow Him until the end of your life then the meeting will go very differently. I can’t tell you exactly how it will go, but in the first instance you will be sent to hell. If you belong to Jesus and your life reflects that, then your sins are covered and your will be allowed into Heaven.

The Passover and Easter


Jesus and His disciples celebrated the Seder meal or Passover meal, which Christians call the Last Supper and it was just before His arrest and the “mock trial” before His crucifixion. But how did three full days elapse between the crucifixion and His resurrection? Some say there was another sabbath which was prior to the Passover that year so what was it?

The part that we, as Christians, don’t understand is the Jewish holiday itself. Passover is a Holy Day and therefore is considered a sabbath day when no work is allowed regardless of the day that it falls on. Since their calendar is based on a Lunar calendar month the dates and days change from year to year. I have found a chart which shows the differences between the calendar days and the holy days for the year when Jesus (Yeshua) was crucified.



Does this validate or change anything? Not really. In fact it just shows that the days before the Sabbath for that year had significance for those who were celebrating the feasts (Feast of Unleavened Bread) and the Passover.

Why bring this up? Because, regardless of whether you consider a part of a day as a day, there is no way to make three days fit between Friday afternoon and Sunday at daybreak in the way that tradition has held that Jesus was crucified on Friday. Does this really matter in the grand scheme of things? No, because God worked it out however He wanted it to work.

Our salvation is paid for because of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and our belief in the atonement provided by Him. The number of nights or days doesn’t change what Jesus did, if you don’t count the time that He told the Pharisees that the “only sign that they would get would be the sign of Jonah“. They were the priests and the teachers of Israel and they knew their scriptures by heart and yet they didn’t see that He was their Messiah or they didn’t want to believe that He was and chose not to recognize Him. Whichever version you want to go with is fine with me.

Jesus told them before His crucifixion that “since they didn’t recognize Him their blindness would remain“. God has provided a way for all who hear His call in their lives to come to repentance and salvation IF they will believe in and accept Jesus as their Savior. I pray that anyone who is looking for their Savior will give Jesus a chance because He is the only Savior there is…period.

What can I do to have eternal life?


In the sentence above is one mistake which many people cling to and never realize that they are wrong in doing so. The word “I” has no place in this sentence. There is nothing that we can do which will bring us into eternity with Jesus. Only by giving your life and your heart to Him and asking for His forgiveness of your sins can you obtain eternal Life. “The soul which sins will die” is a promise in God’s Word, not a suggestion.

But, the death that this soul which sins will endure is not an instant, one-time death. It is an eternal separation from God and His Life in heaven. So, in effect we are all immortal it just depends upon your choices in this life whether you will truly live into eternity or endure suffering and pain for eternity by being separated from the Author of Life, which is Jesus our Savior.

If it were possible for us to contribute anything to attaining or grasping eternal life then why did Jesus have to die? If we could do it and be successful at it, by being righteous and holy in everything that we do in our lives, He didn’t have to die on the cross and be raised on the third day. But we cannot be perfectly righteous and holy in our life.

Our holiness comes through striving to be more like Christ and not being like the person we were before our relationship with Him. That is what “taking up your cross” means. Put down your old way of life and turn away from it and follow Jesus Christ every day because only by doing this can you begin to understand His wisdom and His Word. If you are wondering how this is possible if we can’t do it ourselves, it is because of the Holy Spirit’s conviction which brings you to the place where you know you need Jesus. Then the Spirit changes your heart to be a little bit more like Him each day when you read the Bible and study it with prayer.

Prior to my acceptance of Jesus as my Savior I couldn’t understand the message in the Bible whether it was in the Old Testament or the New Testament. It just seemed to be stories and history of a people that I had heard about in movies. God’s Spirit does have a way of teaching us even when we don’t know we are being taught. The title of this article is the same question which the rich young ruler asked Jesus but when he learned that he should give up his wealth…he turned away.

Money and fame can lead many people away from the message of salvation simply because with both of those we don’t feel the need for God in our lives unless a true tragedy happens to us. Even then some people will blame God for it rather than turn to Him for their comfort and healing. I pray that anyone who reads this will seek Jesus out as their Savior before the church is taken up one day soon.

The world will change…


When the Tribulation is over and Jesus comes to set up His Kingdom on Earth everything will change. There will be no more crime or war or drugs or any of the bad stuff we hear on the news today. It sounds like a wonderful place doesn’t it? It will be for those who believe in Him and live during this time, even those who have died and gone to Heaven will return to reign with Him. Those believers who have managed to come to faith in Him during the Tribulation and live through it will spend the next one thousand years working with those who need to know and believe in Jesus.

It is hard to believe that there will be people living during that time, with Jesus ruling the world, who will not give their heart to Him and believe in Him for their salvation. But there will be many, so many in fact that Satan will have an army at the end of that time which is larger than any army on Earth now or ever! Yes, the book of Revelation is real and it is the Word of God so it is True and will come about in the future. You can choose to believe God and His Word or not but since God doesn’t lie, I would suggest that you believe His Word!

Why am I bringing this subject up? Because there is no way to know when Jesus will come for His church and when He does the whole world will become much worse than it is right now. He could come tonight or tomorrow or next week or next year but the point is that we don’t know the hour or day. If you aren’t ready when He does call for His Bride then you will be here when the Anti-Christ takes over the world. For a few years his rule will be tolerable but it will get much worse before the seven years are done. I pray that all who read this will be ready when Jesus calls for His church (those who have believed in Him for their salvation).

I pray that many will come to know Him as their Savior before that time comes so I can meet all of you in Heaven one day. Seek Him for your salvation and your soul.

Does Jesus know you?


In America the polls show that around 80% of the population claim to be Christians but are they really? I mean that there are many people who truly claim and believe that they are Christians. But…what if it came down to a life or death scenario where your faith would be the deciding factor of whether you lived another day? Would you still hold to your faith in Jesus or would you choose to follow another man claiming to be “god”?

It is a tough question and it isn’t one which very many people have even considered in their lifetime. Some of them may not even know that the gospel and Jesus’ sacrifice for their sins is even contained in the Bible! There are many in the so-called “Bible belt” who have been in church ever since they could walk or even before then. Those who fit in this group think that they are Christians because they have been in church all of their lives.

Jesus told His disciples that “many will say to me in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

Belief in Jesus and doing many works in His name are great things to do but if you don’t have a relationship with Him so that you know Him and He knows you, then He will say “Depart from Me because I never knew you“.

Knowing about Jesus and being on the “roll” of the church does nothing to bring you righteousness. Belief in Who He is and having faith in Him for your salvation begins a relationship with Him that should last for the rest of your life on Earth and into eternity! Going through the motions and sitting in the pew every Sunday does nothing for your eternal salvation except it exposes you to the teaching of God’s Word, if you attend a Bible teaching church. If you don’t then you are likely hearing the “wisdom” of a man with a few religious sounding words thrown in.

As Paul wrote, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,”. Many churches are like that today. Their “preachers” teach them more of man’s wisdom than they do from God’s Word. This is the reason that there will be many on that day who will think they are saved but they will find that their “salvation” is false and hollow…but it will be too late.

I pray that many who read this will search Jesus out and find a Bible teaching church so that they can learn from God’s Word directly and not hear the foolish wisdom of a man.