Category: Bible relevancy

Drifting…


Many people seem to be drifting away from the church and it is not a good thing. Why is it so? Because, at this time in our history, we are coming very close to the end of the age spoken of in the Bible. I am not talking about giving you a date and the hour because neither I nor anyone else knows God’s timing in this. But, the prophetic clues are all around us and if you have never read the Bible, then today would be a good day to begin.

Many of the signs are happening every day on the news and many more of them are coming. The world says that evil and sinful living is correct and a good thing and being a follower of Christ is considered to be hateful toward those who don’t believe. Sermons are being watched by law enforcement and scrutinized during hiring for jobs, if a pastor is a bi-vocational leader. If the sermons have anything deemed as “hate speech” in them, the job offer is taken back or the person is fired if they have been hired.

Even social media posts with a religious bent to them are being criticized and taken down in some cases as well as being scrutinized for job interviews. All of these are the beginning of persecution toward believers which Jesus spoke of and it will get worse before it gets better.

Why am I writing this and also talking about people leaving the church? It seems that leaving the church would be a good thing if you want to get ahead in life, right? Not really. If you are living according to the dictates of the world around you, instead of living like a follower of Christ, then you are bending toward the world and getting off of the path set before you by Jesus.

Christians are supposed to be reflections of Jesus, not clay which bends and twists every which way the political correctness police want you to bend! God is our Shield and our Protector and we are to be following Jesus in all that we do and say! If you claim to be a Christian and you aren’t doing this, you may want to check your heart and your spirit and make sure of what or who it is that you are listening to. Are you sure that you belong to Jesus or some lying spirit from Satan who tricked you into thinking that you are saved?

Satan and his demons or spirits can do this and have done it for thousands of years. They attend church more often than many people do, so they know very well how to fool you. Remember, they were around when all of Scripture was being written and played out, so they know it better than anyone with letters behind their name in the pulpit. They can quote it word for word but often will twist the meaning so that it sounds they way they want it to sound.

Some of the horror movies like “The Exorcist”, “The Omen”, and others show this because the demons know things about the person confronting them that they couldn’t know without being supernatural beings. Don’t discount this because even Jesus had to silence those which He cast out so they wouldn’t scream His name and Who He was to every person around. It wasn’t His time to be known that way yet. Even Paul had to cast a demon out because the girl who was possessed kept telling everyone that they were representatives of the Most High God.

Even though it sounds like a good thing, if a demon is announcing that you are the Son of God or a prophet of God, then it seems like you have the OK from Satan to do what you are doing. That is why Jesus and His disciples cast them out because they wanted their message to be validated by the Spirit of God and not a demon from darkness!

Seek out His Word in the Bible. Study it and learn from it, think on it when you have the time and ponder its meaning (meditate), because God will give you the meaning if you are truly seeking it for the Truth that it contains. Seek His will which is contained in the Bible so that you know Who and what you believe, in order to back up your faith and be able to give it away.

Soothing, calming, slow rain


rain-nature-animated-gif-31I live in Mississippi and we have been in a “drought condition” since the last week of July. God has now ended that condition during the last week of November and the first of December and listening to it is so soothing to my soul! It is falling slowly enough to soak into the ground and not flood and run off everywhere, which is great!

So many times in our lives we look around and see things which concern us at times and we get upset about them, but really can we do anything to fix those problems? Many times they are caused by natural processes or some careless individual with a match or cigarette and they are too far away for us to make a difference anyway. All we can do at that point is pray that the right people will be available to help.

Believe it or not, God does care about us and our situation, even though we occupy a small, speck in His Creation. Why does He care so much? Because He chose this speck to be the place where He would have His Presence and His people live. Why did He choose our planet? I haven’t a clue. The only explanation would be that it is His decision because He is God!

He is outside our existence, even outside our universe, but He chose to love and care for us and maybe one day we will understand that…in His Presence. Until then, we just have to muddle along and learn more about Him from His Word because that is the only way to learn about Him while we are here. Have you spoken with Him today? It is a privilege that we have which allows us to talk to Him anytime.

Seek His calming presence each and every day and if you don’t believe in Him, then pick up a Bible and read it. Ask Him, if He is there, to show you His Presence and His grace because He is there, I promise!

Wisdom is….


Wisdom is the most useful gift which God gives graciously to those who ask to understand His ways and His Word. Wisdom is like love in its ways. It is not proud, nor does it seek its own exaltation. Wisdom is the most useful of graces which we are given by God, but don’t consider your wisdom as being yours alone. It comes from God and His Word alone. Schools cannot give you wisdom, only life and living can give you wise counsel to carry with you all of your days.

Wisdom is humble and not proud. It is meek and seeks not its own pleasure. If you consider your wisdom is great and that you have gained this of your own accord, then you have not wisdom but prideful feelings about your own abilities. This will bring you to a place where only wisdom can gain your exit, if you are able to use it in such a fashion.

Wisdom is from God, knowledge is from man and the two of them are separate. It is true that knowledge used in the right way could be seen as wisdom, but just as Solomon asked only for wisdom to be king over Israel, it is given to each of us in our portion. We can’t gain it from someone else, and it is only useful if we put it to use in our lives and our ministry, whatever that may be.

Proverbs 4: 5-9

5 Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth.

6 Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee.

7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

8 Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her.

9 She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.

Wisdom in life usually comes with experience, if you apply what you have learned in your life’s work. Wisdom is not easily forgotten, but pride can shut down your own wise ways. So, what should a man do about gaining wisdom? First, he should seek it out from the very Book that contains words given by God to man, which is the Bible. Why do I say this? Because, the Spirit moved men to write God’s Word and His wisdom down as they were prompted to do so. Even if it was written by the hand of man, the words and the wisdom contained in it came from God

Man couldn’t have written the Bible out of their own imagination because there is prophecy in the Old Testament which has been fulfilled and is being fulfilled today, which man cannot know the future in order to make those predictions. God gives us a portion of His Wisdom in the Bible, all that we need to do is pray to Him for guidance while reading it so we can glean all of His wisdom from what we are reading. If you don’t do that, then you are just reading it as a book and nothing more.

By doing so you are missing the entire reason for which God’s Word was written in the first place. Reading the Bible as “just a book” is like reading one of the Greek writings as just a book, it shouldn’t be read that way nor can it be learned from in that way! I don’t mean to say that you can’t learn something from the Bible by just reading it but you are missing out on so much more that is in it if you read it that way.

God’s wisdom is eternal so His Word is eternal too. We can’t add anything of value to it and we had better make sure that we don’t take anything from it, especially if we are teaching from it. Wisdom is what is needed today in our society, but when you are found to have wisdom from the Bible, many people want to shut you up. Why? Because deed down, they know that your wisdom comes from God’s Holy Word and it can’t be dismissed because it is the Truth.

Techno-stuff


We all live with and use these things all of the time. From smart phones to thermostats which know if you are at home or not, our lives seem to be flooded with technology in almost all areas of our life every day. What would happen to us if that technology suddenly stopped working?

For some people with pacemakers it would mean that they get to see God sooner than they expected. For others, for instance if you were a patient in a hospital, it might mean the same thing. Some people would notice that their car won’t crank or even run at all. Technology runs every part of our lives these days or at least a significant part of it, so what would we do if an EMP went off and wiped out all of the electric grids and anything which depended upon electricity or electronic circuits?

This is the scenario that is ahead if a militant state or group gets the ability to launch a nuclear EMP bomb into the high atmosphere. Within three days every grocery store would be cleaned out. There would be no alarm systems anywhere in America and no fire truck or police or ambulance would be able to respond to calls for help. Your car wouldn’t crank and your cell phone and computer won’t work again. The entire electric grid for America would be shut down because they are dependent upon computers and electricity. An EMP would send our country back as a society to the point of being where our great grandfathers were about 150 years ago!

It is a scary scenario to think about but if someone had this ability, and many do today, our world would be drastically changed. We would have to go back to either using horses or if you happen to have a classic car or truck, one which was made at least 37 years ago, then you may have transportation until the gas runs out.

Technology has spoiled us to the point of being dependent upon it for everything that we do. Our world, not just America, is dependent on it for business and banking and communication so without electricity to power our technology, our way of life will revert to being like it was almost two-hundred years ago. Also, we don’t know how long the effects of an electromagnetic pulse would last. It could be months or even years before we could get things back to the normal that we are accustomed to today.

Why am I bringing this up today? Mainly to get some of you thinking about getting prepared for an event like this should it happen in the near future.

God is coming back in the form of His Son, Jesus and He will put the world back together again the way that He meant for it to be. But, until that day comes we shouldn’t just sit around and wait for Him to fix everything! Prepare for the worst, hope for the best and tell others about Jesus! This is what the church is supposed to do until He comes again. We will see the world go through much trouble and hard times before He returns because the apostle Paul said that “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;” 2 Thessalonians 2:3

Be prepared, read and study the Bible, pray and fast to strengthen your faith in Him because these things were foretold through the Spirit of God to the writers of these letters. God’s Word is true and it does tell the end before it comes, these things will happen, when we don’t know. Be mindful and watch and pray that you will be counted among the faithful. Amen.

Umber


The color of umber is brown. Not a dark brown but not exactly “paper sack tan” either. Truthfully it is like a lightly roasted coffee in color. Why am I bringing this up on this blog? Because there are discussions and arguments arising about the way that Jesus is portrayed in paintings and in our culture.

Some say that He should be portrayed as white, others say that He is black, actually He is neither one. Jesus was born Hebrew as a Jewish Israelite. If you have ever met someone from Israel you notice that they have skin tones which have an olive complexion. What does that mean? It means that their skin will tan easily in the sun.

Our Savior did a lot of walking throughout Judea in His lifetime, therefore He most likely was very dark-skinned where the sun struck Him. His face, arms, feet, and lower legs were likely very dark. The depiction of Him being white by artists who painted Him or otherwise portrayed Him is a nod to the culture of their day, racist though that may have been.

Our ancestors, the ones who began all of this in Eden, were very olive-skinned so that when their offspring came about a myriad of skin colors and complexions would be genetically possible. God knew then and He knows now exactly what He is doing genetically in this world. He is also giving us the ability to choose our spiritual pathway in our lives and He has been doing this from the start.

God doesn’t care if your skin color is dark or light, olive or even very darkly pigmented, He cares about your soul…your inner man. That is the part of you that lives on into eternity and your culture, your “skin tone” will likely be in eternity as well so we will all be able to see who we really are or were in our previous life on Earth. No one will lose their identity after death. Jesus spoke of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob being alive in eternity and our names and all that we have done in the service of God will follow us into eternity too.

Living here in this life is far different from what we will see or know in Heaven and for those who won’t give their hearts to Jesus, their eternity will be a true living hell. The descriptions of hell are varied but the regrets and the separation from God’s love and all that we have known in this life will be with us through eternity. The color of your skin, your culture, your lifestyle or how much money you had on Earth will mean NOTHING!

I was given a very tiny glimpse into heaven once and the gold streets are pure enough to shine like the Sun and the gold is like glass. Some of the buildings are made of a substance like opals only more pure and clear with walls a cubit or more thick. They reflect God’s glory with all of the colors imaginable but a description would not do them justice at all.

The descriptions found in the Bible are man’s attempt at describing things which our minds can’t comprehend fully, so I can’t either. Race doesn’t mean anything in the end. We are all God’s children and all of us are descended from Adam and Eve, since God cannot lie I don’t understand why we deny that we are all related.

One year over…


Many years have come and gone and this one is no different. All sorts of people in the world doing things like shooting each other or someone who they don’t agree with. Wars breaking out or getting worse because of beliefs or differences in beliefs or culture. The human race, regardless of the color of your skin, is killing itself one person at a time. Although some days, many more are killed than just one.

Why can’t we get along with each other? Is it our cultures or our skin color that sets us at odds so much that we can’t stand for the “others” to live? This is nothing new exactly because it has been going on for millennia and it will continue until the return of Jesus. In many ways, even His name causes much of the strife and problems in our world today. As long as you are speaking of God, there is no problem but when you bring Jesus into the conversation then things get heated.

Why does He cause such reactions? Well, in the days before His crucifixion, it was His teachings and the way that He taught that was the real problem. His authority and the teaching that He was doing was undermining the control that the High Priests had on the people. Then there was the, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except by Me” statement! Who did He think that He was,420268_10150681777049769_182249954768_8767283_149600359_n.jpgGod?!

Yes, this past year has been a bad one in more ways than one for many people who have lost loved ones. Some of them were lost due to war, some were due to car wrecks, some were killed by gun shots fired by people who didn’t need to have a gun in their hands. Some were killed because they waved a BB gun around that looked like the real deal.

This past year has had some senseless deaths occur in it, but they could’ve been prevented. Our problem is not the guns or the fake guns and it is not the attitudes or opinions of those in government, it is that we have forgotten how to be a society that takes responsibility for its actions, regardless of how shocking they may be. We have also pushed our principles and the Book which taught our grandparents and their parents how to act out of the education system.

It is time to put prayer and the Bible back where it belongs so that the next generation won’t completely forget that God is in control, no matter how bad things get or who may be in charge here. He will bring about a revival and heal the problems in our land if we will just seek Him out and repent of our sinful ways.

The Bible is still a Book which has more wisdom in it than all of the books that are in the library and we need to be using it, studying it and reading it. If we don’t then we can only blame ourselves for what will come next.

So much going on….


Looking at and listening to the news is not one of my favorite things to do, in fact I avoid it if I possibly can. There is so much going on in our world until it just brings you down in  your spirit and just gives you the feeling that nothing will ever be better in the world in which we live in.

Then…you hear a child laugh and giggle or you hear them say some of the sweetest things that can only come from their minds. Minds which have not yet been messed up by the world and education and all of the things which go on. Then, of course, you see the children on the news who are living in places where they could lose their parents or their friends any moment. Where gun shots and bombs are going off and people are threatening others for not believing in the same religion, the one that they think is the right one. Stupidity, ignorance, hatred, bitterness, heartache, fear, death are all around us today whether it is just on TV or next door, we can’t seem to get away from some or all of it. We can’t live a life of peace and harmony, not in today’s world because there isn’t a place like that on Earth anywhere!

It makes me sad to consider what our children and their children will be living in and having to try to stay alive through before Jesus comes back.

Whether you believe it or not, He is coming back to judge the world for all of the cruelty and hatred and violence that has been going on and is still going on. He will bring peace with Him because His government in the Kingdom which He sets up on Earth will not tolerate the things which are happening today. Swift justice will be the rule then, no twenty years of appeals for someone who kills a child. Our world will be run by Him from His throne in Jerusalem.

You can choose to believe it or not, but it is coming and I believe that it is coming in our lifetime. He has told us to be watching and waiting and the prophecies that were given in the Bible have all lined up. There is very little that has to happen before the day that the trumpet sounds, and I am looking forward to that day. From that day forward, for seven years there will be very little that will be good on this Earth. The wars and diseases and famines that are happening now will pale in comparison to what is coming. It will have nothing to do with “global warming”, or anything which mankind is responsible for except the rejection of Jesus the Messiah.

The last of the Blood Moons is happening in a little over a month from now. What happens in the next few months or years is in God’s hands and everyone will see and know that it is His doing, not us. Study the Bible, read the books of Daniel and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Revelation. Between these books, if you pray for understanding, they will reveal that all that is happening is happening according to God’s design and purpose. Seek His wisdom for your life and for your salvation because salvation only comes to you through Jesus and His atonement for your sins and mine, there is no other way to get to Heaven except through Him. Don’t put it off and don’t wait because the time is short.

So much love


Yes, I know that there are many of you out there who may not know the One of which I speak. Yet, He does love you with such a deep and abiding love that it is indescribable, at least in human terms. I have felt it at times in worship and in reading and studying His Word, yet I can’t give you a description of it any more than you could tell someone about the color blue or red!

There are many ways that we feel love in life. Through our families, our friendships, even from people who somehow helped us when we didn’t know it. Love can be expressed in ways that defy description, even from human terms, but God’s love is a kind of love that goes as deep as your cellular structure, even into your atomic structure. That kind of love, agape’ love, is the kind that asks nothing in return and never expects anything more than love to be given away. In doing this, you glorify God and that gives Him pleasure too.

God created us, each of us, with certain talents and abilities and we are to use them for His Glory and purpose. But, many don’t do this because they don’t want to or they don’t want to believe in God or in His Son, Jesus. The reasons for this are many. Some say that Jesus was just a prophet and nothing more, some say that God doesn’t have a Son, that He is One and none others are involved. The tiny, relative to the universe, ball of dirt that we live on is the one place which God has focused His attention on at this time. He may create another place and other people in the future, but as far as we know right now we are it. This is not arrogance, it’s just that we don’t have any proof of anyone else so we can’t say for sure.

If there are others, God loves them too wherever they may be. Love covers many things in life. Real love, not just lust or infatuation, doesn’t get jealous or angry because true, abiding love doesn’t stray from a relationship. In the past and right now too, people are moving away from a belief in God because He is not seen or they just don’t want the Bible to be true. That way, they don’t have to be responsible for their sins because of the Truth in the Bible.

God loves all of us and cares for us just as He did for Israel in the times of their slavery. He brought them out and into a land where they could have served Him in a fantastic way, but they didn’t obey Him and the commandments given to them. They mingled with the inhabitants of the land and began worshipping their gods who were not gods at all, but were likely demons.

We have our own version of this today. We worship money, fame, beauty, sex, drugs, alcohol. Though we may not bow down to them, we give our attention and our lives over to them in ways that are very similar to the pagan worship of trees and the earth and stars. Reading through the Bible brings forward some very interesting parallels to life today if you notice it.

Seek Him in His Word, find the love that He has for us as His creation. Then, ask Him to change your heart and your life so that you will know Him even better than you have known anyone before. I promise, you won’t be disappointed if you are repentant and desire to know Him as your Savior and Lord.

Living Christianity


Thanking God for waking up today, and for the blessings that you have in your life.

The prayer that you say before leaving to go to your job or on other errands that have to be done.

Praying for someone in your family, your church family, or someone who you hear about on the news. Not necessarily for their salvation, but for their comfort or their healing depending upon the circumstances.

Doing something, no matter how small it may seem, for someone that you know. Even if it is just saying a prayer for them.

Give of your money, your tithes to help those who are truly in need and in danger. The Jewish people are not all rich, there are some homeless children and elderly there that need our help. I have been doing this for the past three years or so and even if you can only give twenty or twenty-five dollars will help, even if it is only a one time gift. I am sorry to say that I haven’t been able to give that amount every month but I pray that is about to change for me and for you as well.

Don’t just go to church on the days or nights when there is a service going on. Your faith in Jesus has to be taken outside the church so that others can see Christians as we are supposed to be, reflecting Jesus so that the world can see Him through our actions and in our life.

Don’t claim to be a Christian and go through the motions of being one and not believe in Jesus fully. If you are doing this, you are fooling yourself and you are being fooled into thinking that you are something that you are NOT!

Do as Jesus said to do, “Seek ye the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33) This doesn’t mean that all of the stuff that you want will come to you, but the blessings of God will be yours through Jesus. Read and study God’s Word every day! It is imperative that we know what it says so that we aren’t fooled by someone quoting a scripture which isn’t there or out of context.

Be LIKE Christ and be the Christian that He intended for you to be. Many people have died over the years because they would not give up their beliefs or change to go along with everyone else’s opinion and we should be just as stubborn as they were by clinging to our faith no matter what comes!

How Much?


How much should we endure in our lives? How much should we forgive and forget? How much? This is the question which people ask when they can’t afford what they are looking at, and yet they ask it anyway. It is also the question that we ask when we want to know what it will take to get something done, whether in the spiritual realm or the physical. How much time? How much money? How much of my life will this involve? Do you really have so much time and money that you can’t part with any of it or are you just selfish? God gave you the job or the income that you have, why can’t you give Him credit for what you live off of?

The only time that Jesus asked a question which sounded like, “How much?”, was when He fed the five thousand men. He asked His disciples about the amount of food that they had found, which was a boys lunch of two loaves of bread and some fish. God can take a little and do a lot with it, just as He used the twelve disciples and turned the world upside down with His message and the church began. That small lunch which the boy had actually fed about fifteen thousand or so since there were women and children present too, which wasn’t counted in the initial count.

How much more are we going to have to put up with before we realize that the Bible is right? Everything that is happening today, around the world, is part of prophecy. From the book of Daniel to Revelation, the world that we see and hear about on the news is there in some form. Yes, they may have used some descriptions which describe things that don’t exist, but the men who wrote those books had never seen a helicopter or a jet air plane, so they described them the best way that they could with what they knew of at the time. The next world conflict will begin in the Middle East, maybe in Turkey or Iraq, but it will be in that region. Who will be fighting whom, I don’t know, but it will involve religious differences and hatred between people.

It has been brewing ever since the nation of Israel reformed and became a nation in 1948 and it is coming to a head soon. I don’t know the date, no one does except for God, the point is that we need to get back to our faith in Him, because the problems which are coming with this conflict and the economic disaster which will likely happen before this war will cause tremendous trouble all over the world. Why do we need to get back to God? Because we need an anchor, a Rock to cling to in the raging water, something that is unchanging and that is God and His Truth. Throw that away and we have anarchy. Few people will live through a lawless nation or a world without laws and morals. Think about it, pray about it, come back to God before it is too late.