Category: By faith

Love is the reason


All of the Bible is held together by God’s love for His people, the Jews. He also loves all of mankind, no matter what ethnic background or skin color they may have. Our problem with God’s love for us is that we can’t understand the depth of it. Why would God love people who hate Him? Why would He send Jesus to die on a cross for people that hate Him and His message?

Because of God’s promise to Eve and Adam that “the Seed of the woman will crush the head of the snake”, meaning Jesus would come and vanquish Satan and his temptation paying the price for ALL of mankind so they could regain their place in God’s house. This message runs all through the Bible and is fulfilled entirely when Jesus is born and grows in a village in Israel. Without God’s promise of a Redeemer and the fulfillment of that promise in the New Testament, there would be no gospel to preach and no salvation for mankind.

John 3:16-17 tells the whole gospel message in just a few words: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

God created us as living souls so that we can commune with Him. He had this relationship in the beginning and God will bring us to Himself through the blood of Jesus. If we will believe in Jesus as our Savior and turn away from our old life and walk-in “newness of life in Christ Jesus“.

I will praise You!


I will praise thee, O Lord , with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works. I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High. Psalms 9:1‭-‬2 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.9.1-2.KJV

Do you disciple?


Many of us on this platform tend to write a bit. Some in short, quick reads and some a bit long. But…have you ever thought of yourself helping others along the road to be a disciple of Jesus? You know, He didn’t go out trying to bring out the BIG crowds but they came to Him because of His message and the miracles. They needed healing but many wanted the food which was provided so miraculously because of His thanksgiving. Some only came for the miracles but there were many who came to hear His message.

Then as His ministry was coming to an end, He taught a few lessons that were a bit hard for the crowds to understand and some that they didn’t like at all. The life of a follower of Jesus, a disciple, wasn’t easy in those days and it hasn’t really gotten easier today, although we have many more “things” to cling to than a money purse and a staff. Even when you make your life as simple as you can these days, we are still wealthy by most of the world’s standards.

So how do you make a disciple? Well, you have to get to know the people in your study group. You can’t lead a study group unless you do know them. In today’s culture that is hard to do because many people don’t want to know their pastor or their teacher in a close and personal way. Today with the disease that is running rampant all over the world most people don’t want to be in the same building with their pastor. Not because they think he is sick but just because of the possibility that he might be. We are allowing a virus, a messenger of Satan, to dictate whether we have fellowship in God’s house. The church, that is the people who are gathered, should be faithful enough in God’s power to come together and worship Him in Spirit and Truth!

Being a disciple of Jesus means much more than visiting a church on Sunday morning. It is reading and studying His Word every day of the week so you will know His voice when He speaks. Your life can be much healthier and more productive when you have His Word stored in your heart and when you read it every day it is like eating manna, it nourishes your soul because it is God’s spiritual food for your soul.

Don’t be anxious


Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad. Proverbs 12:25 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/pro.12.25.KJV

The song, Don’t worry, be happy! Is a good representation of this principal from God’s Word. During stressful times it is hard to feel happy and joyful, but by keeping your your focus on the blessings that are yours through Jesus Christ you can feel joyful. Because of the eternal life that is yours because of His sacrifice.

We should love because He loved us first


We love him, because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/1jn.4.19.KJV

God has always loved us whether we know that He exists or not. His love for you began thousands of years before you were born, so make an effort to get to know Him while there’s time to do so.

Off of my game


The past few weeks…basically since the election, I’ve not been writing as much here. I have also been a bit distracted because of having to have a colonoscopy done. That’s as much information as I’ve giving here on that.

I have been studying my Bible although not as regularly as I was. Why am I slacking off? Truthfully…I’m not sure. I’ve noticed during the last few years that my holiday writing and studying drops off a bit. Maybe it is a little bit of the so-called “holiday blues”. It feels as if I am having to put out more effort each day to study the Bible and get the Word, the wisdom that God wants me to understand for my life, to make sense to me. Sounds like I have a real problem.

My problem is easy to pinpoint when I look at it that way. Even so I have to consciously bring my mind into subjection to His Holy Spirit so that I can write and understand that what I’m writing may bring someone who is looking for Jesus will find Him and not me. I cannot make the change in their life, in your life that will give you an eternity in heaven. Only Jesus Christ and your belief in His atonement for your sins can do that. God loves each of us so much that He sent Jesus to Earth to live as one of us and then die for all of our sins.

The only veil separating you from eternity is God’s love and He knows when you will come to know Him as your Savior. Some say that we are immortal until that day that God touches our heart and lets us know that He is waiting and all we have to do is accept Him as our Savior. Some people say ” Now wait a minute, you said that I have to believe in Jesus Christ for my salvation and now you are saying that God loves me enough to wait for me to give my life to Him!” Which One of Them is my Savior? They both are.

Jesus is the Son of God but He is also the Second of the Trinity which makes the Godhead. This is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit or Ghost if you prefer. All of them were present on the day that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist if you will read it in Matthew. So what is my problem these days? Satan.

Just because I am a Christian and a pastor doesn’t mean that he leaves me alone. In fact, he attacks me harder when I am about to write here or when I am working on my sermon or just studying the Bible. Why? Because as long as he can keep my mind occupied with bills and surgery and medical tests and my medication then I won’t be thinking about the work that I should be doing while there is still time to do so…to tell you and others about my Savior and what He will do for you. He doesn’t bring us wealth or fame here on this Earth or in this life but consider that no one on Earth can give you eternal life! What is wealth here compared to being in heaven with the Creator and my Redeemer? I mean the streets of New Jerusalem are paved with gold! How fantastic is that?

There isn’t a rich man on Earth that can pave his driveway with gold bricks because they would be stolen during the night. Nobody would spend thousands on a brick of gold and then place it in the dirt or in concrete to pave even a driveway. But God does. God doesn’t care about the gold and diamonds and pearls, each of the gates of the city in heaven are made from one gigantic pearl and there are 12 gates! Each one made from a precious stone like diamonds or sapphires. Can you imagine a door 12 feet tall made from one gemstone or pearl?

No amount of money impresses God…He wants your obedience and your love to be focused on Jesus and His life. We are supposed to be reflections of Him in our lives so that others can see Him in and through our lives because for some people you and I and the lives that we live in front of them are the only example of Jesus’ love that they may ever see. Live your life as close to Him and be as close to His example as you can with the strength that He gives you through the Holy Spirit because that is the only way that you and I can do this.

Turning away from the Bible?


Many people, it seems, are more than willing to turn their back on the Bible just because someone can make a case against its accuracy. But if you pick up a copy or two you will find that most translations do agree with each other. So why do we turn away from the book that has shaped civilization for at least the last five centuries?

Mostly it is due to our own idea of what Truth really means to us today. Some people who have turned 30 or even younger are turning away from the Bible and the churches that teach from it. Truth is not relative or individual. God’s Word is True and it is the Truth. Like it or not it was given to the Jewish people first but salvation comes through Jesus Christ and belief in Him alone. Each of us has to have faith to believe in Jesus and in the Truth of the Bible and God is the Author and Finisher of our faith but you won’t hear that from a church that doesn’t teach and preach from the Bible.

The refusal of people to believe God’s Word is a far more dangerous tone to take than what is happening in regard to our healthcare and the election too. God is not some fairy tale and His Word has been proven to be true. The prophecies have all come true except for the taking up of the church, those who believe in Jesus for their salvation. When that prophecy finally happens the whole world will know that God is real but whether the news will report the truth about it will be another “spin” which will hurt more people for eternity.

Why do I defend the Bible like this? Because if it isn’t true…then God is a liar and that is something that He cannot do. The life that is in the universe and that which we see every day on Earth could not be here if it weren’t for God and His Son keeping the little things and the big things in balance. There are so many documents which prove that the Torah and the Prophets are true and have been copied accurately down through the years. There are more than five thousand copies of most, if not all of the New Testament.

Please go to a Bible teaching church, pick up a copy of the Bible if you don’t already have one and begin reading it. So much of the Bible backs up the New Testament because Jesus and His disciples only had the Old Testament to read and go by. We benefit from Paul’s letters which were written mostly from prison due to his preaching about Jesus and His sacrifice for our salvation. In fact, Paul wrote almost half of the New Testament himself so if it weren’t for his letters we would have a much smaller New Testament and Bible.

I urge everyone who reads this to tell others about it especially if they don’t go to church or if they don’t know Jesus as their Savior. He came to give us eternity with Him and save us from an eternity in hell. Make sure of your salvation because not one of us is guaranteed to be here tomorrow.

Life and Love


Both of these words are part and parcel of the message which Jesus taught to His disciples. What do I mean by “life”? Well, you are alive and the life that you live every day is a message that others see when they see you on a daily basis. People notice how you walk and talk, especially when they find that you have given your heart and life to Jesus. When Jesus went to different towns during His ministry do you think that He announced His coming? No, the word spread because of what others had experienced because of His life and because of the love that they felt when He spoke to them or preached to them or blessed them.

His ministry was and is the same as our ministry today. We are supposed to go out into the world and let people see Jesus in our daily life. Not being arrogant or boastful about our life but simply living our life with His life as a pattern by everything that we do or say. If a person can’t see Jesus in your daily life by how you speak or your actions then you may not have Jesus in your heart at all.

What about “love”? How do we incorporate that into our lives? According to the apostle Paul, “if we do not have love then we are just a clanging cymbal“. Why would he say something like that? Because everything that Jesus did in His ministry was done because of His love for His people and for each of us. Jesus healed people because He loved them. He blessed children because He loved them. Every action that He took during His ministry, even His death on the cross, was done because of His love for us.

In the culture that most of us live in today, the word “love” has been used and abused so much that it means much less than it should. Even saying “I love you” used to be an endearing thing to say but today love doesn’t carry the weight that it did in the past. There are many words that don’t mean the same today and many of them have been reduced to abbreviations or even emoticons.

God’s love is deeper and more meaningful than we can imagine but many people who attend church today don’t seem to see God in that way anymore. Mostly because very few people even believe that the Bible is the actual Word of God and that it is ALL TRUE! God cannot lie and yet many teachers and preachers will tell you that God didn’t mean it that way or that it only meant that when it was written but today it doesn’t mean that at all.

The Ten Commandments are still commandments and God meant every word. The Bible, Old and New Testaments, was inspired by the Holy Spirit and since He can’t lie then every word is true and was meant to be taken as absolute Truth then and now. Some people try to water down or change some words so that the message is skewed or changed to have a different impact on people today. In other words they don’t want to offend people. I don’t remember Jesus backing away from His critics or changing His message so that they wouldn’t be offended.

Live your life as a reflection of Jesus so that others will see Him in your words or your actions and maybe they will want the Savior that has come into your life and made such a change in your life and the way you live it.

Have you ever wondered…


How did the universe get so big in six days? How did God make some stars HUGE and some that are just the right size to provide warmth and life? Why did God create people who can be so cruel and who will reject Him as their Savior?

These are just a small sample of questions that have come through my mind in the past few weeks, but I still don’t have an answer to any of them. I probably won’t get an answer to any of them until I meet Him in eternity one day. I pray that my life and the decisions that I’ve made in life will at least get me inside the door to Heaven. It will not be my life or any of the “works” that I have done which will bring me to heaven’s door. What will get me in will be the fact of my salvation by my belief in Jesus and His atonement for my sins.

The question of the universe and the stars which God placed in it is actually answered in Genesis. The “how” God did it part was by His Word. Everything that God created was spoken into existence with the exception of mankind, the man and his wife. God sculpted him from the clay or mud if you like it that way and then He breathed His breath of Life into the man and he became a living soul. When God formed the woman, He put Adam to sleep and took one of his ribs and formed her from that.

Mankind was formed by God’s hands. Everything else was spoken into existence, even the fish and the birds and the animals and trees. God wanted a special relationship with mankind which is why He formed him from the clay like a potter but I’m sure there were no imperfections in His creation at all.

Why was mankind created in this fashion? Because God wanted to have an intimate relationship with us and for a time He did have that relationship. But…when mankind disobeyed God’s rule about the tree in the midst of the Garden, he was cast out of the Garden and into a world which suffered because of his disobedience. Death wasn’t spoken of at all until the Fall and then even the stars and the planets and the animals and everything else that God had created felt the sting of the disobedience and the fall. God cursed the ground so that Adam would have to work hard to make things grow to support his family.

Life had been as close to heaven as possible before mankind disobeyed God’s rule about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That is where all of the evil in man’s heart began and we have made it show in many ways over the thousands of years since then. God had seen that man would not be able to resist the temptation to give in to enticement from Satan or from any other source. Which is why He told the woman that one day the “seed of the woman” would conquer the sinful ways of man and pay the price to redeem everyone and bring them back into a relationship with God again.

Jesus was that seed and He did fulfill that prophecy because nobody else in humanity would be able to live a spotless, sinless life in order to pay the price for all of mankind, past present and future. The sacrifices of goats and sheep and birds and bulls in the Old Testament were just a foreshadowing of Jesus shedding His blood to atone for all of mankind’s sins. They could not wash away man’s sins because they were only temporary substitutes for Jesus Christ’s blood which would take all of our sins away.

I pray that all who read this will take it to heart and believe in Jesus for your salvation today! Because you don’t know when your days may be over

Have you ever heard God speak to you?


Many times we think we hear or feel a small voice or something that is telling us that we are not doing what is right. We may call it our conscience, but whatever you call it I believe that it is the voice of God by the Holy Spirit. Touching your spirit with His words of wisdom and caution in our time of spiritual need. Sometimes we listen to it and sometimes we just push it aside and forget about it for a while.

God does speak to people today, maybe not from a cloud or a burning bush the way He did when He called Moses, but He does speak every time you hear a message from His Word. When you read the Bible you are hearing His voice from its pages because He inspired the writers to pen those words. Why do I point this out today? Because the Bible was written many thousands of years ago by over forty writers separated by geography and time as well and yet it contains a coherent story line that points to our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Hearing God’s voice today is harder than it has ever been. Not because He isn’t speaking but because of all of the other competing voices that get in the way. Our jobs, our family, our own self-interest gets in the way and many times shouts louder than God ever would. We are too busy to go to church. We have a game or a recital to attend. We need to visit our parents and grandparents this weekend. All of these and more get in the way of our discipleship to Jesus Christ. We allow these important, to us, “busyness” events to take our attention away from God and from our education by the Holy Spirit. Most of the time we don’t even pay attention to the fact that is drawing our attention away from our walk with Him.

One day it will make more sense to those who know Him and it will be a terror to those who are not known by Him and for those think they know Him but do not. I pray that all who read this will make sure of their relationship to Jesus and their belief in Him or not before His return for the church. Will you be able to accept Him as your Savior during the Tribulation? Yes, but the consequences will be much more severe and immediate at that time, but if you do accept Him your eternity will be much better than it will be if you don’t.