Life from the Author of it

Jesus came to give sinners an opportunity to be forgiven. It was His sacrifice and His love for us which compelled Him to do this. He didn’t have to do it but because of His love for you and me, He did. Many people look at this in the Bible and they don’t think anyone would do this, even when it is written in God’s Word. So, what will you do when you feel the call from God’s Holy Spirit?

Some people try to ignore it. Some even try to run away from the Spirit of God, like Jonah did. The problem with this is that God is everywhere and none of us can run from Him. God uses all sorts of ways to get our attention and sometimes we pay attention and sometimes we don’t. The problem is that we live in a world where there is so much information around us until the prompting from the Spirit could be ignored.

The Holy Spirit is very subtle in the way that it touches us. It is that small voice that you feel more than you hear, but if God is trying to get your attention because He wants you to be His voice at some point then you will hear it. Sometimes it will feel as if He is trying to hurt you deeply, when the truth is that some of us need a whack on our head in order to truly get our attention. The “crisis” that we are in now could be considered a massive whack up side our collective heads.

Pay attention and seek Him for your healing and your salvation as well because we might not get another chance.

This shall pass…

Of all the infectious diseases which have plagued our world in the past few decades, the corona virus is getting more attention than most of them ever did. Not because of the number of cases or the severity of the symptoms or even the mortality rate of the infection but because of the media, especially the Internet and news media. The flu killed more people and does kill more every year than this “new” virus has so far. So why are we ready to shut down whole cities and countries just to slow down or stop the spread of this? It is because we are giving in to fear and panic which is being whipped up to cause a panic.

Quarantine yourself in your home if you feel like you have the flu because the symptoms are similar. Don’t run around sneezing and coughing all over town, stay at home and ask family to bring you some medicine like Theraflu or Nyquil and ride this out. Unless your immune system is already compromised by some other condition it seems that those of us who are healthy can beat this with prayer and rest at home.

I am not saying that you should stay at home if you do have a real reason to be out and about, but follow the advice of the doctors and the CDC. If you don’t have to be out in the public areas, don’t go. The Bible and Jesus our Savior foretold that in the end times there will be diverse diseases and fear and this is exactly what is happening now. Read your Bible, seek His Wisdom and pray for your family and everyone who is suffering from cancer or any other condition which causes a weakened immune system. They are the ones that this virus can truly hurt and even kill. God is still in control of everything that is happening, although I don’t believe that He unleashed this on us. It is part of Satan’s plan to cause us to blame God for it.

Seek Him in Scripture, pray for all who are being treated for this, pray for our leaders so that they will have the wisdom to be able to handle this because in time this will pass away and God’s love will bring us through this.

Wisdom from an old Master…

We use his wisdom more than we do the wisdom of God. What does that say about our society?

I realize that he is an imaginary and fictional being but many people say that God is too. So why do we listen more to Yoda’s advice and try to live by it rather than the wisdom which is found in God’s Word?

I believe that it has to do with belief and the truth. We know that the movie which Yoda is in is just fictional therefore it was a figment of someone’s imagination before it became a movie and a part of our society and our vocabulary. So why can’t we give God’s Word the same weight of truth that we tend to give to the creations which come from Hollywood? Because we are afraid of the absolute Truth found in God’s Word, even if we don’t really believe in Him. We are afraid of finding the real Person of Jesus and finding out about God Himself and His love for us.

Fear and pride keep us from seeking Him and learning from His Word. We are afraid that when we find the real Savior, Jesus, we will be convicted of our sins and the fact that we need Him as our Savior. Pride gets in our way because we think that we are good enough to walk the pathway which brings us to the gate of Heaven, yet no person is able to walk that pathway without repenting of your sins and asking Jesus into your heart. Then follow His example during your life and learn about the life that God has for His own. Will you be able to live this life perfectly? No, but with the Holy Spirit guiding you and teaching you, it will be a bit easier to walk it. It won’t be without problems but with Him teaching you and strengthening you, you will make it through anything.

We are not controlled by the media

That is a good statement but if you’ve been shopping lately you know it isn’t true. Our country is in panic mode because of a virus which is less deadly than the flu! Some doctors have said as much in the media but no one seems to be listening. God is still in control and this virus and the mania, which has been brought on by a media which is out of control, will pass and we will forget about it in a few months. The problem is that since this is a world-wide hysteria it is causing the economy of the entire world to grind to a screeching halt. Everyone is afraid of everyone else. Pray for each other, go to church (regardless of the ban on crowds), seek His guidance in this situation because He is in control. God can take care of all of this if we will seek Him for our comfort and our healing.

The media, even on the Internet, has too much power these days. I pray for everyone who has a cold or the flu to just stay at home and take care of yourself. Pray and read God’s Word because He can and will heal in His time and in His way. Pray for those around you and for our nation and it’s leaders. In Jesus’ mighty name, Amen.

Be useful in the world around you

Many of us seem to be stuck in a rut of some kind. We live our lives from one week to the next, day by day doing things which seem to be useful, but would God see your life that way? The letters to the Middle East churches which are found in the first chapters of the book of Revelation tell a story much different from what we see in our world today. But, if you read these letters carefully, those churches mirror our churches too. Some of the letters even remind you and me of people we’ve known as well. They were saved at a revival and baptized and for a while they were on fire for the Lord. But now their zeal has tempered and cooled. The worship may still be there but they don’t volunteer for projects in the church. They rarely come to church now. Some have become “holiday Christians” by only showing up during the holidays.

The letters to the churches in the book of Revelation reflect this “loss of the spark” and even sliding into a prideful type of worship as if God should be thankful to have us! So what does that say about the church in our time, in the 21st century? To me and to a lot of other people who have moved away from worship in the church it says that religion has taken the place of the message of Jesus the Christ. People who have been in the church for many years have lost their “first love” of Christ. Not because He has lost His love for us, because He hasn’t, but because of how much the world around us has crept into the church and with it the “outward show” has been diminished.

The church that the world sees today is very different from the church of sixty years ago. Things which would’ve caused our grandparents to blush because of the nature of the sin, are commonplace today and these behaviors are not taught in church as being sinful anymore. The original message of Jesus about believing in Him for salvation and laying aside our old way of living to follow Him daily has been watered down to something far less demanding and socially acceptable. Jesus and His disciples did not water down the good news and they didn’t change the message so that others were not offended.

The message which Jesus taught did stir up controversy, and He made it a point to tell the priests exactly what they were doing wrong. He also pointed out to them that He was the Messiah which Isaiah has prophesied about over seven hundred years before. The Holy Spirit even revealed to David, when he was writing the Psalms, the way by which the Messiah would be crucified in details which you can readily see. At the time that David wrote Psalm 22, crucifixion had not been used as a form of punishment for crimes deserving death.

Your life, as a follower of Jesus, is given to God through the grace of God and by the power of God because of the sacrifice which Jesus made on the cross to pay the penalty for ALL of our sins. If He had not been obedient to the point of death, we would have no hope of eternity in Heaven. It is because of Jesus’ obedience through the arrest, conviction, scourging and His death on the cross and His burial in the tomb and His resurrection three days later that we have the Hope of seeing Him one day in our resurrected bodies! Was He afraid of the agony that He was about to go through? Yes, He was! The human part of Jesus knew the torture that He would have to endure along with the pain and suffering. His nature of being God in human form knew that it was necessary so that many would come to know Him as Savior and Lord.

We wrestle with our own natures every day after we give our lives to Christ and repent of our old ways. This is what makes the life of a Christian so difficult. Your life and mine are at odds with our “old nature” and Satan slings darts of temptation at us constantly, because he knows which sins you enjoyed so much. Walk with Jesus, read the Bible and pray for the Wisdom of God through the word that you read every day, even if it is only a verse or two. Ask Him for strength and wisdom so that you can withstand the temptations of the world around you.

He could’ve but He didn’t

In many ways we are all fortunate to have a Savior Who loves each of us completely and without condemnation. He could’ve cast the first stone at the woman who was caught in adultery but He didn’t. He met the qualifications of having no sin to be the first to cast the stone at her, but He loved her. Every person that He met during His ministry from the disciples to those who were seeking food or a miracle really didn’t deserve His attention but they got it anyway. Why? Because He loved them and He loves us today, even though we don’t deserve His love.

God’s love for us is far more than we can understand in our limited way. Love started with God since He is the embodiment of love. So why do people either disbelieve in Him or choose not to give their heart to Him? My opinion of this is quite simple: they don’t believe and they don’t want to. Some people just can’t see that God’s offer of forgiveness and eternity is as simple as their heart-felt belief in Jesus and the atonement that He bought for us with His death, burial and resurrection. We don’t have to try to add our efforts, our “works of righteousness”, our help in saving our soul or trying to be good enough. We can’t measure up on our own and it is that simple.

Our self-righteousness is as dirty, filthy rags compared to being a forgiven true believer in Jesus and what He did to purchase our pardon from the penalty of our sins. There truly is nothing which we can do which will gain us entry into the gates of Heaven. God owns everything because He created it all, so He doesn’t need our money. We can’t give Him enough time or do enough in our own strength, even if we did it in the name of Jesus because if you are not known by the Savior then your work in His Name is false because He doesn’t know you.

In order to be truly and completely saved each of us has to know our Savior and be known by Him. If you have felt His call on your life, the conviction of your need for a Savior and the knowledge that only belief in Jesus and surrendering your life to Him will bring you the salvation that is only possible by knowing Him as your Savior then you have a decision to make. Give Him your heart and your life and repent of your sins, regardless of the perception of their size, because size doesn’t matter to God. A sin of murder is no more or less than the sin of lying or stealing in God’s eyes. When you break one of the Ten Commandments, even by your lust for a woman and no more, it is still a sin.

You can be forgiven through Jesus’ sacrifice for you and be adopted into God’s family. When Jesus was confronted in the picture above, He told the people who brought her to Him that the one without sin could cast the first stone at her for adultery. They all knew that not one of them could be considered “without sin”. He could’ve but He didn’t come to condemn people, not even one caught in the act of adultery. He came to heal and forgive and provide a way for forgiveness through belief in Him. Which is why He told her that He didn’t condemn her nor accuse her and He said, “Go and sin no more”. Could she live a sinless life even after that encounter? No, but with her belief in Him and the Holy Spirit’s help she could live her life as an example to those around her.

I pray that anyone who reads this will seek Jesus out as their Savior and Lord because the time is growing short for us in this sick world. Seek Him out while there is time.

Walking in His Presence

I had a dream or a vision one day but don’t ask me to elaborate on the sights and textures of it. I was reading and meditating on part of the book of Matthew, I think, and I could see myself walking on streets of gold. Matthew doesn’t speak of this but heaven is described this way in the book of Revelation. Why would I see gold under my feet? I don’t know. Maybe God was giving me a glimpse of His home? Just a small “blink and you miss it” types of glimpses? I don’t know for sure.

Don’t you think that is what Jesus meant by living a life more abundantly here? It’s possible I suppose. But if you are so spiritually-minded you are no Earthly good then what is the point of being a child of God? If we aren’t going to take our faith and the message that we should be living by out into the world at large, then what good are we doing for God? Jesus told His disciples to take the gospel out into the whole Earth and that means to our workplace and to the dog park or the market and to the mall as well. But if we don’t meditate on His Word and learn from it enough to tell others about it, what are we telling people?

Do you feel as if something is missing in your life? Do you want more than you have or do you want to be useful to God and His Kingdom? We should realize that we don’t have to be missionaries or preachers or even teachers in order to be useful to God’s Kingdom. God does give each of us a gift or a talent. Sometimes it takes us years to find out what our talent or our gift is. Many times it is because we are not searching in the right place. The only place that we can find the truth about us and what He has given us is in God’s Word and by prayerfully reading it and asking God to show you what He has for you.

God can and will show you. It won’t jump out of the Bible and it won’t be plainly on a page or in a certain book but by learning about God’s requirements for our lives. Obedience to His commandments is part of it, even though we can’t perfectly follow them. Obedience to God and the surrendering of our life and everything in it to Him is the truth of our lives in Jesus Christ. Not giving Him some of your life or some of your money but giving Him all of it. Does that mean that we are to live in poverty? Absolutely not. You were given so many blessings such as your life and your money and your job or business by God. None of it is yours. Your home, your family, your career, your very life belongs to God but until you realize this and truly give it all to Him…your life will never be as satisfying as it could be.

Your life in Christ is in heavenly places. Your soul inhabits your dwelling place in heaven even if your physical body does not. God’s Word says that we are seated with Him in heavenly places if we truly belong to Him. We are there, in Christ, in Heaven with Him and we must dwell in Him and live our lives as if we are in Him until that day when we are translated from this world to the next. We are saved by His Grace not through any vain thing that we may do but by our belief in Jesus Christ for our salvation, it is this which brings our soul into His presence at the day in which we move from this place to His home.

When you are in a storm…

Remember that you, as a Christian, are related to the One Who created rain and wind and the seas. He commands the elements and the universe itself has to obey. There are some storms which come upon us unexpectedly and there are some which we helped to create, but God is with us in all of them. He is still in control regardless of the news or the numbers which you hear on TV or radio. Whether the storm is natural or caused by mankind, God is still in control and those who doubt this will one day find out for sure. Though one day it will be apparent that He is in control, they will still cry and complain about it until they find that it is too late to change.

The storm that you are in could be financial or just a problem with your health. It could be that you are worrying about your child or how you are going to pay some bills this month. A storm in your life can happen at any time and in an instant your life will change forever. What do you do then? If you don’t know Jesus as your Savior you can call on friends or family to help you but they could be going through their own storm. Jesus is the only Person Who can take care of spiritual problems and health problems and financial problems too. When you give your heart to Him and sincerely repent of your sinful life to follow Him, He will be with you through all of the storms.

Your family and friends won’t be so close during those times of joblessness and cancer diagnosis. They will be with you every day if you win the lottery but when the money is gone, they will be too. God loves you so much that He sent Jesus to take our sins and our burdens and our problems to the cross and nail them to it forever. All that you need to do is believe in Him as your Savior and Lord and your life will be forever changed. I’m not promising that all of your troubles will go away, sometimes they get worse because of your faith in Jesus, but He will provide for you in His time and in His way.

Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound….

Amazing Grace! We have been given His Grace toward us and for us. Not because we deserve it, because we don’t. God gave us His Grace through Jesus Christ long, long ago because He loves us! Not because of what we can do for Him but because of what He wanted to do for us. He wanted us to be with Him in eternity to praise and honor Him with glory because we love Him for what He did for each of us while we were still sinners, even before we were born, even before the world itself was made…He loved us enough to come draped in human flesh so that He could reconcile our sins through His death on the cross and then redeem us through His resurrection so that we would be with Him in eternity.

How sweet the sound of the words in the song by John Newton. John Newton, who was the captain of a slave ship for a few years and all the while God was working in him and on him. One day, he gave his heart and soul to Jesus and it changed him so profoundly until he had to sit down and write one of the greatest hymns that the Christian world has ever known. Not because of the melody but because of the words and the meaning behind them. This song is a sermon of love…God’s love for us and our love for Him because He loved us first!

“That saved a wretch like me”; John Newton could hear the slaves singing spiritual songs in the hold of the ships that he was part of their crew before being made captain on another ship. It was those songs and the conviction which came by them that made him write the song that we still sing today. Because God loves us even as wretched sinners and He loved each of us enough that He sent Jesus, His Son, to die on a Roman cross in order for us to live in eternity with Him. He didn’t have to do this but He wanted to do it because it was the only way to pay our penalty totally and completely so that we could be reconciled to Him and by Him.

“I once was lost, but now I’m found. I was blind, but now I can see!” We were all lost. Struggling through this life as sinners and we didn’t know that we were dead already because of our sins. But when the Holy Spirit touched our hearts and broke them so that we could see with our spiritual eyes, we would see just how lost we truly were. Then we would know that we needed Jesus as our Savior and we would seek Him out until we found Him and asked Him to come in and clean our hearts and our minds so that we could be His.

“Through many dangers, toil and snares I have already come. His Grace has led me safe thus far and Grace will lead me Home”; In life we do go through toil and snares which Satan has put in front of us each day, but God’s grace and His Strength will guide you and me through these times and carry us home to Heaven one day. Seek Jesus out for your salvation so that you will be lead home to Heaven one day because He is the only pathway to Eternity. John Newton knew it, Billy Graham knew it, and the Bible tells us about it, all that we have to do is give our life to Him and walk with Him until that day comes when we will be taken home to be with Him.

Is there peace in your life?

In the political and anti-religious climate is it even possible to have peace? Yes, it is! If you place your trust and your faith in Jesus Christ. Many of us today, Christians and non-Christians, either forget where our peace comes from or we never really knew in the first place. Granted, the peace which Jesus brings into your life is much different from “peace and quiet” or a “peaceful, easy feeling” but many people still look for both of those after they have “tried” Jesus and they will tell you that it only gets worse!

The problem with people like that is that they don’t know that you can’t “try out” Jesus and enjoy the benefits of being a true Christian who has given their heart to Him and allowed Him to truly change them from the inside out. There is no trial period before you make a decision to keep Jesus in your life or not. He is the One Who chooses you first, then you feel convicted of your guilt for the sins that you have committed and you know that you need Him in your life!

God loves each of us and He calls you through His Holy Spirit and it is His choice to choose you, not yours. It is your choice to respond to His call on your life and some people do refuse but most people know that their life will never be the same and it will never feel peaceful if they do refuse to accept Him as their Savior. Sometimes those who refuse on the first call will get a second later in their life but if you keep pushing the Spirit away and keep refusing His call on your life…one day He won’t call on you. God will let you go and let you have your life the way you want it, without Him. At that point, you will never feel His touch or His call on your life again.

You don’t get to decide to get saved. If and when you feel Him call you and you respond with a humble heart to give your life to Jesus, it is only then when the reality of being a Christian will come into your life. From that point on you will need to seek Him every day, read the Bible, pray that He will reveal His Wisdom in the Bible to you so you can grow in His Wisdom and knowledge. All of this is not dumped into your brain when you are baptized, you have to study God’s Word to know Him better because He already knows you.

Is being a Christian easy? NO! Jesus was tempted for 40 days in the desert. We are tempted by Satan every day from the time you become a Christian until you die! Why does Satan make it that hard? Because if he can get you to stumble in front of one person who might become a Christian, he knows that they may change their mind and not become a Christian. What makes it so hard is that you don’t know who or where those people might be. It might be your son or daughter. It might be someone you work with. It may be a total stranger in a burger joint, but if you cuss or somehow ruin their idea that you are a Christian then Satan has done his job.

You may never see that person again but they may never believe that anyone is a Christian just because of something you did or something you said. It takes prayer and reading God’s Word and praying about what you just read and making it a habit every day. Because until you are so close to God that Satan doesn’t want to come around you, he will. Work on your witness and your character until he can’t tell the difference between you and Jesus. With the Holy Spirit helping you and your reading and praying about what you read, Jesus will help you to become peaceful in all of your situations in your daily life.