What is in your heart will prevail

There are many things that mankind can do but we do tend to speak first before we think. Many times that fault gets us in very much hot water.

We live our lives in a constant state of searching. When we are very young we are searching for others who will keep us entertained and also the people that we belong to who will feed us, our parents. This really doesn’t change much as we get older and move out of our parent’s house although our seeking does eventually change somewhat. Life and our place in it also changes with the years that we live on this Earth where we were placed. Because, God has always had a plan for your life and mine. Sometimes we listen to His voice and sometimes we drown out His voice because we are enjoying our perceived “freedom” a bit too much.

The only change which comes into our lives usually comes in the form of an event of some importance, usually a change in our status to some degree. We get married or we have a child with someone or both and we sometimes realize at that point that we are responsible for bringing this new person into the world and teaching them how they are supposed to live. Hopefully we will teach them values and precepts from God’s Word. Many times in today’s world and in the 21st century as well, either we will teach them from the Bible or we won’t. Even if we do use God’s Word to teach them, they will have their own ideas once they reach adulthood.

Sometimes their “ideas” will have been influenced by their education once they go off to college and they reject what we taught them. Then sometimes we choose not to teach them from the Bible because we don’t really believe it ourselves, even if we were brought up to believe in Jesus and in His Word. We tend toward unbelief because that is our way, even when we feel that something in our lives is missing. We will search for and try to internalize almost anything except God and His Word…until we get a “wake-up call” one day that reorients our thinking.

It is this reorientation which brings us back into a relationship with God. Sometimes it happens because we have been touched by God during a service in church or maybe at a funeral. Other times it may happen because of something which God allows to happen to us which He uses to get our attention and put our spiritual compass aligned with His purpose for our life.

Does any of this sound familiar?

It should because it happens to all of us at some point in our lives. All of us who feel that spiritual touch or realignment don’t respond in the same way. Some will seek God’s place in our lives and put Him on the throne of our heart. Some will turn completely away from His influence and never darken the door of a church again. Which way you turn is never a surprise to God because He knows which way you will go already, but He was likely holding out a small sliver of hope because He loves you.

You would likely say, “Well, if He knows what I’m going to do anyway then why does He offer salvation to me?”. Because He loves you.Does God really know and see everything even before we do it or act upon it? Yes, He does but the offer is still there just the same. God doesn’t have to wait to see the outcome of your decision because HE already knows the outcome but the offer of salvation is still there. Why? Because we are fickle creatures. Our decision could change almost in the blink of an eye for a reason which isn’t even a thought at this moment.

“But if God knows what we think or imagine in our hearts and minds, why does He offer us salvation when He knows the outcome already?” I can’t answer this question because God does what He does because He is God and we can’t fathom the how or why of His decisions. Only He knows about those reasons and we cannot discern His thoughts. Even if we could we would not understand it still. I pray that there will be more on the Lord’s right hand when He judges the Earth than there are on His left. Make sure of your place while there is time to do so.

What do you expect from God?

You know that most of us are not taught to expect much from the Creator. In Sunday school and during our worship service we hear about what He did in David’s life and we wonder why hasn’t God used me in some way? Granted, we aren’t going to kill a giant like David did but the giants that we have to deal with today are more insidious and even more hurtful than Goliath. There are so many giants today which compete for supremacy over us such as alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction and the list could go on and on.

God gives each of us some talent or acumen that no one else has, yet many of us don’t pursue using them. Sometimes we are afraid to use them because we think that we won’t be accepted. So, should we use our talents for God’s glory or our own? The best advice I can give is to pray about it and listen for His answer. When we find out what our talent or God’s calling is on our lives some of us don’t like what we know to be His will. Then we strike out on our own and attempt to live our life the way we feel is the right way. Will God let you do this? Of course He will. He let Jonah do the very same thing but He turned Him around. So, when things begin to go wrong in your life and you know that you have been walking and living your way instead of His way, you will remember this.

Do we expect anything from God? In today’s church, I don’t think that there are many people who believe that God is even listening or even interested in us at all. Yes, there are some who read and study God’s Word diligently but most seem indifferent to what it says, let alone meditate on it.

If you are expecting anything from God, then you need to know Him and be known by Him. God loves each of us and truly wants us to know just how much. But if He doesn’t hear from you or see that you are trying to get to know Him better why should He answer when you pray? Seek Him out when you feel convicted that you need Him. If you don’t do so, you might not get another chance.

Woe to those calling good evil…

Isaiah 5:15-21

15 And the mean man shall be brought down and the mighty man shall be humbled and eyes of the haughty shall be humbled. 16 But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness. 17 Then shall the lambs feed after their manner and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat. 18 Woe to them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope; 19 That say, Let him make speed and hasten his work, that we may see it and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come that we may know it! 20 Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! 21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!

We are living in this time right now even though this prophecy was written 2800 years ago. There are many who are doing exactly the things which are described in the verses above. Why are we going through this today? Because this was foretold to happen before the end of the age. If you pay attention to the news you can hear these things coming to pass right now. Good is being called evil and evil deeds are taught in schools as the right thing to do.

How much is known today from God’s Word? Even in America which calls itself a “Christian” nation, the media and the news report of things in a backward fashion and very few give any respect toward the Bible and its Word. Most don’t know more than one or two verses from God’s Word and they don’t know or understand the context of that which they do know. These are the prophecies which we should be looking at for some clarity in these days, not the writings of a man from Europe even if some interpretations of his might have come to pass. All of the prophecies of God’s Word have come to pass so I think I would give more weight to those prophecies which have already come to pass.

Granted the prophecies in the Bible don’t give dates or times but all of the prophecies have come true with the exception of those concerning the Tribulation in the book of Revelation. They are yet to be fulfilled but all others have come to pass. This is the very reason that I believe God’s Word as being accurate and true since no one but God could know these things ahead of time. I pray that all who read this will do so with an open mind and seek out Jesus for their salvation.

Broken…

Are you broken?

Do you feel broken sometimes?

We are very much like the pottery which God’s Word tells us about.

Isaiah 30: 14-15

14 It will break in pieces like a potter’s jar, shattered so that no fragment can be found. Not a shard will be found in the dust large enough to scoop the coals from a hearth or to skim the water from a cistern.”
15 For the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel has said: “By repentance and rest
you would be saved; your strength would lie in quiet confidence — but you were not willing.”

In Jeremiah 18

The Potter and the Clay
1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2 “Go down at once to the potter’s house, and there I will reveal My message to you.”
3 So I went down to the potter’s house and saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the vessel that he was shaping from the clay became flawed in his hand; so he formed it into another vessel, as it seemed best for him to do.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 6“O house of Israel, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay? declares the LORD. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.

God can do, with us, as He pleases. He can do all things without our consent in our lives but the most useful we are to Him is when we are submitted to Him and are obeying Him. Can He break us in order for us to be more submitted to Him? Yes, He can. Will He do this? If He has to He will but I don’t think it is His preferred way of working with us.

God is not a tyrant in that He has to be mean to us in order to get us to do something. He would rather work with us in conjunction rather than having to allow things to happen in our lives which will force us to fall to our knees in submission to Him. So, does God break us sometimes in order to get our attention? I believe He does this sometimes, but it isn’t because He is mean, it is more likely because we are being stubborn and not listening to Him.

God loves His creation and He cares for each of us and He wants the best for us but during the time which we are feeling broken, we may not feel like He cares for us. Sometimes it is during those broken times when we feel down or depressed that we feel that the only way to go from there is up. We should be looking up and keeping our spiritual eyes on Jesus so that the time spent in those low places doesn’t last very long.

Make sure that you are centered in Jesus with Him as your Savior because the times in which we are living are unpredictable and we are not guaranteed tomorrow. So make sure of your eternity while you are here in the present because it is during this time is when we can respond when we are prompted by His Spirit.

The problem with worrying about those problems, whatever they might be, is that it makes us seem to be a practical atheist. We worry about things because we don’t think God will take care of it. The problem with that is this: He will take care of it only when we give the problem to Him completely! Not a portion of it for Him and then we will take care of the rest. Give the pain and sorrow to Him totally so that He can take it and do what He does with problems! He turns them into opportunities to show His glory for your good!

Many times in our lives, when we are going through heartache from the loss of a loved one or our job or anything which causes us to question God’s intentions, we should not question Him with a disrespectful spirit. We should, however, question Him as in “What is going on, Lord?” or “Why is this happening?”. God will allow us to ask a question of Him but not with an attitude of rebellion toward Him. We want to know why we are being broken and the answer could be that He wants to make us a little bit better than we were. Just as a potter may see something different after he begins work on a pot or a plate and he reforms it into something more useful or more appropriate. God is our potter and He can do exactly that as well.

Sometimes these changes come about from periods of hardship and personal pain and depending upon the amount of change that He wants to see in our life it could be considerable or it could be just a little discomfort. Worrying our way through these times can cause them to last longer because we are wanting to help God get us through them. But…He doesn’t need your help in changing you. Truth be told if you try to help Him change you the problem may last a lot longer than it would have if you had stayed out of it.

Knowing this, why do we worry? Because God doesn’t fix our problems when we want them fixed, He fixes them in His time and in His way. This is when the Scripture comes into play in our situation, “Be still and know that I am God”.

What would you give up?

To follow Jesus, the disciples all gave up something. Their livelihood, their reputation in some way, virtually all of them let something go in order to follow Jesus and they did so willingly.

A man from about 140 years ago once said this: “Beware of no one more than yourself, we carry our worst enemies within us.” Charles H. Spurgeon

Sometimes when we think we have given up a lot in order to follow Jesus and be useful to Him, we really haven’t given up much at all. On top of that, we are our own enemies because we can convince ourselves of things which we haven’t done or shouldn’t do even when God has called us to do these things.

So…what would you give up?

Would you go on a fast for a few days or maybe a couple of weeks, drinking only juice and water? I have done it myself but it was nine years ago, right before I was called to preach a few months later. I had to pray a lot but I was also working full time at a computer shop, so being away from home and food and cooking made it a little easier. Just work, drink water and go to the restroom a lot. Then after a week, it got easier and so on. I am not bragging about this because it truly was hard to do without all day and then come home and smell supper being cooked. I actually made it through about thirty days with juice and water and some protein drinks made with water (I know that last was kinda cheating). But after three weeks without solid food it is hard for your mind and your will to push back hard enough. The good thing about it, I lost thirty pounds!

Would you give up watching TV? I think this is even harder than fasting from food. I have heard of people who don’t even have a TV in their home and that’s great! I’m sure they don’t have computers or smartphones either. Although I could save a couple of hundred dollars a month cutting off the Internet and satellite TV. I don’t want to be without my phone though, just for emergencies.

What else could you and I give up? Snacks? Candy? Coffee…no, scratch that. Chocolate…can’t do it because it is in the same field as coffee.

Truthfully, we are our own enemies because we will listen to those voices which pop up in our mind. We think that they are our own ideas when they could be suggestions from Satan. The more we listen to them, the more influence they have over our lives. We can also talk ourselves out of doing things which we know God has called us to do. We become our own worst enemy because of this and sometimes we will even talk ourselves into doing something, thinking that it is the Holy Spirit talking to us.

If you don’t believe me just think back over your life and find those schemes or whatever you want to call them which didn’t work out so good. You heard about an “opportunity” or a “hot tip” and you thought “What will it hurt to give it a shot?”, “Who am I hurting but my own bank account?” I’ve done it, you know someone who has done it or you have done it and tried to forget about it. You mind and your thoughts are easy for Satan to manipulate because he’s been doing it for thousands of years. He knows where your buttons are and he know exactly how hard to push them so that it is tempting the first time and then it becomes a bit more and pretty soon…well you get the picture. It’s just like any of the temptations which he messes up other people’s lives and yours too, if you’re honest.

It is hard to push those ideas and temptations away when you are tired or hungry like Jesus was when He was tempted, but He used the Word of God against Satan and we have know it well enough to do the same thing. We will never know it though, unless we read it and study it every day, year after year. God’s Word is full of encouragement and heartache and wisdom and promises, but we need to know them so we can use them in our every day lives. Here is the challenge that I am putting here:

So…can you give up about fifteen minutes each day to read and pray about one chapter in God’s Word? Then do it again tomorrow and the next day until you’ve finished the New Testament. Then start on the Old Testament and do the same thing because after 21 days, reading God’s Word will have become a habit and it will be a habit that your heart and soul will truly miss when you miss one or two times.

Truth is NOT relative!

Jesus said that He was the Way, the Truth and the Life. So…make sure that you find the Truth in Him! Find the Way to Heaven through belief in Jesus as your Savior! You will find eternal Life through Him into Heaven. The simple way to make sure of your place is to seek Him in your local church or through a Bible study group. When you feel that subtle conviction from the Holy Spirit, you will need to sit down and follow a few steps (but not necessarily in this order).

Lord, I admit that I am a sinner and I need You.
I am asking for Your forgiveness for my sins and for you to save me from an eternity in Hell. (I repent of my sinful behavior)
I believe Jesus died and rose from the grave and paid the penalty for my sins so that my relationship with You could be restored.
By faith, I invite Jesus Christ into my heart and my life. From this time forward I want to live in a loving relationship with Him and I receive Jesus as my Savior and Lord. In Jesus’ name I thank you for all that you have done for me, amen.

God loves each one of us and it shouldn’t really surprise us. I mean, He had a hand in each of our lives even before, long before we were born. He put our DNA together on atom at a time so He knows exactly what your personality is and what you can do. Far better than even we know ourselves! That is the most amazing thing about how awesome God really is! Is it really so hard to believe that the Creator of the universe knows how many hairs you have on your head? Knowing this, is it unusual to think that He has cared and does care for you and everyone else who will come to know Him?

I pray that anyone who reads this will look up a Bible if they don’t have one. If you do, dust it off and start reading in the New Testament from John to Romans and you will find the Lord Who loves you and you will find that you will come to love Him too.

Cast your worries on Him

God has loved us as His children since before the world was a world! He saw our frail and fickle ways long before the first sin was committed, but He loved us anyway.

Jesus said that we shouldn’t worry about tomorrow because today has enough trouble of it’s own. Seek His strength and wisdom in your time of need during those days when nothing seems to be going right. He can give you enough to get through it and then some.

What are you looking for?

Many preachers and teachers today are taking God’s Word out of context and molding it to fit their own “gospel” of wealth and prosperity. Why are there so many people drawn to this type of teaching? Because they want the wealth and the health without the “take up your cross daily and follow Me”, meaning that they don’t want to give up their “old life” for a better one in Jesus’ name. Everyone seems to want to have their cake and eat it too. But that is not what the Bible teaches and it is not what Jesus taught either.

People who teach this are using quotes from Scripture but they are taking them out of context. Jesus said “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” The abundant life which Jesus was speaking of is one of spiritual abundance here and now and then you will be given so much more than you can imagine when you are in His Presence in Heaven. Jesus was not speaking of eliminating poverty with wealth here on Earth although many teachers of this “gospel” claim that is exactly what He meant.

Especially in Africa. They see all of the wealth of those of us who live in “the West” and they point to all of the good things which we have been blessed with. Much of the wealth and health that our country has enjoyed is because of the support and defense of Israel in the past 80 or so years. God blessed us because of His people, period. Not because we are or claim to be Christians. In our culture we do try to help others as much as we can and it is that giving nature that points many people toward our countries borders.

America has been a light to the world because of our faith in God and the fact that our laws have always been based upon the laws which God gave to Moses. We should always keep His laws and His message in the forefront of our country and its citizens. I pray than all who read this will give their heart and their life to Jesus so that one day I may meet you in Heaven.

Why did God send Jesus to die?

This is a good question and it is one which many people want to know the answer to. When you look back to the very beginning of the Bible, all three persons of the Trinity are there. The Spirit of God is hovering over the waters of the unformed Earth. What those waters are made of is not told but the Spirit is there. Then God said, “Let there be light!”. Many people, including myself, have wondered where that light came from. Was it the light from the Big bang? Was it the initial spark which started our Sun to shine? Considering that the Sun and the moon were not created yet, I think that the initial light was Jesus and His Shekinah glory, the light which comes from God just as He is. The light which lit up creation before there were stars and galaxies and the Sun and the moon. The glory which made Moses’ face glow after he had been in God’s presence. That was the first Light of the universe.

So, why did God send Jesus to die and pay the penalty for all of mankind’s sins? You need to remember that God doesn’t live in the same “time zone” as we do. He lives outside of time itself because He created time. He can see the beginning from the ending and everything in between. God knew that mankind would try to do things on his own rather than following God’s instruction. He knew that those who came after Adam would be so sinful that He would have to save the most God-fearing family later and destroy all of life on Earth. There is nothing on Earth or in hell which is a surprise to God. He can see and know every person and place and even the thoughts of each of us, so there is nothing which surprises God.

In explaining my title, God sent Jesus to Earth to give us a way to become His righteousness since we could not attain it on our own. Jesus paid the price for ALL OF OUR SINS, but not everyone will accept this because they can’t understand the kind of love and compassion which it would require. If you have ever heard these words in church, “My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts“. God is not like us at all. He loves us as His creation and as His children because without Him we would not be. It is God Who knit our DNA together in the womb so He knows exactly what our skin color is and how we will react to certain things because it is due to His influence in our creation that we have the personality that we have.

What I’m pointing out here is this: God is intimately involved in our lives and in creation itself. Every day and in every circumstance, whether it is a sparrow which dies or your child gets sick, God knows it and He is there, waiting for us to humble ourselves and turn to Him for strength and healing and wisdom in every area of our lives. Do we do this? Some of us do humble ourselves and turn to Him for strength and prayer in our time of need. Many of us don’t.

So…back to my first question: Why did God send Jesus to pay the penalty for our sins? Because He values each one of us far more than we value ourselves. God has always had a hand in forming every life, every person on this planet and He wants them to have the chance of knowing Him as their Savior and the chance to be in Heaven with Him forever. Without Jesus’ sacrifice for all of us, that opportunity would not be possible.

This is where many people draw the line though. They want to have something that they have to do to have salvation and the only thing that each of us has to do is be receptive to the call of the Holy Spirit. When you feel convicted that you truly NEED to be saved and the only way for that to happen is through repentance and accepting Jesus as your Savior. Don’t push the Spirit away. Don’t “white knuckle” the pew so that you won’t go down when you know that you need to. One day, likely sooner than many people think, there is going to be a day when a trumpet blast will be heard all over the world and graves are going to explode with people coming out of them and then those who are alive and have given their lives to Jesus will follow those to be with the Lord forever. Make sure that you are included in that day’s festivities and not left here wondering what just happened!

Rejection, fear, and uncertainty

As human’s we do not like even ONE of these. From our family or our friends and certainly not from God. But why would we worry about feeling these emotions from God? The main reason that we feel these emotions in our relationship with God is actually because of Satan himself. God has never rejected us. Why should we be afraid of God? He isn’t going to strike us dead if we don’t do something, right? Feeling uncertain about your relationship with Him is also a tactic of Satan. Jesus said that all we had to so was to believe in Him and in the Father Who sent Him to save us from our sins…that’s it! Believe in Jesus and God the Father for your salvation. No hoops to jump through. No certain number of people that you have to tell about Jesus. He did all of the work on the cross in order to pay for your sins and nothing that we try to do can add value to our salvation.

Satan is the instigator and has been since before Adam or the Earth was created. He was a consummate liar then and he has gotten better at it over the thousands of years since then. Satan can make us believe a lie about God or Jesus or any part of the salvation which is freely given by God’s grace through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

We don’t have to listen to those suggestions which Satan places in our head and in our mind, but many times we do listen to them. If you look it up and read about God in the Bible, you will see that He may make some people afraid of Him but He only did it because of their hard hearts. They wouldn’t listen to His instructions, His commandments, so He had to get their attention just as He gets our attention at times. He knows that we are hard-headed and stubborn and sometimes it takes more than reading a few scriptures to make us know that He is serious.

For some of us it will take a bit more than reading a scripture to realize what is being said to us. Many times it may take a sickness or a death in the family to really get our attention, but God will use that to His advantage. God loves each of us but He also knows exactly how much it will take to get our attention and to keep it focused on Him. Some people will blame Him and they will move away from Him but that isn’t a surprise to God. He knows exactly who will hear Him and follow Him and who will not. Regardless of our intention to follow Him or not, God still loves us. That is just His nature.