Category: By faith

Life after life


If you have ever been to a church and heard a sermon or if you heard one on TV, then you have heard of the life to look forward to after this one. Have you given your heart to Jesus? Salvation is available for you if you will give your heart to Him. So, what will you do with your life here that will take you into eternity? Your own “righteousness” will not do the trick, just as Jesus told the Pharisees and as it was told in the Old Testament, “your righteousness is as filthy rags“.

God doesn’t want us all to go to hell, but there are those who will not accept Jesus as their Savior. God knows who will and who will not give their life and their heart to Jesus but it is not set in stone. When you feel the touch of His Spirit in your heart and you feel that you need Him in your life, don’t turn away from Him. Jesus paid the price for our sins on the cross and we are able to be saved from the punishment which comes from refusing to accept the gift of salvation.

Granted, your punishment in hell is not just for refusing salvation but that is the main one which will send you there. Any sins in your life which aren’t covered by the blood of Jesus with your acceptance of His gift of salvation will be paid for in hell. But if you decide to give your heart to Him and confess your sins then your eternity is guaranteed in Heaven with your Savior.

Your salvation is available to you when God touches your Spirit and brings you to that place where you truly know that you need Him. You can’t just decide to be saved or ask Jesus into your life, He touches your soul and draws you to Himself. I pray that all who read this will seek Him in a church or in the Bible and come to the realization that you need Him in your life.

Make sure of Whom you believe


In 1 John 4 it says these words:

1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us, but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

When you are committed to being and living as a Christian there is a part of God’s Spirit which comes to live inside you. He or She is the Holy Spirit. All of us who are His and belong to Him have a part of Him, as Jesus called Him-the Comforter and He is living in your heart (soul). God’s grace and mercy have been poured out in your life so that you can believe in the One Who has saved your soul, but it is God’s Spirit Who teaches you and helps you to understand His Word.

Without faith, we can do nothing in God’s Kingdom and without His Spirit, we would understand very little of God’s Word. We could read it every day but without His teaching and giving us the meaning of it for our lives the Bible would be just a book of stories and nothing more. For many years before I truly committed my life to Him I read chapters in the Bible and read along with the pastor at church but until I accepted the Holy Spirit into my life it really didn’t make sense.

Jesus’ sermon on the mount was just a bunch of blessings given to those who were looking for the Messiah until I looked at it from His point of view. God loves each of us and He wants the best for you and me. That doesn’t mean that He wants all of us to be rich and wealthy with no struggles, however. God’s best may be our eternal home with Him, not some fancy house with a mortgage here for us to struggle to pay. The same goes for all of the other “stuff” which the world around us sees as symbols of our success.

Seek God and His Son, Jesus, for your salvation because the time which each of us has is very short compared to eternity. Each of us has an eternal soul and you will spend eternity somewhere so make sure of your destination while you can.

God’s warning shot


The lunar eclipse, which is happening now, is the last one for at least two years. God is not being silent about how He is warning us but most of us don’t seem to be listening. What is He going to do after this “Blood moon”? I have no idea but I do believe that our country and the rest of the world should notice that this is happening and at least try to do better at being believers.

We have had a warning before and it seemed that nobody even noticed. In late 2014 through 2015 there were four blood moons, and a solar eclipse yet few people noticed. So, America is getting one more such warning. Why? Because we don’t take life seriously nor do we sanctify life which is yet to be born. God loves children and He sent them to us for a purpose, His purpose.

They are being killed by the thousands each day and nobody cares enough to put a stop to it. Children are being taken from loving parents and sold into slavery in the sex trade and it seems that we are just becoming aware of it. Yet this has been happening for decades. Those who claim to be Christians and every church member should be rising up and at least writing letters to stop this…but it is not happening.

Will it ever be stopped? Yes, but I hope that we as Christians will do it before Jesus calls us home. It will stop when He comes to rule the world but we should be upset and outraged about this NOW!! Yet the world travels on as if nothing is wrong in the world. I pray that more Christians will stand up for their beliefs and begin to vote or call or write to our Congress to get something done before it is too late.

Boundless love


That is the type of love which God has for each of us. It is not one that we can duplicate in any way because we are not the Creator. He expressed His love for us by all of the wonders and the variety of life and the mystery which abounds in our universe. Why are there stars which would engulf most of our solar system? Because God wanted us to ask that question. Why are there diamonds and gold found in the clouds of nebulae in the universe? Because God wanted it to be that way so we would ask questions and wonder about it.

It was God’s love for us which sent Jesus to Earth as a man who didn’t sin and could pay the price for all of mankind. It is God’s love which watches over each of us as we sleep or as we travel on the highways. We are never outside of His love or His gaze and His protection of us as we go through life but He doesn’t force us to give our heart to Him. It must be our choice. How can we understand His boundless love for us? We really can’t, unless you know the love of a parent toward their child. That is the only relationship which comes close to by only a degree to the depth of God’s love for each of us.

Why does He feel this way? Because we are His creation, His children and He cares for us in a way that we cannot understand or comprehend yet He does so without measure. Life is a part of Him, death is a part of Him and every part of our lives is contained in a part of Him as well. Don’t turn away from Him because you are only hurting yourself when you do. Does our rejection of His love hurt Him? I’m sure it does in some way, but how deeply it hurts I couldn’t imagine. Make sure that you learn to love Him before your life ends because once this life is over there are no second chances.

Do you need healing?


In many ways, we all need healing in our lives. Whether it is a spiritual healing or physical healing or maybe even both, many of us do need healing on one level or another. So, where do you go to find this healing and how much will it cost me? Well, physical healing from some diseases can cost many thousands of dollars but healing for your spiritual person doesn’t cost you anything at all!

I don’t know how to heal your physical body and I’m not going to claim such a thing but your Lord and Savior, Jesus, can heal you spiritually and physically if it is His will to do so. Sometimes He does both and sometimes He will come into your life and heal you spiritually but you still have to live with the physical ailment that you had before. Many people seem to look at this as a type of curse from God when their physical problem isn’t solved when they accept Jesus as their Savior, but even Paul had to live out his life with a “thorn in his side” because God told him that His grace was sufficient for him.

Healing, whether it is spiritual or physical, takes a lot of faith in the doctor or in God. Salvation heals your soul and that only comes through Jesus and believing in Him as your Savior. That belief can only come through faith and even that is a gift from God by His grace given to each believer! We don’t choose, on our own merits, to be saved or to finally give our hearts to Jesus…He chooses us by His Spirit touching ours through a sermon or the witness of a believer. When we find that we can’t do this without Him, then we seek Him out and give our heart to Him.

That is where our spiritual healing comes from! We don’t do it, no preacher can help you do it or bring you to Jesus unless you are called by the Holy Spirit first. We are not exactly predestined to be saved, but God knows who will accept Jesus as their Savior and who will not. You can call that what you want to, but it is God’s knowledge of us which is at work. Some say that every person who is “predestined” to be saved will be saved whether we tell them about Jesus or not, but if that is true why did Jesus tell His disciples to go into the world and preach the gospel to all who would hear it?

It that were true about predestination then what is the point of telling others about Jesus and His atonement for their souls? The point is that people need to hear about Him and what He did for them so they can be saved and live into eternity with Him. If we don’t fulfill our calling to let people know about the grace of God and the salvation offered to those who will hear it, then we are responsible for their spiritual condition and we will answer for it in some way, at least in my opinion.

One day…


“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Dr. Martin Luther King

So…when will this actually happen? It has been fifty years, but when you look around the world it seems that we are less able to make this happen today than even forty years ago or thirty years ago. Do you think we can do this today? In my opinion, this won’t happen until Jesus begins His Kingdom on Earth. Our determination to be selfish and distrustful of each other as well as dredging up history which just brings back hurt feelings and angst from the past has caused any progress we have made to fade into nothing.

Anyone who has an idea which might work to bring this to the world, please leave it in the comments. The anger and distrust in the world, not just in America or Europe but elsewhere too, has gone so far above what it once was until I don’t see humanity ever fixing this problem by our own understanding. Only God’s Son returning to Earth will make this right and He will do so soon…much sooner than most people believe.

Jesus’ return is foretold in the Bible in more than one place and since God’s Word is the absolute Truth it will happen! Seek Him out as your Savior before His return because the situation in the world will get much worse before HE returns. Worse than it is now? Yes! Much, much worse than it is today. Those who mock the Word of God or their “interpretation” of it will be found out because they do not know the Word of God and they do not have His Spirit guiding their lives today. Jesus was speaking to His disciples about the Kingdom of God in a spiritual sense when He told them that it would be in the world before many of them died.

When Jesus comes back in the clouds with the angels and with those who have believed in His Word there will be no doubt about it! For many people who doubt it today, it is like a weather forecast, it may happen the way they said or it may not. When God’s Word says it then you can count on it coming to be. He didn’t put a date or a time on these prophecies but the evidence is all around us. More earthquakes and volcanoes coming to life, more unrest and disease and all kinds of wars all over the world.

People are not respectful of each other or their different beliefs anymore, whether you are standing on a political platform or in a pulpit. It seems that nobody has any inclination to listen to your beliefs if they are different from theirs and they will attempt to drown your voice or even assault you if you try to be heard. Even if Jesus came as a man the way He did before, He would be shouted down or even murdered again for His teachings today! This is a very sad commentary on our world and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better at all.

Our efforts have only produced more chaos and distrust in many parts of the world and in our own country. It will take a massive revival of faith in God and repentance which would be above and beyond the Great Awakening from years past and even that wouldn’t be enough, although it would be a step in the right direction. But it won’t be long until the whole world will see the prophecies come to fruition and for many, it may be too late to make a decision for Jesus. Or will it? Only God knows that answer.

Are you hungry?


Do you truly know the hunger of those who follow the Lord? Are you hungry for His Presence?

God loves you and watches over all of your doings and your daily problems, yet there are many who do not what the Lord asks of you. Why? Because of the substance of our life. We chase after many things in our lives but we do not seek God, we seek out “stuff” which has no substance in God’s Kingdom. So what are the acceptable things which are part of God’s Kingdom? The works which we do because we belong to God and our salvation is from Jesus the Christ. These are works which are not required, but they are works which we feel obligated to do for Him because of the price paid for our freedom!

Jesus paid this price on the cross and it was paid out of love! As the scriptures say, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but will have eternal life“. He did this because it was promised from the very beginning of creation since humanity could not keep God’s laws, “the seed of the woman will crush the serpent’s head and he will bruise His heel“. This was a prophecy in reference to Jesus (Yeshua) many years before His birth in Bethlehem.

This is the very reason which Jesus the Christ came to Earth from God, to save mankind from their sins and provide a way for them to be reconciled to God! It wasn’t for some prideful parade of a future King which came, which was what Israel was waiting for, but He came to redeem His people from the burden and the consequences of their sins! Will He come as their King? Yes, He will come and begin His reign on Earth soon and He will rule over the whole Earth, not just Israel!

Come, Lord Jesus! Amen

Chosen…


According to the Bible, we were chosen long ago by God Himself. Why? Because He knows who will accept and hear His call on their lives. Of course, there are some who may take a little more time than others to make that decision but God still knows the outcome. That doesn’t mean that you are chosen to be a Christian and the person next to you is not, it just means that God knows which of you will act on His touch first! In many ways that could mean that you will have an influence in your neighbor’s life and their choice to give their lives to Jesus. God loves each of us but since He sees the end and the beginning of all things, He knows which of us will turn to Him in repentance and which ones will not.

Does that mean that some people will not be given a chance to become Christians? No! Each person in the world is given the chance but not everyone will accept it. Some will accept it and then decide that being a Christian is not really what they want or the way they want to live. The people who do this were not really intent on being a Christians, they were just trying it out. Trying out Christianity is not the way to go. God loves you and if you feel His touch and His call on your life and your heart don’t turn away from Him!

You can go to church and read the Bible all that you want but the only way that any that either of them will have an effect in your life is when God touches your heart and opens your eyes spiritually to the condition that you are in. You might say to me, “What do you mean the condition I am in?”; when you are outside of the will and purpose of God none of His wisdom or the teachings of God’s Word make sense to you! God’s Wisdom is foolish to anyone and everyone who lives outside of God’s will and living by unbelief in Him.

The wisdom of the world is foolishness in God’s sight. So are we chosen to be useful to God and in His Kingdom? He knows that each of us can be useful for His Kingdom and He knows when you will turn to Him in repentance. Those who do not repent, who will not repent are also known to Him as well and those people break God’s heart. He doesn’t wish to see anyone in hell because of their stubbornness but that is the reason that many will be in hell. Because of stubbornness and pride, they will turn away from Him thinking that they are good enough to gain entrance into heaven.

We are unable to be good enough to gain entrance into heaven without Jesus in our hearts and learning more about God through His Word and living by His wisdom and not our own. If humanity could attain eternal life on our own, Jesus wouldn’t have had to die on the cross and be raised again to give us the hope of heaven. God knew this was true and that we are unable to be righteous and sinless in our own strength without His Spirit and His Strength to aid you in becoming more like Jesus.

What should I do?


Many of us ask this question in our daily lives and usually, it is referring to something other than following Jesus or getting into the ministry. But what if you are asking this question and getting to know Jesus is part of it or at least involved in the possible answer? Have you thought of what you should do?

Some people do wonder about their answer to the Holy Spirit and what to do about it. Some are called in their dreams and the Spirit touches them in a mighty way to draw them to Him. Then there are times when it is a very still, small voice which prods you into being curious about God’s call on your life. Whichever one happens in your life, pay attention to Him!

God loves each of you, regardless of your belief or non-belief in Him or His Son, Jesus. The price for salvation has been paid through His blood on the cross and the only thing that is necessary for you to obtain your salvation is to accept Jesus as your Savior. In much of the world, today that is a very dangerous decision but many people still make it.

Truly, our God is awesome and He does love all people whether they believe in Him or not. But, to show you just how wonderful His creation is I am going to add a photo here which may show some of His creative majesty which you may have never seen.

The differences don’t come from “evolution”, God placed these differences in our tears.

You can’t do it yourself!


God made this pretty clear during the exodus from Egypt. He saved the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt and it was His power that got them through the Red Sea. Even when He gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, no person can keep those on their own. We have to have the strength of the Holy Spirit and follow His leading every day in order to be the best that we can be with His help!

The Truth of God came to Earth one day a long time ago. He was born in a livestock pen because there was no other place for them during the census which was going on. We just finished with the season during which much of the world celebrates His birth, but there are many who do not. Actually, Jesus was born during the Feast of Tabernacles so that would’ve been around October. Anyway, He came to pay for ALL of our sins, past, present and future and He did just that!

He gave you the breath and the strength to get up this morning and see the day and the blessings contained in it. It has always been His mercy and grace which has held you in the good times and the not-so-good times which come in each of our lives. Yet many people don’t want to hear that because they don’t believe it. I would like to stop believing in gravity so I could fly, but that won’t happen. Just because I don’t want to believe in it won’t stop it from killing me. Remember, its not the fall that kills you…its the sudden stop when you hit the ground!

No matter what you believe in this life, when it is over you will meet God. It may be a good meeting or it may not be but that is your choice. Your eternal soul hangs in the balance until that day and your destination also hangs in the balance. Make sure of your decision while you have the chance to make one because a car wreck or an airplane crash or even a clot could end your life before you finish reading. If you ignore God’s call on your soul and His touch in your life and your life ends before you make that decision, it is your fault for your destination. God doesn’t send people to hell but He will allow you to go when you won’t accept Jesus as your Savior.

We do not decide to get saved, it is God’s Spirit which touches our heart and our soul. He gives us the faith to believe in Him and His Salvation for us IF we will accept it. Just because you have the faith to believe doesn’t mean that you have to believe, it is still your choice. Don’t put it off. If you have never believed in Him or given your life to Jesus for your salvation, I pray that you will do so because one day soon He will call the church home. When that happens there will be chaos in the world because there will be no bodies to bury only empty cars and homes with clothes and watches and rings on the floor where a Christian was when it happened.

Make sure for your sake that you know where you are going before that happens.