Category: By faith

You are not an accident!


We are not accidents!

Psalm 139

For the director of music. Of David. A Psalm.

1 You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,a God! How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you.
19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
God doesn’t cause accidents in His creation and each of us is a person that He caused to come into being for a reason. He has a purpose for you and for me and for all of those on the Earth. What that purpose is only He knows. He has given each of us gifts and abilities to be able to glorify Him and to be useful to Him in His Kingdom. So we need to start acting like we have a place in His Kingdom. If you don’t want to have a place in His Kingdom, that is fine. He doesn’t force anyone to be a part of His design and His will for His creation.

Our God and Savior is the only pathway to Heaven, there is no other. Seek Him while you can find Him because when the shout comes and the dead are raised incorruptible and the church rises to meet Him, the easy time of coming to Jesus will be over. The time of “Jacob’s trouble” will be upon the world and the act of giving your heart to Jesus will carry a death sentence soon after. I pray that all of you will be counted among those who rise to meet Him in the air. Amen

The church in our time


We are closer to the end times than you think. If you have ever read the book of Revelation you will know which church is reflected by the church today. The Laodicean church.

In Rev. 3:15-18: 15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. 17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

Many churches today have a service which resembles a performance more than a sermon. Some of the smaller, less liberal churches have regular sermons but the time is spent more with praise music than with preaching from God’s Word. There are other things which are going on in the church today which I don’t have statistics to show you but if you look up the status of the Christian church you can find the same statistics which I did.

Why am I bringing this up today? Because our world is walking and sometimes running away from Biblical preaching as fast as they can go and it is leaving those congregations with a very light dusting of God’s Word rather than a full meal from the Word. Paul wrote to some of the churches that they were still babes in Christ and they hadn’t matured enough to savor the “meat of God’s Word“. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul tells his listeners this: 1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly—as infants in Christ. 2, I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for solid food. In fact, you are still not ready, 3for you are still worldly.

God loves us but we cannot remain as “babes in Christ” for our whole lives! At some point, we need to study to show ourselves approved to be His disciples and His workers in Jesus Christ. The church today is lacking in its study of God’s Word and in the building up of the body of Christ, the believers who actually make up the church. Regardless of your denomination, each of us who claims to be a Christian who knows the Lord of Glory, all of us should be able to answer a simple Bible quiz and yet many cannot!

We have fallen behind in our studies of the Word of God because we are not passionate about our love for Jesus and our Life in Him! What happened? Has your heart grown cold against your Savior? He gave His life for each of us so why can’t we live our lives as a true living sacrifice to Him for the rest of our lives until we are called home? It is the least that we could do considering what He did for each of us.

I would rather hear Him say to me, “Welcome home” rather than “What happened after you accepted Me?” If you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, do you read and study God’s Word at least once or twice every week or do you just pick it up when you attend church services? What would you do if you had to give the reason for your hope in Christ? Would you be able to quote Scripture for it or do you know enough verses that you could?

Are you or your church only lukewarm in your service to Him? If you are then you need to dedicate your life to becoming more passionate about Jesus and what He has done for you.

Prophecy is happening now


I don’t know if any of you are noticing all of the political and social “fires” which are popping up in Asia and the Middle East, but those were foretold long ago by our Lord Himself. Our world, the world around us is changing rapidly and unless you are seeing it through the lens of prophecy it just looks like business as usual. We are rapidly advancing toward a period in history that the world outside the church is not paying attention to. I pray that if you are a student of the Bible, God’s Word, that you have been praying about this and watching these things which are happening now. I am not trying to frighten the world or anyone and I don’t believe in some doomsday cult. I believe in Jesus the Christ, our risen Lord and HE said that all of these things would happen before the end of the age.

God is watching and paying attention to all of the religions of the world and the people around the world who will decide to give their hearts to Jesus. I pray that those who have been called by His Spirit will soon wake up and give their hearts to Jesus before the time is up. Life as we know it or have known it is coming to an end. It is in Matthew 24 and in some other prophecy books like Daniel. Anyway, the things which are happening around the world right now are part of the things which were foretold to happen.

Why am I bringing all of this up? Because the media doesn’t look at those things through the lens of Bible prophecy. Only those of us who are reading the Bible and who take God’s Word as the truth that it is can see these things but if we told the media about it we would be called kooks and conspiracy freaks.

Life is about to change on the Earth for billions of people and yet nobody is paying attention to the signs all around us. Of course, most of the world thinks that Christians believe blindly in a Savior who is dead and in a book which was written over two thousand years ago! Our faith and our beliefs are not blind. It is the faith which comes to us from God which brought us to the point of realizing that we needed Jesus as our Savior.

Blind faith and beliefs which point toward an imaginary figure are not what the disciples and the martyrs of the early church died for! You will not willingly go to your own execution for something that is imaginary or some belief which is based on nothing which can’t be proven! Historians outside the Bible wrote of Jesus and His crucifixion and His resurrection, at least what they heard of it. People have died for their belief in Jesus for the past two thousand years and are still being put to death because of their belief in Him!

Our world is moving toward a time when the problems of today will pale in comparison to what is coming. I pray that anyone who reads this will seek the Truth in the Bible and seek their Savior in the Person of Jesus Christ.

Bondservant of Jesus


For Jude, the family was not everything. He was the brother of James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem and the son of Joseph and Mary. Being the half-brother of our Lord Jesus he had occasions to watch Him as He grew to manhood, but Jude didn’t come to a saving knowledge of our Lord until after the resurrection. His epistle is meant for the early church but much of it pertains to today. There were false teachers appearing in the church, just as they are today, telling people one thing which would bring them salvation. But, those “false teachers” were not bold in their speech, they were very subtle by their false teaching, containing just enough truth so as not to be recognized.

Jude calls himself “a bondservant of Jesus Christ”, and the brother of James. He doesn’t emphasize that he is the Lord’s half-brother since that would play on the early Church’s devotion to Jesus.

Jude 1-8

1 Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called: 2 Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.

God’s Judgment on the Ungodly (Genesis 4:1-7; Romans 2:1-16)

3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. 4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

5 I will, therefore, put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. 6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. 7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

8 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. 9Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. 10But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. 11Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. 12These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; 13Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

Jude is exhorting the church to stand firm in their faith which they have believed unto salvation and to stand in that faith even when they hear a doctrine which doesn’t go along with what they have been taught before. Stay true to the faith in Jesus Christ whom you have believed!

Don’t turn away from the teachings which you have heard and read from God’s Word during your life as a Christian.

Is this little book relevant today? By all means, it is! People don’t want to know the Truth of Scripture because they reject much of the Truth contained in it, not because it isn’t true but because it convicts them of their sins and they don’t want to hear it.

The rest of the letter of Jude speaks toward the church standing firm in their faith, just as the first few verses did. It talks of those who were apostates to the faith in Jesus and who were trying to subvert the teachings in the young church at the time. Jude was telling the believers to rebuke those who were bringing false teachings into the church and leading people off the path of Light and into teachings which would contradict those which Jesus and His disciples were teaching.

It matters to the church today because there are many who are rejecting the Bible outright, not only the teachings found in the New Testament but they are ridiculing the Scripture of the Old Testament, claiming that it has no meaning for today’s church. Yet, every book of the Bible teaches about Jesus in some way. He is spoken of as the Seed of the woman, the Rock, the pillar of Fire and Smoke, the Angel of the Lord, the Good Shepherd, the Son of Man and so on. He is mentioned in some form or type in all of Scripture which means that the entire Bible is relevant and useful for instruction and teaching in our modern world today.

Take the message of Jude to heart and make sure that you are ready to defend your faith if it is ever called into question or if you see or hear someone speaking of a doctrine which is not in the Bible or which sounds like it came from God’s Word but it didn’t.

Empty space


There is a longing in every heart that only Jesus can satisfy. We should be seeking Him to fill that place because nothing else will fit in it except Him. So why do we go through life troubled about an empty feeling inside when it is easy to find Him as the solution?

Usually, it’s because we don’t want to admit that we need Him in our lives. We don’t want to live according to His ways or enjoy the life that we would have by following Him. Even when we find that nothing that we try can satisfy our longing or our emptiness, we usually don’t want to give up our life! Why? Because if we become a Christian we think that we will lose all of our friends. When we will really gain more friends.

We will be joining a group of people who are following the Savior of the world! He will make us feel whole and new again in ways that no drug or person or any amount of money could possibly accomplish! The empty place in your heart and in your life is meant to be filled by the Holy Spirit which Jesus will send to you when you become a Christian.

themissingpieceSo, why do people seem to be against everything that God and the Bible stand for? Maybe its because they are afraid of a book which has the absolute Truth in it. Maybe it has something to do with the way people are taught to think that “everything is relative”. Meaning the truth that you believe is relative to your life is not relative to mine. God’s Truth is relative to everyone! The Savior, Jesus the Christ, is relevant to each person who will decide to receive Him into their heart and their life!

While it seems that many people want to go to Heaven they think that there are easier ways of getting there than becoming a Christian. There are no multiplicity of pathways for getting to Heaven. There is only One way and that is through belief in Jesus and by giving your heart to Him when you feel convicted by the Holy Spirit that you are truly in need of salvation!

God loves each person on this planet regardless of your location or country or the color of your skin or even what ethnic group you may belong to. We are all a part of His Creation and He is the One Who gave you your personality and your gifts and talents! He knows exactly what you can do in His Kingdom and how much you could contribute to it if you will only become a part of it.

Yet, there are many in the world who either don’t believe in God or they are too stubborn to move away from the way they have always believed before. Just because your family believes one way doesn’t mean that you can’t have faith in Jesus and believe in Him for your Salvation. He died and rose again to pay the penalty for your sins and mine and every person alive! So why not follow Him and learn more about Him while becoming the person that He knows you can be?

Is the path of being a follower of Jesus hard? Sometimes, but He will be with you every step of the way. He will be there in the good times and the bad, so don’t turn away from His call on your life and your heart. Eternity is waiting for you and you will enter into it one day. You can decide today which direction and in which place your soul spends that eternity by choosing to follow Jesus now while you are still alive. Because if you don’t make that choice now then you may not be here to make it tomorrow or next week.

What are you chasing?


Have you ever wondered exactly what you are doing in this life or why you are doing it? Many people seem to be attempting to buy anything and everything that they can afford as if they truly believe the saying “he who dies with the most wins the prize”. How do you figure that? When you die your children will inherit what you had and if there are no children then those “things” which you bought with your money will be sold or given to someone else.

Why do we use up our lives chasing after things which can’t possibly give us any fulfillment or joy in this life, other than bragging rights…maybe? The problem with this kind of living is that when your life is over, what will people say or think about you and who you were? Will they remember you as someone who tried to help those who were in need? Will they remember you as a businessman or woman who chased after as much wealth as you could possibly attain?

Have you ever considered the eternal consequences of your life? What will your life be worth in eternity? Did your wealth, regardless of the amount, do any spiritual good in this world? Was it used for the spreading of God’s Word and His message to those who didn’t know Him?

All of these questions should be answered while you are still living so that you can try to make good use of the time that you have left until you enter into eternity. The larger question and the one which will make the most difference to you is: Have you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior? God placed each of us here for the sole purpose of truly getting to know Him and being useful to Him in this life. Regardless of the amount of money or influence you may have in your business or in your life and the lives around you.

Everyone seems to wonder, what is my purpose or the meaning of my life, and we think about it almost from the time that they are old enough to know what a purpose is. The reality of the question is this: your life’s meaning and purpose are found in Jesus and serving Him and His purpose in your life. Anything which is outside of that is fluff and nonsense. Although I am sure that many will wonder exactly how am I supposed to pay my bills or save up for retirement by doing that?

God did not say that we had to be preachers or evangelists. We are to use the gifts and talents which we have been given to serve the Lord in our lives and in our businesses, whatever they may be. God mentions many different craftsmen in the Old Testament from woodworkers and carvers to engravers and those who can make jewelry out of gold as well as shepherds and kings and priests.

Your life and mine can be useful to God in many ways and it doesn’t matter what your vocation may be. If you are a nurse then be the best one that you can be and use your talents to serve God while you are at it. If you are a police person, do that as if you were working for the Lord. Whatever occupation you are in, do it as if you were working for Jesus and make sure that your tithes go to charities which actually help people. If you can’t find a charity which does this in your town, then start one which will!

Pray about it, seek God’s wisdom for whatever you are considering and if you feel God leading you in that direction with your money and your time then do it! Saturate your charity or foundation with prayer and fasting if you have to but make sure that it is doing work which Jesus would be proud of. If your business isn’t one which He would be happy with then move to something else which can honor God.

Seek to know Him


Jesus tells His disciples to “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” but what exactly does that mean? Considering the subject which He was teaching them about at the time was “worry”, this particular passage was in reference to God’s willingness to provide for our needs, and their needs at the time. Worrying about life or food or clothing does nothing except cause more stress in your life which none of us truly needs today!

In the world that we live in, life is stressful enough without worrying about what you will eat or wear or if you can pay the mortgage this month. God knows you have needs along these lines and He will give you the ability to pay for them or acquire them in time for your needs to be met. Notice that I said “needs” not wants! God doesn’t provide luxury until you are rewarded in Heaven for your service to Him in this life. You may be able to acquire luxury items in this life but you would be wise to pay your debts as soon as possible.

All of us have debts of one kind or another. Some have a mortgage which is still being paid or a car/truck loan which is still due. Some of us have credit card debt which means we are spending money that we don’t even have yet. All of these make us slaves to the loans which we have to pay in one way or another. God advises us to pay your debts as soon as possible and this advice can be found in Proverbs.

HumbleGod does give us the ability to get wealth but we should not use it as a way of making others jealous of it. We should use whatever wealth we have as a way to bless others and in turn, we will be blessed by God. As it is said, “God loves a cheerful giver“. As you are blessed, be a blessing to others. Being humble and giving of your blessings to others will bless you in ways that you don’t know about until you are in Heaven.

Do you believe?


There are many Christians in the world or rather there are many who claim to be Christians. How many actually are in the world only God knows the answer to that question. In America, there are nearly 70% of the population who claim to be Christians but if that were true every church would be full whenever there was a service.

So, back to the question, do you believe in Jesus Christ for your salvation?

God provided the way for each of us to gain salvation through Him but it is up to us to make the decision to believe in Jesus for our salvation when we feel convicted of our own sinful lives. Knowing that your righteousness is not good enough to get you into heaven and that you only gain access through belief in Jesus Christ for your salvation.

In Acts 4:12, Peter exclaims: 12 “Salvation exists in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

So, do you believe in Him as your Savior? Some who read this probably do believe in Jesus as their Savior but there may be many who think that He was just a man and a prophet and nothing more. In the Old Testament, there are over 300 prophecies concerning His birth and His ministry and He fulfilled them all! In the book of Micah, written between ~700 years prior to His birth it was foretold that He would be born in Bethlehem.

For a man to fulfill the prophecies about Jesus, even a few of them would be miraculous, but He fulfilled every one of them. Jesus is the Second Person of the Trinity and the Son of God, there is no other name by which we can be saved and sanctified for our sins. If you don’t know Him yet, as your Savior, I implore you to seek Him with the utmost urgency because the time grows short and He will be coming for those who believe in Him soon.

I have no idea when His return will be but all of the prophetic signs have been fulfilled and the world is in turmoil just as He said it would be in the last days. Don’t turn away from Him or His call on your life because when this life is over there are no second chances to gain your salvation through belief in Him.

IamtheWay

 

 

What are your convictions?


Most of us really don’t think about this word or what it means, at least not on a daily basis. Your convictions come into play when you vote or in how you handle adversity. Sometimes, your convictions have an effect on the way you live your life from the beginning of adulthood throughout your life. One definition of a conviction has to do with being convicted of a crime in a court of law. The definition that I am writing about here is expressed best by part of a sermon which Dr. Charles Stanley taught recently so here is that definition:

A conviction is a solid, immovable belief based on confidence in God’s Word, being so thoroughly convinced of its absolute truth that we are willing to take a stand regardless of the consequences. Convictions shape not only what we believe but also how we live and even how we die. They define who we are and provide direction with solid straight lines that don’t veer off track to accommodate circumstances or temptations.

Many of the disciples and early church members were martyred for their convictions about their faith in Jesus Christ, so that should prove to many people that those beliefs and their faith and their conviction about Him were so strong that they were willing to die for them. You wouldn’t die for some made up fairy tale or a lie. Jesus is coming back as He said He would and I urge you if you don’t believe in Him as your Savior, to give your life to Him today.

None of us are guaranteed tomorrow so as the Bible says, “Today is the day of salvation“. If you truly want an eternity which is not eternal punishment, and honestly who would want that for eternity, then give your heart to Jesus. Seek Him out in any way that you can because He is coming soon and you don’t want to be left behind to live through the seven years which will follow His removal of the church from the Earth. There will be a lot of destruction and death on that day because of the people who were taken to heaven with Him, but the aftermath of that will be easy compared to what comes later.

God does love and care for all of us but He doesn’t like our sins and the lives which we live apart from Him. Lifestyles which go against His laws and His precepts in His Word are not the lifestyles which He approves of. Living outside of His law just because you don’t like what the Bible says is not the Christian way of life. Consider the places that you go on a Friday night or over the weekend. Would you feel comfortable taking Jesus to those places, really? If you attend church but haven’t accepted Jesus as your Savior, would you feel comfortable telling your pastor about where you went the night before church on Sunday morning?

If you can’t answer those questions truthfully and without hesitation then your life needs Jesus in it now.

Are you lost?


In this age of cell phones with GPS capabilities, very few people can get lost on the road to almost anywhere. But, the road to Heaven is a road which is your life and a GPS doesn’t work on it. Oh, you can find exactly where you are at any time but what about your spiritual walk and your ultimate destination? Those two are part of the same interconnected lifestyle. It isn’t just going to church on the occasional Sunday or any particular holiday like Christmas and Easter.

Holidays and an occasional visit to church don’t equal a lifetime of relationship with your Savior. A relationship with Jesus is more closely related to a relationship with your spouse because it is a daily walk, a daily reading and studying of God’s Word, continually washing your mind with the water of Life which springs from it. A real Christian life begins on the day that you accept Jesus as your Savior, regardless of your physical age.

Some people seem to think that once they have accepted Him as their Savior, there isn’t anything more they should do so they go back to living their life. Their spirit tells them that they are doing it wrong, but if you ignore your spirit long enough eventually you won’t heart it at all. While this is possible and you are grieving the Spirit when you do it, I don’t believe that a person who does this was actually saved, to begin with, if they continually move back toward their old way of life.

When you are convicted of your sins and ask Jesus into your life, usually there is a complete change in your heart and your mind to move toward becoming more like Jesus. If you are studying the Word and meditating on His Wisdom and working toward becoming more like Christ, I don’t think you will turn back to your old way of living. Jesus paid a price for your soul, and for your salvation, so don’t treat your new life in Christ lightly.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Psalm 23:4). Jesus is with us in all of our troubles and our fears especially after we have asked Him into our heart and our lives so why would you do things and go places that you wouldn’t be comfortable taking Jesus if He were with you in the flesh? He is there in Spirit in everything that you are doing, so consider that before you decide to go somewhere or do something that you wouldn’t take your own mother with you!

Jesus never leaves our side so if you did accept Him as your Savior, why would you consider doing a sinful act or going somewhere that you wouldn’t take Him? He loves you more deeply than you can imagine or even comprehend right now and even though your daily life may not be running over with blessings, He is still there. “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

We are coming close to the “end of the age” and you can see it because of the prophecies in the Bible. Make sure of your salvation in Christ while there is time, because tomorrow may be too late. Every trial and problem in your life has passed through God’s hands and is approved for you to endure but you will endure it better with His strength and His Presence in your life.