Category: By faith

Responsibility


nots in your lifeAre we responsible for our actions? It seems that many people don’t want to be. Seeking safe places where their feelings won’t get hurt or disregarding laws and officers of the law seems to be a national pastime, at least according to the news. Being responsible for your moral decisions and actions seems like an old-fashioned idea that many don’t want to subscribe to anymore. Why is that?

Could it be that our society is living with a sense of entitlement today? I think so. The past couple of generations have gone from being brought up in the church to visiting it once or twice a year on certain holidays or on Easter and Mother’s Day. That doesn’t say much at all toward proving that our nation is the Christian nation that some polls say that we are. What happened to being responsible for yourself and your actions? Is that also a quaint idea that needs to be swept under the collective rug?

I was told once that I shouldn’t judge people, especially those who are addicts to drugs or alcohol. I don’t claim to know the depths that those addictions take you to. I was a drunk in high school every Friday night, occasionally on other nights depending on how I felt. I have used drugs although none of the so-called “hard drugs”, until I began having some really bad nerve pains and bone pains in the last couple of years. I don’t like the way hydrocodone makes me feel at all which is why I haven’t had it refilled in almost six months.

Responsibility needs to be taught to young people and some older ones and soon! Why? Because in a decade or so we won’t have anyone who will take responsibility for their actions!

God loves you and you knew that I was getting back to this. There is no substitute for His love and compassion for you. It doesn’t give you a high feeling nor does seeking His wisdom give you a euphoria that you want to come back to until you can’t get enough of it. Giving your heart and life to Jesus by believing in Him will get your sins forgiven IF you will turn away from them, with His strength, and become a follower of His on a daily basis. He gave His Son for you to have access to eternal life and forgiveness, the only thing you have to do is accept it.

It is a gift of God. It can’t be earned, bought or bartered for, but it can be accepted if you will repent and seek Him out in that repentance. He can take away the cravings for alcohol and drugs and give you a desire for His Wisdom and His purpose in your life. God does love you, whether you know it or acknowledge it or not. Whether you will follow Him is already known by Him, yet it is still your choice to do so or not. He will not force you to be a Christian just as nobody can be forced to love someone. Seek Him out today, learn of His ways in the Bible, pray for His wisdom to come to you when you read it and He will answer all of these prayers and more.

So much…


We, at least those of us who live in America, have so much that we take for granted. People don’t look around them and see the little things that they do have, the things and the people who would be so much appreciated in other areas of the world. Sometimes people don’t even visit places of surreal beauty in their own states, they want to go to other places and see the sights but the ones in their own backyard are neglected and forgotten.

It is the same way with religion and Jesus too. In America, we have heard about Jesus and seen the movie, “The Ten Commandments”, so many times in our lives until we are going to be shocked when Moses doesn’t look like Charlton Heston! We have been on the receiving end of so much “movie propaganda” until much of the Bible and its stories play in some way when we read Scripture. I wonder…what does God think about our “video feeds” in Scripture?

Some of it may cause Him to laugh a bit. Some of it very likely causes a bit of concern, with the liberties  that have been taken with some of His stories. Some of them are actually lies made up to make money and have very little to show as being truthful in the telling of Scripture. In the past fifteen years or so, Christian films have done a bit better because people other than those in Hollywood were doing the filming.

You may be wondering why I am writing about this today? Mainly it is because of all of the so-called pundits who tell Christians that our faith is wrong! Some say we are too judgmental, some say we are not inclusive of others, we are too narrow-minded. Something that I have noticed in my eight years of Bible study, reading it from cover to cover, is that God doesn’t change! His rules and His ways are the same today as they were when He gave the Ten Commandments to Moses over four thousand years ago!

He is not politically correct and He doesn’t change to suit us! We either repent and humbly ask Him to change us into the image of Jesus or we are lost, it’s just that simple. Believe in Jesus and His redemption of you by His blood which was shed for your sins, no matter what those sins may be, then repent or turn away from those sins and don’t go back to them!

God’s redemption of you doesn’t take any work on your part except that of walking close to Jesus in repentance toward being more like Him before your life here is over. That is what Jesus meant when He said, “take up your cross daily and follow Me.” Determine to follow Him and not your old ways or the ways of your “friends”. When you feel the call in your heart from the Spirit, then choose to follow Him and leave the world and its ways behind!

Think about it this way: if you are on a path toward a destination and you take the first step, don’t stop and turn to go the other way, back where you came from. You will never get to that eternal destination if you do! Getting off of the path or turning back doesn’t take you in the right direction unless you are following Jesus.

Next


Weird title, huh? Mostly, to get attention but there is a good reason. Time itself is winding down according to prophecy…so what is next?

Read the Book! I am not saying this lightly because of the prophecies contained in God’s Word, the times which we are living in are there. It doesn’t say names or places exactly but the descriptions of the happenings in it sound very much like all of the troubles in the news today.

onebreathawayIt seems that many people are ignoring this today, mainly because there are many who don’t believe in God or His Word and the Truth contained within it. So much is told of this time until when you read parts of Daniel and Ezekiel and the book of Revelation, when you think about what you have read it sounds very much like the news that we hear weekly.

Yet, the churches and the news and the Pope don’t mention any of these things in their media clips talking about this time. Why? I believe that it is because of the amount of time which has transpired since the ascension of Jesus. Even though He said that He was returning, so much time has transpired until no one believes that it will happen in their lifetime.

Every day, week, months and years are going on just as it always has been, so why should anyone be expecting the end time prophecies to take place? As Solomon said in Ecclesiastes “there is nothing new under the sun“; so why should anyone worry that it will be different tomorrow or next week? God has given the whole world a grace period of almost two thousand years to learn of Him and to turn to Him in repentance and humility, yet they have not!

In those two millennia, mankind has seen fit to create for himself idols and ideas of “god” which do not fit Him as He is in the Bible. We have made Him into our own “gods”, even if we don’t have carved images of Him or our idea of what He is like. We worship those “ideas” of “god” which are not God. We have placed Him into a box which we like with things like, “my god wouldn’t send people to hell for this or that because he loves everyone” or “my god doesn’t condemn people because of their sexual orientation, he includes everyone in his church”!

Many churches and pastors today teach on these very topics and this is WRONG!! It is not Biblical at all! God hasn’t changed to allow sins and sinful people into His Presence and He will not change because God said that “I am the Lord and I change not“. Just because it is your opinion or idea that God is this way or that doesn’t make it so. God is god and His timing will bring about the end of the age whether you think it is coming or not!

Be ready in that day because when the trumpet sounds and the dead in Christ rise, then those who remain will be caught up with them to be with the Lord forever.

 

Romans 8


Romans chapter 8 has been called the most wonderful chapter in the Bible, mainly because it begins with a sentence saying “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus’. Why does this make a difference? Because by belonging to Christ, we are not condemned under the Law, and this applies to Gentiles and Jews.

Romans is a letter of Paul’s to the church in Rome to give them encouragement and to strengthen their faith in the One that they have believed in, Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God and our Savior. A believers freedom from the Law comes from Jesus’ incarnation and His sacrifice for sin and by the Holy Spirit’s operation in providing life. Jesus, being the Second of the Trinity and the Son, took on humanity. He did not cease to be God but took on human form without sin and became the perfect offering in order to fulfill the law’s demands in His life and death which broke sin’s power in the flesh on the cross.

Through the Spirit, a believer’s life can now be lived in a new way of life by loving as Christ did, through Christ, which fulfills the Law. Paul describes our struggle with “the old man”, which is our old nature and the “new man”, which is two different mindsets which we struggle with daily, sometimes with different outcomes. Depending upon which mindset you choose to follow on any given day.

Unregenerate people, those who haven’t accepted Christ, being hostile toward God and unable to submit to His law because they lack God’s Spirit, which makes submission possible. Christians live in a new realm because they have God’s Spirit dwelling within them. His Presence is the mark of Christ’s ownership. Your physical body will die because of the effects of sin, unless the Lord returns before your death. The pledge and promise of the Spirit is that He will raise us as He did Jesus, providing everlasting Life and righteousness.

Our freedom in Christ brings with it an obligation to subdue the sinfulness that is in the flesh because we have been changed by the Holy Spirit, decisively submitting the flesh to God as a living sacrifice to live daily in the spirit.

The leading of the Spirit of God is His providential sanctification. It is common to all adopted sons and it is constant. It will bring a believer to glory.The leading of the Spirit is not some mystical direction or ecstasy. It is the Spirit’s empowerment for mortification of our fleshly desires.

The Holy Spirit does not act as a spirit of bondage, but it is the means of our adoption into God’s family. By the Spirit we have a consciousness that God is our Father. It is a mark of a Christian to cry out to our Father in our prayer. The Spirit also gives us assurance of our salvation and our status in the family of God. We are joined to Christ in suffering by also in future blessing and destiny in Heaven. As He is in glory so will we be glorified with Him.

In verse 18, Paul wrote that our “light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

All of creation groans and has since the fall, but all will be restored in the regeneration. When we receive our freedom, the entire world will be changed. Christians only have a pledge of what is to come. We groan because of our fallen nature which is at war with our regenerate nature in Christ, which we have to conquer daily through Christ. One day our resurrected bodies will conform to the same glorification as Jesus’ glorified body.

In our weakness, we have the strength of the Holy Spirit and His intercession for us when we can’t say the words. Our Spirit agrees with the Holy Spirit and with groanings which are above words agrees with the Father on our behalf, saying things and asking for those things that we need even before we need them. The Spirit is also in agreement with the will of God for us and those prayers are always answered.

Who are those who love God? Those who have been called according to His purpose, the called are all Christians. The promise of this verse is that God orders everything for us so that all of life’s experiences work together for our ultimate good. Whether it may be good in and of itself, but God uses all of our circumstances for our good. Jesus taught that God’s sovereign care for and guidance of creation covers even the death of a sparrow and the hairs on our heads.

If God looks on even those minute details in our lives, don’t you think that He is interested in the things which many of us deny Him access to in our everyday lives because “we don’t think He needs to be part of it”?

Remember, we are more than conquerors through Christ! Once you have given your heart and life to Jesus and asked the Holy Spirit to take up residence in your life and your heart, there is NOTHING which can separate you from His love or from Him. Believe in Him and you shall be saved! Not maybe, not sometimes, but every time and for all time! Amen!

This is my sermon for tomorrow morning, I pray that it touches your heart and draws you closer to Jesus.

Think on this…


Shoes in Church
I showered and shaved……………. I adjusted my tie.

I got there and sat……………. In a pew just in time.

Bowing my head in prayer………… As I closed my eyes.

I saw the shoe of the man next to me……. Touching my own. I sighed.

With plenty of room on either side……… I thought, ‘Why must our soles touch?’

It bothered me, his shoe touching mine.. But it didn’t bother him much.

A prayer began: ‘Our Father’…………. I thought,
‘This man with the shoes, has no pride. They’re dusty, worn, and scratched.
Even worse, there are holes on the side!’

‘Thank You for blessings,’ the prayer went on.

The shoe man said…………….. A quiet ‘Amen.’

I tried to focus on the prayer……. But my thoughts were on his shoes again..

Aren’t we supposed to look our best. When walking through that door?

‘Well, this certainly isn’t it,’ I thought, glancing toward the floor.

Then the prayer was ended………… And the songs of praise began .

The shoe man was certainly loud….. Sounding proud as he sang.

His voice lifted the rafters…….. His hands were raised high.

The Lord could surely hear.. The shoe man’s voice from the sky.

It was time for the offering…….. And what I threw in was steep.

I watched as the shoe man reached…. Into his pockets so deep.

I saw what was pulled out………. What the shoe man put in.

Then I heard a soft ‘clink’ as when silver hits tin.

The sermon really bored me………. To tears, and that’s no lie.

It was the same for the shoe man… For tears fell from his eyes.

At the end of the service…….. As is the custom here.

We must greet new visitors, And show them all good cheer.

But I felt moved somehow……….. And wanted to meet the shoe man.

So after the closing prayer…….. I reached over and shook his hand.

He was old and his skin was dark….. And his hair was truly a mess…..

But I thanked him for coming………. For being our guest…

He said, ‘My name’s Charlie………… I’m glad to meet you, my friend.’

There were tears in his eyes……… But he had a large, wide grin..

‘Let me explain,’ he said…………. Wiping tears from his eyes.

‘I’ve been coming here for months…… And you’re the first to say ‘Hi.”

‘I know that my appearance………..Is not like all the rest.

‘But I really do try………………..To always look my best.’

‘I always clean and polish my shoes…Before my very long walk.’

‘But by the time I get here……..They’re dirty and dusty, like chalk.’

My heart filled with pain………… And I swallowed to hide my tears.

As he continued to apologize………. For daring to sit so near

He said, ‘When I get here………… I know I must look a sight.’

‘But I thought if I could touch you….Then maybe our souls might unite.’

I was silent for a moment…………. Knowing whatever was said

Would pale in comparison…. I spoke from my heart, not my head.

‘Oh, you’ve touched me,’ I said…….’And taught me, in part’

‘That the best of any man…………..Is what is found in his heart.’

The rest, I thought,…………… This shoe man will never know.

Like just how thankful I really am…. That his dirty old shoe touched my soul

Live each day as your last, for we never know our time here on earth. Love and Peace My Friends and remember that it is not how we look on the outside but how we look within .

I saw this on Facebook and just wanted to share it with you.

Prayer…does it work?


Does prayer work? Yes, it absolutely does work! Praying for healing or comfort and just a better day or week than you had last week all work and God answers them IF you have faith that He will answer your prayers. Faith and belief go together, you can’t have one without the other and when your belief and faith are strongest is when your Christian life is usually better and more productive.

Jesus prayed every day. Many days He prayed more than once, whether it was for a healing or for strength or even for lunch, He always prayed to God for these things. Thanking Him for His gracious mercy and love and asking for something specific, not just a general blessing. If you read the gospels, Jesus never prayed in a general way. He always asked for something specific, such as multiplying the fish and the five loaves or for a blind man to receive his sight.

We tend to ask God to bless us, but we don’t ask for a specific blessing such as health or prosperity. Most of us just ask for His blessing on our life and then wonder why we didn’t get what we wanted or needed at the time. God knows what you need but He wants you to ask Him for it. Also, God bases His answers on needs more than wants, necessary things rather than luxury items.

He gives us our air and water and the ability to earn a living wage so all of this is part of the blessing which we already have from Him. Prayer is our link to the Creator for our comfort and our blessing in ways that those who don’t know Him can’t understand. It is the most reliable wireless service available to us and yet many people don’t make use of it.

We muddle our way through life, thinking that we can make it without God or His help. But, when life or some other circumstance throws a curve ball in our direction then we cry out to God. Sometimes we do it the first time this happens, sometimes we wait until there is no human alternative and we have to seek Him for our help. If you are wondering what the point of this missive is, it is this: God listens to your soul, if you belong to Him but He would like to hear from you too.

Just as human parents know what their children need, we would like to hear their dreams and their ambitions, their aspirations for a life away from home but we would like to stay connected to them too. That is the kind of relationship which God desires from us. Not a once per week visit for an hour or so. Not a once every year visit on the day that the resurrection of His Son is celebrated. God desires to be in your life, in your day and your nights, in your family, in your business and in your work!

It is a daily walk with Him that is most fulfilling, not just a weekly or yearly visit. I mean, how would you feel if that is all your wife or husband was around you or if that was the only time your children came to visit? It would not be much of a relationship at all, would it?

Seek His Kingdom and His presence daily because that is the best way to live a life of love and compassion toward others and with your Creator too.

Forgiveness


This is a subject that many people, including me, have a hard time with. I don’t really have a hard time forgiving others who may have hurt me in the past, but forgiving myself is another thing altogether. It is also hard to fathom forgiving someone who has abused children or even killed children, especially yours or someone else’s. I know that God can do this and if we truly follow His teachings and give our hearts to Jesus and let Him forgive others through us, then maybe that forgiveness is possible.

But, forgiving myself for some wrong that I know that I did in the past is a hard thing to do sometimes. God does tell us to let Him have our hearts and He will wash away those pains and hurts which happened in the past. But, it still takes some effort on our part to truly forgive either myself or someone else.

By effort I mean that we have to pray and ask Him to help us to forgive completely because we can’t do it on our own. Depending upon the hurt or the pain caused, forgiveness is one of the hardest parts of being a Christian. Forgiveness of other people as well as forgiving our own behavior from times past.

Please, seek forgiveness from God for your own sins, mistakes, and anything else you have done. He provided the grace and mercy for you on the cross through Jesus, all that you need to do is accept it as the gift that it is and learn to forgive. Sometimes that learning curve can take a while, so seek Him daily.

Restraint


I read an article recently on American Family Association’s website about the most amazing thing about Jesus. It wasn’t referring to His power or His glory or the fact that He gave Himself as the one and only sacrifice needed to pay for ALL of humanity’s sins. It was speaking of His restraint. I am not going to quote from the article since I placed a link to it in the fourth word/link above, but I must say that I have never considered this point before.

Featured Image -- 3119The reason for His restraint of course is that He did not and He does not have a human nature even though He was born to a human woman. His nature is God’s nature. Therefore, when we think of what we would do in a particular situation and compare it to Him, it really doesn’t apply. What we would do with that kind of power would be destructive, but we are talking about the Creator! When God spoke, the Son created!

A thought or even a word from Him in any of His situations during the night and day of His scourging and crucifixion could’ve saved Him pain and anguish and death, but He chose to endure it because of His love for us! So, the incarnate Word of God could’ve saved Himself at any time but He didn’t. That is the part of His actions and His life which we just can’t understand. Our human mind and our nature just can’t imagine going through this with the power that He possessed. Thankfully, Jesus was as much God as He was human and He chose to follow God’s directions in everything that He did.

He still is doing this because until God tells Him to come get the Bride of Christ, He will stay in Heaven on the throne. We serve a risen Savior Who used His power as the Father told Him to when He was here the first time, but when He comes back He will be the Lion of the tribe of Judah! The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords! His anger and His judgement will be coming with Him at that time and the whole world will know it. Amen!

Jesus in the Old and the New Testaments


God saysTo show how much God wanted us to see His Son in Scripture, just look to the Psalms:


1. The Messiah will be rejected by Gentiles (Psalm 2:1; Acts 4:25–28).
2. Political/religious leaders will conspire against the Messiah (Psalm 2:2 Matthew 26:3–4; Mark 3:6).
3. The Messiah will be King of the Jews (Psalm 2:6; John 12:12–13; 18:32).
4. The Messiah will be the Son of God (Psalm 2:7a; Luke 1:31–35; Matthew 3:16–17; Hebrews 1:5–6).
5. The Messiah will reveal that He is the Son of God (Psalm 2:7b; John 9:35–37).
6. The Messiah will be raised from the dead and be crowned King (Psalm 2:7c; Acts 13:30–33; Romans 1:3–4).
7. The Messiah will ask God for His inheritance (Psalm 2:8a; John 17:4–24).
8. The Messiah will have complete authority over all things (Psalm 2:8b; Matthew 28:18; Hebrews 1:1–2).
9. The Messiah will not acknowledge those who do not believe in Him (Psalm 2:12; John 3:36).
10. Infants will give praise to the Messiah (Psalm 8:2; Matthew 21:15–16).
11. The Messiah will have complete authority over all things (Psalm 8:6; Matthew 28:18).
12. The Messiah will be resurrected (Psalm 16:8–10a; Matthew 28:6; Acts 2:25–32).
13. The Messiah’s body will not see corruption (natural decay) (Psalm 16:8–10b; Acts 13:35–37).
14. The Messiah will be glorified into the presence of God (Psalm 16:11; Acts 2:25–33).
15. The Messiah will come for all people (Psalm 18:49; Ephesians 3:4–6).
16. The Messiah will cry out to God (Psalm 22:1a; Matthew 27:46).
17. The Messiah will be forsaken by God at His crucifixion (Psalm 22:1b; Mark 15:34).
18. The Messiah will pray without ceasing before His death (Psalm 22:2; Matthew 26:38–39).
19. The Messiah will be despised and rejected by His own (Psalm 22:6; Luke 23:21–23).
20. The Messiah will be made a mockery (Psalm 22:7; Matthew 27:39).
21. Unbelievers will say to the Messiah, “He trusted in God, let Him now deliver Him” (Psalm 22:8; Matthew 27:41–43).
22. The Messiah will know His Father from childhood (Psalm 22:9; Luke 2:40).
23. The Messiah will be called by God while in the womb (Psalm 22:10; Luke 1:30–33).
24. The Messiah will be abandoned by His disciples (Psalm 22:11; Mark 14:50).
25. The Messiah will be encompassed by evil spirits (Psalm 22:12–13; Colossians 2:15).

The last ten references to Psalm 22 refer to His arrest and crucifixion, this Psalm was written many centuries before crucifixion was ever used as a form of torture and death, but it describes it very literally. The Holy Spirit gave this Psalm to David and I am sure he wondered what did all of this mean. What it means to us is that God had already planned for this before the birth of Jesus or Mary or Joseph.

Nothing in our world happens without His hand in it or knowledge of it. Does God cause all of these bad things which happen to people, good or bad? No, but HE allows them to happen to bring His Glory into people’s lives as they turn to Him for answers! Satan’s time is running out and he knows it, so all of the evil and vile things that people are doing to each other and the torture which is going on in areas of the Middle East is all caused by or prompted by him and his demons and spirits.

God allows it to happen because it is part of the prophetic time-line which He saw thousands of years ago and He has known about it from even before the world was created. These things will happen without our involvement, including the melting of ice in the Arctic or the Antarctic as well as the storms and earthquakes which seem to be getting out of control…like things are coming apart.

Seek out your Creator and He can save your soul because He has already paid the price for you, all you need to do is believe in Him, in Jesus, and your eternity will be much better than the alternative.

What about today?


 

Today I woke without much pain.

Today, I thanked God for this blessing and for my friends and family.

Today, I will read God’s Word and learn from the Source of Truth.

Today, I feel His Presence all around me.

Today is the day that I will die to self and live for Him.

This is a poem, not designed to impress anyone or cause anyone to think about themselves. It is only for a daily walk with God. The words speak of a daily acknowledgement of God and His Presence in your life and mine. Some days, the first line may read like this: I woke up hurting all over, and I thanked God that I am alive to serve Him one more day.

Decide what your day will be like and how you will live it with Him, because you may only have today to do so.

I am adding to this on the last day of April, just as I wrote this on the first day. Time and age happen to us all, some of us feel it a bit more than we should or rather much earlier than we should. But, that is the way that it goes almost every day. One hour at a time, one minute at a time, life and time move at the same rate no matter who is doing the counting.

So, what is your time like today? Your life? Is it what you thought it would be? For many of us, our thoughts and dreams are far behind us now and very likely will never come to pass. The golden age of dreams for many in America was during the ‘50’s through much of the ‘70’s. Although it was also during those years that many conflicts arose in the culture of America.

Between races and even between men and women and their rights as separate but equal partners in life. The decision of allowing legal abortions also came through the Supreme Court of our land and has been a blight on life ever since. It doesn’t matter what your stance on this decision might be, it falls on the wrong side of life itself. Why do I say this? Because it is wrong to kill another human being, especially when it is a child that isn’t even out of the womb yet and can’t defend itself!

This so-called “right” is defended in the name of giving a woman a choice with her life, such as whether she wants to raise a child or not. If that were the case, then why is the child always referred to as a “clump of cells” and not a child or a baby? Consider what you are doing before causing this life to grow within you the way that God designed it to do!

God does love each of us and He is the Author and finisher of our life and our faith. Our choices in this life also affect our eternity for good or for evil and it is your choice which sends you in one direction or the other. God doesn’t toss you into the lake of fire or “allow” you into Heaven because of your good works in this life or what you did wrong in this life. It is your decision of belief in Jesus and His work, and His atonement for you which decides your eternal destination.

Today make that choice of learning to follow Jesus, learn more about Him, seek Him out in God’s Word and ask Him to come into your life. Because it is only in this life, while we are breathing, that the decision can be made. When your life is over, the decision is sealed and so is your fate and destination.