Does Jesus know you?

In America the polls show that around 80% of the population claim to be Christians but are they really? I mean that there are many people who truly claim and believe that they are Christians. But…what if it came down to a life or death scenario where your faith would be the deciding factor of whether you lived another day? Would you still hold to your faith in Jesus or would you choose to follow another man claiming to be “god”?

It is a tough question and it isn’t one which very many people have even considered in their lifetime. Some of them may not even know that the gospel and Jesus’ sacrifice for their sins is even contained in the Bible! There are many in the so-called “Bible belt” who have been in church ever since they could walk or even before then. Those who fit in this group think that they are Christians because they have been in church all of their lives.

Jesus told His disciples that “many will say to me in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

Belief in Jesus and doing many works in His name are great things to do but if you don’t have a relationship with Him so that you know Him and He knows you, then He will say “Depart from Me because I never knew you“.

Knowing about Jesus and being on the “roll” of the church does nothing to bring you righteousness. Belief in Who He is and having faith in Him for your salvation begins a relationship with Him that should last for the rest of your life on Earth and into eternity! Going through the motions and sitting in the pew every Sunday does nothing for your eternal salvation except it exposes you to the teaching of God’s Word, if you attend a Bible teaching church. If you don’t then you are likely hearing the “wisdom” of a man with a few religious sounding words thrown in.

As Paul wrote, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,”. Many churches are like that today. Their “preachers” teach them more of man’s wisdom than they do from God’s Word. This is the reason that there will be many on that day who will think they are saved but they will find that their “salvation” is false and hollow…but it will be too late.

I pray that many who read this will search Jesus out and find a Bible teaching church so that they can learn from God’s Word directly and not hear the foolish wisdom of a man.

Survivor or Saint?

Do you live and work in this world just to survive or are you a saved and sanctified saint of Jesus the Messiah? Surviving isn’t really living. It is just existing from one paycheck to the next getting by on the “stuff” which the money of this world can get for you. But what will you do at the end of your life? Survive what exactly? Will you continue on into eternity with Jesus or will you survive into eternity with Satan and his demons? All of these are valid questions but do you know for sure about your answer?

Many people in our world just think that they know the answer because they have been to Bible school and they belong to the church that their parents belong to. They try to go to church at least once or twice a month, maybe. Some only make it to church when they feel like it or on the holidays like Easter and Christmas. How long would your relationship with your spouse last if you only visited for an hour every week or only once or twice a year? That isn’t a relationship at all if you only visit a couple of times every year.

When Jesus called you into a relationship with Him it really was supposed to be a lifetime relationship not just a once in a while visit! His disciples wouldn’t have learned much from Him at all if He had only taught them once or twice each year.

God cares about all of us but He knows which ones will answer when He touches their heart. I pray that many of you who haven’t made that decision will make it and choose to have a daily relationship with Jesus and repent of your sins and follow Him.

What child is this?

I know this sounds like it should be about the birth of Jesus but it isn’t. In our country and all over the world today there are children who have been sent by their Creator to bless someone’s life with the joy of becoming a parent. In our world today children are in danger before they are born because of the number of abortions that are done in America and around the world. While it is true that some pregnancies may be “unplanned” due to rape or incest or prostitution, these children are gifts from God. There are many couples who would love to adopt a baby if the child is not wanted or the mother cannot take care of them. So why isn’t this option given to women who want to get rid of their “problem”?

God allows us to make all sorts of crazy choices in our lives and some of them are really hard to believe. In the Old Testament, worshipers of Baal and Moloch gave their children to be sacrificed in flames to their gods. Today we sacrifice unborn children to our “gods” of convenience and freedom. What a waste. Since abortion became legal in 1973 there have been millions of babies killed for these “gods”. I have heard and read many of the arguments about the reasoning behind this and it sickens me. Women are told that those are just blobs of cells and they don’t feel anything. “Those cells are just a parasite inside your body”; really?

Were you just a parasite in your mom’s body until you were born? I don’t think so! I saw my son’s sonogram picture at about 12 weeks and he was a fully formed baby. Very small for sure but he had fingers and toes and ears. That is not a blob of cells! I am going to see the movie, “Unplanned“, tomorrow and I pray if there are any who are wondering about whether that is a child inside you or not then please see this film and decide for yourself. Jesus loves the little children and He would not condone the murder of millions of them. (My plans have changed but I still believe that people need to see this film).

Jesus loves each of us as well and I pray for all who read this to seek Him out and ask Him to be your Savior. Time is growing short and there are no second chances when it comes to your salvation so get it now while you can.

Make sure of your thoughts

Numbers 6: 22-27

22 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 23 Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them,
24 The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: 25 The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: 26 The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace. 27 And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them.

This is the blessing which God commanded Moses to give to Aaron which he spoke to Israel as a blessing from God. Since we are adopted into God’s family through the blood of Jesus, we can also claim this blessing as we go about our lives following the Lord and serving Him in our daily living.

God will be with us and bless us as we do those things which are pleasing to Him but if we turn away from Him and go our own way do things in our own strength and our counsel then God will not bless those things which we are doing. He is a loving God but He is also jealous of our service and our devotion to Him. Which is why Christians are put to the test when we think we are doing what is right for Him but it is only right because we are doing it in our strength and not under His direction.

God loves each of us and He will test us and try our faith in Him to prove it and make it stronger. If we are not walking with Him we may be tried because of it. We will not be killed or hurt in this, but we may go through trials and pain because of our walking the path without Him. Being obedient to Jesus and to His teachings, just as His disciples and followers were, is a requirement which has not changed and because He hasn’t changed our obedience to Him should not change either.

Although there are times when we think we are hearing His voice when it is a demon or Satan speaking in our mind and convincing us that it is from the Lord. Remember, Satan has had many years to perfect his craft of deceit and lies and he can make it sound very convincing to our minds. Our enemy is very subtle and crafty and he can fool even those who know the Lord and His voice.

We must try these words which come to us and make sure that they are from our Lord before we act upon them. Any leading from a thought or during prayer which doesn’t acknowledge God or Jesus as Savior and Lord did not come from the Lord, so be careful of what you listen to in music or in your own mind and especially on TV.

A word from the Lord can come to us in a time of meditation on His Word but even then we should test it to make sure of its meaning and where it comes from. Making sure of the words and their meaning and whether they actually come from God’s Word as well. This is the only way to prove them before we act upon them and carry them to others by writing or by proclamation (preaching).

God wants to bless us for our obedience and our loyalty to Him but we must be careful to test any leading that we have and make sure that it is from God and doesn’t contradict His Word or even may be similar to His Word but is changed just enough to make it of none effect. This is the kind of deception which comes from Satan and he will tempt Christians and nonbelievers alike with it. By taking a word out or changing it so that the verse doesn’t mean the same as it did, this is what some “false teachers” are doing today. I pray that all who read this will test what they hear from any teacher who claims to be a Christian to make sure of its truth.

How can you tell the difference?

When someone shows you a fake or counterfeit dollar bill can you spot the difference? What about a false “gospel”? The only way to be able to tell the difference is to know what the Real One looks like or sounds like. There is no person on Earth who can perform miracles like Jesus did yet some try to fool people today into believing that they are “the Christ” reincarnated. Unfortunately in today’s world there are many people who will believe them and follow them.

But, you can’t just have “head knowledge” or you will be fooled. Reading the Bible is great but reading it with your Spiritual eyes and heart together is something totally different. If you are reading it with your eyes and you haven’t accepted Jesus as your Savior then you are only seeing information on a page. When your Spirit and your soul are involved together with prayer while reading God’s Word, the Spirit teaches you in ways that your brain just can’t understand!

When you have His Spirit living in your heart, as Jesus said “He will guide you and teach you about Me“. Only with the Spirit living in your heart can you truly understand the wisdom in the Bible regardless of which translation you may use. God loves you and He will teach you through His Word, but you have to pick it up and read it. Pray that God will come into your life and bring salvation to you because it is only through Jesus that eternity can be gained.

Carnal Christian…

Have you ever heard that term before? I have and I have used it to describe myself in years past. The definition of carnal is: relating to physical, especially sexual, needs and activities. It can also mean that you are a “Christian” just because you claim to be and nothing more. What exactly does that mean? It means that you are NOT a Christian, you just claim to be because you have morals, meaning that you haven’t killed anyone.

It also means that if you died tonight you would be judged by God for being a liar and a sinner and for rejecting the grace offered to you through the blood of Jesus. You would be sent to hell. “Well, I’ve been in church since I was two years old. My Mom teaches Sunday school and my Dad is a deacon!” So what? All that proves is that you have been in church more than most have and you have heard the message of salvation through the acceptance and belief in Jesus as your Savior. The problem is not that you weren’t exposed to His message and the Truth of the Good News. Your problem and the problem of many in America is that you have heard the message but you haven’t taken it to heart and accepted Jesus. You haven’t repented of your sinful life either!

You went to church. You may even have been baptized, but without a change in your life and acceptance of Jesus as your Savior…you went right back to your life. Nothing changed! You cannot meet Jesus and give Him your heart in repentance and then turn back to the “same old way of life”. There never was a change in your life if you did.

Being a Christian is more than attending church or Sunday school and getting baptized. When God’s Holy Spirit touches your heart and lets you know that your life isn’t good enough to be allowed in heaven then you know that you NEED Jesus! Have you felt that? Do you know that you truly need Jesus as your Savior? Or do you think of yourself in the same way as the Pharisee’s did? I worship God and I pray at least once or twice a week and I give some money to the church, so I’m not a bad person.

Maybe you aren’t a bad person but you also aren’t sanctified and saved by His blood and your repentance either. What am I suggesting here? Seek out your Savior and make sure of your salvation. Read the book of Romans in the New Testament and the book of John, then if you don’t feel the conviction of God’s Holy Spirit just put the book down and walk away. I feel certain that after reading those books and praying about your salvation, you will feel the need for your Savior. I will be praying for all who read this.

Different viewpoints, one view

I have been listening to different preachers and reading books by some others. Some of them were written in the 1700’s and some books were written by pastors in the early and middle twentieth century. Jonathan Edwards, C.H. Spurgeon, C.S. Lewis, A.W. Tozer and Billy Graham are a few of those whose books I have read in the past eight years. There are two things which all of them have in common, their love for Jesus Christ and their view of the world around them. You may want to ask me”How can this be?”, many years separate their viewpoint in history!

While that is true, the view of the world and its problems is still centered on the Word of God and from that point of view humanity really hasn’t changed all that much. From the time of Noah over three thousand years before Christ was born until today mankind has mostly gone their own way. Some do listen to God’s Word and His laws and precepts for living in His Grace, but they are few in comparison to the rest of the world. Most of the world around us, in America and in other countries, wants to get rid of the Truth of God and His Word. You know I’m right about this because you can hear it on the news every day.

Humanity has not changed in thousands of years. We are rebellious and we want our own way and we will not obey the Lord’s laws or even man’s laws, if we can get away with it. The truth contained within God’s Word is absolute and that is unacceptable to humanity in everything that we do. No one is willing to be obedient to parents or teachers or to laws in whatever land they may live. This is the very reason that so much violence is seen all over the world today.

No, there has been no real change in mankind’s ways since the days of Noah. In some ways, possibly, we are less hateful or less violent but I would say not by much. Our news media relates how we hurt and kill each other with guns and machete and knives and drugs today. We have many different ways of killing each other and yet very little remorse is seen in the faces of the people. Even unborn children are in dangerous places because of the laws which have been passed to allow women to kill their children before they are even born. Millions have died in the years since the law was passed in 1973 which legalized it in America and many other countries have followed right along with us.

Looking at the world around us from the viewpoint of the Bible and its laws gives the same picture of humanity regardless of when you live. Nothing has really changed. We are still killing each other, there is sexual immorality in almost every community, people don’t seem to consider what the Bible says about how we should live or act toward one another. The few who do read and listen to Biblical teaching on a regular basis at least try to live a life which is pleasing to God. Some of us try too hard to do so on our own without His Spirit’s teaching and leading so we stumble and fall more than we should, but we consider that as “our humanity” winning out over the Spirit.

God gives each of us a measure of faith and of His Spirit so that we can walk a pleasing walk before Him but many of us don’t listen to His voice and we just fall anyway without thinking of the consequences. We may not feel the consequences of our falling but what about your children or grandchildren? They watch you and listen to you so that they can learn from you. Are they hearing and seeing those things which Jesus would do or is it just your “humanity” that is showing them how to do it the wrong way? Consider this and leave a comment or share it with your friends.

What do I need to do?

This is a question which many people ask when they feel the need for salvation but they have never been introduced to their Savior. Truthfully, there is not much that you need to do to obtain salvation because most of the “work” has been taken care of by Jesus Himself. When you feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit and you realize that you need to repent and change your life, your only option is to believe that the atonement has been bought for you by Jesus. Believe and repent of your sins, turn away from your “old life” and follow Jesus into a new life which will never really end!

From the point of your repentance and your acceptance of Jesus as your Savior you have a new life and a new purpose and that is to tell others about your Savior so they can meet Him and get to know Him. Life for you and anyone who accepts Jesus as their Savior will never really end, you will just transition from this life into eternity. That is the best way to describe it because death just sounds too final and for someone who is serving Jesus and has accepted Him as their Savior, the end of this life is really the beginning of your real Life! This life is just a sort of “practice” for the next one so make sure to learn everything that you can about God and His Son while you are here.

When you pass through the door which leads to eternity you won’t need to learn more about Him because at that point you will “know and be known“. Life in eternity will be different and wonderful and beyond anything on Earth that we can imagine. I cannot imagine what it will be like to be in His Presence. It will likely be a feeling and an experience which doesn’t have an equal here and the grandeur and majesty of Heaven will be so far above anything that we know until any description of it would be futile in the attempt.

God has provided a way for you and I and anyone else who feels the conviction of His Spirit to know Jesus as our Savior if we will believe in Him and the atonement which He provided and paid for on the cross. Don’t turn the chance for eternity with Him down. Please accept His Presence in your heart and in your life while there is time. Because you can only make that decision in this life, so make the right one.

Are you righteous?

There are pious people and there are pretenders and even some who are “self-righteous”, like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. Are you righteous? If you are not born-again into the body of Christ you are not. No person on Earth has a sinless righteousness because only one Person ever achieved that and He sits at the right of God the Father. Our righteousness is as “filthy rags” and only fit to be burned in the heap of garbage outside the city. There is not one truly righteous person on Earth, not even the Pope because our righteousness is worthless unless we have salvation through Jesus and are in His righteousness.

Without the imputed righteousness of Jesus, which we have if we are saved through faith in Him, anything that we accomplish in the flesh is nothing. No matter how much good we do or how much we accomplish in this life, if it is without Jesus and done by His direction and for His Kingdom then it means nothing.

Being a part of the Christian Life takes faith in Jesus and your repentance from your sins. Not just talk or emotional feelings during a revival service. People can act like a Christian and go through the motions sometimes all the way to seminary and being the pastor of a large church and still not be a Christian. How is this possible? By doing all of the things that they have seen others do and say but not really giving their heart to Jesus and really changing their lives! If there hasn’t been a change in your soul, your heart then there really hasn’t been a change from being the person that you were.

That is what the conviction of the Holy Spirit brings to the table, so to speak. He convicts you of your need for salvation and then God places the faith in your heart to accept Jesus as your Savior so you can have a change in your heart which brings true salvation to you. There is no amount of money or education which can bring salvation into your life by learning about Jesus.

You could have a doctorate in Theology and be able to quote the Bible from the beginning to the end and if you have never accepted Jesus into your heart and repented of your sinful life, then you have the knowledge of salvation but not the fruit of it. Knowing about something or Someone doesn’t mean that you know them or even that they know you. If you aren’t known by Jesus then eternity will be a very different experience for you. Make sure of your salvation in Jesus Christ so that you can say with Paul: “Give your life as a living sacrifice to God“.

Who is God?

That is a crazy question isn’t it? He is our Creator and our Savior. So why do we tend to move away from Him? Probably for the save reason that Israel did when they were in the wilderness, they were sinners just like we are. We have our own ideas of how to serve God or not and sometimes our ideas just don’t follow Him the way that we should. Even when the disciples followed Jesus there were some who were more dedicated to what He taught, more in tune with His message than others. Some of us just don’t get it and some do but they want to follow Him their way.

There is a problem with trying to follow Jesus or God on your own path though. For one thing, it won’t work. Making your own path but following God doesn’t work because God’s path is not your path. He leads you not the other way around. How far would a herd of sheep get if the shepherd walked behind them? They wouldn’t go anywhere. That is why God spoke of us as His sheep. Our ideas and our ways are not His ways but in order to follow Him and learn from Him we have to follow Him every day!

God is our Savior and our Shepherd in this life so that we can get to our eternal Life. The pathway goes where God leads us, not in the direction which feels comfortable all of the time. There could be some rocks and some thorns and the path may be a bit steep and narrow but as long as we are following the Shepherd that knows the path from one end to the other then we will get to our destination.

God is the Creator of everything and even if you don’t believe that, even science is beginning to show that life would not be possible if it weren’t for the finely tuned physical processes in the universe. I can’t go into the many different things which are part of that fine-tuning but there are a few that many of you know about. Like the distance which Earth orbits our Sun and the rotation of the Earth. Both are exactly the amounts which life on Earth needs. Any deviation in distance or rotation speed and life might be possible but it wouldn’t be the way it is now. These did not happen by “a lucky strike of another planet” or by chance.

God had a hand in Creation!

I know there are many people who don’t believe the Bible is true, but I do believe that God gave the details of Creation to Moses while he was with Him on the mountain. How else would Moses have known? Read it, learn about Him and how HE brought everything into being, then seek Him out as your Savior. He provided a way for your salvation so all you have to do is seek Him out for it. I pray that you will.