Category: Choose Christ

A successful life


Can you live a Christian life today and be a success? Yes, if you live according to the Word of God. We are to renounce our “old ways” of living and turn our eyes and our hearts toward Jesus and living His way. What does that mean exactly? Here is what God told Moses during the Exodus from Egypt beginning in Deuteronomy 10:12-13

12And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, 13To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?

Some of you might say to me “But that’s in the Old Testament, we don’t have to follow those rules now!” Why not? God hasn’t changed. It is only our perception of Him which has changed. We try to make Him into a “politically correct” god but He is God and He doesn’t change…not for you or for me or anyone else in the world!

In order for us to be forgiven and live a Christian life we are supposed to live according to His Word and follow Him every day of our lives until our death or until He calls us to Himself. It is not negotiable and He doesn’t conform to our ideas of Who He is! Until we realize that there will be many standing in that day saying “Lord, did we not prophesy in your Name?“

Make sure of your relationship with Jesus now while there is a chance because if you are one who is saying those words in His Presence and He says, “depart from Me, for I never knew you.”; it will be too late to change anything about your salvation or lack of it at that time.

Make sure of what you believe and in Whom you believe.

What are you?


Most of us who write these Christian blogs are or we consider ourselves to be…well, Christians. Most of us likely attend church on a fairly regular schedule and we study our Bibles but there is still a question that we need to be answered and that is: What are we? Are we really the church or do we just attend a service at church?

After Pentecost, the people who had been baptized and had believed Peter’s message had “all things in common” and no one was in need. If there was a need then it was met in whatever way was necessary. So why do most services feel like speeches about being a “good Christian” and there are needs in the community which go unmet? Is it because we don’t know how to be “the church” anymore or are we afraid of being the church?

I am not sure where we, as a group of believers, actually fall in the description of Jesus’ church. We are not perfect people. We are sinners saved by the Grace and Mercy of God through Jesus! Do we make mistakes or stumble in our lives? YES! But…we know it when we do and we confess it and ask our Father to forgive us for the fall or the stumble and then get up and keep going. Being the church is something which Jesus showed His disciples how to do and we have that example in the gospels. All we need to do is go out and live it in front of people every day, one day at a time.

Is it easy to do? I wouldn’t say it is easy, especially when you have just given your heart to Jesus. But, like everything else, it gets easier with practice and study of God’s Word and time. We don’t come up from our baptism knowing everything. We have to learn from God each step of the way, one verse at a time, then a chapter and then a book and then the rest of His Word. Then…read it again and pray about it and learn from it.

Being a Christian is a life-long process. The disciples only had three years or so with Him but they meditated on His teachings and God’s Word for the rest of their lives. So we should follow their example and do the very same thing. Be the church which Jesus wanted us to be, taking care of those in need of food and shelter but also helping them to find their Savior by showing Him to them with whatever our lives can show of our own “working out our salvation” because it is a daily process.

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.

The end of the Age


Learning about this from our Lord Jesus Christ is easy, just read Matthew 24 or the book of Revelation. But…how many will believe what they read? There are many who don’t think that the Bible is even trustworthy much less the actual Word of God. My point is that we are truly living at the end of the age. Look at the news and watch everything that is going on around us. Then, read Jesus’ words in Matthew 24 and at the beginning of the book of Revelation. See how much of it actually does sound like it came from the news today, then make your decision.

Have you trusted Jesus as your Savior? If you haven’t then you need to seek Him for your very soul depends upon it! God cares for and loves each of us, even when we are sinners. He knows which ones of us will hear His call on their lives and those who will hear it and ignore it. But you need to be seeking Him to find Him and that is what this post is about.

Eternity is ahead of you regardless of your eternal destination although you do have a choice of where you will spend eternity. God doesn’t send you into hell, that is your decision because it is due to your rejection of Jesus as your Savior. Whenever you feel the call on your heart to give your life to Him, please don’t turn away from Him. Remember, He paid the price for your sins and mine but it is up to you to accept Him as your Savior.

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.

Humanist utopia


This is the very ideal which “Star Trek” was pushing a little over fifty years ago. We are not even close to any kind of utopia at this point, anywhere on Earth, but this is what people would like to see. Will it ever happen? In my lifetime…I doubt it unless Jesus comes back soon and sets up His Kingdom as it is described in the book of Revelation. Humanity is not able to be like those portrayed in the Federation which Gene Roddenberry imagined. There are too many cultural and political differences in our world and in the nations of the world to achieve any utopia without Jesus.

It doesn’t matter how far we go technologically, that advancement won’t bring about a Utopian society because it can’t do away with our differences. We can’t do away with our differences because of our cultural hangups and our own pride which tends to get in the way. While it is true that many of the truths which we hold near and dear to our hearts either can’t be proven scientifically or logically but neither can the theory about evolution. Our only proof of life on this planet is the fact that there is so much of it on our planet.

God placed each of us here with a purpose in His mind which many of us seem to ignore or rather we just don’t care what it is. His purpose for each of us is that we learn to serve Him and His Kingdom by becoming more like Jesus. The problem which most people have with that is this: “I want to do it MY way!”

We are like children who are spoiled and who don’t want to listen to God or learn His ways from His Word, the Bible. Even though Christianity has been around a long time and has survived the many times that it has been outlawed or threatened there are many people in the world today who just don’t want it to be taken as the truth! They don’t want to acknowledge that it is absolutely the Truth because if they did they would have to give a reason for why they don’t live by it!

Humanity doesn’t want any kind of absolute moral compass to guide them. They only want to be their own guide and have their own rules, but the problem with that is that there will never be any lasting peace in the world while each person clings to their version of “truth”. That’s like allowing each person to make up their own laws and only abide by their individual laws, the world would be without rule and utterly without redemption or hope!

It is very true that we like the ideal which states that mankind can overcome his most basic instincts and become better than he is now but it won’t happen. The society portrayed in science fiction was only that way because every person on the planet could use a fictional machine to create as much food and clothing and wealth (gold). While that might bring about more equality between people and countries there would still be the issue of pride and greed.

The only way that the world will be in harmony and peace will be during the reign of Jesus for the one thousand years which God has foretold will come. Since God cannot tell a lie this will happen but until that day an ideal society with equality and opportunity for everyone will not happen just because we feel that it should.

Seek Him for your salvation while there is time to do so.

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.