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.

Are you in a wilderness?

There are days when we find ourselves lost or at least groping around for the way out of wherever we are. Sometimes it is figurative and sometimes it is a spiritual wilderness without trails or road signs or any other clues about the way out. When you feel like this, what do you turn to for help? Who do you turn to for guidance?

Image result for God's word as a compass A person who is on a hike in an area where they have never been before will usually take a guide or at least a compass so they can find a bearing or the trail which will lead them from one place to another. When we are spiritually lost, most of us don’t even know that we are until God touches our heart and lets us know. Until that time we won’t look for Him nor will we seek to know Him because we don’t feel the need for a Savior.

So, are you lost in a wilderness of your own creation? Do you feel like something isn’t like it should be in your life? Many of us who were lost and away from Jesus, even if we didn’t know about Him, have always felt an emptiness as if something was missing. Many of us have tried alcohol or drugs or sex or who know what else to fill that empty place, but it is never filled. We may feel better or happy for a time but when we come out of the high…the empty place remains. Many times this is why people become addicted to drugs because they are trying to keep that feeling of fullness of joy and peace.

The problem is that no man-made drug or high of any kind will ever fill that space because it is only filled by the Holy Spirit of God when you accept Jesus as your Savior. Then you will be free of the empty feeling and you will belong to Jesus because He can make you whole again. All of us are born with a place in our soul which feels empty and sometimes we don’t find out what fits in that place until we meet Jesus. Only He can make you whole and give your life a True Purpose through Him.

Your job and your family may fulfill your life in many ways but without Him in your heart working in step with Him to really fulfill His purpose in your life, even those will be only a shadow of what they could be. Being saved by Jesus’ Spirit and believing in Him for your salvation is the greatest decision you will ever make in this life. Everything else falls into place after that.

While giving your life to Jesus will not make your life perfect it will give you the strength and the ability to seek His Wisdom for your decisions for the rest of your life. The Bible is the best “self-help” book ever written and it does have many words of wisdom for business and life too. Don’t believe the lie of Satan or the rest of the world which tells you that it is an old outdated book with nothing in it for today! Its wisdom is useful for today and tomorrow on into eternity.

The Bible, God’s Word, is the best and most useful “compass” for this life and every situation that can be found. No other book has the Wisdom of the Creator inside it because the Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, so every word in it is true.

So much discord and hate

Why? Aren’t we supposed to be trying to get along? I mean, how can we possibly come up with solutions to our own problems when it seems we can’t even disagree in a peaceful way? We can’t even seem to accomplish this in Congress with people that supposedly know each other, even if they are on different sides of the political aisle! Why is our society acting like a group of spoiled children who can’t have their way?

We are supposed to be working toward a society which can bring some semblance of peace, if not in the world then surely in our own country! The reason for all of this discord and hatred in our country and all over the world falls on one personal fault which everyone has and that is pride. The obstacle which is the root of nearly all of the sins in the Bible from the beginning to the end is this one!

We are living in the time just prior to the Great Tribulation and that is another contributing factor which is making our world and the people living here act like mortal enemies. Satan is pushing the buttons of every person who has a prideful idea or thought or harbors pride in themselves believing that they are better than those around them.

Each of us is the person that we are supposed to be, unfortunately, some think that they are different and special in a way which makes them better than those around them. They believe in themselves true enough but outside of that, they look down on other people. This is the most serious form of pride which can cause a person to believe that they are “like god” or “like a god”.

We are created beings, just as the angels are, and we are not gods. Though we are created in the image of God, we are not gods and never will be. It is a false teaching which has been spread around the world that this will happen when we if we are Christians, make our home in Heaven. We will have a body like Jesus had when He was resurrected but we will not be gods.

VineandBranches God loves each of us and we will enjoy eternity with Him as His adopted children, nothing more. We may fill some useful post in His Kingdom one day or even during the 1,000-year reign on Earth of Jesus but other than that we will be His people and HE will be our King! Seeking to know Him better here and now is the responsibility of every Christian and it is a job which we should take very seriously. To grow to be a mature Christian, living in the strength and power of Jesus every day will allow us to carry His Image with us wherever we go…until He comes for the Church.

33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Matt. 6:33

The Kingdom of God is our life in Jesus Christ walking with Him daily, praying and studying His Word and doing those things which He would do if He were here, at least to the best of our ability.

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.

What has got you down?

OurGodisAble Many people need to hear from someone today. Friends, family, pastors, spouses all need to hear from those that they care for. But what about those people that you don’t know? The people who are hurting but if you see them or talk to them they will tell you that they are doing fine. How can we touch their lives in a positive way? This is a hard question because most people who feel depressed don’t want to tell others. They consider this to be a burden that they alone can or should carry alone.

Depression is one of the weapons which Satan uses to discourage us before we become a believer, possibly enough to cause someone to take their own life. He also uses it to bring a Christian down so that their life gets out of control and feels hopeless. This is when we should be proactive about reading and meditating on God’s Word. Although, when depression hits you so hard that you feel overwhelmed its hard to think about much of anything except how you feel at the time.

Rest assured in the knowledge that God cares for you, even if you don’t know Him yet.

Psalm 42:11
11 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Being depressed seems to be normal for prophets and preachers as well as any other Christians. Charles Spurgeon was depressed for much of his life and he was one of the most successful preachers of 19th century England. God gives each of us the strength to make it through our troubles although sometimes we may not feel that strong. Lean on God and seek His wisdom in helping you to get through your trials no matter what they might be!

Many things get people down in their spirit or just plain depressed and sometimes it gets to the point of darkness when you feel that nobody cares…but God cares more about your trials and your life than you could possibly know. He came down to Earth as a baby to be the Perfect Lamb for our sins but He knew the sorrows of humanity and all of the problems which go along with being human. He knew the pain, the heartache and the loneliness of humanity, which is why He can give you the strength to get through all of your troubles.

God loves you so deeply until we can’t understand it! We may be able to feel it when we are in Heaven with Him but while we are yet alive here, our understanding doesn’t go deep enough to comprehend the depth of God’s love for us. Seek Him in your good days so that He will be with you on those days when life doesn’t feel very good. Especially when it gets to the point of feeling like it is out of your control and it won’t get better.

4-ways-to-turn-weaknesses-into-strength Don’t give up on yourself or on His Presence in your life. Seek Him through the Psalms and Proverbs when your life feels out of your control. He will come near to comfort you in the time of need that you have regardless of the depth of need or the darkness that it feels like.

Is there something missing…

Many times when I was much younger, I felt as if something was missing in my life. Since my parents were divorced I always thought it had to do with my Dad not being in my life much. Which was likely since I didn’t see him much except during summer visits and two weeks doesn’t help much when your Dad is working and out of the house even when you are there. Still…I felt that my relationship with him wasn’t really what was missing but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

After high school, I found that the missing part of my life didn’t mean much, at least not yet. So I partied and played around with weed and sex and I still felt empty and confused because nothing that I tried was fulfilling at all and mostly left me feeling empty inside. Even though I thought I had found and accepted Jesus, and I may have invited Him into my heart, I don’t think that I had fully committed my life and my heart to Him at this point.

I didn’t have anyone to teach me how to become closer to God and to come to know Him in a deeper way, so I still felt like I was stuck in a rut and I didn’t know how to get on the right pathway. I don’t know if I am expressing this the best way but that is how I felt at the time.

Why am I opening my story up to you? Because our testimony is the story about how each of us came to know Jesus as our Lord and Savior and it is a story that each of us can express in our own words because it is personal. Each of us knows our own short-comings and our failures which brought us to the point of knowing that we need Jesus, because until we came to that point…we didn’t want to know Him.

My actual walk with Jesus began after my son was born. I had been given this gift from God to love and cherish and to be an example to, and I knew that if I wasn’t following Jesus from that point on then he wouldn’t learn about Him either. So, I began by reading the Bible at night while I was working in the lab at the hospital. I would read in between running samples or on my lunch (early breakfast) break.

Little by little, God’s Word began to make sense to me. I still didn’t understand it and even today after reading through the Bible many times I don’t claim to understand it yet, but I am walking with Him on a daily path. Do I stumble? Yes! Do I wander off the path or fall? Yes! But…He is there to help me get back up, ask for His forgiveness when I have failed Him in one way or another and then we carry on toward the goal.

What is the goal? The prize of being in His Presence! That is the ultimate goal of life. The life which each of us lives through and complains about here is just temporary but the Life in Him and in eternity is…well eternal! There won’t be anything missing when we are in His Kingdom and His Presence! The only “missing” things will be the problems which we have here, the time which we never seem to have enough of, our aches and pains and our glasses (if you wear them) or contacts. All of these man-made bits of help and diseases will be left on Earth when we leave this place, praise God!

If you need prayer for any reason or just an unspoken request, please leave it in the comments. I will pray for you in my prayers because I pray that this site and these messages have an impact in the world every day. Thank you for reading.

Amen.

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.

Life and our Creator

In the Bible, our Creator is the embodiment of Life itself. Not only because He created it but because He sustains it as well. God and Jesus both, along with the Holy Spirit, sustain all of Creation. The life which is on Earth or anywhere else in the universe is also sustained by them and by their power over life. Every life on Earth, human, animals, insect and even bacteria, is sustained by God’s power. Satan is the oposite of life and is a liar if he claims otherwise.

No matter how much Satan tells you that he can bring your wife or son or daughter back to you…don’t believe it because it is a total LIE! He can’t give life and he can’t resurrect a life that is already gone. Only our Creator can do that and bringing someone back from the grave hasn’t been done since Jesus’ time. But that time may come again soon.

Our Creator has done many miraculous things and will continue to do many more. Your life in Christ is one because you are a new creature in Christ. When you gave up your old life and began to live a new life through the power of Jesus’ name and claimed Him as your Savior, then you became a new person. As you walk in His Word and pray daily for His strength to keep you on the pathway following Him, you will become more like Him and less like your old self.

That is what is meant by becoming sanctified in Christ. Because the more that you learn from the Bible and from prayer and by resisting the temptation to return to your old life, then you will begin to reflect the life and likeness of Jesus. Of course, we can never become fully like Him in this life but others will notice a difference in our life that is reflecting His attitudes and His teachings more than what the world will accept. That is why the world doesn’t like Christians, because they look at us and see what they should be like. Knowing that if they were more like Jesus they wouldn’t be living in sin the way they are.

He gives us the power to be more like Him because if He didn’t, we couldn’t live our life reflecting His ways and not our own. We can’t be real Christians without Him or without His Spirit changing us from the sinner that we once were into the person that Jesus knows we can be. I ask that any of you who haven’t given your life to Jesus, please consider seeking Him out and doing so before your life ends. There are no second lives to live and no second chances after this one is through.

Bridge2Salvation