Category: Choose Christ

Are you walking in faith?


John, the disciple of Jesus, wrote the smallest book in the Bible and yet it is a most profound and humbling book because it convicts us who are not walking in His Truth and shows us where our faith should be placed.

2 John 1

Greeting from the Elder

(3 John 1:1-4)

1 The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth; 2 For the truth’s sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us forever. 3 Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.

Walking in the Truth (John 8:31-41)

4 I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father. 5 And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. 6 And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.

Beware of Deceivers

7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an Antichrist. 8 Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. 9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. 10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: 11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.

Final Greetings

12 Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink: but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full. 13 The children of thy elect sister greet thee. Amen.

GodsBlessingThe second or third smallest book of the Bible but very profound, in wisdom and truth from the only disciple which died of natural causes also known as old age.

God blessed John with a ministry which spanned the known world around him at the time. Since he was also one of the youngest disciples he was able to go and tell others about his Lord and Savior. He was also the shepherd of a number of churches before his death at the end of the first century.

John wrote and testified that Jesus was the Light of the World, not because of hearsay but because he had lived and walked with Jesus during His ministry. John was a dedicated disciple, fully committed to His Lord and Savior and He walked with Him while His time on Earth was fulfilled and He took the message of the gospel with him wherever he went later in life.

John’s exhortation to the lady and her house is the way that he greeted another worker for the faith and this letter was to encourage her until she should meet her risen Lord. Truly, it is the same with us. We are to stay true to our faith in Him until He comes or until we are called home to be with Him. What does this letter encourage us to do in light of where we are in the history of the world?

Mainly, to be steadfast in our walk with Jesus. Keeping to the faith and taking it and our testimony with us wherever we may go regardless of the time we may have left on this Earth. Because we don’t know how much time we have regardless of our age or health. It could be weeks, months or years until our date comes to meet Jesus or until He comes to call each of us home.

Your life and your testimony are important because your experience in this life is unique, just as your salvation is unique. Nobody else has had your experience or your successes and your failures, and God can use those to bring a specific message to someone, probably someone that only you can possibly reach. Your mission in this life is to serve God in whatever capacity that He asks you to serve in. It could be as a teacher at a high school or a Sunday school teacher. Maybe you are friends with a certain person that God wants to reach and only you can do that.

But…you won’t know for sure if you don’t step out in faith and use your testimony to bring Jesus’ message to at least one person. Then tomorrow see if you can find someone else to talk to about what Jesus has done for you. It doesn’t have to be a daily thing, but considering how much Jesus gave to save you and put you in this place…why not?

Be faithful in the little things


Do you pay attention to the little things in life? Some people do, many of us do not. Why could that be? It could be because little things are so commonplace, ordinary even. They aren’t eye-catching like a lime green BMW or Mustang, even though to me that color on a car, especially a sports car, is just nasty. Eye-catching colors are good sometimes, but what about the cars which can get about forty to fifty miles per gallon? I may be stingy but I like those cars. Granted, I would truly love to at least drive a Ferrari just once. I will never be able to afford one, but just driving one would be fun!

You hear about so-called “bucket lists” which list the things which people would like to do before they die, whether from natural causes or from some cancer or terminal illness. Why not work on lists of little things which can bring you more happiness and fulfillment in your life? What do I mean by “little things”? Well, enjoy your children and your grandchildren by taking them fishing or playing in a creek one day. Don’t time it, just enjoy it!

Show them how to make something out of sticks and leaves, if you can craft something like that. Enjoy life as much as possible. Don’t walk around in a pity party over things which can’t be fixed or changed…but if you can do something to change those things then do it! Take a trip for a day and see where it leads you. Don’t plan it or map it out, just wake up one morning and fix a lunch and some cold water in an insulated cooler, get some fuel for the trip, make sure to tell your family unless they are coming along. Then just go!

My title says “Be faithful in the little things”, so do the things which don’t take much. Like read your Bible each morning and before bed at night. Pray to the Lord and thank Him for the day that you have had. Ask Him to go with you and guide you toward the people and places that He needs for you to go. Most of us can’t be missionaries in other countries so seek out people closer to home and tell them about Jesus. Tell them what He has done for you and your family. Make sure that they know that He will do whatever is needed in their life too if they will ask Him to come into their hearts.

People think that being a Christian is hard and that we are required to do something almost every day to help God in our salvation. That is not true of course. God did not need our help to save us from our sins, Jesus did that on the cross all by Himself. It is a gift to each of us who have been called by God to become His child, all that we have to do is answer His call when we feel it in our hearts. Then, enjoy your life as a new creation in Jesus Christ because you are going to have an eternity to get to know all of your brothers and sisters who came before you.

Have you had a “But, God” moment?


I don’t mean the kind of moment where you are asking a question or even feeling like He is in the way of something. I mean one of those times in Scripture where the text says, “But, God….” meaning that He moved in some fashion to do something for a person or a people. Some of them happen in such a way that you really can’t miss it, and some seem to be an afterthought.

So, have you had a moment like this? Many times, I think we actually have moments like this but at the time, God does something in our lives which allow us to skirt danger or miss something which could’ve been dangerous or worse. In those moments He doesn’t ping us with a bat and tell us what He caused to work for His glory and for our good because God is not like that. He is better.

We should know this already but there are times where we need to be reminded Who we actually serve. He is not our servant, we are His. Why is this important? Because God says so that’s why. Seek Him out in this life so that you will have Life abundant and free from sin and the destruction which it brings with it.

I have had at least one of these “but, God” moments, except sometimes I use it more as a question and answer time with Him. Not that I am questioning His Wisdom in any area of my life, but sometimes I do wonder why things work out as they do. Children get sick, parents fall and fail each other for one reason or another. Essentially, life as we have to live it happens. We can’t control the things which happen around us, right?

No, but God can! When we give up or decide that our faith isn’t strong enough to think that God would intervene in our life or in the lives of those that we love…then we give the enemy an opening to attack. While it is true that he can’t touch you if you are a Christian, God can allow things (including Satan and disease) to test you in your resolve. Don’t believe the lie that you won’t get better or that you have to have treatment by the doctors who are only getting rich off of cancer and its treatment.

God can come into your life and change the conditions and the diagnosis into something which will draw more people to Him, like one where cancer just dies and the doctor can’t explain it. It does happen but many times our media just doesn’t know what to do with a miracle so they may not report it at all. Natural treatments work on cancer and other diseases but the pharmaceutical companies don’t want people to know this because they can’t make millions from a natural cure.

Treatments which can go on for years gives them far more leverage over our lives. The news media also spreads their “propaganda” just as it did with cigarettes years ago. Millions of people paid with their lives because of the lies about cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco products and their effect on a person’s body.

Please, seek out God’s way of dealing with disease and other problems in your life. Don’t let the enemy win because you aren’t willing to give something natural a try or to ask for prayer in your situation. God can use your life and your situation to turn more people around if you will give Him a chance to do so.

Serving as Jesus did (part 2)


Jesus came to this Earth with all of the problems and chaos caused by a fallen people who truly had lost their sense of direction and their knowledge of the One True God. He came because He loved ALL of us, not just one little tribe of people and He knew that when He came that He would have to suffer and die for ALL of the people who didn’t know Him. Most people in the world at the time He came had no idea Who He was and didn’t care, just as many still do today. Yet…He loved them anyway just as He loves all of us today. That is the love which calls to each of us today.

God seeks out those of us who truly need Him but even in our broken state of being, He can mend us and make us better so that we can show others that His ways are so much higher and more than able to heal and direct our path toward His higher calling. The calling of being His disciple and His friend in this life and into eternity. It doesn’t take a lot of convincing to show people how He has changed us, just tell them about your life and how it was before Jesus came into it and gave you a new purpose and hope!

Are we perfect and sinless after becoming Christians, of course not! We are still human beings after all and we are still subject to every temptation of Satan and all of the other lures that are in this world. Wealth, power, greed, sex, drugs, alcohol….our world and the things in it draws our humanity toward all of these things even after our hearts are changed which is why we have to read the Bible daily. Washing our minds and our thoughts with His Living Water, the Word of God, is the only way to stay true to our calling and know His mind and thoughts.

The Christian life doesn’t give you a clean slate to go out and dirty it up again. If you are doing that, then your heart hasn’t been changed at all. When Jesus and the Holy Spirit come into your life, there is a change which will let you know that what you are doing is wrong. While it is true that you can ignore the message enough to go back and get into the pig stall and lie with the other pigs…why would you want to? We are not pigs, and contrary to what some people may think, we should live above our old lifestyle where Jesus would walk and live. Think about what He went through before the cross. The shaming and the threats on His life and even those in the town where He grew up wanted to kill Him because He told them that He fulfilled the prophecy of the Messiah from the prophet Isaiah. They didn’t believe Him and wanted to kill Him because they had watched Him grow up in Joseph’s carpenter shop. They knew the little Boy but they didn’t KNOW Him!

Like knowing someone from childhood and then they grow up and move away or join the military and essentially become a different person from the child you knew. Of course, Jesus matured into His life’s role as Savior and Messiah by His Father’s teaching and not Joseph’s teaching. The part of His life which everyone in Nazareth saw was His Earthly life, His physical life here. It was His Spiritual life and learning from the Spirit and from His Father that had brought Him to be a different Person from the one that everyone in His hometown thought they knew.

God has many jobs and roles which He wants each of us to do and fulfill in our Christian life, but we need to submit to His teaching and His Spirit and His Word so that we can learn what we need to know in order to be the person which God knows that each of us can be. If we will only follow Him in our daily walk and learn from Him, we can do this!

Believe…


We are asked to do this as little children. Like we are going to do this as easily as a child as adults and it usually doesn’t work that way. Life tends to make us more cautious and cynical as we get older. This one fact of growing up causes us to discount the simple way of becoming a Christian as we get older.

Sometimes it is just easier to believe like a child. Don’t try to analyze and nitpick the decision to become a Christian, like the Nike commercial says “just do it!”. I do realize that there are so many people out there in the world today who are reluctant to give their life and their heart to Jesus. But…what is the alternative? I mean, Jesus is our Savior and the Creator! There is no other “god” who can compete because there are no other gods, period!

Our world has been deceived by Satan and his cohorts for thousands of years and they are getting a bit worried now that the time is getting short for them! Your life does have an expiration date while you are here on Earth and since we aren’t guaranteed tomorrow, the time for salvation is today! Please do not put this off. God knows who will come to Him and seek forgiveness and salvation so make it a point to be on His list of folks to listen to and bring to salvation!

The time is today, not tomorrow or next week. You or I could be involved in a car wreck tomorrow and when this life is over, your time to get saved is gone because “now is the accepted time“.

God provides for us each and every day but many people don’t pay attention. They just take it for granted that they have tomorrow and next week and next month too. Hopefully, they do and all the rest of us do too, but if you found yourself standing in front of God tomorrow…what could you say? What would you say about your life? Something like, “I did the best that I could” won’t help you. If you haven’t given your heart to Jesus and asked for His forgiveness of your sins then you are standing on your own righteousness and that is not enough.

Our own righteousness is never enough because if we could be righteous enough to gain entrance into Heaven…then Jesus died for nothing. God doesn’t do things for anything less than His glory and allowing Jesus to die for our sins if we could fulfill the Law perfectly would’ve been useless! God doesn’t do useless!

Consider this: God has known you since you were formed in the womb because He formed you. Whether you have lived your life on your own terms or maybe you have been taken to church as a child, His attention has never been far away from your life. What about your attention? Have you thought about seeking Him out, at least to see if this “Christianity thing” is real? If you haven’t then you are living on a very narrow ledge in this life.

 

 

Living in His Light


Have you considered being a child of God? We are all His creation, regardless of the country we live in or the religion which we claim to serve if we believe in Him at all. God loves each of us, whether you believe it or not. Yet, living in the Light of His Love and Grace is where most of us who believe are right now. How we live in this condition is our service to Him. There are many who simply don’t want to live according to His gospel or in His LIght!

Why? Like the gospel’s say, “they shun the light because they like the darkness“; it is simple and so easy to see it today. Criminals do all of their criminality in the dark where that can’t be seen and it is the same with sinful mankind. They don’t want their sins or their deeds brought into the light, whether it is the daytime or the Light of Jesus! God cares about all of mankind, but He knows which people will give their hearts to Him and His Son and which ones will not.

Your life and the lifestyle that you live is not unknown to God. He knows each person on this Earth and He knows their hearts even if they don’t belong to Him. This has never changed since even the time of Adam and Eve in the Garden. It wasn’t a surprise to God that they could not resist the serpent in the Garden who told them that “they would surely not die“.

When we are tempted by wealth or fame or more knowledge than we are ready for, it is always the Tempter who is dangling it in front of our hearts or our eyes so that we want it for our purposes, not God’s purpose. This part of the equation between man’s temptation and God’s grace toward us has never changed. Actually, the difference has only become more pronounced, except that man doesn’t want to see it or acknowledge it. You can see it every day on the news but unless you are looking at the world around you through your spiritual eyes tempered by God’s Word and His prophecies, it won’t be very apparent to you at all.

This is the very reason that the world doesn’t recognize how the Bible’s prophecies work because they don’t have their eyes turned to the Holy Spirit. You can’t see the working of prophecy unless you have faith in Him and your Spirit is showing you those things around you. As some people on television seem to think that Christians have a mental illness and that they can’t live in the world with “normal” people. Really?

Somehow, I think its a bit more like we are the ones who can see what is really going on around us and the rest of the world is just trying to make sense of all of it and it doesn’t make sense to them. Why? Because the workings of God don’t make sense to those who won’t or can’t see the world with spiritual eyes of faith.

Prayer…


When Jesus said “whatever you ask in my name, and believe it will be given to you“, do you truly believe it? He cannot lie, but do you know what He is speaking of? The “whatever” in this promise is not money or houses or wealth, it is whatever you ask in the will of God. For us, this is a hard concept to learn about our Creator and our Savior. Which is why He is asking us to dig a bit deeper into your relationship with Him.

You didn’t know your wife’s needs and wants from the moment you laid your eyes on her or even after you learned her name or her favorite color. Relationships take time and effort in this world and with God and His Son, Jesus as well. So how can we learn more about them? By reading the Bible! Little snippets of Scripture on Sunday are not enough. One reading of a chapter or two during the week isn’t enough.

To learn about your Savior and God, you have to dig into His Word. Learn how He sees you and the world around you. Get as close to God as He wants you to be. When you get there, you will know it, but don’t back up and run away from Him! Just ask Him to give you some time to adjust to the amount of love that you will feel, that you have never felt before. It does take time actually and it brings tears to your eyes when you get that close to what can only be described as pure love.

That isn’t even enough to describe it but it is as close as we can come to a true description of God’s Person. You can call it liquid joy or living water or even love that feels as if you could drown in it forever. A description of Him is the most elusive of all of man’s thoughts or imaginings because until you are actually in His Presence there is nothing on this Earth which compares or even comes close to Him.

Prayer is talking to God put simply. It doesn’t have to have King James language scattered all through it and you don’t have to be in church or dressed in a suit and tie to pray. God already knows what you need but He wants to hear it from you. If you haven’t become a child of God by asking Him to come into your soul, your heart and change you from the lost person that you are into His child forever…He will hear that prayer if it is sincerely from your heart.

I said those words many times and went through the motions of baptism, but until He touched my heart and drew my soul to Himself none of those “motions” were real. God loves each of us and He knows when your prayer and your heart are in agreement with His Spirit. When that happens, your heart will change and you will be a different person. Your old friends will see it before you say a word. Anyone who knew the “old you” will be able to tell that something happened that can’t be undone, although some will try to take you back to your old haunts. But, you won’t feel just right in those places anymore.

You will feel most at home reading the Bible and asking Him some questions about what happened and what to do now. Seek out a church with a Bible preacher, not a doctrine pusher. Then you will begin to learn Who your Savior is and what the rest of your life will be like. Yes, you will slip up and make some mistakes or say something which you know you shouldn’t, but you can ask forgiveness of them and go on with your life. Because the Author and Finisher of your faith is also the One who is the Living Water.

What is your blessing?


Is your life today a blessing toGodsBlessing you or a blessing to others? Do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Do you want to know that you will live in eternity or do you believe that when you die, that’s it?

There are many religions and beliefs out in the world today which tell you that their path is the right way or that there are many paths which lead to paradise. They are all wrong!

The only way to be allowed into Heaven and into the presence of God is through the blood of Jesus Christ! There is no other name under Heaven which will give you access to your home in Heaven. So, what is your blessing? We are blessed because God has given each of us one more day to tell others about Jesus and the saving power of His name and the blood which was shed for each of us on the cross!

You can choose to believe in Him and ask Him to come into your heart and change you and forgive you of your sins. You will need His strength each day of your life after this decision in order to walk with Him daily because if you don’t depend upon His strength for your daily life then you won’t be able to keep going. That is what Jesus meant when He said to “take up your cross daily and follow Me”. It is not a physical cross but it is the fact that you need Him and His strength through reading the Bible and prayer for the ability to take each day just one step at a time, walking with Him.

God has always loved each of us but His love or His hate of people or their sins is much different from what we call love or hate. Even when God hates someone like He said about Esau, it is not a vengeful type of hate. It is actually a type of love which doesn’t agree with his choices in life. God’s hatred is similar to a parent telling a child that “I love you but I don’t like the choices you are making”. Granted, God’s emotions are not like ours, but that is the only example which I can give that will make sense to anyone who reads this.

Did God love Esau? Yes, He did but He didn’t like the choices which Esau was making in his life. And for many of us today, He isn’t very happy with some of our choices either. That does not mean that He doesn’t love us. It is the sinful lifestyles or sins which we are into which causes God to dislike us at times. Can we fix this? Yes, we can but not entirely on our own strength.

We need to seek out God and His strength through prayer and reading His Word which will give us the encouragement to get through tough days and decisions. It is a daily, sometimes hourly, struggle with our past “demons” of drugs or alcohol or sex or whatever it might be which we are trying to liberate ourselves from. Becoming a Christian, coming to Him with your heart broken by how much you truly need Him, is a daily process. It isn’t an instant fix, but a practice or a walk with Jesus one step at a time. Lean on His strength and on Him for your support because together you are much stronger than you are alone.

Foolish


Today is two different days all rolled into one. Most importantly it’s the day that we, as Christmas, celebrate Easter as the day when Jesus rose from the tomb. To others it’s April Fool’s day. In any event, today is a special day. So, will you be celebrating Easter today with family worship or will you be sitting in at home?

I will be preaching about our Lord and Savior this morning, I pray that you will come to know Him as your Lord one day soon. God made a way for you to be saved from an eternity of punishment if you will just believe in Jesus for your salvation. There is no other way to be saved.

This pathway to salvation is very simple but many don’t come to know Him because it seems to be too simple. We want to make it harder so that we can contribute something to our salvation, but we can’t. Our efforts only get in the way and make it unprofitable to others who may think that they can work their way into heaven.

Truly life is busy and confusing at times, but we should try to be more like the apostles were. Taking the message wherever we go in life, that is our job. Telling others about our Savior is our vocation because Jesus gave His disciples a command and we are His disciples as well.

What is Easter about?


Easter is about salvation. The Bible teaches that “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). Remember, usually more unbelievers attend church on Easter Sunday than any other day of the year. This may be the only opportunity to share with them the truth of salvation. Believing people need to hear the gospel as well as unbelieving people. Reminding ourselves of God’s glorious work in forgiving our sin and saving our souls ought to constantly challenge and change us to become more like Jesus.

Yes, there are times when we should understand and accept that the work which Jesus was sent to accomplish was finished on the cross and on the morning that Jesus came out of the tomb! It took both His death on the cross and His resurrection to complete the job that He was tasked with accomplishing and He did!

empty_tomb11How do we honor His Work today? Some churches do have Passion plays and preach on the work that Jesus accomplished. Others have egg hunts and things for the kids and maybe a sermon about His resurrection, then everyone goes home and does the same thing except without the sermon. Why don’t we live our lives as if He was going to show up in a couple of hours?

God’s timing and His blessing for us does come through Jesus our Savior Who took the punishment for us and everything that went along with it, especially the part about God having to turn away from His Son. He had to because Jesus took ALL of the sins of the world on Himself! From the sins in the Garden all the way until the end of everything on Earth, Jesus took all of our sins, yours and mine and every person born until that day when God says, “Enough”.

When will that be? It’s on His time and nobody knows the day or the hour when the time will be up for the whole world. Is it coming? Yes, it is coming, if you don’t believe it or you don’t want to believe it that is fine but…what if the Bible and everything in it is really true! Christians know it to be the Word of God and if God says something or promises something then it will come to pass..in God’s time.

Have you given your heart to Jesus? I mean truly and completely, not just saying words and getting wet in a baptism. What do I mean by completely giving your life to Jesus? For one thing, it is living your daily life with Him by your side because if you have given your heart to Him, then He is there in the Holy Spirit which is in your heart. You can’t run away from Him so you might as well learn to learn from Him every day.

Reading the Word of God on a daily basis. As John wrote that Jesus is the Word of God made in the flesh of man.

We are also told to wash our minds in the River of Life and to eat the Bread of Life, both of which are found in our Bible because they are the Word of God! The only way to grow in your life as a Christian is to consume God’s Word just as we do when we eat our meals. This is the only way to wash away the old sinful person that was present in your body prior to your salvation and replace your old self with the one which, in time, will look more and more like Jesus!

Being part of the church or even a member of the church doesn’t bring salvation. Celebrating the communion and drinking the wine and eating the crackers doesn’t save you. Attending church religiously for fifty or more years and reading your Bible doesn’t save you. Only your belief in Jesus and your faith in Him will save you and once that happens, you will give up your old ways and repent of them. When you read the Word and pray about what you have read so that the Spirit can reveal God’s Wisdom to you, you will become a little more like Jesus every day. But…this is a process! This is not something that you just put on like a coat and walk away with.

As with most anything else, it requires practice and faithful reading of God’s Word with prayer. Believing everything that God says because He inspired the writers to write the words which we have as our Bible. Prayerfully seeking Him in every daily endeavor and trusting that He will be with you in all of it and He will carry you through every trouble and trial that Satan tries to throw at you. Because once you are a child of God and a believer, you have a target on your heart and the devil and his troops will try to trip you up and make things hard so that you give up your path toward Jesus. One step at a time, one verse at a time, one day at a time will lead you to Jesus and to eternity.