Category: Choose Christ

Running here and there


This is exactly what happens every day no matter where you live. In Mississippi or New York or Kansas or Arizona, everyone is running somewhere all of the time. It seems that nobody takes the time to notice our beautiful world which God gave us to live in and no one seems to notice that the prophecies from God’s Word are actually happening all around us every day. It is likely because people have not paid any attention to the Bible or the truth which is found in it. Not because they haven’t heard a sermon or two from it but mostly because they were looking at their phones during the service or because they just wanted the service to be over. In either case, the effect is the same…their mind and their heart did not perceive the Truth which was being given to them.

God’s Word says that “in the last days men will be running to and fro” and that is exactly what is happening all over the world today. The question I would like to ask is, “Why is everyone running everywhere?”! There aren’t that many games to go to, nobody seems to care what is happening unless it is happening to someone who isn’t even supposed to be in our country! So what is the big deal? Everyone is doing all of this because God told Daniel that it would be happening at this time. It is God’s prophecy so people are doing His Will whether they believe in Him or not!

Life is going to work out exactly as God planned it whether you want it to or not and there is nothing that you can do to change it. Pharaoh was placed on the throne of Egypt for God’s purposes and to show him that God was in control, not him. Every government and leader in the world is where they are because God placed them there for His purposes and it will work out in the end because of His purposes, not man’s ideas.

The world is playing out all of God’s plans on a grand scale. Not some other “prophet” or seer. God’s Word is True and it is the only Book which has told humanity’s history without embellishment or retractions for thousands of years. You can choose to believe what it says and Who wrote it and the Person that it points all of us toward or you can choose to ignore it or say that it is a fable. The Bible will prove to be the Truth of God whether you believe it or not.

He still loves us and He is waiting for those who will believe to make up their minds. One day soon, everyone will see Him.

How many times…


How many times will you push the Spirit away? How many times will you hear a sermon but ignore its message? What will happen to you when that day comes when Jesus calls His church home? Do you know? Do you even believe that it is going to happen?

There are many people in the world who really don’t believe that Jesus is coming back, but according to God’s Word He is. There are many things which are happening in the world today which were foretold by Jesus and by some Old Testament prophets and they all point to His Second coming. Life will go on as normal, just as it has for two thousand years, until that day when “the dead in Christ will rise“. Then the whole world will know that the Bible is God’s Truth but at that point it may be too late for some people.

Why do I say it may be too late for some? Because, they may be in an airplane which had a Christian pilot or a train or a bus. When they are taken up to be with Jesus, who will be driving or flying the plane then? That day will be total chaos because of the cars and other types of transportation which will be left without a driver or even passengers. The thing is, we don’t know when this is going to take place. It could be tomorrow or today or possibly tonight.

What will you do with your life? How have you prepared for eternity? Are you ready? These are questions which need an answer because when that day and hour comes, the Bible says that it will happen in the blink of an eye. You could be talking to a friend and look up and all that is left is their clothes, their shoes, their watch or their cell phone. Then what? It won’t be long before the Peace treaty with Israel will be signed for seven years and then the time of Tribulation will begin.

I pray that everyone who reads this will seek out Jesus as their Savior before that day arrives because it will be hard to be a Christian during that time.

When we worship God…


What do you think of when you hear the word “worship”? Is it beautiful music and choral songs of praise? Is it a message brought from God’s Word and spoken in your ears and in your heart that brings you to the point of knowing that you need Jesus as your Savior?

Actually worship is all of the above and more! We can worship God when we watch a beautiful bird fly over our head. We can worship God by watching the Sun go down over the ocean or behind a bank of clouds which turns the sunset almost the color of blood. We can listen to a baby laugh or play with a puppy or a kitten or watch a newborn calf or horse get up and run just as fast as its little legs can carry it. How can we worship God in all of these things in the natural world? Because He created them and He created you and your eyes and your brain to appreciate beauty in creation.

God loves each of us far more than we can know or even comprehend but by appreciating His creation and just thanking Him for giving you the ability and opportunity to worship Him by knowing that He is the Creator and that He created all of this for His glory and to let you know Who He is!

He also sent Jesus, His Son, to Earth as a baby to grow up as a human being. To be tempted and tried just as we are and in every way that we are…yet He did not sin. Remember that He was fully human because He was tempted but He overcame those temptations so that He could pay the price for us. Jesus overcame those temptations not just because He was God in the flesh because He still felt fear and hunger and heat and cold and all of the temptations which we feel. But because of His relationship with His Father, He was able to resist those temptations and do so many good things while He was here.

If you want to know the ministry and majesty of your Savior, read the books of John and Romans. These two books encapsulate His miracles and His Majesty as the Son of God Who came to seek and save us because we were lost. When we feel His touch and know that we truly need His Presence in our lives, we should seek Him just as hard as He sought us.

Jesus was human too


He gave up some of His deity and clothed Himself in humanity for the time that He spent here, but He never sinned. Did He make mistakes like we do? Possibly a few, but they weren’t recorded. When He worked in His father’s shop as a carpenter I imagine He banged His fingers a few times or got some splinters in His fingers. The Bible says that He didn’t sin, it says nothing about any mistakes like those I described. That is the most incredible thing about our Lord and Savior, He lived as a human being with our limitations but He was still God. He was still in control of the demons and diseases and the storms and even life and death!

But…He was human in some ways, the most human ways.

He was tempted. He felt hunger and pain and sorrow and fear. He likely felt many of the feelings which we feel every day of our lives, but He didn’t sin and He didn’t allow Himself to be drawn toward sin. Could we do that? Humanly speaking, not a chance. With the Holy Spirit and determination to live according to His teachings and following His example…we might come close. But in our world today it would be very hard to do or very nearly impossible unless you lived in a very secluded place.

In fact, I don’t believe that we could live even one whole day without a sinful thought or action, even with the Holy Spirit living within us as Christians. Why? Because we are just not attuned to His leading and His voice well enough to hear and obey everything that He says. Jesus could and He did live that way because He listened to His Father and the Holy Spirit. Why did Jesus go through all of this?

For you!

This was planned from the beginning, even before the Earth was formed or Eden became a garden! God knew that we would need a Savior and Jesus was tasked with this long before you or I came into this world. He lived and worked as a carpenter so He wasn’t some frail, sickly Jesus. The only reason He had trouble carrying the cross was because of the beating that He took before the crucifixion. He had already lost a couple of pints of blood (likely) before they placed the cross on His shoulders. Yes, Jesus went through all of this for your sins and mine just so we could become joint heirs with Him in God’s Kingdom.

Once you give your heart to Jesus and repent of your sinful life, your salvation can never be lost or taken from you.

What do you hear?


When you go to church or any worship service in worshiping Jesus, what do you go to hear? A show with flashing lights and singing with a band and maybe a little five or ten minute sermon? Do you go to church to learn about your Savior and what He really did for you? Are you a member of a mega-church with so many people that you have to have a huge screen to see who is preaching?

Jesus warned us of the time that we are living in and it is found in the letters to the churches in the book of Revelation. The church at Laodicea was a church which reminds us of the dangers of being comfortable with our worship service.

Here is the quote from the book of Revelation:

To the Church in Laodicea
(Colossians 2:1-5)

14 To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Originator of God’s creation.

15 I know your deeds; you are neither cold nor hot. How I wish you were one or the other! 16 So because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to vomit you out of My mouth!

17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have grown wealthy and need nothing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, white garments so that you may be clothed and your shameful nakedness not exposed, and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. 19 Those I love, I rebuke and discipline. Therefore be earnest and repent.

20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him, and he with Me. 21 To the one who is victorious, I will grant the right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. 22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

We live in a time when pastors and churches water down the Word of God and they don’t teach His Truth from Scripture, just as this church was. They weren’t cold toward the message of salvation but they weren’t hot toward spreading the gospel either. They were trying but not too hard, lukewarm. Many churches and pastors today do the same thing. They compromise the Word of God by accepting sinful behavior as being normal in order to get more members on their roles. They don’t call sin what it is and teach that it is acceptable even when they know that God opinion of sin has not changed!

We cannot compromise the message of God’s Word and we shouldn’t be trying to make it more acceptable to those who are practicing sinful lifestyles which God does not approve of! Just because every other media outlet does this doesn’t mean that the church should be going along with sin even when we know that God and His Word don’t accept it nor condone it in any way. If we do this then we are no different from the world around us and we shouldn’t even be preaching from God’s Word at all. Pick out a self-help book and use it as a “bible” if you are going to be like the rest of the world.

I will preach and teach from God’s Word until He calls me home one day and if you don’t like that message then you don’t have to come to my church or read this blog anymore.

Feast or famine


This saying has almost become cliche’ today and they use it for so many things until the meaning is almost lost to the younger generation. In the world both of these are easy to recognize and their meanings are very clear. Feast is when things are going really well and you have money and enough food to eat. Even your career is going well when you are feasting.

Famine, on the other hand is when things are not going well at all. Your home is being foreclosed and taken from you, you’ve lost your job and there is no money for food. You may even be living in a place where there has been a famine in more ways than one and people are starving to death.

But what if you applied these terms to your spiritual life? How would you read them and assign meaning to them then? Does feast refer to the days that you attend church with other believers? Does that mean that you don’t seek God counsel during the week, so you are going through a famine in your spiritual life between Sabbath’s? Christians are not supposed to live their spiritual lives this way.

Yes, you do go to a worship service to be fed the Word and taught about it but when you leave then you are supposed to fellowship with God until the next time. The disciples didn’t just meet up with Jesus on those days when He was teaching in the synagogue. They were with Him every day regardless of which direction He was going or who they might meet. They were near Him day and night so they heard His teachings every day not just weekly or once a month.

John even wrote in his gospel, “if all of the things were written about Him that He did, the world could not contain the books“. I paraphrased John’s words but you get the idea. Jesus did many miracles that we will never know about until we are with Him. But living a Christian life in “feast or famine” mode is not the way to live in Christ and Christ in you! The Holy Spirit, the third of the Trinity, is with you from the time you are saved. You have a member of the Trinity living with you, inside you and He is every bit as much God as the Father and the Son are. I don’t think that we consider that we have a part of the Creator Who teaches you about Jesus and helps you to understand His Word.

Living the sanctified life of a Christian, saved by His Grace, would not be possible if the Holy Spirit wasn’t there to show us and teach us when we are reading and learning from God’s Word. We wouldn’t act as a Christian in the slightest degree if it weren’t for the Spirit touching us and teaching us when we are tempted to do something we shouldn’t! God gives us the strength and His Spirit to be able to make it one day at a time in our walk with Him and that is what we should do. Get through today, then study God’s Word a bit tonight, then get through tomorrow and so on until we are called home.

PS: If there are any prayer requests or something that you would like for me to pray about, anything at all, leave a comment. I will add your request to the others that I get from the community.

God loves you


Have you ever considered just how AWESOME that is? The Creator of the universe loves YOU! He loves each and every person on the Earth and those who haven’t even been born yet!

Why would God love us? Because He is our Creator and our designer! He knows you and me better than any person could ever know us. We will never really know exactly how deeply and intimately we are known until we are in Heaven with Him. I pray that all of you who read this will seek Jesus out as your Savior. Read the books of John and Romans and you will find your Savior and your eternity in Him.

If He calls the stars by name, don’t you think He knows your name too?

Even in the foggy places…


Everywhere we go in our travels or in life, God is there. You may not see Him but He is there. God cares for His creation and we are a part of His Creation. There are billions of stars and galaxies in the universe to declare the awesome power of God but there is only one of each person on Earth. Isn’t that amazing!? Even if you have a twin sibling, you may look very much like each other but there are differences which make each of you very special in God’s Kingdom.

All of the places where we can travel to on Earth are there to declare His majesty and glory. Whether you believe in Him or not, He loves you. Regardless of your troubles or your trials, God is always just a prayer away if you believe. If you don’t believe yet, He is still only a prayer away because He does care about all of us.

Even in the places where God seems to be absent in any form, He is there. We need to have faith in Him, especially when we are in need of His strength and His Hand in our life. Whether it is for a healing from disease or strength to get through depression or for our salvation, He is always near and we should seek Him for our healing from whatever it may be that is causing our troubles today and every day.

It doesn’t matter what the “pundits” on TV or radio say about God’s existence, He said in His Word that He is coming back to rule the Earth and to undo the wrongs which Satan has brought on those in this world. Since God can’t lie, He’s coming back. When? We really can’t speculate about that, but with the prophecies which have already come to pass and very few which are left I would say that almost anyone who is alive today will likely see Him return.

God has provided a way for us to be with Him in eternity…if we will believe in His Son, Jesus for our salvation. Attending church services, reading the Bible, praying for friends and family are all good things to do but if you haven’t accepted Jesus as your Savior and believed in your heart for your salvation, these are only tokens. You have been going through the motions of acting like a Christian but if He isn’t your savior and your life hasn’t changed from what you were before He became your Savior, then I would seriously question whether you are His. Accepting Him spiritually into your heart and allowing that change in your life is much different than just “acting like a Christian”.

Seek Him as your Savior, follow Him daily, read and pray about His Word and wisdom you find in the Bible so that you will know for sure that you belong to Him and He belongs to you!

Be like Jesus…


When we get to know Jesus, the greatest joy that we can experience is to become more like Him every day. The problem is that we be don’t want it to take a long time, we want the transformation right now! When you are young, this can discourage you because of the immediate nature in the world today. We want “microwave changes” to happen in our life or faster if God would do so. Being a Christian and living this life is not about an instant change, it is a process which begins when you have given your heart to Him and then continues each day until He calls you home.

But, when you come to know Jesus as a mature person then you bring along all of the learning and thoughts that you have learned prior to knowing Him. That has to be trimmed away and sometimes it’s painful to go through this pruning process. Jesus said that we can do nothing for the Kingdom of God without Him. Living your new Christian walk with Jesus is essential not only for yourself but for those around you to see it and hear it in your words. Living each day like Jesus did is not impossible but it requires faith in Him and commitment to Him as well.

Many people think that because Jesus was the Son of God that we can’t live our lives by copying His life and His works. Why not? His disciples went about doing the things which He did and telling others about the Kingdom of God and the requirements of salvation. If they did it then why can’t we do it too? It requires faith in Him and it is the kind of faith which many in the church today just don’t have. It is not the faith of someone who spends a few minutes for a couple of days each week reading the Bible. It is not the faith of someone who attends church once or twice every month.

The kind of faith that I’m talking about here is the kind where you wake up each day thanking God for today and the possibilities of it. It is the kind of faith which, in prayerful speech, walks with God and Jesus during the day…regardless of the circumstances. Seeking His wisdom and His touch in everything that you do and say in whatever situation you are in.

God cares for us far more than we can know. That is the reason that Jesus was sent to pay for the whole world’s sins. The debt has been paid and it is up to each of us to accept His gift through our belief in Jesus Christ. If or rather when we do accept it, we will have eternity with Him to know others who have accepted His Son as well. If you do not accept Jesus as your Savior then you will live for an eternity regretting your choice. It is up to each of us which path we follow and we are given that choice at some point in our lives. So…choose Life through Jesus.

How do you feel?


This was a perplexing question for a certain Vulcan in one of the Star Trek movies. In particular it was the fourth one with the original crew. Spock was being taught by computer all of the knowledge that he was supposed to know. But when the computer asked him, “How do you feel?”, he was perplexed. Vulcan’s lived their lives trying to live in a completely logical way without the baggage of feelings and emotions. His mother, Amanda, was a woman from Earth and she explained it to him like this: “Spock, the computer knows that you are my son. Therefore you have feelings because you are partly human and they have to deal with their feelings”. (This dialogue may be a paraphrase since it has been a few years since I watched this movie)

Why do I ask this question or even bring up this science fiction movie in my blog about serving Jesus in our lives? Because it is our feelings at times which cause us real problems. Also, it gets us to notice just how much the unbelieving world is a bit off. Think about it. After we discover or are discovered by “aliens” who are benevolent and helpful since we learned how to go faster than light, we get rid of poverty, war, hunger, etc. Do you really think that mankind is capable of getting that good in just a century after finding out that we aren’t the only people in the universe?

In almost six thousand years, by the reckoning of the Bible and its timeline, most of the world has never been able to get along with each other. We fight over religion, oil, land, race, you name it. There have been very few peaceful years in the world’s history in the past six thousand years or so. Why would a momentous occasion like the one in Star Trek cause us to suddenly just get along? It wouldn’t! The fact is that the creator of this “Utopian future” was a devout evolutionist and an atheist.

Do we allow our feelings and our prejudices to get us into trouble? All of the time! That is why the only way that we can get along is with the Spirit of God living within us and giving us the wisdom of God to navigate through these troubled times. We can’t do it on our own and we won’t do it with “aliens” helping us either. Seek Jesus as your Savior and follow Him because He is your only way to eternity.

Contrary to Spock’s decision about feelings, they are not irrelevant. Feelings are things which we all have to learn to live with. In one way or another they either help us or cause us pain but we have to learn how to live with them. Only a life with Jesus can do so in a positive way.