Category: Choose Christ

Where is our help?


As Christians, our help comes from the Lord and the Holy Spirit. But do we always count on them or lean on them for our help or do we try to handle things ourselves until we can’t? Unfortunately, most of us fall into that last group of people whether we are believers or not. We try to do things and handle things on our own and when there seems to be no way for us to get something done…then we will cry out to God for HELP! The problem with this type of attitude and our attempts to do things like a child of two years of age, even when we are old enough to know better, is that sometimes we actually make things worse.

We should seek God’s provision and His help in every endeavor that we try to do, especially when it is something that we are doing for His Kingdom! Everyday life is also where we tend to “do it ourselves”. When you think that you can handle all of your problems without God’s help, that is usually the time when something will come along and make you rethink your thinking.

God created the whole universe! From the largest stars and galaxies down to the atoms of hydrogen which power every star you see. How could you possibly think that you could do better than the Creator? Can you create something from nothing? No but God can. Make sure that He is your Savior and Lord while there is still time in this life to do so because when you have taken your last breath here, you will be in His Presence. The outcome of that meeting depends upon your decision of belief in Jesus as your Savior or not…the choice is yours.

How soon, Lord?


For many who believe and for many who don’t believe this is a question which has been asked for the past two thousand years. Yet, God is silent…or is He?

If you read His Word and pay close attention to the prophecies in Daniel and Ezekiel and the Revelation, comparing them to each other and watching the world news with your Spirit (if you believe), you can see the prophecies coming together. If you are not a believer then you will keep wondering and scoffing at those who do believe. Many people in government and in the world are skeptical and rightly so. It has been a long time since Jesus ascended to the Father but He said that He would return. God doesn’t lie and the Bible is not a book of legends and myths as many people seem to think.

There have been signs in the heavens and here on Earth which have come to pass in the past fifty years. Just in the past five years, there were four blood moons and an eclipse which all happened on Jewish holy days. Those were not foretold in the Bible exactly, but Jesus did say that there would be signs in the heavens.

Many people have tried over the past few hundred years to predict the day or the hour or even the year that Jesus would return and all of them were wrong. When that day comes there will be no doubt about what is happening and what has happened. Anyone who has heard of these prophecies or heard a sermon about the end times or read one of the books which have been published over the years about this time in history will know what is happening. Although many will doubt and many won’t believe what it is unless they see someone taken up or see a grave opening and the body rising to meet the Lord.

How would you react if a number of people around you just vanished, leaving their shoes and clothes on the pews? If you are still in the church when this happens, what do you do? My advice to you is to make sure of your salvation now so this won’t happen to you.

Even then they will be frightened more than anything. Most will begin looking for answers, trying to find someone who can explain what is happening. In some places, there may be a few who are left that can explain what is happening. If it happens on a day that people are attending a church or worship service there will be some who thought they were “right with the Lord” but they will be left. Talk about a bad day!

You cannot earn your salvation, it is a gift from God!

Are you sure?


The prophetic books of Daniel and Revelation both speak of a time when the redeemed of the world will be taken. The book of Thessalonians also speaks of a time like this just as Jesus said in Matthew 24 that two would be in the field and one would be taken and the other left. So are you sure of your salvation and your place in the Kingdom of God? Do you belong to Him truly and completely? One day we will all find out exactly where our heart and our soul belongs because on that day…we will be taken to be with Him forever.

What if it happened this Sunday morning during the church service? Would you be in that number of people who leave their clothes and their shoes and everything which was man-made behind? Even your dentures and your hip replacements and glasses will be left in the pew. So are you sure of your salvation? Be watching for Jesus and expecting His return because it will happen and all of us need to be ready when that day comes.

Where are you, Lord?


During the times when we are either being attacked because of our faith or brought low in our health, we often ask this question. If you are wondering about the two instances which I listed in the previous sentence, it’s because those are the times when Satan or one of his flunkies are attacking us because of our faith in Jesus. 

For many people in the world who are having real problems with their health, like those suffering from cancer, faith in God is the best way to have any hope of either a complete healing or an eternal future. Are there agnostics or atheists who have these problems? I would have to say, Yes! But they don’t really have faith in God until He is the only real hope for them. Atheists don’t believe in God period, no matter what name you give Him.

I am not trying to put people down who don’t believe in God or have a very low opinion of God, but He is the only One Who can accomplish anything in your life and He will if you will believe in Him for your salvation. Does that mean that you can never have any more fun after giving your life to Him? No indeed, the fun that you will have will be tempered by your faith and by His Spirit but He doesn’t take away your enjoyment of life. You just have a different outlook toward God’s creation all around you.

He is everywhere but that doesn’t mean that you should worship a tree or an ocean or a person other than Jesus because only He is the Son of God. He paid the price to redeem you, therefore He deserves our praise and our worship every day of your life. As Jesus told His disciples, “Not even a sparrow falls that my Father doesn’t know about it”; so since God watches over the birds and the other parts of creation, He will watch over you as well.

God cares for all of His children and we are His, take comfort in this.


A new beginning


A new mother and a new Christian have a lot in common. One has given birth to a new life, the other has been given a new life in Christ. The processes are different since one is a physical birth and the other is a spiritual birth but both are new in their beginnings and in their experience.

The new life of the baby is completely dependent upon the mother for its nourishment and care. A new Christian is dependent upon the people around them to learn about their Savior and about being a Christian. Both babies have to be nourished and cared for but in different ways. The new baby, whether it is a girl or a boy, has to be bathed and have their diaper changed often. They have to be fed either at the breast of the mother or by a bottle for a while, but it won’t be long before they will begin eating “baby food”.

The baby Christian needs to be fed as well. Regularly and with much prayer because they need to start off on a good Biblical foundation, preferably in the New Testament as their starting point. Later, they can go into the Old Testament, again with prayer so the Holy Spirit can teach them what is needed from the books of the Law and the prophets and the historical books. All of these are necessary to their growth as a Christian but the Old Testament could be considered the “meat” of God’s Word. Most of the New Testament is much easier to understand for a Christian who is just starting out.

These descriptions are the best comparisons which I can come up with because this happens all over the world. People are coming to know Jesus as their Savior and they need guidance and direction when they are new in their faith. A baby needs many of the same things but in a physical way. When I became a believer, at first I didn’t get the help I needed so I was more like the wet ground which seeds fell on but it was very thin. In Jesus’ parable about the sower, some fell on good ground but it was thin because of rocks being beneath it. The roots didn’t go very deep and when the heat and other factors came together, the sprout withered away.

That is what happened when I first began my life as a “believer”. I did believe but I didn’t get the spiritual help that I needed so my faith shriveled up and my faith went with it for a time. Belief in Jesus does save us but if your new life in Christ isn’t watered with God’s Word and allowed to process what you are learning, your new life can become stale and ineffective. Without nourishment in a believing home and a believing church, your faith can wither and if you don’t get the help you need before your faith dies, it may be a long time before you will come back, if ever.

I pray that anyone who reads this will seek out the Word in a Bible study group or church, especially if they are a new Christian because it really did help me when I renewed my faith in Christ many years ago. I suppose I was saved at the first but since there wasn’t real growth in my faith for a long time the Holy Spirit just kept nudging me toward God so that I would learn more about Him so eventually I did and you can too.


We begin our lives as babies, in our physical form as well as in our faith in Jesus. You aren’t born knowing everything, it takes time and effort. Becoming a mature Christian does too. Seek His Word in a church and in your Bible so that you will grow to know Him more.

How much time…


For all of the parents in the world, this is a question that most of us ask when our child or our children are born. The same goes for grandparents. How much time will we have with them? Please, God, give us as much as possible, that was my prayer when my son was born. I don’t want just a year or two or ten and then something happens and he is taken back to heaven. I want him for as much time as possible and I prayed a similar prayer about my marriage before my son was born. But…you know, most of us never know how much time we will have with our family. We don’t even know if we will come home from a grocery trip or from work.

All of us are truly living on God’s timetable. He knows when we were conceived and how many days and hours we will have in our life. Thankfully, He never shares that knowledge with us. I mean, come on, what would you do if you knew exactly when and how you were going to die? I have thought about it but I really don’t want to know! And I doubt that anyone else would like to see the exact date and hour of our passing or of someone in our family. That is information which we look back on later and wish we had known but to know it beforehand? I don’t think anyone would truly relish the idea of knowing that they will live until say July 2, 2019, at 2 am. It would be great for planning the funeral but how would your family feel unless you kept that bit of information to yourself and didn’t tell anyone.

God keeps those secrets hidden from us. Sometimes He may give you a hint just before your death, like a day or two, maybe. I have heard from the family of some people who got these hints. Still, the hints which they got were specific to their life and situation. I do believe that we should attempt to live our lives as a reflection of Jesus as much as possible. Every day seeking to do whatever we think He would do in our situation and trying to be the best reflection of Him. The time which we have is not guaranteed nor do we have a certain number of days or hours to make our life meaningful. Just living our lives as Jesus did and following His example until we are called home to Heaven should be our goal in life.

When you are called to become a child of God through your belief in Jesus the rest of your life is what you will have to do all of His will and His purpose. If you have fifty years or five years or just five months, and thankfully we don’t know about how much time we have, you should begin that day to tell others about Jesus. If you have tomorrow thank Him for it and then use it to the best of your knowledge and ability to get His message to someone, even if it is only ONE person.

If you have another month or another year, and I’m including myself in this, we need to tell as many people about His grace and mercy which is available to all of us for our salvation through Jesus the Christ! He has given us the time and the ability all we should do with it is use it and tell others about Him during the time that we have. Amen

Seek Him and His Presence in your life. Give your life to Jesus and turn away from the sins which kept you from Him. Then teach others to do likewise.

Time and death


Neither of these wait for anyone. Time moves regardless of the speed you perceive it’s movement as. Sometimes it moves slowly and at other times it seems to sprint much faster than you would like. Death on the other hand bides its time. It does come to us but there are times that it makes it’s appearance at inopportune times. For some it comes far too early and for others it shows up when it is least expected.

Time was a part of creation and God ordained it to be. It was supposed to mark seasons and months and years along with the stars and the Sun and the moon. Until that creation week, time had not existed and neither had death. Until the disobedience of mankind, death had never been a part of the universe. But, God had to clothe Adam and Eve with the skin of an animal so death entered into our world.

Life is marked by both time and death but also by birth. An infant comes into the world and from his first breath to his or her last breath God already knows the time that they will have. The best part of your salvation in Jesus is that when you come to the end of your life here, you are just beginning your eternity with Jesus. So death in this life brings your eternity to life and it will never end. The only way that this will be a joyous life on the other side of the veil is if you have given your heart to Jesus in this life.

Time is only measured on Earth. Once you enter into eternity time doesn’t truly have any hold on your life from that point on. If you are a child of God and have lived a separated life from the world while following Jesus in this life then your eternity will involve many wonderful experiences. If you have not given your life to Jesus, then your eternity will be one which is endless punishment for not giving your life to Him. That is the unpardonable sin…refusing the gift of God through Jesus.

I pray that those who read this will turn away from their sinful lives and ask Jesus to be their Savior. If you have given your life to Him, wonderful! If you haven’t, what are you waiting for?

What can you do?


It is a question which is asked many times in today’s job market. In trying to figure out what sort of position you may be able to do, you will get this question. Maybe not worded the same but the answer will either get your prospective boss’s attention or they will listen to you and then tell you “I’ll call you”. Which just means, “Next?!”.

In consideration of your eternity and your salvation there is no question like this because there is nothing that you can do to “help” Jesus save you. He’s already done everything necessary to give you salvation through Him! When you feel your Spirit telling you, convicting you that you need Him, the only thing that you can do is believe in Him for your salvation or…not!

It is your decision to accept Jesus as your Savior and believe in His work on the cross which paid for your salvation and then confess Him before your church that you have done these things. Then, get baptized which shows everyone that you have put your old sinful self in a grave and you have risen to walk with Jesus in a new Life!

Becoming a Christian is not some work which you have to do day in and day out in order to earn your salvation. Jesus did all of that perfectly! So when you feel His call on your life, don’t turn away and tell Him that you don’t have time. Because you may be telling the truth…you don’t have any more time to make this decision. Your life may end for some reason today or tonight and you may not get a chance to ask Him into your heart before you really meet Him face to face. If you haven’t asked Him to be your Savior, what could possibly gain you entrance into Heaven? Answer: NOTHING

We can’t do anything in this life to earn our salvation which has already been paid for and there is no amount of money or works or charity which will do that for you either. Did Jesus really give His life for us? Yes! The disciples wouldn’t have died such horrible deaths for a lie. All but one disciple died from crucifixion or being skinned alive or by being beheaded and many other ways. John was the only disciple who died of old age.

Are you sure of your salvation? If you aren’t then read John and the book of Romans. Both of these will point you in the direction and to the Person you need to know, Jesus the Christ!

Does God care about me?


This is one of those “duh?” questions but YES, He does care! It is true that we don’t see Him physically or feel His comfort as if He was giving us a hug, but God has always cared about each of us. Even those children who are killed by their mothers because of convenience (the time isn’t right), God takes their Spirits back until there is a mother out there who will raise and love that child (IMO). Do I know for sure that He does this? No, but I do believe that He will hold accountable those who continue to kill their children and those who have done it in the past but have not given their heart to Jesus in repentance of this terrible act.

Okay, off the soapbox.

Does God care what happens in your life? Yes, He does. He created each of us for a specific purpose in His mind. Finding that purpose is sometimes hard to do since we aren’t born knowing Him or even about Him. Some of us take years before we are brought to the point of realizing that we can’t do it all on our own. Sometimes that moment of finding this out leaves a scar or a bruise, physically or spiritually, which we sometimes push back from. Even though we know Who is trying to get our attention we act like children (even when we have a few decades of life behind us) and we try to tell God, “NO, I want to do it my way!”. Then when He lets us do it our way and it fails miserably, we get angry at HIM because it didn’t work that way we wanted it to.

Yes, God cares because He can see the end from the beginning in your life and in all of history. He knows who will listen to Him easily and He knows who will need a bump with a 2×4 on their head in order to get their attention. Somehow, I feel that He has to use more than a little persuasion for most of us in order to get it through our hard heads that He is interested in our well-being. While it is true that when God is in the process of getting our attention it is also for His Kingdom’s benefit, the rewards flow both ways.

We are useful to Him and to His Kingdom but the blessings of our usefulness come back to us even when we can’t see those blessings at times. We may not truly see the rewards of our labors for Christ until we are in Heaven. This is something which most in our world do not care about because those rewards are not physical or real in this life but in the next. Living and breathing in the present is more relevant to our existence and our experience but the rewards of working for God don’t necessarily come in this life.

God numbers the hairs on your head and since He cares enough to know even that bit of information about each of us, don’t you recognize that we are important to Him. We may have to do a bit of searching for our calling in this life but the reward will be so much more than we could experience in this life! Seek Him and His Kingdom and your reward will outweigh anything that you could have now.

Are you frustrated with God?


In our lives we do sometimes feel this way. Why has this happened? Why did my child die in that car crash? Why did my grandchild overdose on opioids? Why did I lose my job? The questions go on and on, but usually without an answer. At least we usually don’t get the answer that we truly want to hear. So we begin by blaming God for all of our troubles or we confront Him and demand an answer while we are ranting at Him in our prayer time!

The fact is that God doesn’t owe you or me any explanation about anything which is happening in our lives. Most of what happens in our lives could be explained as being allowed to happen by God but He doesn’t have to give you a reason or an explanation for whatever may be happening. Is it frustrating for us to have things like this to happen and then we can’t figure out why they happened? Yes, of course it is, but if you have read much of the Bible you will see that people who have faith in God and have placed their faith in His provision for their lives usually have that faith tested in some way. But before destruction comes to them, God will come in and save them to bring them back into fellowship with Himself. God is always on time but it is His time, not our idea of His time.

Many times this testing is allowed, such as the case with Job where Satan was allowed to take everything, including his health, from him just to prove Job’s faith in God. Job didn’t ask for this but since the question was brought up by God because He was proud of Job for being a righteous man, Satan said that Job would cast his faith away if God would remove His protection from him. But Job didn’t lose his faith. In fact by the time the book is over Job’s faith was increased rather than tossed aside.

So should we live in our faith like Job did? We should, but most people who claim to have faith in God would not keep their faith in the same circumstances which Job went through. In today’s world even the church and those who call themselves “Christians” who attend church services have little faith. They would blame God for their troubles and seek to fix their problems on their own and by their own strength. In today’s world they might succeed in paying of their debts and possibly regaining some of their wealth. But if your faith is in yourself and in your job or your business it will not last. God is the only Savior of mankind and it is He Who controls all aspects of life that we take for granted!

Seek and serve the One Savior, Jesus the Christ, because it is only by His grace and your repentance from your sinful ways, believing in Him for your salvation that you will see Him face to face in Heaven. He is the Door and the Good Shepherd and only through Him will we find peace and salvation for eternity. We cannot add any amount of worth to our salvation by the works which we do because He has already paid the price for each of us, the full price. All that we have to do is accept it as a graceful gift from God, believe in Jesus as our Savior and turn away from out old way of life to live in His Newness of Life through Him! Amen