Category: Choose Christ

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

We are ambassadors for Christ


Many people who claim to be Christians are not pastors or teachers or serving overseas as missionaries. They are just members of their respective churches. But…we are called to be ambassadors for Jesus Christ wherever we may be. At work, at home, at school, at the mall or at a restaurant eating out, if someone sees you blessing your food or any other action which might identify you as a Christian, then you should represent Christ in whatever capacity you can.

When we are called by God’s Holy Spirit to repent of our old ways and follow Jesus, we are also called into His ministry. This is not optional, it’s just part of being a follower of Jesus. The disciples knew it and everyone who knew them also knew that they were His followers. It is a ministry which doesn’t have a retirement date until you meet Him upon your death.

Does Jesus require us to do this for our salvation? No, it is not a requirement because He did all that was needed for you to be saved. It is up to you to accept the gift of salvation and atonement from Him when you feel the need for giving your life to Him. The Holy Spirit convicts you of your need but it is your responsibility to accept it and ask Him to come into your heart and change you into the person that He knows you can be. His ambassador wherever you go or whatever you do. That is your calling after you have accepted Him and truly given your life over to Him.

Salvation is not a sometimes thing and it isn’t something that you can choose to use when you need a blessing from God and then turn it off. True salvation is a change in your heart and soul because you KNOW that you need Him to change you into that person that He already knew about but you didn’t want to until the Holy Spirit convicted your Spirit of it through faith and by your accepting His Grace for your new life in Him. We are not born into the family of God, we are invited to join by God’s Spirit which convicts us of our need for Him.

Eternity is waiting for each of us and there are two different places where we will spend it. Heaven for those who give their lives and their hearts to Jesus and live a life of service and grace through faith in Him. The hell of separation from God’s Presence with the demons and Satan because you refused His grace and the salvation that only He can bring into your life. When we hear a message about salvation at church or a revival meeting and we don’t know Jesus yet, it is our responsibility to either accept it as the wonderful gift that it is or to reject it and go about our life as if we have all the time in the world. But nobody has that luxury.

Jesus’ death began before the cross


Have you ever wondered about the night that Jesus was in the garden? Most of us know the story about Him going to the garden and asking the disciples to pray with Him. He was asking the Father if this cup could pass from Him and He was sweating drops of blood because of the stress and the fear that His humanity felt. He had very likely had an idea or vision of what was coming in relation to the crucifixion. But…even before His crucifixion, He was scourged.

The “cat of nine tails” was usually dipped in resin and then drug through broken glass or pottery and it had metal tips on the ends as well. This whip was about 2 ½ feet long and the Roman soldiers who wielded it did not like being in Judea nor did they like Jews. Most of Rome’s soldiers were well muscled as well so taking all of that into account, Jesus began dying from the loss of blood at least an hour before He was nailed to the cross.

By the time Simon the Cyrene began helping Him carry His cross, Jesus had lost enough blood that He was very close to losing consciousness. So, His death began much earlier than being nailed to the cross. He had felt the betrayal of one of His disciples. He had heard Peter deny knowing Him three times and even though He knew that it was going to happen, it still hurt Him emotionally. Just a few days prior to His “mock trial”, many people had hailed Him as their Savior, their Messiah, coming into Jerusalem. Yet, many of those same people had been paid to bring false accusations against Him during His “trial”.

All of these combined to bring His Spirit to a very low point, so it is not surprising that He cried “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” when He was on the cross. We think about all of the miracles that Jesus performed while He was teaching and preaching during His ministry and those are proof of Who He was as the Son of God. Most of us never consider that Jesus was born as a human baby to a human mother. His limitations and His emotions and fears and His doubts all were part of His humanity so He could identify with us in every way. He knows your depression and fear and heartache. He has felt bruised feet and hands while He was a carpenter with His human father.

He felt hunger and fatigue during His time of testing in the wilderness for forty days. He felt alone even among thousands of admirers because of His mission which was coming to an end. Jesus felt all of these things which we feel but many of us don’t consider this when we read the Bible or listen to a sermon. Because the Bible doesn’t give details about His emotions or His feelings most of the time. So why do I write this now? Because we should think about our Savior’s time as a human being. Every feeling and temptation which we feel or have felt, He experienced during His life on Earth. That is what makes Him so easy to relate to and easy to believe in simply because He lived as one of us until He went back to His throne in Heaven.

Make sure of your salvation and your belief in Him while there is still time because after the church is taken away, choosing to become a Christian will be much harder to do.

Everything that He went through on this day, He did because of His love for humanity.

Stay the course, keep watching…


Do you love Jesus? I don’t mean a little bit or as a friend, even if He really is your friend. I mean a deep, abiding love like you have for your spouse or your children!

2 Timothy 3

1 But understand this: In the last days terrible times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good, 4 traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these!

This is a perfect description of our world today, even the world inside some churches. People who believe in Jesus or even think that they do are in the same boat as those who are described by Paul. In today’s society even those in the church, are lovers of self much more than they are of Jesus. But, we should all be His followers and lovers of Him just as He loved all of us enough to go to the cross and pay our debt for our sins.

So, why do we choose to say that we are followers and believer’s in Jesus and yet we have no respect for Him and no real love for Him either? We are just living in the last days before the time of the Tribulation, that’s all. Why are the church and those who make up the church acting this way? Mostly it is because of the society we live in and how we have learned about our Savior. Just as it says in the Bible, “Things continue on as they always have”, we have gotten very apathetic about Jesus’ coming again.

Most of us were brought up in a church, regardless of the denomination, and we’ve heard about Jesus and all of the stories in the Bible all of our lives. So, we believe that we are Christians mostly by osmosis.

Except it doesn’t work that way. Your heart has to be convicted of your need for Jesus. Not just because you want to join the church one Sunday but because there is truly a conviction inside that you are sinful and there is no other way to fix this sinful problem except by giving your heart to Jesus and asking Him for His forgiveness for your sinful ways. The problem with this in today’s church is that there are too many people who don’t believe nor do they think that they truly need Jesus as their Savior!

Many believe that they are good enough to get into heaven even without giving their heart to Jesus and repenting of the sinful things that they think about and do on a regular, sometimes daily basis. Many have made their own version of Jesus in their minds and he doesn’t mind their sins nor does he convict them when they do or say anything that the real Jesus would not allow. This is modern idolatry. There is no statue or figure representing the “god” that they believe in because their idea of “god” is in their mind.

During this time just before the Trumpet sounds (even though we don’t know when that will be), all of us who believe in the real Jesus and have accepted Him as our Savior need to be watching for the signs and reading the Bible. Why? Because we can discern the prophetic signs in the news better if we know what is foretold to happen. God is sending out signs all over the world but if you don’t know what has been foretold, you won’t notice them.

What binds us together?


The overarching glue which holds the church together and has done so since Jesus walked among us is…love. Jesus commanded us to love one another as He had loved those who started with His ministry. God’s love has resonated throughout the Scriptures and He has demonstrated that love by giving us our provisions such as food and shelter. He has watched over us in times of trouble and in times of plenty because the fruits which we are blessed with have always come from Him.

Colossians 3:14 says: And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Even though the church has not enjoyed “perfect unity” since it began, the unity of faith in Jesus Christ and the mission which He gave to us is and always has been our guiding principle. Even if we are attacked on all sides today for the Truth which we proclaim because it upsets people and makes them uncomfortable. Jesus made the leaders of the Temple uncomfortable too because they didn’t want to lose their prestige and power. The church which has followed His example has been a catalyst for change in this world. But it didn’t do so by force or arms, although during one dark period it did use force. The Crusades were a mistake and would never have happened if Jesus was around but there were too many in the church at the time who wanted more power and more land brought under the Christian flag.

The problem with that thinking is this: a message of love cannot be forced upon anyone. Trying to force people to change from one religion or belief system to Christianity does NOT work! Nobody loves by force and you can’t learn to love by force.

The church today is bowing to the culture of today and is less of the church which Jesus Christ started than it ever has before. This is something which those of us in the church need to stand up and fight against because when we are less than Jesus’ message then we aren’t being the church at all. Why did Jesus come to mankind in the first place? He came because of His love for us, all of us! Why? Because He knew that there was no way that we could do enough to bring salvation unless He started it. Without His love for us and His sacrifice for ALL of us, we would never be allowed into Heaven.

If the church, regardless of denomination, doesn’t get back to the message which is in God’s Word then the world is lost. Because it is our responsibility as believers to tell others about our wonderful, mighty, compassionate God Who came down to give His life so that we might live in eternity with Him!

It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. 5 And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. 2 John 4: 4-6

Walk in the truth as the Father commanded so that others will see the Truth of salvation by Jesus Christ and belief in Him. This is our mission and our duty as Christians.

Joy in my heart!


Working and doing any kind of work for God is a joy! Whether you are a teacher or a preacher or a blogger! Just knowing that you are telling others about your Lord and Savior even if you never meet them or even know them, God will use your words and give you the words to say so that someone will seek out Jesus as their Savior. The idea of a Savior which is planted in their mind and in their heart (soul) will take root and God will cause it to bloom in their life. It may not happen today or tomorrow but when God is behind your words and the results which come from them, it can’t help but grow.

Jesus has such a powerful love for mankind, not just the Jewish people, until He gave His life so that we could all come to know Him for our salvation. True repentance and acceptance of His sacrifice along with believing that He paid for our sins and their penalties is what is needed for salvation. It doesn’t take a tub full of water for baptism nor many years of “works” for Him to be saved. Speaking in tongues is not required and being overjoyed with the power of the Holy Spirit doesn’t make a difference in whether your salvation is true or not!

In Acts chapter sixteen, Paul and Silas are in jail because of their testimony and because they had freed a girl from demon possession. Here is the story of it:

Paul and Silas in Prison

16And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying: 17The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. 18And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.

19And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers, 20And brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, 21And teach customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans.

22And the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. 23And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely: 24Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks.

The Conversion of the Jailer

25And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. 26And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed. 27And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. 28But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. 29Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, 30And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

31And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. 32And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. 33And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. 34And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.