Category: Choose Christ

What kind of message have you heard?


Many churches teach a gospel that doesn’t conform to the one preached in the early years of the church. In fact, their message is so different that you would think that it is an entirely different gospel altogether. One that doesn’t even teach that you must be convicted before you can be set free. How can you be set free from something that you don’t even realize that you are guilty of? When the clergy began teaching and preaching “positive thinking” and prosperity gospels, the church began to slide down a slope that it wasn’t meant to be on at all.

Jesus did not teach or preach about prosperity or positive thinking, He taught that we are all sinners saved by the grace of God, period. There is no way of thinking your way into Heaven, your own opinion of yourself or of others should be the same as God’s but your opinion and the work that you do here don’t get you into Heaven! Belief in and an intimate walk with Christ daily are the paths that will take you to Heaven’s gate. The first is a strict requirement, belief in Christ and His death which paid the debt for your sins. The second, an intimate walk with Jesus daily, is essential to your growth and maturity in your faith. Your walk and intimacy with Jesus is not necessary for you to get into Heaven, but it may have an effect on those around you that may need what you have, a relationship with Jesus.

The message being taught and preached in many churches has changed over the centuries, some changes were good some, not so much. The best that we can do today is to bring the gospel to those who are hurting, even if they don’t think that they need it. We may have to get in their faces with the fact that God loves them, but He doesn’t like what they are doing. Whether it is their lifestyle or the drugs or alcohol or whatever it may be that they are using, if their heart doesn’t belong to Him then they are on the wrong path and may not even know it!

It is our job, whether you may be a pastor or a member of a church or a believer who hasn’t found a church, to tell others of the grace and goodness of Jesus. He is the only One who can heal the hurt, the pain, the agony of their lives. He is the cure for their heartaches when life throws them a curve ball, He can strengthen you in ways that you can’t and He will! All that you have to do is accept Him as your Savior and believe in His grace for you, all of the other things will come in time.

In our instant society mindset, we have a problem with the idea of waiting for God to get around to taking care of things, but in order to be an effective follower of Jesus we have to learn to be more patient because He can see things which we can’t. We have “microwave mentalities” because of the stuff that most of us grew up with or grew into as we got older. If something isn’t done now, or at the latest by tomorrow, we don’t want to wait. So, we take the problem back from God and tell Him that we can do it better and faster. The problem is that He lets us do it and He knows what will happen because we didn’t let Him take care of it. We will grow through it, but we may not like it! This is something which I am struggling with now, because I want my problems, financial and otherwise, fixed today not next week or next month or even next year. I struggle with patience or the lack of it, waiting for Him and learning His ways is not easy but it is necessary to your Christian life and mine.

Are you a loving person?


We are told to give away our faith in Jesus so that others might have hope in Him too. Do we do this? If you don’t, then why? We can all be the types of people which do this. We can give money or time to causes that we believe in and yet not have any love or compassion for those who are receiving our gifts but you know, but spiritually we are not getting it! Giving without love is easy but you can’t love without giving because it is impossible!

If you truly love Jesus, you can’t keep it to yourself…you have to tell others, you have to give away the thing that you could not afford to attain that which you cannot lose! Not one of us who claim Jesus as our Lord and Savior could’ve paid the price that was paid for our Salvation, but once you get it you can’t lose it. Some people walk away from it and from Him which ruins their witness to others, but your eternal salvation (if you were sincere in your belief in the first place) is secure.

There are people who have thought, in their own minds, that they were saved at a particular time and yet when things get tight or tough in their lives they turn away from the only One that can help! You have known people like this, when they are making enough money and everything is going fairly well in their lives (on the outside) and they seem to be strong in their faith, they may be coming to church regularly. But, when they are at home or at work or out with their friends then they allow a part of themselves to show that doesn’t show at church. Usually, they are quite the opposite. So, what happened? Are they true Christians or were they deceived into thinking that they were?

A loving, kind person can be as sweet to you as your grandmother but they may not be genuine about having faith at all and could not care less about you or your situation. Love and kindness can be faked, affection can be faked but a person who truly has accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior cannot fake it! If there has been a real change in their life and in their heart, and the Love of Christ is dwelling inside them, they can’t keep it in, they have to let it out. In whatever ways that God leads them to, it will come out. It will come out when they are at work or at a restaurant or a store, it is impossible for them to hold it inside! The genuineness of that love is so real that anyone that it touches will know it for sure!

I know that there are people who will disagree with this, but when you are the recipient of the greatest love that the universe has ever known, you cannot keep it to yourself! If it has truly changed your life and your heart then there is no way that you can keep it to yourself because it has to show in your life and your work and it will show through  your character! The love of Christ is too contagious so it has to get out so that someone can see it, it has to be shown and felt and known by all of those around you!

Here is a link to a wonderful site which shows and explains the reasons for becoming a Christian

If you have never known Jesus or a genuine Christian, then I encourage you to seek Him out. Through prayer, reading the Word, regardless of the translation and asking Him if He is real. He will show you for sure and He will be with you no matter the situation. The problems and the stuff that is happening all over the world have been caused by us or by Satan and his fallen angels. God is allowing it to happen, but He has a plan and is still in control, whether you believe it or not.

When bad things are happening….


What do most folks do when bad things are happening in their lives or in the world around them? Some resort to destructive behavior like smoking more or drinking alcohol, so just go out and do what I used to do and get drunk enough that they can’t remember why they did it. Others will call a friend or visit a friend and talk about their problem and together they can feel better about the situation. Then, there are those that really get crazy and get down on their knees and pray!

Why does the world and many people in it think that it is useless or crazy to pray when things are getting bad or when bad news comes. Prayer is one of the most powerful things that we can do, because God is the One who can do all things and He hears us when we pray. If you are not a Christian, the only prayer that will make a difference will be the one to ask Him to come into your life. He always hears that prayer.

The stuff that I used to do nearly killed me when I was a teenager, thankfully due to my mother and grandmother praying for me God was watching over me. The power of prayer is one that cannot be denied because many people use it in love. Prayer is the most useful tool that Christians have because God listens to it when it is done in love.

When you care about the condition of others lives as much or more than your own, then the prayers that you can pray will have an awesome effect in their lives but it will also have a great effect on you! Your life will be changed by the way that God will move in their lives, because when you see that prayer does work it will increase your faith and that will also have an effect on your life in Christ.

The way that things are going in our world, the tough times have not gotten here yet but they are coming. We cannot change this or stop it, it is going to happen and we have to depend on God and our faith in Him to get us through it. It is not something which some pastors will even tell you about, which is why many don’t preach from the book of Revelation, but it needs to be told and with God’s help, it needs to be explained to the best of our ability. We are approaching this time and after two thousand years some people have stopped thinking about it.

“It hasn’t happened and its not going to happen because it has been too long since it was foretold”; these are the words that you hear from skeptics and those who just don’t know better. The facts are, since the Son of God said that it would come, then it will. It will only happen when it is His time for it to happen, it could be in the next three to five years or it may be forty or fifty years but it will happen. Personally, I don’t think it will be more than ten to fifteen years away but that is just my opinion.

Your faith is what can and will sustain you during a crisis in your life, whether it was caused by a disease or an accident or even if you had a hand in its cause. The point to take away from this is that we should never count God out of a situation because He is in the situation with you. He never leaves you and is always there, all that you have to do is call on Him and ask that He come into your life. He won’t make all of your troubles go away, but He will enable you to bear them when they come.

A conscience, do you have one?


Many, if not most people, do have a conscience but with all of the evil, hateful things going on in the world it sure doesn’t seem like it. You would think that it would prompt more people to think about what they are doing before they do it, but when you read a news story or watch the news, it seems that thinking about what was wrong with their intentions was the least of their thoughts.

What is a conscience? Is it God telling you what you should and should not do? Your conscience is, according to the definition of Webster’s: an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior. To answer the second question: yes, it could be the Spirit of God telling you or guiding you toward and right decision rather than a wrong one. It also has something to do with your character and how you were brought up as a child. Were you taught right from wrong? Did your parents or grandparents take you to church?

The lessons learned, and the words that were heard in church came from God’s Word, the Living Word. This is where most of our collective conscience comes from since God’s Word is able to make an impact on your life, even if you are not expecting it to make an impact. It resonates with your heart and soul because it is supposed to. God’s Word never comes back to Him void, it always accomplishes what He intended for it to do. If you heard it in a sermon or on the television, if God intended for your heart and soul to respond to it, you will.

God loves you and wants what is best for you, regardless of the time or place or the circumstances that you may find yourself in. Our lives are truly important to Him, for some that is hard to understand. I mean, how or why in the world would the Creator of the universe be interested in me or you as an individual? What could we possibly do for Him? Well, what about when He called Moses? God came to a bush in the desert to call him, for something great, couldn’t He do the same thing (maybe less dramatic) for some of us?

Your conscience comes from a part of you that knows right from wrong, the truth about life comes from the One Who created it so you recognize truth, His Truth. Give Jesus and the Word of God a chance to make a difference in your life so that you can make a difference in someone else’s life. Of course, it won’t be you making the difference it will be Jesus. He will show through your life and into someone else’s life so that they might want what you have.

Think about it, then ask Him to come into your life and be your Savior. When He does, your life and the lives of those around you will never be the same.

 

I can do ALL things through Christ!


 

Do you realize that God wants you to accomplish a lot in your life? I am not talking about your own things like all of the everyday stuff that weigh us down, I am talking about the ministry that God has given you! Did you know that you have a ministry? If you are a child of God, then you do!

I am not saying that all of us are supposed to have an international ministry, but we are supposed to take our beliefs with us wherever we go. To work, to school, at home, to the grocery store, to the bank, yes we are supposed to walk with Christ and let Him walk with us wherever we go! If you would be ashamed to have Him with you then don’t go there! As a child of God, He is with you all of the time, no matter what you happen to be doing or where you happen to be!

Why can’t I be alone sometime?

You can’t leave God out of your life once you have taken Him into it! You may walk away from Him, but He is always there with you. He doesn’t get in the way, or tell you what to do or not to do but if you have given your heart to Jesus, then He is present in every situation and circumstance that you are, day in and day out.

As Jesus said, “I will be with you always, even unto the end of the age”; there is no greater comfort than this because we are never alone, in our most desperate times or our most joyous days!

Even those of you who may not have given your heart to Jesus or asked Him into your life, He is still watching over you. God knows how many hairs are on your head and He knows when even a sparrow falls to the ground, so of course He knows what you are doing and where you are! You are not alone whether you have accepted Jesus into your life or not.

Then why do I feel alone sometimes?

We feel this way not only because we are social people and when we are alone we feel it. But sometimes we feel alone even when we aren’t alone which truly troubles some people. Do you have friends nearby? Are you able to meet with them? Do they have the time to meet with you? These are the questions that come into your mind when you are feeling depressed and lonely.

God understands because He knows how it feels to be lonely, because He experienced it through Jesus’ life and He will be with you through your time of lonely feelings and other problems which come in our lives. God loves each of us and will help us in all areas of our lives.

If I am not alone, why do I feel so depressed at times?

God is there with you at all times because He is in all places and present in every situation. If you have given your heart to Him, then you will feel Him near you in times of joy, pain, heartache, fear, doubt and yes even when you are depressed. These feelings are not placed on you by God … we are hit with these every day by Satan because he hates God and those who belong to Him. Just as Job was beset by some really bad circumstances in his day, we are too. We may not lose everything, but the spirits of doubt and fear and depression can make us feel as if we have lost it all or may be about to.

God loves each of us and we have an Advocate who defends us before God when Satan accuses us before Him. He is there no matter what the circumstance and He will be there when we arrive at the gates of Heaven. Nothing is impossible with God and there is nothing that He cannot accomplish for you or through you. Give your life and your heart to Him, it is the best decision that you will ever make in your life.

What good are the Ten Commandments?


Today, do we still need the Ten Commandments? Are they relevant to our time and our lives today? Many people don’t think so today. According to most of those who don’t want to know about God and don’t want to believe anything that is contained within the Bible, these laws are null and void. According to them, God’s Word was made up by men so it has no authority. They even postulate that it had no authority at the time it was written and it specifically hasn’t any today!

Why is that? Our laws are based upon the laws given by Moses! We have laws against adultery, murder, perjury (lying under oath), stealing, neglecting your parents in their old age (honor your father and mother). Granted, you won’t go to jail for cheating on your wife or your husband, but if you are found out the divorce will cost you something! Dependent on how forgiving your spouse is, it may or may not cost you your life!

The Ten Commandments were given to begin to show people that they need a Savior, because there is no way that we can keep them perfectly. It just can’t be done, because by breaking even one of them, you have become guilty of all of them. If you have ever stolen anything, no matter how small or inconsequential it might have been, you are a thief. If you lied to your Mom or Dad about it, now you are a liar and a thief. Any one of these sins will keep you from having a relationship with God, but the most important decision of your life has nothing to do with these!

The most important time of your life is to realize that you are a sinner, separated from God and then to realize that you need Jesus in your life! That is the purpose of these Commandments! To make you realize your sin, regardless of your faith! If you have heard them or read them, then your heart will let you know when you break them. That is their purpose, to bring you to the point where you know that you need Jesus.

Your decision, the one which will determine your eternity, is whether you will accept God’s grace to you through Jesus or not. That is what decides your final destination, not a loving God. He didn’t create hell for any of us, it was created to punish the angels and Satan who rebelled against God. We have always had a reservation, an invitation to Heaven, all we have to do is accept Jesus as our personal Savior and when we follow Him, we will be where He is, where our reward is, in Heaven. It is your decision and yours alone that determines your eternity, this is why we were given a choice because God wants us to choose to serve Him!

Even the angels have a choice, they are not required by instinct or design to serve God. We are created with a spirit of choice as well. We can choose to live by the rules of the world and do what we want to do, trying to do it all on our own,to see if we can be good enough, righteous enough to earn our way into heaven. Except, we are flawed because of our sinful nature and we can’t be perfect enough, righteous enough to earn our way. Jesus is the only way into Heaven because He paid the price of a perfect sacrifice for all of mankind and all that we have to do is accept it and believe that He did it for us.

Don’t believe the lie that time is on your side, because that is a deception from Satan himself. He is using that to make you believe that you have plenty of time to make your decision. The problem with that is that none of us are guaranteed tomorrow, we don’t know if we will wake up when the alarm goes off tomorrow or if we will open our eyes to gaze at the judgment seat of God!

Truthfully, I am not trying to frighten you, I am not saying that your life might end tonight. But, kids who were just 19 years old have died in their sleep, people get killed in accidents every day, none of them saw this coming, none of them knew that it was about to happen, but it did. What if, for the sake of your eternal soul, I am right. What will happen to you if you have not asked Jesus into your heart? It will not be God’s fault that you will end up in hell, it will be yours! Because you have heard the message and the way out of hell is faith and acceptance of Jesus as your Savior. There is no other way. Religion won’t save you, your own version of righteousness won’t pay your way into Heaven, none of your wealth on Earth will go with you and it won’t help.

The only way into Heaven is by faith in Jesus.

 

We all need Christ today!


Jesus loves you, that is why He came to earth to do what God wanted Him to do. God loves you too, which is also why He sent Jesus to earth to be the sacrifice for the whole human race. He did it for all of us, from the time that Adam and Eve lived up until now and also those who will be born until the end of the age. Jesus paid the price for you and for me.

He loves you and your family, whether you have accepted Him as your savior or not. It doesn’t make sense to us because we can’t understand what God does. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, His ways are higher than our ways. Many people today don’t know whether their eternity will be one that they will enjoy or not. People like you and me just don’t know where their destination will be, which is a sad thing. God’s grace was given to us through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross so that we might know that we have eternal life through Him!

If you haven’t accepted Jesus into your heart, then your life will end here on earth but your eternity will be in torment. Not because God is punishing you but because you decided that you didn’t want to accept His grace through Jesus to save your soul. You do have to turn from your sins, repent from them, and ask Jesus into your heart, then go to a Bible teaching church and confess that you have given your life to Christ. Jesus said that we are to publicly show that you have given your life to Him and He will acknowledge you before God and the angels in Heaven.

There are so many hurting people in the world today, and their only real salvation is through Jesus. Give your life to Him and ask Him into your life. Time is growing short, the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation are  coming true every day. This is why all of the bad things are happening, because Satan knows that his time is short as well. Don’t wait, please learn of Jesus and turn to Him, He can and will help you through the pain in your life.

Charismatic movement a cult?


I just read a little of the article which carries this as the title and I couldn’t believe it! If the Holy Spirit is drawing people to Christ all over the world right now, I don’t care if they are speaking in tongues or jumping pews or whatever, if God is getting the glory for it then it is not a cult! On the other hand, if the man or woman bringing the message is getting the glory then it most likely is a cult!

Jesus told His disciples that “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draw him: and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:44). If the Holy Spirit is moving in the world today, and He is, then who are we to say that it is wrong? The Holy Spirit or the Spirit of God is moving and will continue to draw those who will answer the call to come to Jesus until the Father decides otherwise. It will do so until the end of the age, if God wills it, so who are we to say if it is something out of the ordinary.

Arguing and fighting between denominations and churches should not be happening, and yet Satan will cause this to happen because if he cannot get rid of the church then he will tear it apart from the inside. He has done it before, numerous times in the past, and he will continue to do it. If we can’t agree on Biblical teaching and preaching and stick to the Word of God as the Truth, then we are wrong altogether, regardless of denomination or translation.

The disciples argued among themselves during their evangelistic efforts after the resurrection, about doctrine and law. The point is that if we are going to show a united front to the world as Christians, then we cannot allow the body of believers to come apart because of disagreement between doctrines and denominations. The facts are that our churches have come apart in the last two centuries, mostly over small disagreements and sometimes over things which have nothing to do with evangelism or Christ.

This is the kind of divisive work that Satan enjoys the most because he can show that we are petty, spoiled children. Unable to cooperate or get along with each other and continually sniping at each other about points of doctrine and disciplines and man-made laws that our congregations should abide by if they want to belong to a certain conference.

How is it that Christians can claim to know the Truth from God’s Son, Jesus, and yet we make up rules and statutes and disciplines for those who belong to our conferences to follow? Isn’t this what the Pharisees and Sadducees did in Jesus’ day? They laid so many rules and regulations on their people until they couldn’t possibly fulfill them all. Many of our churches today are doing this, especially in the Methodist group of churches. I am not against the Methodist denomination, but it seems that they are a divisive and divided group.

There is little wonder why people call the church a place of hypocrites, because it seems that we cannot make up our minds which way we will follow Christ. Biblically we are supposed to be following Jesus and the doctrine that He taught, not our own! After His resurrection and ascension, individual congregations existed in different localities, but they were not religiously divided. All of them had the same pattern of organization, doctrine, worship, salvation, etc., so why can’t we do this today? The reason is Satan himself. He is the one who is putting the divisions and the jealousy in our churches to break them apart so that they will be ineffective for God’s kingdom!

We must cling to the Word of God and to its doctrines and not our own. Stick to the teachings of Jesus and don’t add anything to it nor draw your own conclusion from it, if the wisdom is not coming from the Holy Spirit then it should be questioned and proven through the Word of God. Pray that our churches can stay the course until Jesus arrives in the clouds to take His saints home.

What is going on now?


Many people are confused, scared and worried about what is going on around the world and in our own country, and they should be! Our officials seem to have lost their minds about what needs to be done about our economy and about our nation as a whole. They want to pass a so-called “balanced budget” which we haven’t had in years, but they won’t let go of an insurance tax that no person in America can actually afford! Why are we being pushed to the brink of economic disaster? Because those in charge don’t care about the people that they were elected to represent! That is why!

I know that my site is supposed to be about learning about our Lord and how to serve Him, but sometimes it is hard to keep from preaching about something that it seems that many in the media are ignoring completely! Yet, God is in control, whether those in Washington, DC want to believe that He is interested in our country or not. He knows which direction our country is heading in and where it will end up. Time is catching up with us and with the world in general and how much longer we have before the time of testing, only God knows.

There are many things happening all over the world right now, every day, and yet God is in control. Many people think that He is not because of all the evil, sick stuff happening everywhere but that is due to Satan and his demons which influence all of the evil that men do. Mankind is evil without God, their thoughts are evil and against God’s law from the time they are born until they feel the call of God on their hearts. If they listen to it and follow Him, God will create a new heart in them so that they will know and follow Him and learn from Him how to be a Christian.

You don’t have to do anything to be saved and become a Christian, in fact it is free. There is no amount of “works” that you can do or have to do in order to receive the grace that God provides for us through Christ because nothing that we do counts in eternity until after we accept the gift of grace from Christ! Your life in eternity begins with your acceptance of Jesus into your life, then everything that you do in His name counts in eternity. A glass of water given, teaching someone about Jesus, giving food to someone who is hungry, if all of these are done in the name of Jesus and because you are a Christian, then you have done it to Jesus Himself.

Charity in this life, done as a follower of Christ, has eternal rewards and maybe eternal consequences. The charity that you do for someone may have an impact in their life and may cause them to become a follower of Christ and it could go on from there. Eventually some small thing that you did for someone may affect many people that you don’t know, but because of something that you did the effect rippled out away from you to include more people than you could’ve known. If we, as Christians, act as we are supposed to do after we come to know Jesus then the world will be a different place, even if it is only one person at a time.

The “ripple” effect can eventually effect many hundreds or even thousands of people. Yes, there is a lot of evil in the world and a lot of bad people to go with it but if we can inspire one person each, then there will be more light in the world than there is darkness eventually. People need to know that there is good in the world, that there are good people, Christian people in the world who show the love of Jesus to those around them. What is going on now can be changed into something good going on now and in the future, if we will be the witnesses and the disciples that Jesus had at the beginning and the ones that His Word commands us to be today!

What kind of faith do you have?


Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible, and receives the impossible.

This is the definition of honest, child-like faith, something which many people cannot understand, even though they have a kind of faith too. Take the scientists and professors who believe in evolution for example, the amount of faith that they have to believe in a theory which is still just a theory would have to be more than mine!

Richard Dawkins is quoted thus — “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence.”

There is plenty of evidence for a number of extinct animals and plant life all over the world and I agree with it. There are many different types of animals found in different places and climates, which I don’t and won’t argue with. But…no one has found a transitional fossil of any kind (species) which shows an animal in the process of changing from one type of animal, like one that lives on land or even an amphibian which lives both on land and in water, into another like the theory which says that whales evolved this way.

If scientists claim that evolution takes millions of years, then where are the fossils to prove it? Unless an amphibian stepped into the water one night and the next morning found that it couldn’t get back up on land, how can this be? It seems to me that it would take an enormous amount of faith to believe in evolution happening in that way. So, how can these questions be satisfied? If faith is a cop-out, then scientists are guilty of it too, don’t you think? Jesus said that we only need the faith that a child has, trusting faith, in order to believe and receive the gifts and grace of God. We don’t have to do anything, nor can we do anything to help us get into Heaven. It has already been done, by Jesus Himself. All that we have to do is surrender to Him in faith and believe what the Word of God tells us.

Although, there are many who think that the Book, God’s Word, was made up by the men who wrote it, there are many proofs of its authenticity. Such as the historical account of Israel’s past kings and kingdoms, these have been proven by archaeology and if there is proof of part of the Bible, then the whole of it can’t be dismissed as fiction.

Forty men over the course of fifteen hundred years wrote the books which appear in its pages and yet they are all pointing toward the salvation of the world through the Person of Christ. You couldn’t get forty scientists to agree on enough issues to be able to write a book with sixty-six chapters and coherently point toward one conclusion, whether they were separated by geography or time, let alone over fifteen centuries! The message contained within this Book points clearly to the Savior but it also points to how much God loves each of us. Not specifically for who we are or because of what we may have done, but just because He chooses to.

Isn’t it wonderful that the Creator of this universe loves each of us enough to send His Son, Jesus, to take our punishment for the sin that is in our lives! It is very humbling as well, because He knew me…He knew each of us before we even knew about Him! All of this information is in His Word, the Bible, along with the promises that He made to Israel and most of their promises have been fulfilled. If those promises were fulfilled, don’t you think that those promises to us about salvation, and eternity will be fulfilled too? Give your heart and your life to Jesus because He loved you first.