It’s happening all around us…

To most of the world, everything that is happening in the news is unexpected and worrisome. But if you are a Christian, you know that it has been foretold for a very long time. Most of what we see and hear is just the “birth pains” as Jesus said it would be. The news that we hear and see on TV is part of those “birth pains” leading up to the time of the Tribulation, but most people in our nation and around the world don’t want to see it. Most of them don’t want to know that God foretold these things hundreds of years before Jesus was born.

The problem is that we have taken God’s Word out of education and in some churches His Word isn’t preached like it should be either. When you ignore God’s Word, you are leaving yourself open to suggestions from Satan and his demons. If you have never asked Jesus to be the Lord and Savior in your life, then you are being influenced by him and the demons that he commands. I don’t mean that you are possessed and need to be “exorcised” of your demon, but when your mind and your heart have not taken in God’s Word and His Son for your Savior then you are working for the devil whether you know it or not.

God loves you and He has called us to be His and to be part of His family but when we enjoy the world and its pleasures so much that God’s conviction isn’t enough to bring you to Him then we are in a very bad place. Because…you have no guarantee that you will live until tomorrow and if your life ends tonight you will meet God but He will be your judge since you rejected Jesus as your Savior. Our lives are short in comparison to eternity, so make sure of where you would like to spend it before your time is up on Earth.

Stand fast in your faith!

Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all your things be done with charity. 1 Corinthians 16:13‭-‬14 KJV https://bible.com/verse-of-the-day/1co.16.13-14/42331

Happiness and Joy

They seem to be words that have the same meaning don’t they? But there is a fundamental difference between the two. Joy can be felt and known even when you feel sad and depressed, happiness can only be felt when you feel happy. Your circumstances have an effect on happiness, but joy is not subject to feelings or circumstances. Joy is felt and known by those who know Who their salvation depends on and salvation can only be known and felt through Jesus Christ.

Christians have joy in their hearts because of the grace that we’ve been given through accepting Jesus as our Savior. We have the joy of being loved by our Creator because He wants to love us and not because of anything that we deserve. Because we don’t deserve His love, it is a gift by grace through faith in Him. The joy of salvation is something that the world around us cannot understand nor can it comprehend it at all. Salvation doesn’t make sense to the world around us but fellow believers know it and can feel the joy of being known and loved.

Happiness is dependent on our situation and our feelings and has very little to do with the source of our salvation. We derive happiness from food and our family and from paying off bills. Happiness is a very human feeling that is totally dependent on your situation and very little else. It can be taken away at any time so it is very fragile, while joy is eternal when your joy comes from your relationship with Jesus your Savior. No one can take your joy from you because it is only truly found in Jesus Christ. Once you have a relationship with Him, your joy in that relationship will be yours forever. The “joy of the Lord is your strength“!

Are you listening to Him?

So many times in our lives we go to church, we sit through a sermon and then go home. What did we hear? Did you hear His voice or were you thinking about something at work or a problem at home? Many people, young and old, think about many different things while they are in church but God has brought you there to hear His Word preached. Not because your preacher is such a great orator but because there are lessons contained in every word found in God’s Word.

Now, I don’t mean that we have to pick apart the Bible word for word because much of the meaning in God’s Word is only found in the context of the words and paragraphs. When you choose one verse or even one or two words you are taking them out of context and they can be used in ways that can damage those around you. God loves each of us deeply, but He hates the sin that we live our lives in. Of course, if you are a Christian your sins are forgiven but that doesn’t give you or me a license to go back and keep sinning.

The only lasting treasure that we will have is those things that we have done for Jesus in this life. Anything else is just straw and wood which will be burned up by the testing in Heaven. Lasting changes in our lives are made when the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and changes us from the sinful creature that we were born as to a redeemed “new creation” who can rise to walk in our new life with Jesus Christ! It doesn’t matter if you have been going to church for your entire life and you were raised in a Christian home, if you have never asked Jesus to come into your heart and change your life then you are just a sinner who has been in church for a long time.

At some point during a sermon, your heart will feel God’s touch and you will know exactly how sinful you really are and you will want Him to come in and change you so you can be His disciple and follower from that point on. You may be twelve when this happens or you may be eighty-eight and if you’ve been in church for your whole life you will have a hard time understanding why you feel the need for Jesus. Rest in the knowledge that God’s call goes out to each of us at the appropriate time, never early and never late but always on time.

If you’ve been in church for a long time and you finally go down to ask Jesus into your heart, your decision will have a profound effect on those who have known you for years. Because you’ve been “doing church” and other people have thought for all those years that you were a Christian. It will have the effect that God wanted it to have and you may not have to witness to anyone about it. Those in the crowd will see your transformation. Don’t push God’s touch away, please seek Him out as soon as possible. Don’t wait because we don’t know how many days God has given us. We may have a couple of years left or less than a week, so make your time count for Jesus.

You will be comforted

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Matthew 5:4 KJV https://bible.com/verse-of-the-day/mat.5.4/74704

Do you believe?

God is our Creator. Is that something that is beyond your mind to believe? Are you too stubborn to believe it or do you think that you actually came from an ape? God made us in His image and He created the apes but He did NOT use an ape as the pattern for humanity. God created the entire universe from nothing. It did not spew out of a microscopic point of dense matter in the Big Bang, God spoke it into existence with His Word. Don’t even consider that your teachers know more than God because God gave them their intellect and their ability to learn what they teach children today.

In the public schools, teachers are supposed to follow a pattern of teaching. They call it a “lesson plan”, I call it indoctrination of our youth. Whatever you call it, since the Bible and the morals that it teaches has been out of the public school system for more than fifty years, our children have been taught what to say and what to believe by teachers. In college it gets worse because of the predominant theory of evolution of all species. Yes, I called it a theory because you can’t prove that one animal in the past evolved into another. Scientists will argue this point until they are blue in the face but the fact is that there are no fossils which show any transitional phase between one form and another.

Back to God now. He spoke everything into existence and it was good until mankind mucked it up and decided they wanted that one fruit that God had told them they could not and should not eat. Have you ever noticed a toddler do that? If you tell them that there is something that they can’t have because it is bad for them they will work hard to gain that one thing more than any other. It doesn’t matter what it is, if it is denied to them because you say so they will work ten times as hard to get it rather than be satisfied with what they already have.

Mankind has not changed one bit. If there is something that this group has that another group wants it may start a war. A theif will steal from your home something that he wants just simply because you have it and he doesn’t. Sometimes he will sell what he stole for the money but his satisfaction is that he took it from you because in his mind you didn’t deserve it anyway. God can see all of this going on in our world today and it breaks His heart but He has held off the end of the age until the time that He will send for His bride, the church. Why has He held off so long? So that every person will have the opportunity to claim salvation through Jesus Christ.

I pray that everyone who reads these posts will take a minute and seek God in prayer. He will answer your prayer for salvation and your eternity will be set in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Your name cannot be erased from that point on. Your life with Jesus is assured. Then you should begin to walk with Him each day. Reading the Bible, praying about what you read and praying for someone that you know whether they are sick or just need to know Jesus as their Savior. Be His voice and His feet from that point on because He gave His life to pay your penalty for the sins that you committed or will commit. Don’t turn away from His call in your life.

The Lord is your fortress

1 Except the LORD build the house, They labour in vain that build it: Except the LORD keep the city, The watchman waketh but in vain. Psalm 127:1 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.127.1.KJV

Dead men walking…

I know that there are many people who like to watch “zombie” shows and movies. Why? Because it’s entertainment I suppose. The thing is…if you haven’t given your heart to Jesus and repented of your “normal” sinful life then you are walking around dead in your sins. We are dead toward God when we are still sinners and have not accepted Jesus as our Savior. So in reality we are dead men and women walking until the Holy Spirit revives our heart and brings us into a new Life in Christ!

You won’t accept Jesus as your Savior if the Holy Spirit doesn’t convict you of your NEED for salvation. We will continue to live as dead men without the conviction to make us see exactly what we are and Who we need in our hearts! Jesus loves you so much that He died on that cross two thousand years ago to pay the penalty for your sins. He didn’t have any sin of His own but He died for the whole world even though He knew that many of them would never accept His offer of Life through the grace of God because it is a gift from God to each of us. We cannot earn it nor can we pay for any part of our salvation. He paid it all!

Your soul is worth the life of the Son of God. Even if there had only been one person, such as the thief on the cross, that Jesus could die for and provide salvation for through His shed blood and resurrection, He would’ve done it anyway. That kind of love is hard for us to understand or comprehend. Our Creator loves each of you with that deep abiding love. I can’t explain it to you, I can’t even describe that love because as far as we are concerned that kind of love is impossible for us to know in our mortal life. The only time that we will know it and feel it truly is when we fall to our knees in front of the One Who died for us. Even then I don’t think we will understand it. It will be so overwhelming in its capacity that even in our glorified bodies we won’t be able to stand in the truth of it.

I pray that everyone who reads this blog might seek out God to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Don’t put it off because we are not guaranteed to even wake up in the morning.

It’s never too late…

12 Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: Joel 2:12 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/jol.2.12.KJV

I’m not ashamed of the gospel!

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Romans 1:16 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/rom.1.16.KJV