Category: Choose to follow Jesus Christ

What is your destiny?


We are living in a time that is unprecedented in the history of the world. Hatred abounds. True love seems to be absent from most of the places where it was preeminent at one time. The church, the body of Christ has become weak and fewer in number than ever before. The churches that are left are teaching a doctrine that Jesus would not approve of because it is the doctrine and the “wisdom” of men.

What are we supposed to do during this time?

We who are the believers, the born-again believers of this age, are supposed to be taking the message of Jesus and His love to the world around us and to the world at large. We have more available technology to do this than any other generation before us and we must use it. We should be “about our Father’s business” every day…not just on Sunday or Wednesday night during Bible study. God called each of us to be a witness to His love and power and we are to take this message to those who need it the most…our friends and family and also to others who need to know Him.

If we don’t take it to them and tell them about His love for them, then their fate will be on our hands because we are responsible for those who God called us to touch with our lives and the words that God gives us. It is our witness that will bring them back from the edge of hell and back to the loving arms of God. Nobody else in the world can touch your sister or your brother like you can. Nobody can get your son’s attention or your daughter’s attention in the way that you can. If you touch other lives with His message and they change their ways so to become part of God’s family then God is pleased with your efforts.

Are these efforts required to enter into heaven? No they are not! When you feel the Spirit touch your Spirit during a song or a sermon and you know what you should do with your life, don’t turn away from Him. Run to Him, ask His forgiveness for taking so long and ask Him to change your life into the life that He needs you to be. Only at that point can you fulfill God’s purpose for your life.

We are special in God’s eyes. We are not gods and we are not prophets although we as preachers are prophets too. When you are born again, God doesn’t see you and your sinful life anymore. After you have asked Jesus to come in and clean your heart and soul up so that you are a new creation, you truly are a new creature in Christ. Your old ways and your old friends need to pass away from you and you should bring in new friends and new ways. God looks at us and sees the blood of Jesus covering our sins and He sees His Son in us working to do the will of the Father.

Your life and mine are not ours anymore. We belong to God and we are His workmen, His disciples to take His message to the world. Even if we only touch one person who comes to Jesus for salvation, the angels in heaven praise God and shout for joy because one more sinner has been saved. Don’t sit on the bench, get up and get into the game so that one more soul can be saved. As Private Doss said in “Hacksaw Ridge”, “Lord, help me get one more. Just one more”. In the night that he said these words over and over, he was the only medic on the ridge and he saved over seventy souls from certain death that night. But…he was not alone in his work as a medic. Jesus went with him every step of the way.

Just one more, Lord….

Are you a sinner?


Of course you are! I am too, the difference between a sinner who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior is forgiveness. The gift of God is forgiveness through Jesus Christ. You can’t buy it and you can’t earn it with good deeds or “working your way”!

The change that happens when God touches your heart is as drastic as giving you gills to swim under the water. It’s not a change that you can ignore or live without once He has changed your heart. If you live that way, your heart has not been changed by the Holy Spirit. Just as a fish can not get up and walk on land and breathe air, a changed heart cannot go back to the sin that was your normal way of life before your heart was changed.

If you are a member of the church and you’ve been baptized but you frequent beer joints and can’t remember even one scripture from God’s Word you may be fooling yourself. A heart, your soul, that has been fulfilled and changed so that Jesus is your Savior cannot and will not go back to those things that it was doing before the Holy Spirit changed you! Make sure of your salvation because when that Trumpet blows one day only those who have been changed will leave this world.

God changes each of us when we choose to follow Jesus when His Spirit touches your Spirit (heart) because He has work for you to do. Not work to become saved. You won’t be working to help Him save you, you will be working for His Kingdom now while you are alive and even after into eternity. Why does He call you to be His? Because the job that He has for you is specific to you and nobody on Earth can accomplish it except you. It may be the advice that you give your son or daughter or the witness that they see in your life and you are the only one that can reach them.

At every opportunity…


As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. Galatians 6:10 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/gal.6.10.KJV

Do you disciple?


Many of us on this platform tend to write a bit. Some in short, quick reads and some a bit long. But…have you ever thought of yourself helping others along the road to be a disciple of Jesus? You know, He didn’t go out trying to bring out the BIG crowds but they came to Him because of His message and the miracles. They needed healing but many wanted the food which was provided so miraculously because of His thanksgiving. Some only came for the miracles but there were many who came to hear His message.

Then as His ministry was coming to an end, He taught a few lessons that were a bit hard for the crowds to understand and some that they didn’t like at all. The life of a follower of Jesus, a disciple, wasn’t easy in those days and it hasn’t really gotten easier today, although we have many more “things” to cling to than a money purse and a staff. Even when you make your life as simple as you can these days, we are still wealthy by most of the world’s standards.

So how do you make a disciple? Well, you have to get to know the people in your study group. You can’t lead a study group unless you do know them. In today’s culture that is hard to do because many people don’t want to know their pastor or their teacher in a close and personal way. Today with the disease that is running rampant all over the world most people don’t want to be in the same building with their pastor. Not because they think he is sick but just because of the possibility that he might be. We are allowing a virus, a messenger of Satan, to dictate whether we have fellowship in God’s house. The church, that is the people who are gathered, should be faithful enough in God’s power to come together and worship Him in Spirit and Truth!

Being a disciple of Jesus means much more than visiting a church on Sunday morning. It is reading and studying His Word every day of the week so you will know His voice when He speaks. Your life can be much healthier and more productive when you have His Word stored in your heart and when you read it every day it is like eating manna, it nourishes your soul because it is God’s spiritual food for your soul.

We should love because He loved us first


We love him, because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/1jn.4.19.KJV

God has always loved us whether we know that He exists or not. His love for you began thousands of years before you were born, so make an effort to get to know Him while there’s time to do so.

Off of my game


The past few weeks…basically since the election, I’ve not been writing as much here. I have also been a bit distracted because of having to have a colonoscopy done. That’s as much information as I’ve giving here on that.

I have been studying my Bible although not as regularly as I was. Why am I slacking off? Truthfully…I’m not sure. I’ve noticed during the last few years that my holiday writing and studying drops off a bit. Maybe it is a little bit of the so-called “holiday blues”. It feels as if I am having to put out more effort each day to study the Bible and get the Word, the wisdom that God wants me to understand for my life, to make sense to me. Sounds like I have a real problem.

My problem is easy to pinpoint when I look at it that way. Even so I have to consciously bring my mind into subjection to His Holy Spirit so that I can write and understand that what I’m writing may bring someone who is looking for Jesus will find Him and not me. I cannot make the change in their life, in your life that will give you an eternity in heaven. Only Jesus Christ and your belief in His atonement for your sins can do that. God loves each of us so much that He sent Jesus to Earth to live as one of us and then die for all of our sins.

The only veil separating you from eternity is God’s love and He knows when you will come to know Him as your Savior. Some say that we are immortal until that day that God touches our heart and lets us know that He is waiting and all we have to do is accept Him as our Savior. Some people say ” Now wait a minute, you said that I have to believe in Jesus Christ for my salvation and now you are saying that God loves me enough to wait for me to give my life to Him!” Which One of Them is my Savior? They both are.

Jesus is the Son of God but He is also the Second of the Trinity which makes the Godhead. This is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit or Ghost if you prefer. All of them were present on the day that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist if you will read it in Matthew. So what is my problem these days? Satan.

Just because I am a Christian and a pastor doesn’t mean that he leaves me alone. In fact, he attacks me harder when I am about to write here or when I am working on my sermon or just studying the Bible. Why? Because as long as he can keep my mind occupied with bills and surgery and medical tests and my medication then I won’t be thinking about the work that I should be doing while there is still time to do so…to tell you and others about my Savior and what He will do for you. He doesn’t bring us wealth or fame here on this Earth or in this life but consider that no one on Earth can give you eternal life! What is wealth here compared to being in heaven with the Creator and my Redeemer? I mean the streets of New Jerusalem are paved with gold! How fantastic is that?

There isn’t a rich man on Earth that can pave his driveway with gold bricks because they would be stolen during the night. Nobody would spend thousands on a brick of gold and then place it in the dirt or in concrete to pave even a driveway. But God does. God doesn’t care about the gold and diamonds and pearls, each of the gates of the city in heaven are made from one gigantic pearl and there are 12 gates! Each one made from a precious stone like diamonds or sapphires. Can you imagine a door 12 feet tall made from one gemstone or pearl?

No amount of money impresses God…He wants your obedience and your love to be focused on Jesus and His life. We are supposed to be reflections of Him in our lives so that others can see Him in and through our lives because for some people you and I and the lives that we live in front of them are the only example of Jesus’ love that they may ever see. Live your life as close to Him and be as close to His example as you can with the strength that He gives you through the Holy Spirit because that is the only way that you and I can do this.

Turning away from the Bible?


Many people, it seems, are more than willing to turn their back on the Bible just because someone can make a case against its accuracy. But if you pick up a copy or two you will find that most translations do agree with each other. So why do we turn away from the book that has shaped civilization for at least the last five centuries?

Mostly it is due to our own idea of what Truth really means to us today. Some people who have turned 30 or even younger are turning away from the Bible and the churches that teach from it. Truth is not relative or individual. God’s Word is True and it is the Truth. Like it or not it was given to the Jewish people first but salvation comes through Jesus Christ and belief in Him alone. Each of us has to have faith to believe in Jesus and in the Truth of the Bible and God is the Author and Finisher of our faith but you won’t hear that from a church that doesn’t teach and preach from the Bible.

The refusal of people to believe God’s Word is a far more dangerous tone to take than what is happening in regard to our healthcare and the election too. God is not some fairy tale and His Word has been proven to be true. The prophecies have all come true except for the taking up of the church, those who believe in Jesus for their salvation. When that prophecy finally happens the whole world will know that God is real but whether the news will report the truth about it will be another “spin” which will hurt more people for eternity.

Why do I defend the Bible like this? Because if it isn’t true…then God is a liar and that is something that He cannot do. The life that is in the universe and that which we see every day on Earth could not be here if it weren’t for God and His Son keeping the little things and the big things in balance. There are so many documents which prove that the Torah and the Prophets are true and have been copied accurately down through the years. There are more than five thousand copies of most, if not all of the New Testament.

Please go to a Bible teaching church, pick up a copy of the Bible if you don’t already have one and begin reading it. So much of the Bible backs up the New Testament because Jesus and His disciples only had the Old Testament to read and go by. We benefit from Paul’s letters which were written mostly from prison due to his preaching about Jesus and His sacrifice for our salvation. In fact, Paul wrote almost half of the New Testament himself so if it weren’t for his letters we would have a much smaller New Testament and Bible.

I urge everyone who reads this to tell others about it especially if they don’t go to church or if they don’t know Jesus as their Savior. He came to give us eternity with Him and save us from an eternity in hell. Make sure of your salvation because not one of us is guaranteed to be here tomorrow.

Have you ever wondered…


How did the universe get so big in six days? How did God make some stars HUGE and some that are just the right size to provide warmth and life? Why did God create people who can be so cruel and who will reject Him as their Savior?

These are just a small sample of questions that have come through my mind in the past few weeks, but I still don’t have an answer to any of them. I probably won’t get an answer to any of them until I meet Him in eternity one day. I pray that my life and the decisions that I’ve made in life will at least get me inside the door to Heaven. It will not be my life or any of the “works” that I have done which will bring me to heaven’s door. What will get me in will be the fact of my salvation by my belief in Jesus and His atonement for my sins.

The question of the universe and the stars which God placed in it is actually answered in Genesis. The “how” God did it part was by His Word. Everything that God created was spoken into existence with the exception of mankind, the man and his wife. God sculpted him from the clay or mud if you like it that way and then He breathed His breath of Life into the man and he became a living soul. When God formed the woman, He put Adam to sleep and took one of his ribs and formed her from that.

Mankind was formed by God’s hands. Everything else was spoken into existence, even the fish and the birds and the animals and trees. God wanted a special relationship with mankind which is why He formed him from the clay like a potter but I’m sure there were no imperfections in His creation at all.

Why was mankind created in this fashion? Because God wanted to have an intimate relationship with us and for a time He did have that relationship. But…when mankind disobeyed God’s rule about the tree in the midst of the Garden, he was cast out of the Garden and into a world which suffered because of his disobedience. Death wasn’t spoken of at all until the Fall and then even the stars and the planets and the animals and everything else that God had created felt the sting of the disobedience and the fall. God cursed the ground so that Adam would have to work hard to make things grow to support his family.

Life had been as close to heaven as possible before mankind disobeyed God’s rule about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That is where all of the evil in man’s heart began and we have made it show in many ways over the thousands of years since then. God had seen that man would not be able to resist the temptation to give in to enticement from Satan or from any other source. Which is why He told the woman that one day the “seed of the woman” would conquer the sinful ways of man and pay the price to redeem everyone and bring them back into a relationship with God again.

Jesus was that seed and He did fulfill that prophecy because nobody else in humanity would be able to live a spotless, sinless life in order to pay the price for all of mankind, past present and future. The sacrifices of goats and sheep and birds and bulls in the Old Testament were just a foreshadowing of Jesus shedding His blood to atone for all of mankind’s sins. They could not wash away man’s sins because they were only temporary substitutes for Jesus Christ’s blood which would take all of our sins away.

I pray that all who read this will take it to heart and believe in Jesus for your salvation today! Because you don’t know when your days may be over

Have you ever heard God speak to you?


Many times we think we hear or feel a small voice or something that is telling us that we are not doing what is right. We may call it our conscience, but whatever you call it I believe that it is the voice of God by the Holy Spirit. Touching your spirit with His words of wisdom and caution in our time of spiritual need. Sometimes we listen to it and sometimes we just push it aside and forget about it for a while.

God does speak to people today, maybe not from a cloud or a burning bush the way He did when He called Moses, but He does speak every time you hear a message from His Word. When you read the Bible you are hearing His voice from its pages because He inspired the writers to pen those words. Why do I point this out today? Because the Bible was written many thousands of years ago by over forty writers separated by geography and time as well and yet it contains a coherent story line that points to our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Hearing God’s voice today is harder than it has ever been. Not because He isn’t speaking but because of all of the other competing voices that get in the way. Our jobs, our family, our own self-interest gets in the way and many times shouts louder than God ever would. We are too busy to go to church. We have a game or a recital to attend. We need to visit our parents and grandparents this weekend. All of these and more get in the way of our discipleship to Jesus Christ. We allow these important, to us, “busyness” events to take our attention away from God and from our education by the Holy Spirit. Most of the time we don’t even pay attention to the fact that is drawing our attention away from our walk with Him.

One day it will make more sense to those who know Him and it will be a terror to those who are not known by Him and for those think they know Him but do not. I pray that all who read this will make sure of their relationship to Jesus and their belief in Him or not before His return for the church. Will you be able to accept Him as your Savior during the Tribulation? Yes, but the consequences will be much more severe and immediate at that time, but if you do accept Him your eternity will be much better than it will be if you don’t.

How do you feel?


In one of my favorite movies the computer is trying to teach Mr. Spock all that he should know in order for him to take his place on the bridge of the Enterprise. He answers all of the questions correctly except this one: How do you feel?

The computer repeats the question and his mother comes in to find him with a quizzical look on his face. She tells him that the computer knows that he is half human and it wants an answer. An answer that he doesn’t know how to give or even how to phrase correctly until the ending of the movie when he tells his father to tell his mother that he feels fine.

How do we feel in this world of contradictions and confusing twists that seem to show up in the news and in other places as well. Particularly in reference to so-called “sexual preference” or “sexual orientation”. These are states of being which our society today is telling us that we are born that way and we are not. God created each of us male or female. There are no third choices or choices of any kind when it comes to how you live your either are what you were born as or you aren’t. But how are you going to answer that question in front of God?

You will stand in front of Him as the person that you were meant to be not the one that surgery and chemicals caused you to look like someone else. Live your life as God made you to be not what your parents or society would choose for you.

God considers every person to be unique and special and worth the life of His Son to save your soul from hell. So regardless of how you may feel right now, today, God loves you. Don’t forget that.