Jesus said “I AM the way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”. He is the Savior of the world, if you will accept Him as your Savior. I pray that you will not turn away from His call on your life because serving Jesus forever is better than life on this Earth. God has loved you since before the Light of Creation began to shine and He has known who you are and what you are destined to do. Obey His commandment and tell others what He has done for you because there are blessings which all of us receive each and every day because of His love for you. Amen
Exponential growth works like this: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024.
So why does a garden or a farm never produce like this? Is it because of our lack of faith in the One Who created everything? Do we look at our pitiful little plot of ground that we have and think that it will never produce for me like it did for my grandfather? Sometimes, we create our own “self-fulfilling prophecies” when we think that way.
Do you ever wonder why some farmers aren’t very successful and some are? Consider that the very idea of farming is based on faith. Cattle are born, pigs are born, chickens are born (from an egg), vegetables grow from seeds. All of these processes are miracles in one way or another. The success of any farm depends upon the faith of the person or persons who are involved in it. If you don’t have faith in God and the processes which He put in the world for our good and for the good of others, how will your business actually be successful? This applies to any business but especially to the life of a farmer of whatever kind of produce because He ordained “seedtime and harvest” in His Word.
He ordained it very early in His Word but His Word does not fall to the ground without accomplishing what He intended for it to accomplish. Farmers have faith in their farming practice because they are following the procedures that other farmers have done and it worked in the past. They should also have faith in the Creator of all because He created all of the animals and the seeds which are farmed and planted all over the world. Do I believe that all farmers have faith in God? I would say that most of them do. Some may have more faith in Roundup than they do in God, but God is still in control of every seed and every patch of ground. If your garden or your ranch is small or if it covers many thousands of acres, your faith in the One Who controls every aspect of growth regardless of the type of growth should be in proportion to how much you are placing in His hands.
If you are living according to His Ways, then your faith in Him will carry you through the problems and the blessings, whatever they may be, because He loves you and He will do that for you. Your farming will pay off and it will be successful in proportion to the amount of faith that you have in Him that He will do these things for you and for His glory. If we intentionally plant a garden to honor God with the produce of it and give Him the honor and the glory for its success then He has an interest in our garden and its success. But if we just throw some seed down and hope that He will bless us with enough rain and pray that the seed which we planted was good seed do you think it will be blessed? He might bless our efforts but He might not. We should seek to do His will in all of our endeavors whether it is farming, raising a family, or working in our business or for someone else. The only way to know His will for us is to read and study His Word and ask Him to show us His will for our life.
God brings the growth when we act on our faith in Him.
In many ways, our lives are kinda like farming. We cultivate relationships and friendships and sometimes those turn into life-long, close relationships. It takes patience and effort though and occasionally we don’t take care of these very well. Many times in our lives, a lot of time will go by before we see each other or even speak to each other. It causes hurt feelings and bruised pride and can really damage a friendship…sometimes.
We really should try to put the effort into our relationships, whether they are friends or our spouse or even our family. But, sometimes we neglect to honor those with our time and our effort and when we do that, things change. Weeds will grow in our “garden of friends”. Sometimes we will see them and get rid of them before they cause problems. Sometimes they are aggressive and they have roots that go deep into our past and it is possible that we have forgotten what caused them in the first place.
Why do I speak about friendships and relationships like a garden? Because we should work on them like we would a garden. Make sure that the “soil” of our life is ready for a newly planted “friend” and then take care of them in whatever way is needed. Don’t neglect them because when you neglect a garden or a friendship, problems begin to appear. Weeds in a garden and hurt feelings in a relationship, whether it is between friends or in a closer relationship, they will grow and cause more problems.
That is the wonderful thing about your relationship with God and His Son, Jesus. They already know what is going on in your life. They aren’t surprised or hurt by what you say or don’t say. They can see the “problems” before they come up but they want us to recognize them and seek their help with those problems. Because they are better at fixing problems than we are. They know the cause and the fix before you or me. But just because they aren’t surprised by our problems doesn’t mean that they will try to force us to listen to their advice. We have to seek them out and ask for their help with our problems.
Sometimes it takes a problem coming into our lives to force us to seek God’s answer and His wisdom for this situation. We don’t like it when these problems show up and they usually are very inconvenient because of their timing but if we will seek God’s wisdom to get us through them one at a time, we will learn from them and be able to move forward. God always has better advice for us in His Word than we could ever find in a library or even from a friend if we will listen to the advice and take it to heart.
Your life and mine are populated with many friends. Some we know only at work and some we’ve known since grammar school. Some are just acquaintances and some are very close friends. Sometimes the friendship might have become stale because of time or distance and that can happen to family relationships too. Make sure that your relationship with Jesus is not stale. Keep in touch with Him at all times and in all things, good or bad, because He will never leave you or forsake you regardless of the circumstances.
Consider that God knitted your DNA together in the womb, there is not another person on Earth like you. Even if they are your twin, there is something unique about each of you that the other does not have. Why does God make each of us in this way? Because, it gives each of us those special and unique talents and abilities which makes each of us so useful to Him. In ways that we may not realize until He shows us what they are.
God loves each of us, whether we have given our hearts to Jesus or not. He has loved us this deeply since before creation. So make sure that you seek Him in all that you do when you feel His call on your life. Living in this world today we can see the evil around us all of the time. On the news, on the Internet, in newspapers and magazines. When I say evil I mean anything which does not acknowledge God as King and Jesus as Savior. If you listen to the words of those who want a socialist state you can tell that they do not revere God in any way except for thinking that they are “god”.
You are unique because God made you that way. Mom and Dad contributed some genetic material to your creation but God is the designer and He put the traits which He wanted you to have inside you. We are made in and carry God’s image in us. We are not gods but we are children of His, if we have given our hearts to Jesus and have been adopted into His family. If you don’t have Jesus as your Savior then you are no better than any other lost person in this world. But…if God has a special job for you to do He will make a way for you to come to Him as a saved and sanctified child adopted into His family. There is no power on Earth that can stop Him if He has determined that you are His!
God sent Jesus to be the sacrifice which paid for all of your sins and mine so that you can be adopted as sons into His family.
For all the broken out there, remember that God’s Reckless Love will chase us down and fight till we’re found!! He does not want to leave anyone behind.
Are you a friend to somebody? Do you have many friends that you actually know? Or are you more like me, you have friends that you have known for a long time but life and distance keep you from seeing each other? Many of us are in the same place that I am. We do have friends and have had some for many years but circumstances and distance tend to make the relationship kinda hard to keep alive. Even my relationship with some of my family is tempered by distance and our ability to bridge that distance is tempered by money and time as well.
In many ways, our relationship with Jesus sometimes falls into this same rut. We get caught up in life and our own problems and we push our time with Jesus and His Word to the back of our priority list. Then, sometimes, it gets pushed a little bit more. Then one day we realize that we truly miss our relationship with our Savior and we come back to Him apologizing for being away for so long. Why? Because it was us who moved, Jesus has always been near us. If we are Christians, His Spirit is still there even if we aren’t paying any attention to Him. This happens more often than we would like to admit…to anyone.
Sometimes we get a bit too open with our words and our “opinions” and we hurt each other’s feelings. Sometimes I feel like we do the same thing to Jesus as well, but He forgives us even when we do it more than we should. The best thing that we can remember about friendships is: don’t treat your regular friends like you treat Jesus. Because we take Him for granted all of the time and we should never take our friends for granted. God gave us friends to be there when we need them because until He comes to rule this Earth He isn’t physically here. So our friends are there to be “stand-ins” for Him.
Make sure which friends you have and always treasure their friendship like you would a brother or a sister because in Christ we are all brothers and sisters.
It seems that many people place their “faith” in books and degrees and they seem to think that the wisdom that they have came from those achievements. Some of it did, at least the mankind of wisdom comes from books and degrees. But what about your common sense? What about the value and wisdom which comes from reading God’s Word?
I’ve heard that there are some who seem to be lacking in the “common sense” department but have you ever thought that their version of common sense may just be different from yours? It may not be the same or work in the same fashion as yours does but it is likely that they have a special case of common sense which fits their position and purpose in this life. Why do I say this? Because God is the One Who gives out “common sense” and I don’t think He makes mistakes.
There are too many physical properties of our universe which have to be so in tune for life to exist to say that God could make a mistake like not giving someone any common sense. He doesn’t make mistakes. But, we seem to want Him to be more like us instead of the other way around. I don’t want God to be like us at all! If He were like us, I’m sure we would not be here!
All of the wisdom in the world was given to us from God. I don’t think that He quit speaking through people just because it isn’t canonized and included in the Bible. What about all of the Christian literature which has His wisdom included in it? True, some of the inclusions are direct quotes from the Bible but there is other wisdom in those books which did not come from the Bible and it is just as wise and true as if Paul wrote it. Do we look down on it because it is “man’s” wisdom rather than from God? How do you know that the Holy Spirit didn’t inspire them to write it? He could be giving me these words too and frankly, I think He always has because I’ve never been a person who talks a lot.
Writing here is my witness to others who may never get to a Christian church and I stand by that conviction. I do believe that the Holy Spirit gives me the words to say here, so please take the time to read His wisdom in these words because I’m not trying to convince you of anything other than the fact that Jesus is the Christ and He is the only Savior Who can save you from your sins and pardon you so you can enter into eternity with Him.
On the last Passover that Jesus celebrated with His disciples, He knew what would happen soon. His Spirit knew what was being planned for Him. So why did He go there? You know that if it were you or me, our fear of death would’ve kept us away from that place. Jesus was as much human as we are, but He was also God and He knew that if He didn’t go and fulfill the Father’s will mankind would have no part in His Kingdom when it’s time is fulfilled.
So, why did Jesus go to Jerusalem that night? Because of His love for mankind, not just for the Jewish people but for all of humanity. God did this because He knew that we could not have a relationship with Him unless our sin debt had been paid fully and only Jesus could do that. The blood of bulls and lambs and goats could only atone temporarily for our sins as it did in the Old Testament, but the New Testament in Jesus’ blood is a permanent atonement for our sins if we will believe in Him for our salvation. That is the only requirement that we have to fulfill for our salvation and it is our belief which comes to us through the faith which is given to us also by God. We cannot choose to come to Him on our own but when we feel our broken state and know that we need Him, then we can cry out to Him and He will heal us by the blood of Jesus.
You may wonder why I said in the paragraph above that He will heal you by the blood of Jesus. We are under a curse of sin and before Jesus comes into our heart we are dead spiritually. It is this spiritual death which Jesus heals us of and quickens us by His Spirit to do His will for the rest of our days. God loves you and has always loved you. The only requirement for your salvation that you can accomplish is to respond to the Spirit of God which breaks your heart to bring you to the point of repentance knowing that you need Jesus as your Savior.
God sent His Son to bring salvation to Judea but since they refused to believe that He was the Christ, the world gained a Savior. Believe in Him for your salvation because it is found in no other. Salvation is by the grace of God given to us through Jesus and by Him only.
Many of us have often wondered what our purpose in this life really is. We have also considered what our place might be in the “great scheme of things”. Neither of these ideas or wonderings have given us much comfort though. Why is that? Is it because we aren’t looking in the right place or maybe we aren’t asking the right questions? Actually, I think it has more in common with the Person that we are searching for rather than the question or even the place.
Your purpose and your place in this world are found in Jesus alone. There is no other name by which we can be saved from eternal wrath because of our poor choices in life. Your salvation comes through Jesus, period. This also places you squarely in God’s hands for eternity so your place is secure because nobody can take you away from God. Your purpose truly is found in Jesus but what is it? Truly, it is being His disciple and going into the world as a reflection of Jesus so that others will see Him in your life and if they don’t know Him then they will want to know Him!!
By some of the early apostles examples and their writings, at least those who lived after the first century, we should model our Lord and Savior in such a way that people will see Him and come to you so they can know Him better. Almost like your life is your sermon every day that you live and breathe as a Christian! Isn’t that the kind of witness that we should all strive for?
I know that we can’t live perfectly walking like Jesus walked and living out our witness without stumbling and thinking or doing something that would make people question our walk with Him. We are human and we can’t be perfect in our attempts to live as reflections of Jesus but it is the striving to be more like Him that is the real witness! Living the rest of your life as a Christian is not the easy walk that some people think it is. Before we become Christians, Satan doesn’t care what we are doing because by default we live according to our own rules and ideas. But…when we truly give our life to Jesus a target appears spiritually on our head and our heart.
Why does this happen? Because we are working for Satan’s enemy when we become Christians. Our life and every word which we say should reflect Jesus in our lives from this point on. Do we fall and fail at this from time to time? Of course we do, but God still gives us the strength to overcome these stumbles and failures. Recognize that we are weak and we need to ask God to give us the strength today to get through today and then tomorrow and every day after that. Does Satan target us after we give our lives to Jesus? Yes, he does. We might touch someone’s life and bring them into God’s family. The more effective our witness is, the more numerous his attacks on our life and ministry become.
Sometimes your ministry may be world-wide as it is by blogging like this. Sometimes your ministry and witness may be limited by your geography or your ability. But if your witness is effective and draws one or two people to God, then you will be targeted by Satan and his demons. I pray that every person who reads this blog will seek out Jesus as their Savior, if they don’t know Him yet. If you do and you find something here that you could use in your ministry, feel free to use it in witnessing to others. God will bless it.
How many people wake up each morning and thank God that they have one more day to do His will on this Earth? I do, some days. Then there are days, more than there should be, that I just get up and go about my daily routine and I don’t thank Him for anything until I’m about to eat something or maybe I read or hear about something that causes me to think about Him and what He does for us every day that we live. So I guess what I’m saying is that I’m normal, whatever that is. God loves us when we are normal and also when we are not…normal. But, do we give Him our love in return? Do we praise Him when we see a hummingbird fly by or see a rainbow in the sky?
We live and move in this world not because of our own power and ability but because God placed us here and it is His will and purpose for us to be the person that He made us to be. Some of us may not find out who or what His will for us is until kinda late in life, but that’s okay. Maybe He was waiting until you were old enough to be the person that He knows you can be. Many of us are too ignorant to do His will when we are young because we think we know it all. We believe that we can do those things which come to mind even though we usually find that we can’t. We just thought we could. Sometimes those lessons hurt us physically and emotionally too. Usually, that is when we begin our search for the One Who can give us the ability to do His will and not our own.
Sometimes that search takes a long time and sometimes we find Him as we are beginning our search. We find Jesus when Heknows we are ready, not when we think we are. Because we think we are ready at point A and He knows we won’t be ready until we reach point C or D. Wherever those points are in your life and at whatever age you reach them, the time and place was appointed by God. It did not come about because of your idea of the time and place, it followed God’s plan and purpose for your life. Whether we know it or even acknowledge it or not, God is and always has been in control of everything that happens on Earth. The election of whoever may be the President or the King or ruler in any country is under His hand and control too.
Since God knows when even a sparrow falls to the ground, don’t you think He cares about what is happening in your life and mine? Since His eyes see every life which He created on this Earth, animal or human, isn’t it wonderful to just breathe in the air which He created for all of us to breathe?
The Living Message of Christ 