Who is God to you?

Who is God to you? Is He your Savior, your Creator, and a friend that you can turn to when things go wrong? Do you realize how awesome God really is or do you just think of Him as a genie or some “Santa Clause”? God can come to your aid when you need Him and He will but realize that He is with you all of the time.

We tend to put God in a box that is the size of a small book so we can handle being around Him. We don’t like to think about Who He is because our brains can’t comprehend Him! What do I mean by that? If you have ever read an article about astronomy, do you remember how truly huge our universe is? Astronomers tell us that it is approximately 14 billion light-years to the edge of the universe. Each light-year is approximately six trillion miles! I’m not going to multiply that number to find the distance in miles to the edge of the universe but God’s Word says that God stretched out the fabric of space like a sheet or a scroll!

Think about that…God stretched out space like a sheet! He is bigger than those trillions of miles and yet a part of Him resides inside your heart if you truly belong to Him. He is everywhere and yet we still try to squeeze Him down to a manageable size so that our mind can handle Him. Why would you do that? Because we can’t truly comprehend God, but we don’t have to. Just live your life as a Christian and follow Jesus. He said for us to follow Him and we should. Read the Bible every day, think about what you have read, and pray to the Writer (Who is God) of it so you can understand it and His message for you.

Each person has a purpose that is ordained by God and we are supposed to look for that purpose in His Word. Your purpose is in there but it takes time and study to find it. Your purpose won’t jump out of the page or the chapter and hit you in the face, but with study and prayer, you will feel it in your Spirit. His Spirit is present in every true believer because it was His Spirit that got your attention when you gave your life to Him. God loves you and He has a purpose and a plan for your life and He will equip you to accomplish it.

Will God make your life easy? No! Will He give you everything that you want? No! Jesus said that we would have trials and troubles in this world during our life as a Christian and a follower of His! Some people think that being a Christian is easy but it isn’t. If you depend on God for your provision it may seem to be an easy life to someone outside your home because the “drama” doesn’t happen the way it does for everyone else. Seek Him first when you wake up in the morning…begin your day talking to Him first, thank Him for another day that you have to be used by Him for His Kingdom.

God is close to you if you are a Christian. He is even closer than your own skin because He is in your heart so you are never alone. Prayer is your lifeline and your connection to your Savior and your Creator and that connection never fades. It grows stronger as you study His Word and get closer to Him each day. Don’t neglect your relationship with Him. Treat your Bible like your phone, take it with you everywhere. Even if you can’t read, get a copy of it on CD or USB and play it in your car or on your computer or TV. After a while, you will have His Word in your mind well enough to bring it to mind whenever you need it.

Wisdom is found in God

Proverbs says that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom“, but what does that mean? Fear in this instance is reverence, not fear as in being afraid of. God is holy and perfect so consider being in His presence, how do you think you would feel? Humble? In awe of Him? Unworthy of being in His presence?

You would likely feel all of these in such a way that you would worship Him on your face at the time. God is our Creator and He is the power which holds all of the cosmos in place. There is no “dark matter” or some other unseen force which is keeping the planets and galaxies from flying apart, it is God’s power which holds all things in check and in place!

God’s Word is our guide for our life and we should be studying it in order to live by it but there are many people who are ignoring it altogether in the world we live in today. His love for our lives is what is keeping His wrath in abeyance until the day when the church is taken from the Earth. When that happens, those who are still here will find out what a world without His influence really feels like. During those seven years, the punishment will get progressively worse and there is nothing that mankind can do to stop it.

This is foretold in the book of Revelation, yet many people don’t believe the prophecies of this book. Because it uses fantastic imagery to describe what is happening and how it is happening. The apostle John saw things which his mind had no way of interpreting so he had to use images which were known at the time. Animals and stones and fire which his readers, the churches of the day, could understand in some small way. Even today we can’t quite understand many of the meanings which these images portray but they are frightening.

Why are they so fearsome to us? Because we don’t understand the meaning of them and what they portend for the world itself. The time of Tribulation will not be a time of joy and happiness for those who reject God and His Son in particular. The Earth and the inhabitants here will experience the wrath of God and it will not be a “fairy tale” or a myth! Not believing in Him will not keep His punishment from falling on you and everyone around you.

I pray that any who do not believe in Jesus for salvation today will get on their knees and ask Him into their hearts because when this time does come on the Earth and you are here, it will be even harder, if not impossible to decide to ask Him into your heart. The system in the world will be telling everyone that if you don’t worship the “one in power” and take his mark, you will be killed. Also, if you don’t take his mark, you will not be able to buy food or water or electricity. Make this decision now while there is time to do so.

A new gospel?

Where did these people come up with a new Christian gospel which supports and accepts lifestyles which God is against and has always been against? The Bible hasn’t been re-written and God doesn’t change, so how is this “politically correct” gospel being preached? Erasing scripture or any references to those verses which call “unnatural affections” exactly what they are, an abomination and a sin, this is not the way to attract people into a new and more inclusive church!

God will not accept the politically correct version of His Word nor will He accept those who practice sin in their lives and yet call themselves Christians. God is NOT politically correct! So, don’t consider Him to be. His message in the Bible is not politically correct either and there is a warning to anyone who tries to change or alter God’s Word!

Here are a few examples of those scriptures:

Verse page

” data-hasqtip=”1″ aria-describedby=”qtip-1″>Deuteronomy 4:2“You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.

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” data-hasqtip=”0″ aria-describedby=”qtip-0″>Revelation 22:18-19

I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.

There are other scriptures which many people today do not agree with and they want them removed, but these warnings are for the whole of God’s Word not just the books in which they are found. God loves each of us and He cares for us more than we can imagine, but tolerance and political correctness are not part of the Bible nor are they attributes of God.

I pray that everyone who has read the Bible or those who may be reading it today will pray about what they are reading and learn from our Creator exactly what He intends for them to know about their life in Him.

The first part of this series, if you will, can be found at http://inhisservicetilhecomes.com. It is part of a sermon which I did this past weekend about our service to God and our role in that service. I pray that you will all take it to heart and read both.

C. Faith adopts God’s eternal perspective in both poverty and riches (1:9-11).

In both poverty and riches we have nothing to boast about in God’s sight. Even those who have little, such as a homeless man or woman, if they place their faith and hope in God then they are as rich as anyone else! The rich man doesn’t have anything to boast about beyond this life, because God owns all of the riches and the universe itself! In God’s eyes and by His reckoning, even a rich man is poor if he has placed his faith in his riches. But, by placing your faith in God a rich man will have eternity to praise God for His love and his salvation which came to us all by Jesus Christ!

D. Faith perseveres under testing, not blaming God for temptations (1:12-18).

The 12th verse begins with the word “Blessed”, this reflects the understanding that a person who walks in the paths set by the Lord, sees his plight or his troubles in terms of the hope that he has in Christ, awaiting him in eternity. So by that measure, the present troubles seem fleeting and of no effect. When you compare your life, even to one thousand years, every problem fades into the background. How much more it would do so when compared to an eternity with Jesus? That is why the Word says that our life is like a puff of wind or smoke or like the grass which is green and beautiful one day and dried up and burned the next. Faith grows as it is tested just as a tree’s roots grow deeper when it is exposed to the wind. Sometimes the testing is like a gentle breeze and we get through it will little effort or prayer even. Some days, our testing may be like a rushing mighty wind blowing against a tree or a house and unless there is a good foundation or much roots in the One Who can hold you and take you through this day or trial, then you may fall. But, God will not allow a person who trusts in Him to fail or fall.

E. Faith obeys God’s word, even when provoked (1:19-27).

In verse 19 and 20 there is a bit of wisdom that all of us need to carry with us every day: “Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; 20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” I believe that this is the very reason that God made us with two ears and two eyes and only one mouth because if you hear the things which are being said and notice those things which are happening around you, then when you do speak you should speak from wisdom, God’s Wisdom, and not your own.

We are to lay aside all sinful behavior, which would shine a dim light on your witness if you were still doing it and people know that you claim to be a Christian. As Jesus said, “take up your cross and follow me”; your cross is your burden or your temptation which comes back to taunt you which you have to conquer through faith and perseverance. As James writes, “if you are hearers only” then what are you doing with your faith? He writes that we should be doers of the Word as well as hearers because by living your faith out in public, others will see that you are actually living by what you claim!

Hearing the Word of God on Sunday only would be like “a man who looked at himself in the mirror and then immediately forgot what he looked like”. But, when you hear the Word and then continue to study it daily and walk in that faith which it brings to fruition, then you will be blessed indeed.

If you are religious or only act that way for gain of some kind, and yet you don’t watch what you say or how you say it, then you are deceiving yourself and your own heart and your so-called “religion” is useless and in vain. Everyone will be able to see that you are not really being true to what you claim to be.

You will be seen as someone who claims to be rich even when they have nothing to prove it to be so! A hypocrite. Pure religion with faith in Jesus Christ is undefiled before God and the proof of it is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep yourself unspotted in the world.

In other words, do what Jesus did in that He took care of those having faith in Him with prayer and supplications often and He healed their afflictions in so much that it would give glory to God the Father. Of course, He kept himself from the sins of this world which is nigh impossible for us to do except that we have to live in the Word and be praying to God for the strength to do so while we are present in this body.

Why does James call us to be strong in our faith and our walk with Jesus? Because of the witness that we have by claiming Jesus as our Savior. If you aren’t living out your faith on a daily walk with Him, then how will people be able to tell if you are a true Christian?

Category: Christians should study God’s Word

Who is God to you?

Wisdom is found in God

A new gospel?

Why go to church?

Do you live in safety?

Superficial belief

Do you believe?

Independence…

Understanding your role (part 2)

Despair and depression

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