The Science channel has had a program on TV that is trying to explain away the events in the Bible, specifically in Genesis and Exodus. There is so much that we can’t explain, but God did in His Word. He didn’t tell us everything, but His Word is true and there is no denying it. You can of course if you wish, but the Truth will be brought to light one day when Jesus returns.
Like it or not it will happen and then everyone will know. Enough said.
Why did I place that as a question? Because, many people don’t realize that they are actually seeking Jesus. We look for all sorts of things and people and even careers or money to fulfill our lives and make us feel complete and yet none of those can do it. Sometimes each one can fill in for a little while…but not for long.
We tend to look for things which will make our lives feel better in some way and most of us don’t realize that the part of our heart or our being which needs filling only needs Jesus. He is the only Person..the only real person who can fill that area in our life! We feel an emptiness at some point in our life and yet we don’t know what or who should be there…until we find out about Jesus.
Some of us find that we truly need Him early in our life, and some of us don’t realize that we need Him until many years later. Sometimes it may be at a time when we are in need of Him in more ways than for salvation. We need a healing or we may be nearing death from cancer or if we are on death row in prison, we may seek Him because we are afraid of going to Hell.
There are many reasons why people seek Jesus, but the one which brings you to Him is your realization that you are a sinner and that you need Him. Not only that but we are not guaranteed tomorrow morning or even tonight, so what would you say to God if you were to meet Him this afternoon? In reality, you couldn’t say much because He will show you when and how many times you have heard the gospel preached and you didn’t respond. All of your life will testify against you, every word and deed and action that you ever did will be brought forth, and there will be no excuse because you won’t have one.
Standing before God the Creator of all things, you will not be able to mount a defense of your life because He already knows you and all that you did or said during all the days of your life. You cannot hide from Him and you cannot reason with Him because your performance in this life gets you nothing! Only the acceptance of Jesus as your Savior will bring you into the gates of Heaven.
Before your life ends, please ask yourself this question: “Where do I want to spend eternity?” No matter how long your life is here, eternity is a lot longer so make sure before your last breath.
Have you ever wished that you were home? I don’t mean your Earthly home exactly, although that is a wonderful place to be most of the time. I mean your Heavenly home, the one that Jesus went to prepare for each person who claims Him as their Lord and Savior!
The longer that each of us live here on Earth, if we are Christians, the closer we are to getting there. Your journey of this life begins the day that you were conceived and ends on the day you die. God knows both dates and He will bring you into His home, your eternal home right after your soul exits from your body.
Now, I know there are some who don’t believe this and they will disagree with me. That’s OK, because one day they will meet Him too. Whether they know Him as Savior or not, they will meet Him although they may not enjoy the meeting if they didn’t accept Him as their Savior.
Almost home
Through the brambles and the weeds, the long road winds. Twisting, turning, and ever climbing yet upward and forward it goes. Life it is that we live here, sweet and sour though it may be. Sweeter still when ever we find the end of the path and cross over to be…with our Creator and our Lord into Eternity.
Sometimes it seems that we take our life for granted, where it starts and where it ends and all of the stuff that happens between those points are just part of it. But, do you ever consider the path that leads to Eternity? If you are a Christian or have any idea about an afterlife, then the thought has likely crossed your mind a few times. Seek our Jesus and a Bible teaching church or study group, learn about Him and His ways because He is the only way into Eternity and He does have a place for you there. He said so.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe in Me as well. 2 In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so,would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am.” John 14:2,3
Humanity tends to look at life as that time which we have here on Earth and that it mostly ends when your life ends. Some believe in reincarnation, some believe that when you die that’s it and there is nothing more…but for a Christian this is just a rehearsal for our eternal life, the life that we will have with Jesus. The one that never ends and that we will be with Him and our Christian brothers and sisters forever. Does life end with your last breath? This physical life on Earth does, but if your heart belongs to Jesus then your spirit goes on to everlasting life in God’s home, Heaven.
I can’t tell you anything about that wonderful place beyond death, except the things which I have read or the descriptions found in the Bible. Even those descriptions pale because human sight and comprehension just aren’t enough to tell others about that which lies beyond this life. It would be like trying to describe a color, any color, to a blind person who has never seen or experienced seeing a color such as a purple sunset or a clear blue sky. Words just don’t describe and can’t describe that which your eye sees! Like the boy who was in the movie “Heaven is for real!”, when he tried to describe someone or something that he saw it was just more…more real, more colors, more than he could describe with words.
Heaven is more than our imaginations can imagine accurately at least because there are colors and textures and gold which is so pure that it is clear like glass. We don’t have a reference for anything like that in our minds. Eternity is more than we can believe or imagine, but we will be there IF we belong to Jesus! For the first weeks or months we will likely be discovering far more than we could’ve thought or imagined that our life in eternity might be like. After we realize that we have been there longer than we thought, time won’t mean anything anymore!
Seek Him out, learn about Him, give your life to Him and ask Him to come into yours because this time on Earth is just a training period for the real thing!
Every year you hear someone on television saying that their resolution for the year is to spend more time with their family. It is usually a different person saying this every year but the sentiment and the reality are the same…we feel as if we don’t have enough time. As you get older, the days and weeks seem to go by faster and just mush into one another until, if you are like me, you can barely tell one day from the next.
There are days that I have had to pay attention to the television set or the computer screen just to keep the days separated, so I will know what day it is. I know that those of you who are going to school or work don’t really have this problem because your days revolve around your schedule. But, it is true that time doesn’t wait for anyone. Consider that on New Year’s Day at midnight when the year and the date changed, that specific time period will never happen again.
A few years ago before we got out of the first decade of the 21st century, you could have months where the day, month and year were all the same number. Those won’t recur until another century has passed, and even when they do technology will have changed, our culture and society will not be the same. Nothing repeats itself exactly because once a minute is gone, the things which happened in that minute are in the past.
The best part about our life today is that we, as Christians, serve a God Who can see those seconds and minutes and hours and years even when they have past. Time is not the same for God because He lives outside of time. Just as we will when we are in Heaven. Eternity begins the second that you take your last breath here. One year will be nothing when you are there. Ten thousand years will seem like a day or two, maybe.
Consider where your time will be spent and how much time that you think you have now. Think about your family and friends, where will they be in eternity? Have you considered it for yourself? Don’t put this decision off because you think you have plenty of time, that is a lie from Satan himself and he gets plenty of people to believe it. Those who died the next day thought they had more time. The only time that you have is right now. Make sure that you are absolutely sure and positive about your eternal home. One of them you will enjoy, the other you will not.
All parents know this and children learn it sooner or later. It just seems that the weeks, especially in the summer, just melt into each other and its hard to tell one week from another. How can we slow things down a bit before our children are gone and the house is empty more than it is full? Fill your time with the talents and the gifts which God has given you. It doesn’t matter what gifts or talents they may be, just get up and outside if you have to and use them. Do some volunteer work for people in the nursing homes or help someone in your community. Little things that we may take for granted and big chores for other people.
Time going by to fast happens when you are busy and sometimes when you aren’t busy enough. It doesn’t matter if you are a parent or grandparent, although our time flies by too fast for us to keep up with it most of the time. Even when you are doing something constructive for someone or maybe even enjoying a hobby or two, time just goes by too fast. That is why Jesus said to take up your cross (life), and to follow Him. Say the things that He would when they are needed to be said.
It just seems that there aren’t enough hours in the day, but the hours haven’t changed. There are still twenty-four of them, eight or so we are supposed to rest or sleep and the rest are for work, whatever kind of work you may do. Jesus said that those who love the darkness love it because it hides what they are doing. We see and hear about the sins which happen every day in and around America and the world and very little of it is good news. As a matter of fact, good news hasn’t been reported on much since a certain newsman died about five years ago. I used to love to listen to him when I could catch his show on the radio and when I was growing up, he even had a small segment on TV.
Those were the last days when we could comfortably go to sleep at night and not have to lock our doors. It seems that it has been a very long time since we could live that way, but it has only been forty years or so.
I have been watching some of the crusades which Billy Graham did years ago, the one tonight was from Dallas, Texas in 1971. I was about nine or ten at the time, but the problems that he was speaking about sounded very familiar. At that particular time, abortion still wasn’t legal in America but drugs and alcohol were and he spoke about the dangers and the consequences of them both. I imagine that Mr. Graham hangs his head if he even listens to the news at all today. If I were him…I wouldn’t watch it at all. I would just pray for America and her soul and all of the souls in America, because prayer can do powerful things, including changing the minds and hearts of people in a country that is on a very wide and slippery slope.
Jesus told those that He preached to that the way to Heaven is by a narrow way and there are few who really find it. This road isn’t as easy or as straight as the broad road, but it leads to Heaven. The rewards that you get on Earth won’t travel the road with you, only those things done for the Kingdom of Christ will make that trip. God loves us all and He has made a way for us to get to Heaven through Jesus, it is only our choices which will condemn us to an eternity of punishment away from Him.
Time does slip away from us every second of every minute, but after your death here you won’t be able to count the minutes or hours. Time doesn’t have a meaning in that life, it is eternal. Your choice will determine where you spend eternity so choose wisely and follow Jesus.
I know that many of you have noticed that the more birthdays you have “celebrated”, the less time it seems to take between them. Even my son, who turns sixteen today, has noticed it and he doesn’t have that many under his belt so to speak. Your perception of time changes when you get older. Days and weeks seem to run together, then the months and years, until pretty soon you are wondering “What happened?” It is true that time goes much slower for those who are incarcerated or who are in living conditions that are far from ideal, but in truth time moves at the same pace that it always has it is our perception of it that has changed.
Life is filled with experiences which cause us to take note of them and make our days either go by quickly or pass by more slowly. If you happen to have a fast paced job, then the day goes by so fast until you have to bring home work to get it finished before you go back, then again if you work at a store where people come in spurts, the days drags by between the customers. Then there is the waiting for the return of Jesus. We know that He is coming back because of the statement made by the angel, “He will return in like manner”, when He was taken up to be at the right hand of God. It has been nearly two millennia since that day. Many people say that He isn’t coming back, some think that it will be hundreds of years in the future if at all, some think that it could be tomorrow or today.
We don’t know and the Bible doesn’t tell us. Jesus gave us some signs to watch for and most of them are happening every day around us, particularly in the Middle East. He also said for us to keep watching and don’t lose faith in Him and in the words spoken in God’s Word. He will return and if you notice the prophecies that have been fulfilled, it very likely will happen in our lifetime. When it will happen, nobody knows for sure. I have noticed that some are saying that it will happen when the last lunar eclipse happens at the end of September, I don’t believe that but anything and anytime is possible.
God knows when our days are coming to an end and He knows, for each of us, how many days we actually have from the day we are born. Thankfully we don’t have access to that information or many people would have bucket lists and the world would be even crazier than it is already! Time is something which we all count during each day that we live. We count it by the minute and the seconds and the days and weeks. The most amazing thing is that we won’t have to count any of it after we arrive in eternity, because time for each of us will cease to exist if you are blessed with the love and the atonement granted by Jesus in your life.
Eternity will be very different if you have not accepted Jesus as your Savior. Time will be miserable and pain-filled and never-ending. I know the argument that “My God wouldn’t allow that to happen!”. God didn’t sentence you to hell, you did. Each one of us has had a chance to accept Jesus as Lord, yet if you don’t by the end of your life it is YOU who has condemned yourself to an eternity without God in hell! We have all seen the handiwork of God in nature and in our bodies, we have heard a sermon or a prayer about God and His grace which is given freely to us even when we don’t deserve it. Even the American Indians prayed to the Great Spirit that they believed created everything and they were right, they just called Him by a different name. That doesn’t mean that Allah or Buddha or any of the “man-made” religions are right because their gods were created by their minds or were just men and nothing more.
God is real and He is in control of time and the number of birthdays that each of us has. Seek Him out in your life while you can, give your heart to Him and ask Him to come into your life and give you the strength to work for Him during the time you have left. Even if it is only a few days or weeks, your example during this time can have a great impact on someone you love or even someone you don’t know.
It is an easy question and it is a hard one to answer. So, what do you want someone to remember about you or about something that you did?
Many people today seem to want to be as anonymous as possible so that nobody remembers them or what they have done. Then, of course, there are some who truly want people to know who they are and what they have done in their lives. Then…there are the rest of us. Those who want to be remembered for their life or maybe something that they said or did during their life. Hopefully, you will have met them during a good time in their life, when things are going really well and their lives are just clicking along like they should.
Unfortunately, most of us don’t have days or weeks like this. At least, not enough for someone to notice and they usually don’t until your life changes and something happens to you or someone in your family. Even then many people today don’t really care for their fellow-man, woman or children. We have become so de-sensitized to violence and accustomed to the distance between us, whether it is a few feet or miles, until we text and tweet to each other even in the same household or at the table.
Is that what you want people to remember about you? That you always had your head buried in the screen of your phone and you rarely looked up to notice life around you? I have seen many people in videos doing exactly that on streets and in the city but it also seems to happen in family gatherings and at church. Being distracted to the point of not seeing or hearing what is going on around you is dangerous. Not only to you but for your future as well.
What will people remember about me? Not much, I’m afraid. Growing up I was angry most of the time and a loner because of my parent’s divorce, but that was over forty years ago and I am over it now. My parents are dead and the memories that I have are just the good ones now. Today is the only time that we have that is available to us, so we should make it a good one. Tell those that you love how you feel and make sure they know it. Help someone if you are able to, get involved in a volunteer effort for someone.
Your life here will be remembered for only a little while by those who don’t know you well. Sometimes, even then you won’t be remembered for long unless you did something that got people to notice. In our society today you get noticed by the bad things that you do, but people rarely see or hear about the good that gets done behind the scenes.
God loves you and He wants the best for you. You may not get the best in this life, but if you follow Him and do the best that you can at being a follower of Jesus then your reward will be far above anything you could have here! Confess your sin to Jesus and ask Him to come into your life and cleanse you of the mess that you made. Ask Him to guide you into a new life that will be worthy of His Love so that you can reflect Him into other people’s lives so they will want to know Him.
Here is the basis for a sinner to receive Jesus into their heart:
Romans 10:9-10: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
Simply it could be summed up in a prayer like this:
Dear Lord, I have been messed up in my life. Please forgive me and help me to bring You and your story to others. Come into my heart, Lord, and make me a student and a teacher for your Kingdom. Thank you for your sacrifice for me and my sins. Amen.
Think about it.
It is written in the Bible, “What will it profit a man, to gain the whole world and yet lose his soul?” All of the riches and power in the world today, if they were available and given to only one man, it would corrupt him so completely until his life would be over. Worry and hatred and bitterness would be his constant companions, even with all of the wealth of the world, if he were not saved by Jesus and a Christian. Moral living and a life of wealth on that scale has never been had by one person. If he were a Christian, I am not saying that the wealth wouldn’t corrupt him even then because it could and likely it would.
He would forget his faith in God and put it in money, because he doesn’t need God since he owns the whole world. God would say to him the same thing that He said to the farmer who said to his soul, “We can be at rest now, we have barns full and can take life at ease. God said to him, “Thou fool, tonight thy soul is required of thee”. Even all of the wealth of the world, and it would be in the trillions of dollars or whatever currency that you choose, could not extend your life or make it more comfortable. It is true that you would be able to take life easy, up to a point, although you would have teams of lawyers to watch over your wealth and CPA’s to take care of your taxes and investments. Many people would be getting wealthy from your wealth, and for some that would nearly drive them mad.
Money, gold, silver and wealth measured in any way over the Earth by title to land or oil or jewels is just stuff. It it true that by the world’s standard that much wealth would be seen as a blessing and a curse. A blessing because of all the good things that you could accomplish with it for those who are in need physically and financially, and a curse because everyone would be trying to profit from your wealth in some fashion. Yes, by the world’s standards, you would be a king and wealthy enough that you could do anything and live anywhere that you wanted to. But, if your moral compass was pointing toward yourself rather than toward helping others, then this much wealth would make you a very bitter and cruel person because of the things which you could do and get away with in order to keep your money.
What would you do with all of that wealth? I can’t even imagine having one billion dollars to use any way that I choose, let alone having all of the wealth in the world at my command. No one person has ever had that much and likely no one person ever will, but the good that could be done with it is extraordinary and hard to imagine. Yet, it pales by comparison when you consider eternity with God by accepting Him as your Savior.
Think of it. A pile of money that could cover the entire United States more than a mile deep, but what or who will it benefit when you die? Wars would be fought over it, people would die to have part of it, for what? Your life and your charity would be forgotten within a century, and where would you be spending eternity? Life doesn’t end with your last heart beat and breath, you were created with an eternal soul and it will go on…somewhere. Choose today where it will be, either in Heaven with God or in hell with Satan and his demons.
Have you ever HEARD the message of Jesus?
Jesus said for us to believe in Him (and the atonement provided by His death and resurrection), and we will have eternal life. Repent of your former sinful life and allow the Holy Spirit to transform you into a likeness of Him. Are these things possible? Yes, if you have faith like a little child. One who trusts their father completely and without reservation. That is the kind of faith that it takes to live or rather to begin to live this life in Jesus Christ.
Are all Christians like this and do they have this kind of faith? The real and truthful answer is “NO”. All Christians or at least those who claim to be Christians, don’t have faith which would measure up to this standard. Many of them believe that they do and that they are true Christians, but when persecutions come or real trouble comes into their lives, the true person will show through. Hardship, pain, disease, financial loss, or loss of a family member will bring the real person out so that all will see. Sometimes, that is why we are allowed to go through trouble and trials.
In order to bring out the beautiful person that God knows is in there and the one that He needs for you to be for the duration of your life, sometimes He allows those trials. They can come in the form of a disease or the loss of a loved one. Sometimes the trial comes through the loss of a job or something which disables you. However it comes, treat it as Paul did and “count it all joy”. Look at the trial as a test in and of your faith then seek out God and His Wisdom through His Word. Pray deeply and fervently every day if need be so that you can get through this time. He will give you the strength and the wisdom to do so, and He will provide the comfort during your suffering too.
There are many people today, young people, who are turning away from God and religion which is their choice. It is the wrong choice but it is the one that God allows us to make. If He has something for you to do, then He will bring you back eventually if you will listen to His voice in your life. Our God, the One Who created everything and did all of the miracles in the Old Testament and the New, is an AWESOME God! Don’t turn away from Him, if you have given your life and your heart to Him then seek Him out in His Word!
God loves each of us and wants the best for us. Many cannot see this right now, because God doesn’t reward us the way the world wants to see rewards. Everyone sees reward as money, fame, a house, fancy cars, etc. but God doesn’t always reward us this way. Our reward, in many ways, waits for us in Heaven not here on Earth so we can’t use it or touch it until we die in this life and are born into eternity. Many people don’t look at this as a reward so much as a “bait and switch” game. Satan will do that, but God doesn’t.
“Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all of these things will be added (given) unto you.” Matthew 6:33
The Living Message of Christ 