Category: Evangelism

What have you done lately?


Well…lets see, I washed the dishes and the clothes. Then my son and I took the garbage out and got the mail. Yes, this is how my day has gone today, so far. What have you done? Are you a child of God? Do you know Jesus?

As you can tell, I was called a few years ago to be a minister, not just a pastor of a small church but one out here where everyone can see and read what I say. The words which I put out here are not my own exactly, they come from the Holy Spirit because I can’t take the credit for all of the things which I have put here. I can’t help but inject Jesus into my posts. This is not an “online diary”!!! I would never put my own personal life out here so that everyone can read it and learn about me!

I am not important nor am I the person that needs to be learned about, but Jesus wants to know you and He wants you to learn about Him and ask Him to come into your life! You know, there are many people who have never heard about Jesus, even in America, let alone the entire world! It has been two thousand years since Jesus ascended back to His home with the Father, and even though the church was told to go out and tell others about Him and the salvation that God offers through Him, there are many who either haven’t heard the message or don’t understand it.

We are the “body of Christ” on Earth but if we don’t put feet to our faith and go to those who need Him, they might never know about Him and the grace that has been granted to us! If you don’t know Jesus, then it isn’t your fault at all. It is just that you are not part of the solution, yet! Have you had trouble in your life since you heard of Jesus? If you have heard only one sermon or maybe one family member told you about Jesus, yet you said that you weren’t ready yet, or maybe you think that you aren’t good enough to come to Jesus, then today…right now is the time to ask Him to come and clean up your life and your heart so that you can belong to Him!

I know that some people have said that, “Jesus wouldn’t want me. You don’t know what I have done.”, well maybe I don’t know what you have done in your life. The number of sins that you have committed and the people who you may have hurt is none of my business, but Jesus knows! If He is dealing with you and your heart, you will know and if you can feel that then Jesus has decided that you are needed in His Kingdom. You can do something for the Kingdom of God that no other person on Earth can do, but you can!

God knows exactly what you can do and how much, so He will put you where you can and will be the most useful to Him. Yes, it sounds like you are a servant to Him and we are to an extent, but our relationship means more to God than just our service. He wants this relationship to be a two-way relationship like He had with Adam and Eve in the Garden before they disobeyed Him. Can you do this on your own? Absolutely NOT! We cannot do or be the servant that God wants or needs us to be on our own strength and there is nothing that we can do that will “help” God save us and get us into Heaven!

Jesus did everything that was necessary for us to have salvation and enjoy the grace of God in our lives and there is nothing that we can add to it that will make it better. You can’t improve on the perfection that God provided through Jesus, all that we have to do to claim our salvation is to believe in Him and what He did for us. Belief through faith in Jesus is all that is necessary, once that is accomplished then you are free from sin’s hold on your life and you are able to be the person that God intended for you to be!

What do you do?


In the New Testament book of Colossians in chapter three and verse seventeen it says: “And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus and in (dependence upon) His person, giving praise to God the Father through Him.” AMP

In this verse of scripture, Paul is writing to those who have come to faith in Christ who are trying to reconcile their vocations with their new beliefs. He is telling them that regardless of your vocation, do it as if you are doing it for the Lord. If you dig a ditch, do it as if Jesus asked you to do so. If you are a doctor, treat your vocation as if you worked for the Supreme Physician.

All of us cannot be missionaries or preachers or evangelists, but we can do what we do as if we are doing it for Jesus. If you are a professional football player or golfer, play like you are playing for Jesus and the same goes for any other sport. Regardless of the work that you do, do it as if you are working for Jesus because you really are.

He gave you the talent and the ability to do what you do and the job or the business that you have so that you can be and do your work for Him. I know that many people don’t treat their job as a gift from God or a blessing from Him but it is. God gives to each of us a measure of faith as well as skill in an area that nobody else can match and we have that skill regardless of our education, it was given to us from birth. We may not find out about it until later, maybe after we have attended school or finished school, but it has been there nonetheless. I never thought that I could write much, until years after I graduated from college. I finally found my voice through finding my Savior and He gives me the words to write or say, I am just the messenger.

Your vocation, whatever it may be, is a doorway to other people’s lives. If you work in a hospital, you see people who are hurting in many ways almost every day. I used to work in the laboratory of a hospital and the specimens which we processed were from many people every day who were dealing with cancers of all kinds, HIV, viruses, you name it they were suffering from it. Nurses, Doctors, and all who work in hospitals should be on their knees every day praying for those who they have to care for, regardless of whether they might know any of them or not.

We should be praying for our country and those in Washington who are in charge of the laws of this land. We need to be praying for our military men and women who are serving and putting their lives on the line every day. Prayer should be in our minds and on our hearts for the whole world to come to know Christ, because Satan is busy changing the minds and hearts of as many as he can to turn against Christians and Jews. We are in his sights as a nation founded upon those principles, even though our country is trying to abandon them as fast as it can it seems.

Even though it has been two thousand years since the crucifixion of Jesus, He is coming back! We need to be prepared for His return by doing as much for His Kingdom as we can, whether it is just by praying or if we can preach or teach others to know Him. Teach your children about Him and your grandchildren because they need to know as well. Your family and your friends are the hardest to tell about Jesus if they don’t already know, so in many instances you may just have to pray and invite them to a Bible study at your home. Prayer can cover many things, especially in the lives of those who haven’t come to know Jesus.

Give your heart to Him, tell others about Him, live your life and your vocation as you would with Him by your side. This is the way to eternal life, follow it…follow Jesus and He will guide you.

Noah and the condition of the world


Have you seen the movie or read the story in the Bible? Jesus told His disciples that at the end of the age, the world would be exactly as it was in the days of Noah. The world at that time was so bad that God decided that mankind was so evil that He was sorry that He had created them.

Our world is unfortunately coming very close to that point. People are ignoring the truth found in the Bible. Nobody wants to hear a message of hope that hinges upon belief in Jesus, but they are perfectly fine with any other “god” that you want to mention. People are being imprisoned and threatened with death for their belief in Jesus, let alone telling someone about Him!

I haven’t even started on the drug trade or the slavery that is going on, sexual and otherwise. Then there is all the crime that is rampant in the nations, not just America but most prevalent here as well. Crimes against children, murder, kidnapping, rape,….the list could go on and on. The point of this is that our world has gotten to the point of being very close to the evil ways that was present at the time of the Flood.

Of course, there are plenty of people who deny that there was a flood or even a Creator-God for that matter. They don’t seem to want to admit that many of our phrases and sayings that we are comfortable with actually came from God’s Word! Why???? The arguments against His existence and the Truth found in His Word are many and varied but the main point of all of them seems to be that nobody wants to be held accountable for their way of life, regardless of what they may be doing.

Everyone seems to want to make up their own version of “god” so that he is tolerable of whatever they are doing and will still allow them into Heaven anyway. By denying the Bible and its truth, they are turning away from the Creator just as the people did in the time of Noah. Even if the world doesn’t end in the next fifty years, the truth and the veracity of the Bible can’t be questioned although many would argue that point. The end will come when God decides that it is time and not before. It can’t be rushed, nothing that we do can make Him speed up the date. He already knows when it will happen, but many of the people in our world are ignoring the signs.

The signs in the heavens, the condition of mankind on Earth, the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, the crazy weather that we have been having and that is getting more destructive…all of these things are foretold in the Bible. Maybe not specific places or types, but the warnings are there. We, as Christians, need to be telling as many as we can about Jesus because there isn’t much time left. This generation that is alive today will very likely be the one which will see the Tribulation and the coming of the Son of Man. It is not an “if” it will happen but “when” it happens, it will still come as a surprise to many even though some have heard it for their entire lives.

Please, be on the watch. Read, pray that you will be given the understanding to see the signs. Tell your family and friends about the Lord so that they won’t have an excuse for not knowing and hopefully they will make the decision to follow Jesus too. Every minute that passes by is one that we can’t get back, but it also brings the Second Coming a little closer. Watch and pray that you don’t fall into temptation.

In His Service.

How many times is the word “believe” found in the Bible?


How many times does the word “believe” or one derived from it show up in the Bible?

The word or one with believe inside it, appears 249 times in the Bible. You would be astonished at how few times it really shows up in the Old Testament though. I have published this elsewhere on another site of mine under another name, but I am putting the same disclaimer here: I researched this information using the search function on my Kindle Fire inside the King James Bible. The results may be different from other areas or concordances but the numbers that I have here came from this search alone.

In Exodus, it shows up six times. That is all of the times that the word believe or believeth is present in the book of Exodus, the chronicle of Israel’s journey out of Egypt and on the way to becoming a nation.

In the book of Numbers, it only shows up one time and that is in chapter 14. Why does belief or believe not show up any more than this? God is the only One who knows that answer.

In the book of Deuteronomy, the word only shows up one time in chapter one. Strange isn’t it? A fundamental word that goes along with and that the Christian faith hinges on seems to be absent from the very books that were written at a time when belief should have been easy because of the miracles being done by God for the people of Israel.

In the Christian Bible, the next time that it shows up is in the book of 2 Kings in chapter seventeen and it is only present that one time.

The next time is in 2 Chronicles in and it shows up twice in chapter twenty. Then once more in chapter thirty-two.

After that, it shows up three times in the book of Job, once in chapter nine and twice in chapter thirty-nine.

It also shows up in Proverbs in chapter 26 once, and it isn’t referring to belief in God even then.

Then it makes an appearance twice in Isaiah in chapter seven and in chapter forty-three.

In the Old Testament, the word only shows up twice more after this. Once each in Jeremiah chapter 12 and once in Habakkuk chapter 1.

So, altogether in the Old Testament believe or a word derived from it shows up a total of 20 times. Even during the time of their liberation from Egypt when God was doing so many miracles and wonders, belief or believe never came up much and out of the thirty-eight or thirty-nine books in the Old Testament, depending upon which Bible you have, the word “believe” only shows up twenty times, why?

The New Testament seems to have most of the occurrences of this word. Why? Because belief was and is necessary, along with faith, in the One that we should believe in, Jesus.

In Matthew alone believe shows up nine times!

In Mark it shows up 18 times, almost as many as in the entire Old Testament!

In Luke, believe shows up nine times, but in the book of John alone it shows up 94 times! Now, this sounds like a lot and in some results that I have searched through it showed up only forty-three times.
That is because some searches on the Internet Bible boards only show exactly the word “believe”, while the search that I did shows it and the word of believeth as well because I was searching through the King James Bible.

The point that I am making is that John’s gospel and the books written by him all focus on our belief in Jesus and in Who He was and Who He is. Yes, the demons of Satan and Satan himself believe in Jesus but they don’t have the same belief as we do. They will not bow to Him nor will they serve Him because they have chosen to be against Him and against God. So, how many times have we charted the word “believe” so far? At this point, only 150 times between the Old and New Testaments up to the book of John. So, there are about ninety-nine more occurrences of the word believe or believeth in the New Testament.

Why so much emphasis on belief? Believing in Jesus does save your soul! It is the first step toward a life of service to Him and in your sanctified life with Him. Belief doesn’t and cannot come to someone without God’s grace touching your soul, your heart and bringing you to a point of realization that you truly NEED Jesus as your Savior! Believing that Jesus accomplished everything needed for you to be saved doesn’t come to you from works and it doesn’t come to you when you decide to do so because you don’t decide to become saved. God is the One Who calls you to be saved through your belief in Jesus as your Savior.

Being a Christian is a process that begins with belief in Jesus and in His message for our lives and taking that message into your heart, striving to become more like Jesus daily. What does that mean? Asking forgiveness for your sins by confessing what you have done and accepting God’s forgiveness because of your decision to accept Jesus as your Savior is just the beginning of your walk with Him. Searching through the scriptures for references to Jesus is a wonderful exercise that will increase your faith in the truthfulness of God’s Word, but it will also humble you because you will find that God has loved us, not just Israel, for an eternity. He has known each person and how they will choose to live their lives since before the world began. Your life after accepting Jesus as your Savior doesn’t require you to work out your salvation. But…you will want to learn more of God’s Word because you will want to know your Heavenly Father and reading His Word is the best way to learn how He speaks from it and to us.

That is why belief in Who the Trinity of the Godhead is important to your salvation, because all three Persons of the Trinity are involved in your salvation every day. Belief in Jesus is the first step, accepting Him as your Savior is the second step, confession of your sins is another step along the road of becoming a Christian. God sent Jesus to do the work of reconciling mankind to Himself by being the perfect sacrifice for all of our sins, which He did. Then, the Holy Spirit, which is another part of the Trinity, comes into your life when you are saved and teaches you while you search for more of His Truth. So, the entire Person of the Trinity is involved in your becoming a fruitful Christian, not just Jesus.

Please forward this to anyone that you know that needs to come to Jesus. It is important because God thinks that they are important and that you are important. We all have a part to play in God’s plan, some may have a small part and some may have a bigger part. Just as the different parts of our body do their jobs, we as Christians need to do our job regardless of the role that we play in God’s plan and His Kingdom.

Give God the Glory that He deserves, because I cannot continue doing this alone. I am not alone of course, I have Him and His Spirit to guide me and you do too. The words that I have put here don’t come from my mind alone, but from His. I am just a messenger, but don’t disregard the message.

A conscience, do you have one?


Many, if not most people, do have a conscience but with all of the evil, hateful things going on in the world it sure doesn’t seem like it. You would think that it would prompt more people to think about what they are doing before they do it, but when you read a news story or watch the news, it seems that thinking about what was wrong with their intentions was the least of their thoughts.

What is a conscience? Is it God telling you what you should and should not do? Your conscience is, according to the definition of Webster’s: an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior. To answer the second question: yes, it could be the Spirit of God telling you or guiding you toward and right decision rather than a wrong one. It also has something to do with your character and how you were brought up as a child. Were you taught right from wrong? Did your parents or grandparents take you to church?

The lessons learned, and the words that were heard in church came from God’s Word, the Living Word. This is where most of our collective conscience comes from since God’s Word is able to make an impact on your life, even if you are not expecting it to make an impact. It resonates with your heart and soul because it is supposed to. God’s Word never comes back to Him void, it always accomplishes what He intended for it to do. If you heard it in a sermon or on the television, if God intended for your heart and soul to respond to it, you will.

God loves you and wants what is best for you, regardless of the time or place or the circumstances that you may find yourself in. Our lives are truly important to Him, for some that is hard to understand. I mean, how or why in the world would the Creator of the universe be interested in me or you as an individual? What could we possibly do for Him? Well, what about when He called Moses? God came to a bush in the desert to call him, for something great, couldn’t He do the same thing (maybe less dramatic) for some of us?

Your conscience comes from a part of you that knows right from wrong, the truth about life comes from the One Who created it so you recognize truth, His Truth. Give Jesus and the Word of God a chance to make a difference in your life so that you can make a difference in someone else’s life. Of course, it won’t be you making the difference it will be Jesus. He will show through your life and into someone else’s life so that they might want what you have.

Think about it, then ask Him to come into your life and be your Savior. When He does, your life and the lives of those around you will never be the same.

 

Does anyone go the second mile anymore?


There is a passage in God’s Word which speaks of going the second mile with someone. Do you know anyone who does that anymore? Do we, as Christians and believers, go the second mile with anyone or do we just give them a platitude to help them and pray for them and send them on their way?

We are being unfair and disingenuous in our faith if we do and being lukewarm in our walk with Christ too! He doesn’t want lukewarm Christians! Can we become more active in our faith and in our service to Him and to others as well? It is necessary for ALL Christians to get more involved in their faith and in the work of the Church, especially now, since we are coming to the end of the Church age.

I know, many preachers and so-called prophets have been saying doom and gloom for many hundreds of years, but if you read and study the prophetic books (Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation) you get an eerie feeling that you are reading today’s headlines! That is why I am saying that we must wake up and begin letting people know, whether they really believe it when you tell them or not, but they need to hear the news of Christ and how they can be saved from the wrath to come!

We need to go the second mile to help someone who is a new Christian as well. Show them how to study the Bible, help them to understand some of the hard teachings in it because if we don’t, who will? Many pastors don’t have the time these days with all of the functions going on at church, such as weddings, funerals, baptisms, study groups, etc., their time is further taken up by preparation of the sermons which they deliver during the week and every Sunday. It is up to us, each of us who may be born-again Christians, to teach and instruct our children and those new to faith in Christ. Help them to understand the fantastic gift that they have, give to them by God through Jesus!

Going the second mile with someone who is hurting from a divorce or the loss of a job or a family member, this is what Jesus would do so doesn’t it stand to reason that He would expect it of us as well? We are not perfect, we are not destined to become “gods” at some point, we are His bond-servants because of His love for us and our duty to Him. The perfection of God and His creation is that it is unchanging. He loves us with a love that is above anything that we can understand, for no reason except that He wants to love us that way!

In some things moderation is good, like eating, rest, recreation, exercise, and finances. But when it comes to spiritual warfare, moderation is a sin. When it comes to believing the Bible, moderation is a sin. When it comes to loving the Lord, moderation is a sin! We have to go full-throttle, not just ten percent in our service to Him, in our belief in Him and in our love toward Him!

If you are a Christian, your life is in Him, so it should be all in Him not just a little bit or once a week. God doesn’t want someone who begins on a row, like a planter planting a field, and then quits a few feet down the row. We can’t expect someone else to take up our slack because we get tired of being the one who is making the sacrifices or taking the time to do things. How much food would we have to eat if every farmer just planted a quarter of a row and no more?

If Jesus and His disciples had not made all of the journeys that they did to tell people of the Good News, there wouldn’t be a church today! If they had sat down only five miles outside Jerusalem, none of Paul’s letters to the churches would’ve needed to be sent or written! We need to have that enthusiasm and drive to get the message out to the world, even if it is just through the medium of pages like this. Pray about what you can do, how to do it and get started!





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