Category: Faith

Ooops!


Do we have times or places or even events in our lives where “Ooops!” would be appropriate? All of us have these at one point or another. The only person that hasn’t had a day or even a minute where this would be part of the vocabulary would’ve been Jesus.

I know, many of you would say “What about the scourging or the cross?”; those were already planned and part of His life before they came to be. Those of us who watched cartoons in the seventies and eighties learned from the master of “Ooops”, Wile E. Coyote. He always got the bad end of gravity or a falling rock or even an explosion which didn’t go off at the point where he wanted it to.

What do you do when this happens in your life? I know that most of us don’t have problems with gravity or with bombs going off unexpectedly, but just walk with me down this memory lane a bit. Do you fret over it or worry about it? Sometimes it is too late when you realize it, so what can you do about it? Most of the time, you can’t really do much about it. If the “ooops” has already happened, then you will just have to deal with it in one way or another.

Sometimes it is caused by something that we say, in my case it is most often done this way. My mouth gets in a gear that is running faster than my common sense and I say something that I should’ve thought about a bit before it came tumbling out in the open! Does it cause pain or anguish, sometimes it does, at other times it just causes someone to giggle or laugh, depending upon what my mouth blurted out at the time.

A moment of “ooops” can cost a lot in the long run, down the road of life but at times it can also put you in a place where things can change. Sometimes…even you change. Sometimes…I change. So many times an “ooops” moment can even make a difference in the long run, if you use it in the right way.

But, you have to follow-up and work with the feeling that this moment caused in you. Don’t think about it and then let it get away and forget about it, use it to spur you on to fix the problem whatever it might be. God uses moments like these to show us what to do or what we should do, it is up to us to realize that He is part of the equation and the answer to it as well.

Why do I bring this up? Because He is always the One in control of the outcome, whether we believe it or not. If you believe in God and have learned that you need Him in your life, then follow through and make sure that He is your answer to your life’s problems. He wants to be that answer and the One that you call on in all things, not just when there is an “ooops” in your life.

So much..so little


It is a contradiction but, with God in the picture even a contradiction works. How do I know? Read the story of Jesus feeding so many with so little, like the five loaves and two fish to feed five thousand men. Some say that there were likely fifteen thousand souls there at least and yet there were twelve baskets left over from a lunch meant for one child.

God can use even a little talent in a big way, no matter how you see yourself or where you may be in the world. But, you have to give Him control of your talent and yourself before He can use it to bless others. Just as when a farmer plants a seed or a plant in the ground, it is only one at the time. But with water, air and sunlight it can become much more than one seed or one plant.

We, as Christians, are like that as well. God places His Spirit in us when we are saved and we are supposed to nurture it with care and feed it by prayer and the Word of God. By studying God’s Word, we feed the Spirit and like Jesus said “it will overflow as a river of living water” to all who are exposed to it. True, it may not be His exact words but that is what we are supposed to be, springs of living water to draw the world to Him by what they see or hear in us.

God can use each of us in ways that we can’t imagine or even believe that we could do. But, with His Spirit guiding us we can do so much more than just be ourselves. We can be His ambassadors and representatives to anyone who is searching for the Truth. It doesn’t take much. A prayer here or helping someone with their load in some way. Opening the door for someone, praying for someone who you don’t know.

These things are “works” true enough, and they don’t get you a spot inside the gates of Heaven. Giving your life and your heart to Jesus gets you into Heaven, the “works” are part of the life that you live after you accept Him. These are the results of your salvation, the fruits of your life in Christ that never would’ve grown out of your life if you had not given your heart to Jesus.

Just as James wrote in his epistle, “Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” James 2:18, he wasn’t speaking of works being required by your faith but as a result of your salvation. The works that you do will prove your faith and your salvation! God loves each of us so deeply that we won’t understand it until we are in His presence, but He hates the sins that we have lived with in our life. Repent and turn to Him, give your heart and your life to Him so that you will be saved.

Today…


paintingFor most of us today began about four hours ago, depending on when you may need to get to work. Some of you may have been working last night until this morning, so your morning was during the night for the rest of us. I worked the night shift in the hospital lab for years after I graduated from Clinical Lab Science with a BS. It was different, not very enjoyable though. Your body was not designed to be awake during the night and try to sleep during the day.

Anyway, today is the day that we all have to work with. What we do with it and what we accomplish in it are up to us and the abilities that God has given us. So…what will you do with yours?

Some of us have to go to work for the day, some, like me, are disabled and get to spend the day doing what we can do. For some we can do almost as much as we could before, but pain or tiredness comes on really easily. Like today for me. I was painting a couple of hours ago, but my shoulders began to hurt pretty bad so I had to quit. Hopefully, I can get back to it before it dries completely. If I can finish it, I may put it up here so you can see it.

The painting above is what I was working on yesterday. I hope you like it. I can do better I think, but that will come with practice.

God gives each of us a talent, some of us get more than one. The problem with having more than one is that you have a hard time figuring out what you are supposed to do with yourself. For me, it usually has to do with how much pain I have and how I feel that day. I am sorry about bringing my situation in here because it really doesn’t belong here, but sometimes that is how I feel.

I hope that you don’t have to go through the pain that I have. God loves us and our life, each and every day, is our service to Him and for Him. Regardless of our job or our talents, your day can be useful to you and to God as well. Seek Him out and do what you can do with what you have, every day.

Whom do you believe?


Many religions in our world today purpose to worship men. Men who are dead and have turned to dust or dried up husks in the grave. Why would you worship these who are nothing more than portions of creation itself? Living and breathing in our world is a wonderful grace that God gives to us, hard though it may be at times. Dead men don’t give any such grace or knowledge to us while we live or dream, only God our Creator will do this. We will not see Him, but our spirits will recognize our Creator and God when we hear and feel His calling.

So, whom do you believe in and determine to follow? There are many so-called “prophets”, even to hundreds of years before Christ. Some were in Eastern nations such as India and China, some came a few hundred years after Christ in the Middle Eastern nations. The difference between them and our Lord Jesus is that they lie in graves or have turned to dust while Jesus stands at the right hand of God, alive and well.

Some portions of the Middle Eastern religion say that Jesus is a servant of Allah, which is not true. God the Creator is not Allah, He is God. It is easy to place a name upon One whom you have not seen and give Him a name which you want Him to have and yet is a name which is not His Name. God doesn’t share His glory with any other god because He is God and there is none other!

The Bible speaks of God in three persons. The Holy Spirit or the Spirit of God, the Angel of the Lord or the pre-incarnate Christ and Jesus and of course God the Father. The One that we, as Christians, worship is a Triune Godhead. Being God doesn’t diminish His Spirit nor does it take away from the Son, Jesus the Christ. Trying to make the Son of God into a servant of Allah is blasphemy and is completely wrong.

God sent His Son into the world in order to redeem the world and all of those in it from the consequences of their sins. The only requirement is that they each believe in Him and that He did this for them, repenting of your sins and my sins and following His example in our lives. Following Him every day so that others may see the joy and the example that He set for us to follow and to do. We are not to do it selfishly or in response to the dictates of man, but selflessly and by the order of Jesus. Be a reflection of Him in all that you do every day, in your words and deeds so that you will glorify Him until He comes to take us to our eternal Home.

End or beginning?


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!image

Worry, doubts and fears


It seems that every day people are bombarded with more things which cause fear and anxiety. We doubt ourselves at times, and we have fears which cause us to worry about things which we can’t control. What can we do about this? Can we do anything about this situation? It depends upon your situation and your faith.

Some people claim that they can handle their own lives and they don’t need to have “blind faith” in religion to help them get through life. The problem with this kind of attitude is that when push comes to shove and things get a bit out of hand, most will seek out a “higher power” for comfort and direction even if they claim that they don’t believe in a “higher power”. God is that One Who is higher than all, Jesus is the One Who can relate to our suffering and our pain and they can help in all of life’s situations no matter what!

With all of the news that is available to us on the Internet and television today, there is very little which goes on in the world that we can’t keep tabs on whether we truly want to or need to or not. All of this information can cause us to worry far more than is healthy, and the worst part is that we shouldn’t worry about it at all. God is in control of it all. He is watching and guiding your life and mine toward that day when He will call us home.

Yes, one day the whole world will see that we are important to our Creator. Important enough that He will be returning soon, much sooner than most think. Many people are going to be surprised and terrified when that day comes and the church, the believers who are waiting for His call, all disappear and are taken to Heaven. Then they will want to believe, but it will be harder to do so. Many explanations will be given which have nothing to do with God or the Bible’s prophecies but just as in the days of Noah, when the door to the ark was shut the only ones saved were the ones inside.

We don’t have “blind faith” in a God Who is not there. He is the Creator because there is no way that all of this universe could come into being as it is because of an accident. Our own solar system, out of all the ones that have been discovered, is the only one that is stable and with orbits for all of the planets that allow for life to flourish. All of the hundreds of solar systems that have been discovered are too close to their star or too far-flung to harbor life.

God loves all of us, no matter what your skin color is or your culture, but we refuse His provision and His grace when we try to take His place. When we think that we know better than He does how to fulfill our lives in this world, we are deluding ourselves. Seek God in the Bible or at a church which teaches from His Word. Pray that your life can have meaning in and through Him and seek His wisdom every day. This is the best way to relieve stress and worry because He is the One Who holds tomorrow in His hand. All that we have is today.

Live today for Jesus and then do it again tomorrow, then repeat until He comes again. That is the prescription which will conquer worry, doubt and fears far better than anything that a doctor can give you.

Time waits for no one


eternityEvery 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.

The Ten Commandments of the Lord


Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.
Exodus 20:7-17 KJV
http://bible.com/1/exo.20.7-17.KJV

Life, what will you do with it?


Since we are all alive if we are breathing, then we are all living right now…today, but have you considered what tomorrow might bring your way? Have you even thought of what will happen or may happen in an hour or two? We are not gifted with that kind of sight, thank goodness! We can’t see into the future even a few minutes from now regardless of where we are or how much we may like to see the future. So, how are you living your life right now, this very instant? Have you ever thought of that or even considered it at all?

Life is something that we live one tick of the clock at a time or one blink of your eyes at a time. Just fractions of a second stand between you closing your eyes in a blink and then opening them again and it only takes a fraction of a second. But, there are times that just that tiny fraction of a second could make the difference between having a wreck in a car or not. But, we can’t stop blinking or driving or walking because that is what we do while living!

Faith in God’s provision brings us through those milliseconds of time when we blink. He will see us through and bring us out the other side. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but consider all of the milliseconds that people experience every day, every month, every year and you realize that we all live faithfully in God’s grace whether we believe in Him or not! Isn’t that great? He loves each of us THAT much regardless of our faith or belief in Him.

Some of us are given much in goods and things that the world sees as our blessing from God. In the eyes of many people of the world, outside America, each person in this country is wealthy. Most of us have a place to live that is warm or cool according to the season, many of us have food on the table or in the house every day of the year, many of us have jobs which pay us a nice wage or if we happen to own a business it may be doing well enough to provide us everything that we need in this life. The problem with looking at our “material wealth” from the perspective of those outside of our homes or our businesses is that they don’t see or feel the loneliness and fear and helplessness that comes with being “well off”.

Many of us don’t even consider ourselves well off in wealth at all. Business owners have payroll and insurance and overhead expenses like utilities and such. Homeowners and those in business have insurance and grocery bills, utility bills, cable bills, dental and clothing bills, tuition bills, etc. So much so that after you take out all of the money for bills and life, there isn’t much wealth left at all! But, to those who live in Africa or India or Turkey or China or North Korea our way of life and the apparent wealth that they see is far above anything that many of them will ever attain.

That is why America and Americans are not on the lists of people who are liked or loved, because we are seen as a culture and a country that has it all. Everyone else wants what we have, up to a point, but they also want to bring us down a notch or two if possible. The biggest realization that the world needs to find out about is that we can’t fill that spot that has always been empty or hollow. No amount of money or stuff will ever fill that empty part of your soul until you realize that Jesus is the One that does fit in that spot! Once you understand that, all of the stuff that most are holding onto for dear life just doesn’t matter! Yes, you still have to have money to pay your electric bill and your other bills, but the i-Pads and the i-Pods and the phones and computers and any other amount of things which this season tries to tell you that you HAVE TO HAVE…they don’t matter at all!

Jesus said that your life is like a puff of smoke and compared to eternity it really is! Your life doesn’t matter much unless Jesus and belief in Him is a part of your everyday existence. No amount of time or effort or money invested or given to any charity will make an eternal difference unless you are doing it with faith and the love of Jesus in your heart.

Sad remembrance


Our country was still reeling from the impact and the horror that had happened only a few hours before at this particular time fourteen years ago. Most of us were in shock. Not wanting to believe what our eyes were seeing and hearing on television or radio that morning, yet it had happened.

America had been attacked on her own soil, in the very heart of one of the most populated and celebrated cities, New York City. Yes, it was a sneak attack, an unprovoked attack from our point of view. Why? was the question that everyone wanted an answer to, but that answer even today is elusive. Theories abound but no real solid answers have been given or found in the years since.

How can we get past this point? There is no specific nation to look toward as the instigator of this, the reason…if there is one is based in religion, just one religion. Islam.

The word itself in Arabic means literally “submission to God”. A fairly benign statement that many believers both Muslim and non-Muslim can agree on. Christians, Jews and Muslims can relate to this as being the path to Life eternal.”What does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Romans 4:3

In all three of those religions, belief and submission are almost synonymous, and yet each treats the other very differently. Religion has caused all sorts of pain and suffering in the past as it does today. Yet, we should be looking to the Author and Finisher of our faith for the Truth and that is Jesus. He brought the Truth of God to us because, as John puts it: “The Word was God and became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His Glory.” John 1:14

We are remembering the act of terror, aggression and war that was committed fourteen years ago today, but we have not turned to the One Who can give us peace in our souls and love toward those who intend to do us harm. Oh, for a few days and weeks we did go to churches and worship places and implored with God to show us why this had to happen. Most people didn’t recognize the answer that we got which was “to get your attention”!

It had to be done so that we would, as a nation, turn to God and repent of our sinful ways. But, we didn’t do that. We took it as a slap in the face and with anger we rose up as a nation, almost as they did in 1941, and we struck at those who had struck us. The problem then, as now, was that was similar to swatting at an ant in an ant hill. It only spread the problem out and made then even more determined, which their Koran tells them to bide their time and strike harder the next time.

We cannot look at this from a religious point of view or a national point of view, it just is part of our world and the time that we are living in. The next strike will be worse.