Category: Faith

Being a religious person doesn’t make any difference?


I saw this on the news today and I wonder just what people think will make a difference in our society? Religion itself has gotten a bad reputation in the past few years because of the problems which have cropped up in churches in many places. But you know you can be religious about many different things. You can be religious about the way you cook your food or how you put your clothes on a certain way or even about going to the golf course or fishing. People can make a religious experience out of most anything, but what about your faith?

Do you have faith in the sun coming up in the morning? You really don’t have to, because you know it will. What about the moon rising later in the day or after the sun goes down? Faith doesn’t really come into play there either because you know that these things will happen.

Religion and faith together can be an explosive combination, especially when you are so caught up in emotional issues and a religion which stirs these to a point where many people get uncontrollably caught up in what their teachers teach them. I am trying to be as politically correct as possible here so I really won’t offend anyone. The point is that our individual faith, regardless of which “religion” it happens to be in, is our own.

But, what will you do with that religion or lack of faith when you are confronted after your death by God Himself who is the final judge of our lives? What can you say to Him about your religion which will make a difference? If you never accepted Jesus and the sacrifice which He made to reconcile us to God, there isn’t much that you can say. God knows your heart and every word which has come from your mouth. If you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, then He will be beside you as your life is judged, if not you will stand alone.

What then? Would you want to be standing in front of the Creator of the universe with nothing except your deeds and your personal “righteousness” which is as Isaiah 64: 6 says:

“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags;
and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

Unless we have put on the righteousness of Christ, God sees us as we are and we cannot enter into Heaven in that way. What many people today do is to create their own version of “God”, one that is acceptable to them and doesn’t judge them for their personal faults but this is doing nothing except delaying the inevitable. We will all be judged by God, the One True God, whether we are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus or not. If we did things in this life while belonging to Him, we will be rewarded if not then those things will be judged on their merit if any, except without Christ those merits will mean nothing.

How can our lives really mean anything or have any meaning at all without Christ? To each of us, our lives do mean something, but when you look at eternity once your life here ends, without Jesus eternity is not something that anyone would want to experience.

I know that there are many who think that life ends completely when we die, but we were created as eternal beings and part of us does live on. Without Jesus, it will not be an enjoyable eternity but with Him we will not be without anything good . You can choose whether to believe and accept Him as your Savior or not, many don’t wish to believe in Him at all. Satan knows that He is and believes that He is but he won’t worship Him and that is his downfall, don’t let it be yours.

Are you worthy of Him?


What makes me worthy? I have been a drunkard, maybe not an alcoholic, but I drank nearly every Friday night and some days even while I was at school. I tried drugs in my youth for more than a few times and I did inhale, it wasn’t fun at first, but after a while I enjoyed the feeling.

I enjoyed the high feeling that they gave me but I did not enjoy the depression that came afterward. I have used prescription pain medication to make me “feel good”, though thankfully I didn’t become addicted to it. I have looked at pornography and fantasized about things that I wouldn’t admit to today, but I do admit that I did it.

You may be wondering why I am telling you, my friends, about this, why would I show my failures and my warts to those that I am supposed to be bringing the gospel to? The reason that I am doing this is simple…it is to show that no matter how low you have been, how much you have done, how sinful you may think that you are, God loves you anyway!

God can use you and your story, warts and all, as a way to bring someone to Christ and if your story or mine can bring at least one person into a relationship with Christ, then it is worth it to tell your story. Because it also shows the grace that God extends to each of us, regardless of how we were before we came to know Christ.

Of course, it is not a story that I would like to go into the gory details over but
suffice it to say that nobody wants to know those details. Regardless of that, my question for you is: “What do you think you have you done in your life that is keeping you from asking Jesus into your life?” God knows the depravity of
humanity, He knows what evil or good we are capable of and yet, He loves us
anyway. Is it any wonder that Christ can use each of us?

Can you understand that God can use each of us with our problems, our past
failures, our humanity showing in places that we don’t want it to? Is it possible
that with our failures, small or great though they may be, Jesus can still use us
for His purposes? He used Peter even though Peter failed Him on the very night that He was arrested and taken to be tried! Jesus used Saul, who became the apostle Paul, even after he had murdered Steven and likely others before Jesus confronted him on the road to Damascus.

God loves each of us enough that He sent His Son to die for our sins, to pay the
penalty for our sins. That may not sound like much, but if you consider that
Christ took the sins of all of humanity, not just the ones living when He was
here but those that came before and those of us born since He went to His
throne in Heaven! He also died for those that have not yet been born.

So, are you worthy? Do you think that you deserve to receive God’s grace and
His love? If you have accepted Jesus as your savior and into your heart, then you do; but, if you have heard the message in church for many years, if you have read your Bible and even taught Sunday school but are unsure of your relationship to Him then you need to get on your knees and pray. Ask Him to show you what you need, ask Him to forgive you and to come into your heart and to give you the peace which comes with His presence.

Here are some scriptures which enforce the idea of whether we are in need of
being worthy or not:
1 Corinthians 6:11:  And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are
sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

Romans 5:8:  But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Philippians 4:8- Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things [are] honest, whatsoever things [are] just, whatsoever things [are] pure,
whatsoever things [are] lovely, whatsoever things [are] of good report; if [there
be] any virtue, and if [there be] any praise, think on these things.

Matthew 10:37- He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of
me: and he that loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

1 Timothy 6:3-5- If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome
words, [even] the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is
according to godliness;

Galatians 2:20- I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

We have been given the most gracious and wonderful gift…the gift of salvation
through Jesus Christ! All that we have to do is believe in Him and ask Him into our hearts, repenting of our sinful ways and turning from our prior life to follow Him in obedience and humility until He returns. Some may say that is fine for you, preacher, you are supposed to follow Him but I can only ask Him into my heart. I can’t be expected to follow Him daily!

Why not? His disciples did and countless others have over the past two thousand years. Many have given their lives because they would not renounce Jesus, they would not reject Him and follow the rest of the “church” of the day.

A belief that can cause so many to give their lives in order to spread the news to others is one that cannot be stopped. Even some of the Pharisees said that if it was of men, it would die with them, but if it was of God then there would be no stopping the message. Our Lord’s message has been through many terrible times during the past two thousand years. People have been burned at the stake, forced to freeze to death, seen their families killed in many gruesome ways and yet the message and their belief never faltered.

Our God is an awesome, powerful Creator who can take jars of clay like us, break us and then mold us into exactly what He wishes for us to become. Then He will give us the words…the message that others need to hear, no matter where they may be, so that someone will find out about Jesus and come to a saving knowledge of Him. It is not an easy message, it is not one that is to be taken lightly but it is a message that can save your immortal soul from hell.

If you have never given your life to Jesus and earnestly followed Him, praying all the while to be given a chance to tell someone, even just one person, about what Jesus has released you from, then I urge you to do that now! Jesus stands at the door of your heart, waiting to be asked to come in. He will not push His way in nor will be force anything upon you, but He will change you if you ask Him to and that change will glow and be visible to all around you because it will no longer be just you, but Christ living in you that they will see.

Do you see the love of Christ at your church?


In our world and our culture, the love that we are commanded to show to one another seems to be in short supply…even in church. So what are we to do? Well, the first thing that you can do is make sure that your heart is right with God! If you don’t have Jesus in your heart, then the love of God won’t be there either and if it isn’t there then it won’t show up in church or anywhere else. People will wonder about your walk with Christ, whether it is genuine or not, if the Spirit of Christ doesn’t shine through.

This is something which can’t be faked. You can act like a Christian, you can attend church for decades and teach Sunday school, you can even be a pastor and still not be saved if you know the words and what is expected of you! In other words, you can walk and talk it and still not have it because you are just going through the motions and that is all! Many people in our country are doing just that because if there really were over ninety percent of Americans that were real Christians, then every church in the country would be full to overflowing every Sunday!

I am not trying to upset anyone with this, although I may get a few feathers ruffled, but some people do need to wake up! We need a revival in our country, a revival and an exodus back to God, back to morality and knowing the One who helped to make this country into what it has been for over two hundred years! If we don’t put Him back in charge of many areas of our collective lives in this country, we are going to reap the penalty for our refusal and for turning our backs on Him and for pushing Him out of schools and each person’s lives as much as we have.

God loves each one of us with a love that nobody can come close to understanding, except maybe a mother. The love that most mothers feel for their children is the only bond that imitates God’s love for us. I am also emphatically not calling a mother’s love imitation! It just happens to be the only bond that comes close to that which God has for us and would like to share with each of us. Just as when you talk to your mom, God wants to talk to you, but we need to learn to listen. Get away from the computer and the cell phone, leave the e-mail out of it because He doesn’t do e-mail. You have to be able to hear His voice and His voice is one that is quiet, so you have to be, as the Word of God says, “in a quiet place” away from the distractions of life so that you can hear from Him. Personally, I used to talk to Him and try to listen while I was driving to and from work. If you are alone in the car, turn the radio off and tell Him that you are listening…talk to Him just like you do to any other friend that you have, He will hear you.

His love will show through you and others in your church when you are connected to it. When you are listening to Him, you will find out things that your Bible doesn’t have in it..you will come to understand scripture better when you pray about it. God reveals His wisdom to you when you come to Him. Many people today seem to deny the existence of God, they don’t want Him to hold them accountable for their actions but He does and He will, like it or not. Life is given to each of us by Him, daily to live, to love, to serve, to witness to others. What we do with our life is our choice, but our choice has a price. If you choose to follow Jesus and live through Him, other people’s lives will be impacted by your choices and yours will too. If you choose to live your life selfishly, doing only what you want to do, how you want to do it, you will affect some lives too but at the end of this life what will you have to show for it? Some people have big homes, fancy cars, money to burn and fame and all the “fair-weather friends” to go with all of this, but you can’t take any of that with you when you die! When you are gone, so will your so-called friends be, they will be off looking for someone else who has the money or toys that they like, but where will you be?

Many people say that when they die, they will just be dead period. Jesus said that this life is not the end, it is just the beginning. We are created with an eternal soul and that soul will live on, according to what your life was here and through your life on earth. This is the training ground for eternity, so what are you training for? A life of love, compassion, hope, and knowing that you have all of that secured through the sacrifice that Jesus made for you? Or will your eternity be filled with regret and pain, knowing that you could’ve made the right choice which would change your eternity…but you didn’t. You only get to change your mind while you are here in this life, once you pass to the other life the choice has been made.

 

The Love Revolution – Sermon of the Week


I am a pastor of a small church and I really liked this post. So much so that I re-blogged it here. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did. 🙂

What has happened to our country?


In the past twelve years what has actually happened to our country? I don’t even recognize much of the United States anymore, at least the United States that I grew up in! We are in the process of creating a country that is exactly the kind that most people fled from to come to in the past two hundred years. I know about the slave ships that brought people here against their will and I truly do apologize for all of the past mistakes, sins, that our forefathers perpetrated but there is a limit to what we should be doing to our country. The damage that has been done is such that it cannot be undone by one President, it cannot be undone in the next century by any number of elected officials especially those who are corrupt like the ones in office now!

I realize that my blog is supposed to be about Christ and I do believe that the reason for this happening is due to the fact that God and prayer were taken out of schools and our educational system. Morality has been eroded away to the point that many people support the idea that we each have our own truth and our own morality. According to who?! If you don’t have your morality and truth anchored in the Word of God, then the individual person can make up exactly what they consider to be truth and morality for themselves! This will create a system of anarchy with no law and no responsibility for anything! Do you think that you can live in a country like that? Would you want to bring up a child in a country like that? I wouldn’t!

Our country needs a revival of faith in God, in morality, in each of our lives and if we don’t do this or decide that we don’t need it, then we will suffer the consequences. What that will be, I don’t know, but it will very likely be unpleasant. Please, think about this, pray about it, bring it up in your church if you attend one! If we allow our country to go down this path that it has already started on, then we will see what those consequences will be and I doubt that anyone will be having a good time.

 

Is non-belief (atheism) new?


Not really. It is something which has come of “age” recently in America and by recently I mean within the last forty years or so. It was not a popular viewpoint prior to the ’50’s, but I am sure that, like today, there were a few people that held that viewpoint. Many tried to have religion abolished during the so-called “monkey trials” in the early twentieth century, when the courts had to decide whether to teach creation or evolution to children.

Recently, they have erected a monument of sorts to atheism right alongside a monument of the Ten Commandments. In an attempt to make their point that, I suppose, we don’t need Christianity or religion.

The following quotation from Madalyn Murray O’Hair is carved into the side panel of the granite monument:

“An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that deed must be done instead of prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.”

When an atheist says, “I believe,” it’s an admission that atheism is a religion. When they (atheists) admit that they believe in something, it proves that it is becoming a religion, at least to them. Of course, I just repeated the statement which came with this quote from the website below:

Read more: http://godfatherpolitics.com/11193/why-i-support-the-new-atheist-monument/#ixzz2W1pDw8zC

I, on the other hand, do NOT support this monument because it gives the atheist worldview legitimacy which is something that it doesn’t need. I know we are supposed to allow all viewpoints to be seen and heard because of the first amendment, but this movement doesn’t want to allow Christians to have that freedom anywhere! In schools in particular but also in the military and in our government as well, so are we supposed to just get out of the way and let them have their say. I will agree to getting out of their way, but my constitutional right to speak up empowers me to say what I want as well.

God, the Creator, gives us each our measure of grace to be on this planet and in the places where we are in order to do His will. Whether we choose to follow Him and do that is up to us, we are not forced to follow Him even if we have heard scripture being read or a prayer being said in school or in a public arena. Why should we have to cower whenever someone cries out that they don’t want to hear about Christ, but atheists never say a word about Islam or any other religion. It seems to center only on Christianity. Why is that? Have Christians gone around killing people because their message is not getting out to the world? Have Christians used suicide bombers to make a point about anything in relation to Jesus? None of this has happened because our religion is one that is tolerant of others. We don’t force anyone to convert to Christianity, so why are we treated as if we do?

I think it has to do with the facts of history and those of Truth. When the Truth is revealed to someone logically without coercion then they make up their own minds about what they believe and usually when that Truth is brought to them through the Bible, they realize that their belief…whatever it was, was leading them in the wrong direction. God’s Word is truth whether you want to believe it or not. The reason that I believe it is because, not only because I a Christian and a pastor, Satan believes it too! The enemy of all who believe in God knows that it is true and he agrees with atheists that nobody should be forced to listen to prayers or to hear the message of Jesus preached.

The problem with that belief is that it is one that leads to hell. Satan knows this but he is not going to help you. He only wants to get as many people to go down that road as possible, because those that do won’t belong to Jesus. Romans 6:23 says: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

When you make a decision to come to Jesus and stop believing the lie that is sold on television and by other media outlets, that we are our own saviors, you will be on the path to Life. The road to destruction is wide and there are many who find it, don’t get on that road! Make sure that you are on the road to eternity, an eternity which is not full of pain and anguish because of decisions which were guided by the world. Don’t let anyone tell you that when you die, you just go away. God put an eternal soul inside each of us and when your earthly body dies, your soul goes to be in eternity. The eternity that you will go to is determined by your choices here, between your self and the world or whether you chose Jesus as your savior. Those are the only two choices that really matter because they affect your eternal destination. So, which one will you choose?

Consider God today


Have you considered Him today? Have you thought about God today? We have many reasons or excuses for not thinking about God in our daily lives, such as:

“I am too busy to bring Him into my thinking today”; “God doesn’t belong where I work, so why bother?”; “He doesn’t want to be with me, so I am going to leave Him out of my life until I am ready”; “God doesn’t care about me, so why should I care”.

These reasons or excuses for not letting God into your life are all wrong! He does care, He loves you whether you love Him or not! He does want to be involved in your life. These reasons are also selfish, because you may not feel worthy of having Him in your life. You may be feeling that you aren’t good enough, well guess what? God does care! He sent His Son to die for us and pay the penalty for our sins long before we were ever born!

Jesus did not think of Himself when God asked Him to come to earth and be the spotless Lamb of God! He just obeyed the Father and now we have the ability to come before God’s throne whenever we need to or want to and for whatever reason…or even no reason at all! If you have not given your heart and life to Jesus, please consider Him today! We are not guaranteed tomorrow so don’t think that you will always have time to make this decision.

Your life and mine matter to God! He doesn’t turn away from us, even while we are sinners. If we repent of our sinful ways and turn and seek Him, He will hear us. He already knows what we need, He is only waiting for us to acknowledge that we need Him! Yet, today, many people refuse to admit that they need God. How will you feel after you die and you are standing in front of Him and He asks you about your life and why you didn’t come to know Jesus, His Son? Denying His existence will not help you at all at that point, just as not believing in gravity won’t make it go away.

You should care about your eternal life because it is a fact, proven or not, because Jesus spoke of living saints (Moses, Jacob and Isaac) and told His disciples that God was the God of the living not the dead. Another reason you need to consider is that eternity is a lot longer than your lifetime on earth, which is more like a puff of smoke in comparison. Our Creator has given us all sorts of time to decide, we have the testimony of many who have come before us as well as the testimony of nature itself. As David wrote in the Psalms: “the heavens declare your handiwork”; we cannot refute this because the beauty is there to be seen, on earth as well as in the heavens!

That testimony doesn’t even need translation into any language, the beauty of the heavens and our earth itself declare the handiwork of God because of the perfection of the way everything works together. It doesn’t matter about the man-made theories that science has been clinging to for over a century, there still is no proof of evolutionary transition forms of any animal anywhere on the planet, so if you can’t prove it then it is only a theory and not fact!

I am not writing to debate or disprove evolution, all that I am writing for is to bring a message to you about giving your life to Christ, because eternity is a long, long time and I don’t want to be responsible for anyone missing it. Read God’s Word, pray about your life and what it might mean to you and to God if you gave your heart to Jesus. My life was made far more rewarding and fulfilling by asking Him into it and I have learned more from Him than I did in college and I am still learning every day. Give Jesus a real chance in your life, you won’t regret it at all!

Do you know Jesus?


We live our lives in a world full of technology. People are connected today in ways that only thirty years ago was not possible. What about being connected to your Redeemer? The signal clarity never goes away and it is always a clear signal because He hears our every prayer. So why do we not hear Him when He calls? Maybe because we are not listening? Or it might be possible that we just can’t hear that small voice for all of the electronic stuff that we have ringing in our ears between us and Him.

When we have come to know Jesus, do we decide or does our heart feel the pull of the Holy Spirit? Your only decision is whether or not to answer His call on your life, we don’t decide to get saved just on our decision alone. Unless your heart feels the pull of the Holy Spirit, you won’t feel the conviction to ask Jesus into your heart, that is why we can’t just decide to be saved on our own.

Jesus said that the only way to come to the Father is through Him and the only way that you will know that you need Him is by the conviction of your soul and your heart. Just as Peter was broken after he denied the Lord, we have to be convicted and broken to know that we need Him. We cannot save ourselves and through no action on our part can we be justified before God. Our justification comes through Jesus and faith in Him alone.

“Is it possible that you can lose your salvation?” is a question which gets asked many times. The answer is no, you can’t lose your salvation if you truly have it. If you were “saved” during an emotional event and your life didn’t change afterward, then you may not have been saved. If your character, the person that you truly are, didn’t change and your habits didn’t change then you likely didn’t truly ask Jesus into your heart. Yet, many people think that they are saved because of these things and in many instances they will not listen to anyone from that point on regarding their salvation.

This is a deception that Satan has used for many thousands of years. People think that they have their salvation, their so-called “fire insurance” and no amount of preaching or prayer will get their attention unless God does. They remind me of the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. So wrapped up in their religiousness until they didn’t recognize the Messiah when He came.

Why do we do this? We make up our own worldview, our own comfortable spot that makes us feel all fuzzy and safe, and yet we are deceiving ourselves. Still being taken in by Satan’s schemes, we walk in our comfortable religious “feeling”, and fool ourselves right into hell itself.

Now, I don’t want anyone to think that I am judging anyone, all I am doing is pointing out what some people do. The only One who judges is Jesus and He knows the condition of your heart, regardless of how well you may hide it from others.

God’s Word is the only text that we need in order to know how to be saved and then how to follow Jesus afterwards. It is our instruction book for life everlasting and for life here while we can make a difference in other people’s lives.

We have pushed God’s Word from our lives and from the education system that our children are indoctrinated in and yet we want them to grown up into moral, law abiding citizens. How can they when we have removed the teaching and the influence of God in their lives? Many people don’t go to church regularly anymore so their children are not brought up hearing God’s Word! We are creating a culture that has no fear of God because they don’t know Him or even know about Him.

This fact alone is shown in our culture today because of a small group of people who want freedom from religion, of any type. They don’t want to be told that anything that they may say or do is morally wrong, and yet they will have to account for every word and deed when they face God one day.

The answer to all of life’s questions is found in God’s Word and yet there are many who don’t even have a copy of it in their home. I have read through its pages many times and each time I get a sense of peace and security that I can get nowhere else, because it is a living Word and each of us gets a different message each time we read it or hear it.

Pick up a copy of it at the library or at a book store. Ask God to show you His wisdom for your life through His Word. You won’t be disappointed with the answers to many questions that you have had and you may be surprised about the answers that you never thought would be there. May God richly bless each of you!

Are you OK?


How many times have I heard this on a day to day basis? I have no idea, some days I don’t hear it at all and some days it seems that someone is asking me this at least once every fifteen minutes. I must not look like I am doing very well when people keep asking me this, huh?

Is it possible that my own life or my anxieties show through the thin veil that covers my persona? Is that what the rest of the world sees, instead of what is in my heart and my life? I suppose the worries and anxieties that I have could have that effect on the way that I look or act, so the people see me as whatever that makes me. Normal.

Yes, I am OK. I am normal just like most everyone else, except I have an advantage that many people don’t. I have a risen and living Savior, Jesus Christ! He came to our world as a baby, helpless and unable to walk or talk. The amazing thing about Him is that even as a baby, He was and is God. We have to let Him grow up and get out of the cradle though, otherwise He will not help us to grow in our faith and learn more about Him.

I know, many people today don’t really want to hear about Jesus. Well that is too bad. If you don’t want to read about Him, then find another blog to read. I have been given  a wonderful gift from Him and that is to be able to write as well as the fact that He saved me from my sinful ways. He loves each of us far more than we deserve to be and He forgives us for all the things that we have said and done when we ask Him to come into our lives.

To answer the first question: Unless you have Jesus as your Savior, no you are not OK! None of us, regardless of our denomination or race or culture can truthfully say that we are OK. The rest of the world says that we are. Our friends may say that we are, but spiritually we are not. Because we cannot be OK on our own merit or with our own concept of religion.

Many people would tell me that “I don’t have my own religion!”, but today many people actually do. They may not realize it but it really is possible. Your doctrine or your church may have specific “steps” or rituals that have been used in the church for years and these can become blocks that get in the way of your relationship with Jesus. Even your job or the amount of money that you make can get in the way of your relationship with Him.

“Why do I have to have a relationship with Jesus?” is a question that many people want answered. The answer or the reason for this is because your salvation was purchased with Jesus’ blood and His death and resurrection. In more modern terms, if you were about to go to prison for a life sentence and would never be able to get out and before you served your sentence someone came forward and said that they would take your place, how would you feel? If you owed about a trillion dollars and were unable to pay and were going to lose everything and go to prison and someone came and paid the entire amount for you, wouldn’t you want to know this person? I would!

God loves each of us so much that He sent His Son to die for our sins just so each of us can be OK in His sight! The spotless Son and Lamb of God came to be the sacrifice that would take away the sins of the entire world.

Feed your faith!!


Background: Romans 10:17

Learn to feed your faith and starve your doubts. The doubts that you have can truly affect your life so eliminate them by getting into your Bible and in a Bible teaching church!

If you don’t come to church, read your Bible, and pray, then you have no shield of faith for protection from Satan. Sometimes college students go off and let some ungodly, unbelieving man make fun of their faith. And they fall apart like a house of cards. That’s because they don’t have a strong faith in God. Feed your faith. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God,” and it will be like a shield to you to protect you from all the fiery darts of the wicked world that we live in. It gives the believer certainty, certainty about what they believe and Who you believe in.

Again, you must actively, consciously clothe yourself in the armor of God. How much are you dedicating yourself to being in His Word, learning how to wield your Sword? If you are doing this only on a weekly basis, the destroyer can get to you!

If you don’t open God’s Word and read it at least once a day, you don’t have the shield with the faith to wield it against everyday things which rob you of your faith in the One who can and does save you. Yes, this is about you and God, because He wants to know you and He wants you to know Him! Only by hearing the Word preached and getting into the Word can you know Him. Only by reading the Word can you recognize God’s voice and His way of speaking to you. He does love us all, each of us individually so there is a reason for what He does and how He does it. Our Savior asks us to come in and eat with Him and He waits for us to invite Him in as well.

Jesus does stand at the door and knock, patiently waiting for you to let Him in and He does this every day. Believers and non-believers are in this situation because many of them seek Jesus once per week and then leave Him at the church when the sermon is over. You have to take Him with you everywhere, every day, not just when things aren’t going your way or when you think you are “good enough” to do so.

Clothing yourself in the armor of God means that you get into the Bible so that the Spirit can use it to teach you what He says and what you are to do. The armor of God only protects you if you have it on; going to church on Sunday for thirty minutes or an hour doesn’t take care of the rest of the week! It reminds you of what you are to do and who you are to be with daily, but the cares of the world and your daily routine gets in the way or at least Satan lets you believe that.

Once you decide to trust and believe in Christ for salvation, wholehearted surrender and Christ-likeness becomes a goal to achieve with the help of the Holy Spirit and the fellowship of believers. The only way to have the fellowship of believers is to be in fellowship with them, regardless of whether they are family and friends or not. The Bible says, “And we should not be forsaking our meetings, as is the custom for each person, but plead with one another all the more, as long as you see that day drawing near.” Hebrews 10:25

The “sword of God” is His Word and if you don’t learn it and how to use it to counter the things that you hear and read every day, then Satan can get into your mind and change things just as he did to Eve in the garden.

Then, there are many who will say that the thief on the cross didn’t do these things so why do I have to do them? The thieves on the cross were divided in their view of Christ. One of them extended the condition, “…if you are the Christ, save yourself and us” (Luke 23:39). The other placed his faith in Christ, asking, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (vs. 42). Christ’s response was the best news a dying man can hear. “Surely I say unto you, today you’ll be with me in paradise” (vs. 43).

There was no way this dying thief could have told others of his salvation. He was saved by recognizing Christ as who He said He was—the only One who could save him from his sin. He also showed Christ that he believed in Him as who He was, so it was the belief…the faith of the thief that saved him. Their death was imminent so they had no way of getting baptized or of learning the scriptures, but that is not required, yet belief in Jesus is!

It is true that they didn’t have the opportunity to do the things that we can do, but we are not to use the thief’s inability to do these things as an excuse for us not to do them! As long as we can do what Jesus wants us to do then we should, the Lord is coming back and He will require of each of us an explanation of the words and thoughts that we have had as well as why we heard the Gospel and did not act on it. Don’t be part of the crowd which is cast away because they didn’t act  or believe in what they heard before He came!!

Our God loves each of us as shown by Jesus’ sacrifice for us, even before most of the world was even born! No one can claim immortality without belief in and surrender to Jesus! Your life here is meaningless without Him in it, guiding you daily to do those things which He would do if He were in your shoes. We can be the feet and hands of Christ in a world that is going dark, but we must carry His words in our hearts and our minds to do so. We must tell others what Jesus has done for us and for them, so that they will know.

Many people have died during the course of writing this sermon and the time that it takes to give this sermon many more will die. Will any of them be on your mind or conscience? Were they your responsibility to give account of the joy that is in your hearts? Did they see the joy and peace in your life that Jesus brought into your life, and if they did, what evidence did you give them of Who was responsible for that joy?

These are questions that we all must answer, whether we will have to answer for them in front of Jesus or in front of the people that we see every day, I don’t know. Jesus gave each of us a job to do. How well we perform that job is our daily responsibility. It is not an easy task, because each of us has our own gifts and strengths and weaknesses too. But, with the power of the Holy Spirit living in each of us, we can do the job that we were given. Whether we choose to do that job or not is our choice, but in the end we will have to account for that choice. Which choice will you make?