Category: Forgiveness

Life is moving too fast!


Has anyone else noticed that this year has flown by? I know, while the “candidates” were campaigning  it seemed like it would NEVER end! That is how it felt to me anyway. Yes, life does move quickly and the older we get, we notice it more. While you are working it seems that life flows by like a swift stream. Every day goes by, you come home, have something to eat, watch a little TV, take a shower and go to bed, get up and begin again. Hopefully, you don’t work the night shift because when I worked that shift I went to work at 9:30 pm, worked all night in the hospital lab, got off work at 7:30 am. Drove home, got as much sleep as possible and then ate something, took a shower, and went back again.

These schedules don’t allow for much family time, or me time, they just run on and on and on until you finally quit or something else happens in your life.

God did not intend for us to work like this, but our society demands it because there is no equality in our lives any more. What do I mean by this? I mean e-quality, emotional quality of life. If you are married and have children there are plenty of emotions in your home already. But, are they quality emotions like love,kindness, patience and truthfulness?

This is something which we are missing out on these days because of all the electronic distractions that are in the home. We have smartphones, tablets, Kindles, computers, laptops, game systems (small and PC sized), when do you find the time to sleep and pay attention to the people around you who are supposed to be your family? This needs to be fixed but how? Throwing out all of the electronic gadgets won’t work, that only creates animosity and bitter feelings between those involved. There should be some moderation in their use, but I don’t know how to get this message across.

Why am I complaining about this? Because it happens not just in my home but I am sure it happens in millions of other homes as well. Attention spans have dropped to the point of seconds not minutes like it was during my years growing up. If something isn’t solved in the first fifteen seconds or so, they move on to the next level or game and maybe they will try again later. If that doesn’t work, many of them just trash it and move on to the next game system they have.

Yes, life moves at the speed of attention spans. Today it may be said that five to ten minutes are the top-tier of attention that you may get. After that, minds wander in all kinds of directions but the subject matter that you may be teaching or preaching on. If you home school, the span of attention is a little better, but not by much. Particularly if they LOVE to play games, hand-held and console type.

But God loves each and every one of us, game players included, and He can use our talents and our gifts IF we will let Him. Please seek Him out as your Savior before the day comes when you don’t have a choice but to stand before Him. Your life here is your time given to learn of Him, get to know Him and seek Him earnestly for your own salvation. If you don’t use this time for this, then your eternal destination will be much different and far worse than you can imagine.

What?


I hear this a lot! If I had said that to my father, I would’ve paid for it and I doubt I would’ve said it again!

It seems that in today’s world, many people are saying the same thing in reference to God and His Word and the so-called “rules” that are preached in the pulpit of many churches today. Why do I say many and not all? Because there are many preachers who are not preaching from His Word like they are supposed to.

There are no “rules” in Christianity to keep, other than the Commandments of our Lord. We are not required to study His Word a certain number of hours a day, we aren’t required to wear certain clothes, we aren’t required to do anything. But, consider this: God sent His only begotten Son to give His life as a sinless offering for all of our sins. Then, He was raised from the grave on the third day and appeared to many people until just before the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came to His disciples.

God didn’t have to do this, but it was His plan from the beginning where He mentioned this:  “I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel” (Genesis 3:15).

That “seed of the woman” was Jesus Christ!

rules-for-christian-living-1024x613The reason that I said that there are no “rules” in Christianity is because once you accept Jesus as your Savior, you have the Holy Spirit living inside your heart. When that happens, you begin being changed from the inside and you want to do those things which so many people call restrictions or rules. You are changed from the person that you were into a new creation in Christ!

Before I truly accepted Jesus as my Savior, I still liked to smoke a cigarette once in a while, now I don’t have the craving to do so. A long time ago, I drank whiskey almost every weekend along with smoking illegal drugs like marijuana. That was more than 37 years ago, I don’t want to do those things anymore. I still have cravings sometimes for a smoke or a beer but God says that He won’t allow you to be tempted beyond that which you are able to bear, and He is true to His Word!

Why do some preachers preach messages which don’t go by God’s Word today? Oh, they use some passages from it, but the message doesn’t necessarily follow the meaning of those passages sometimes. Understand now, I am not picking on preachers in general, there are just a few who have done this. Some of them you have heard of in the news, some are local to me in the area that I live. My point is that if you are truly called to be a preacher for God’s Kingdom, you need to preach from His Word.

I know that some of what I write I don’t include a scripture every time, it is just the “wisdom” that I have learned from reading the Bible for the past ten or fifteen years from Genesis to Revelation. Each time that I read through it, I find something new that I didn’t understand before or maybe the Holy Spirit reveals to me something that He didn’t the last time.

That is the kind of study that God wants from His adopted children. There isn’t a rule that you have to do it, but how else are you going to get to know God if you don’t learn His voice which is revealed in Scripture? Does that make me a “super Christian”? No, just a forgiven and redeemed one! God loves the whole world, which is why He sent His Son into it so that He could live a sinless life and be the blameless, spotless, Lamb of God which would take away the sins of the world!

The offer of redemption is available to each of us, regardless of race, color, or nationality. It doesn’t depend upon your religion or your willingness to be a missionary and there are no requirements of denying yourself of food or water or anything that is available to you. The only part of you that God wants is your heart and your obedience to Him. When He calls you, answer Him. If He leads you to go somewhere to be a missionary, go without question.

This is the God that led Moses through the wilderness and helped him to defeat Pharaoh and release Israel from bondage. God also went with them through the wilderness and fed them manna and gave them and their animals water from the Rock (a type of Jesus). All of this is there to be learned. Sixty six books in the Bible tell the story of God’s love for mankind and show you the Savior Who was to come and Who did come to die for your sins. He will come again, only this time He will be King of Kings and Judge the whole world, those who haven’t accepted Him as their Lord.

What? Is an expression of surprise and sometimes frustration, but it is also used disrespectfully as well. What should you do? If you have felt His call, a small voice or a touch in your heart telling you that you need Him, don’t push Him away. Don’t run like Jonah did, because God is everywhere and He can find you. If He has something for you to do, it means that nobody else can do it….just you! Think about it while you can.

Decision time


We have a decision to make. I am not talking about the election, but about Who you will choose to follow. It seems that many people are getting fed up with the church today. In some ways I can understand why, but if you have ever heard a good sermon in church why would you decide that being a Christian is not right for you?

I know most of the excuses which people give and all of them are wrong in one way or another. I mean, all churches are full of hypocrites because at one time or another ALL of us were sinners and still are, the only difference is that when we gave our hearts to Jesus our past was forgiven. Some people don’t like church because it’s too stuffy because in some churches there may be a dress code or it may look like it at least.

There are all sorts of reasons which people come up with for not attending church services. Some of them involve money and fear of being required to give a tithe every week. All of these are valid reasons or excuses for not attending church, but if you think about the length and the depth of God’s love for you…why would you refuse? I mean, God sent His Son, Jesus, to become fully human and have the nature of God so that we could be forgiven because of His sacrifice for ALL of the human race!

This was not an easy decision for God to ask this of Jesus His Son, but they both knew that it had to be done this way and no other sacrifice would do.

Your decision whether to follow Jesus is your decision, there is no pastor who will try to force anyone to join a church or to accept Jesus. It is a personal decision and one which only you can make when you feel the Spirit moving you toward Him. Pay attention to the Bible and the teachers who preach from it. Test their message against God’s Word and make sure that they agree with one another. If they do not, then get away from that church and that pastor!

If you are feeling the call of the Holy Spirit or maybe being convicted by Him about something that you are doing, then you do need to repent and come to Jesus. When the Spirit is moving you, don’t ignore it. If you do and you walk away, it is possible that you may never be convicted enough to come to Jesus again. God only strives with us for so long, ignoring His call is a bad decision. God loves all of us and desires to have a relationship with us, but if you refuse and walk away…well, your eternity will be very different from what it could have been.

Faith, do I have enough?


We all have a measure of faith, whether it is a small measure or a large one, each person has some faith. Jesus said that faith the size of a mustard seed, which isn’t much bigger than a period at the end of a sentence, can move mountains IF we don’t doubt God! God’s Word is full of all sorts of events which happened because of the faith of the people. So, do you have enough?

Of course you do and I do too! Why do I say it that way? Because, our measure of faith is our portion which is given to each person. Some of us have a large measure of faith, which you can see working in a person’s life. Will God use pain and suffering to teach you to have faith in Him? No! He will not! Some preachers teach this, but God loves you and He is a good and just God, so why would He hurt you in some way to make you grow?

God will allow Satan to have access to you and he will test you in one way or another, just as He did with Job in the Old Testament. He lost everything including his health, but he would not blame God for it! He held onto his faith in God’s goodness and God’s provision even when things were not going very well for him.

Have you taken a step in faith? Even when you can’t see the way ahead of you, whether it is a spiritual journey or one in this life every day, God wants us to prove our faith by stepping out in faith so that He can fulfill that part of your life. I don’t mean that you should test God, that is not the same as stepping out in faith.

If you have prayed about something earnestly and in your spirit you feel that God wants you to do something like be a preacher or an evangelist, then step out there and His blessings will follow. Some people use this the wrong way and buy a new house or a car and they justify it by saying that God said so. Maybe and maybe not. If you can afford it and it doesn’t put a strain on your finances then it may turn out to be a good thing.

God doesn’t have to provide the money if you jump out there and buy something that is way outside your ability to pay for. He will allow you to do this because He wants you to realize that you did that yourself, He wasn’t part of the decision. You can convince yourself that you have heard God’s voice telling you to do this, but it is very likely that it is Satan. He will cause you to do something stupid and convince you that it was God telling you to do this and then laugh at you when you can’t pay for it!

Faith is something that God gives you through the Holy Spirit when you have given your heart to Him. Some of us have a lot of faith, some of us have a little, but a little bit of faith can do a lot when it is faith in God. Make sure that your faith is in Jesus and God and them alone because if your faith is in yourself or in your job or money, then your faith is in temporary things.

Think about it and make sure about your salvation, because tonight may be the last time you get a chance to make that decision.

What is success to you?


Have you ever thought about that? Today, money, fame, and all of the toys which go with them signal success to many people. The problem with this is that all of those things is that they are temporary. Although, it seems to many people, these temporary things are far more important than an eternity that is out of sight and in their future. This is another lie or deception which Satan has made so important and prevalent today. It is almost as accepted as the theory of evolution because all of the things which I mentioned at the beginning are tangible and they can be felt and seen!

The biggest problem with those “rewards” is that you can’t take any of it with you when you die! You can be buried in a tomb or a casket which is very expensive, but what good will that do you? Your spirit is gone into eternity and no matter how luxurious your casket or tomb or vault may be, the body that is left behind will eventually turn to a moldy husk and in about a thousand years or so, there will be little left except maybe some bones. Your life on Earth is over when you breathe your last breath, that much is certain, but your spirit is eternal and it or rather you will stand before God to give account for your life’s accomplishments.

If you are a Christian, then your reward and your eternity is certain, particularly if you did very much for the Kingdom of God during your life here. Your salvation brought God’s Spirit to live inside your temple, your body, until the day that your work here was finished. If you did not give your heart to Him and ask for Him to bring His Life into yours, then you still have eternity ahead, but it will be one of regret and anguish because you left Jesus out of your life.

I know that many people say that “My God would never send anyone to hell”, and they are absolutely right! God doesn’t send you to hell, your choices in life send you there and if you have chosen to live without Jesus and to live life according to your whims, then that will be your destination. It saddens God to see us refuse His gift of salvation, when it costs us nothing to embrace it and accept it. Jesus did all of the work necessary for you to have an eternity in Heaven, and yet there are millions, maybe billions of people who have chosen another way. One which doesn’t include Him, and that pathway doesn’t lead to Heaven, although many think that it does.

Success and a successful life is one lived in accordance with God and His Son. It may not include riches or houses or cars, but your eternal home is on a street paved with gold! Your home is made by the Creator of the universe and it is there for the asking, all you have to do is accept it through belief in Jesus and His atonement for you. Won’t you consider it?

So much strife


Today it seems that is all that is on the news, whether it is a cable channel or a national network. Everyone seems to be having truly hard times in the world that we live in. From wars and persecution in the Middle East and Asia to natural disasters like the flooding in South Mississippi and Louisiana. Is there anything or anyone who can help or even cares enough to help?

It seems that the government has taken a holiday since the beginning of the flood in the South and nobody seems to care one bit about the people caught up in it. Is there anyone who will help? Yes, local people and police and fire departments are helping. Some churches and other organizations are helping as much as they can. The national guard has been called up in most of the areas, where the flooding is the worst, to help with rescues and to keep the looting down.

Why do these problems and disasters bring out some of the good and some of the really bad in people? It seems that the bad is more pronounced because of these situations rather than bringing out the better side of people. So what happened?

I am not sure exactly. Many of the people who are looting and doing other crimes are young people who should know better! Why aren’t they being taught right from wrong and how to be productive citizens rather than being people who demand everything be given to them for free? I am sure that our schools had nothing to do with this, because they don’t teach morals in schools anymore because the teachers aren’t allowed to.

What happened? Well, about fifty-three years ago prayer was taken out of schools as well as teaching from the Bible and lately our pledge of allegiance has suffered the same fate because of being politically correct and not being offensive. All of these things have taken pride in your country and the sense of right and wrong out of education. Life isn’t fair to everyone and our progressive government from back then and today has made it harder for those on the lower socioeconomic scale to get out of their situations and make life better.

Jesus came to do the same thing. He did not intend for everyone to share equally in all things, like socialist countries do, but Heaven is meant for those who belong to Him. In Heaven we will all be equal because we will be serving Him in His Kingdom! We will have different jobs to do and abilities to use to do so, but in God’s eyes we are equal but different. Not due to the color of our skin, but because He gave each of us a talent and a purpose before we were even born and we will fulfill our purpose in His Kingdom!

Have you asked Jesus to come into your life and to forgive you of your sins? If you haven’t, what are you waiting for? None of us are guaranteed to see another sunrise, but we have today, right now. If you have felt the Spirit calling you to repent and come to Jesus, don’t put it off. Come to Him, ask Him to forgive you for waiting so long and then make sure that you find a Bible teaching church or at least someone who knows Him and can lead you in studying the Bible.

Do you believe in Jesus?


I could’ve put anything at the end of that sentence, but Jesus seems more appropriate, particularly for this site. Why is this an important question? Because if you do believe in Him and have asked Him into your life then your eternity is sure regardless of the religious climate we live in today. If you don’t believe and have no desire to believe in Him, until you realize your error you will always be searching for something to fill the emptiness in your life.

How do I know that you feel empty and unfulfilled in your life? God designed us to be spiritual beings, not in a nonphysical sense but men and women who desire to know God and have a relationship with Him. If you don’t know Him and you don’t have a relationship with God, then you will feel empty in a way that can’t be explained medically or physically. I know because we all feel this at some point in our lives. Not one of us on this Earth, with the exception of Jesus, was born with God’s Spirit living within us. There has always been a void, an empty feeling, like something is missing but you can’t put your finger on it.

Many of us try to fill that spot with all sorts of things, sometimes we do this for a very long time, but until you find the right “fit” nothing will make the emptiness go away. There is no amount of money, prestige, or fame which will take the ache of the empty space away. No drug or relationship will ease the feeling that something just isn’t right. So, what can we do about this? Well, the only thing that we can do is search for the one thing which will fill that void but if we don’t look in the right place, we will never find Him.

I am speaking of Jesus and He will come into your life and change your heart and make you a “new Creation in Christ“! God loves you and every other person on this planet and He has provided a way for your salvation through Jesus. It is not a salvation through a legal system of things which you have to perform or adhere to in a certain way, it is not a salvation which is based upon your actions or your own beliefs. Faith in Jesus and in His sacrifice for you, believing that He did this to pay for your sins is the only requirement.

Yes, you may get baptized afterward and begin to tell people what He has saved you from but that isn’t absolutely necessary. Think of the thief on the cross, Jesus told him that “today you will be with me in Paradise“, and he couldn’t get baptized or tell anyone about His Savior! Yes, it is wonderful to tell others about Him and what He has saved you from, but isn’t it great that you really don’t have to work to attain salvation on your own merit!

The time for this Earth and the secular governments running it is growing short and we should be searching for our Savior. He is not a man who lives here with might and power and money, but He is the Son of God and our Creator. Be prayerfully seeking Him if you don’t know Him yet. Trust in His Word and His atonement for you and your sins, because there are no other paths to Heaven except through Him, regardless of what you may hear in the media or from the Pope.

 

By faith…


If you have ever read the Old Testament at all, you have noticed that many of the patriarchs stories begin with that statement, “By faith…”. Did you ever wonder why? Because nothing that is done for God in this life will work unless it is done by faith. Even people who didn’t know Jesus, like the servants at the wedding at Cana, had a smidgen of faith. His mother told them to do whatever He tells you.

They had run out of wine at the wedding feast, so Jesus told them to fill six water jars with water, then draw some and give it to the master of the feast. When they did, he exclaimed that the groom had saved the best wine for later rather than giving it out at the beginning. The servants didn’t know Who He was, but on Mary’s word they did what Jesus asked and they knew that what they put in the jars was water but what came out was wine.

By faith, we can do many things if we will believe. Faith in God and in His Son can heal relationships, disease, heartaches, and all sorts of other maladies particularly those caused by sinful behavior. By faith and without doubt, you can do anything through Jesus and the Holy Spirit!

By faith the mouths of lions were shut, by faith Samson conquered the Philistines, by faith David vanquished Goliath, by faith Peter stepped out of the boat and walked toward Jesus on the surface of the water. All of these were accomplished by faith. It is true that faith can be short-circuited by doubt and by obstacles in life, but if you will keep your faith focused on Jesus and His Spirit, then there is nothing which can’t be done for God’s Kingdom!

Ministries can expand, the effect of those ministries can impact even more people, when you have faith in the power of God to accomplish His purposes through your life or your ministry. I am not giving you a way of getting wealth by this fashion because that is not what serving God is about! Yes, there are some out there who use their ministries to do just that, but they will have to answer for this and many other things one day.

All that I ask is that those of you who read this post, search the Scriptures for faith, do your homework for God and your ministry for His Kingdom because in the end, when this life is over you will be standing before Him. Do you want to bow before Him as a humble servant and a minister or will you stand arrogant and proud of what your ministry accomplished! IT WASN’T YOUR MINISTRY!! If you truly are a child of God and have surrendered your life to Him, then anything that your ministry did or accomplished belonged to God and it always did!

Manna = bread of Life


The word above means “what is it?”. In truth it is angel food or bread from Heaven. The Israelites were fed by God for forty years with this and it sustained them for that time. Many of them did not like it and asked for meat, so He sent millions of quail into the camp and they feasted on that until they could stand it no more!

God knew that His bread would sustain them for the time that they needed it as long as they would follow His direction for using it. Some of them hated it, but it sustained them for the travels that they had before them.

Why am I speaking about this today? Because, our Lord and Messiah, Jesus the Christ IS THE BREAD OF LIFE! He provides the way to become adopted into God’s family. God sent Him to be the sacrifice for ALL of humanity. If you believe in Him and the atonement which He provided for us, then you can be and will be saved! Amen.

The bread of life is also the Word of God. It teaches you about God and His principles and His laws and the way to come to salvation. The Bible and the words in it will NOT save you and cannot save you! Sitting in church for forty years or more doesn’t make you a Christian. Getting baptized when you feel an urge to do what your friends are doing does NOT save you!

Only a broken and contrite heart and repentance from your sins will bring you to your knees and you will say, “God, I’m sorry for the way that I have lived. Please forgive me and cleanse my heart and my life. I ask Jesus to come into my heart and save me from myself so that I can be a servant of yours. Thank you, Lord. Amen.”

I am not saying that you have to recite this word for word, but a conviction from the Holy Spirit will break your heart and if you don’t respond to it…if you walk away from Him in that moment, then you may not get another chance. The Bible says that “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Matthew 7:22, 23.” Many who think that they are saved have felt a feeling of relief and hope when they are baptized and for a while they read the Bible and pray. Then, after a while, they go back to their life, their sins, their way of doing things and some never return to the Word or to church…but they believe they are saved.

Not so. A truly changed heart, broken and reformed by the Holy Spirit cannot go back to sin without being convicted of that sin’s consequences. If you are a child of God changed by the Spirit you cannot go back to the mud and the mire of sin that you were in. It will be distasteful and you will know it. Yes, you can go back if you ignore the conviction over and over, but you will have quenched the Spirit’s work in your life. You may be saved, but your reward will be eternal life without reward or crown and if you live in the time when man is given a choice of taking the mark of the Beast and you choose it, then your salvation is forfeit.

God loves you and He has given you the manna of Jesus and the manna of the Bible. Eat of them, take them into your life and your heart so that you can and will be changed into the child of God that you were meant to be. The food for eternity is there, all that you have to do is choose to take it and make it yours…or not. It is your choice.

The plans of Satan


I’m reading “The Third Heaven: The Birth of God” by Donovan Neal, Natalie Davis and wanted to share this quote with you.

This quote below is from a speech which Lucifer/Satan was giving to his followers, his fallen angels, regarding how they were to interact with humanity. His plan seems to have worked very well considering how our world is today, don’t you think?

“Follow the pattern that I have set, and make the male dominate the female, set young against old and use their hues and shade of skin to divide them. Raise up among them great ones, and those of low estate plant greed and envy in their ranks. Sow fear and distrust amongst them, that they never see unity of worship to El”

In our world today, there is no “unity of worship” toward God or almost any other religion. We are fractured and broken to a point of disagreement which staggers the imagination. Many divisions in the church such that there are approximately 38,000 denominations worldwide. How is this unity of worship, even though almost all of these are Christian churches? We split on disagreements between friends, deacons and the pastor and many other things it seems, sometimes we split over trivial things.

The church which started on the day of Pentecost, is not the church that we have today. Most congregations are more interested, it seems, in the number of people listed as members and the attendance on Sundays, as well as the amount given in the offering plates, than they are in serving the Lord and becoming more like Jesus!

To give you a bit of accuracy and credentials to back this up, here is a definition which will clear things up a bit:

“Denominations. A denomination is defined in this Encyclopedia as an organized aggregate of worship centers or congregations of similar ecclesiastical tradition within a specific country; i.e. as an organized Christian church or tradition or religious group or community of believers, within a specific country, whose component congregations and members are called by the same denominational name in different areas, regarding themselves as one autonomous Christian church distinct from other denominations, churches and traditions. As defined here, world Christianity consists of 6 major ecclesiastico-cultural blocs, divided into 300 major ecclesiastical traditions, composed of over 33,000 distinct denominations in 238 countries, these denominations themselves being composed of over 3,400,000 worship centers, churches or congregations.” (Barrett et al, volume 1, page 16, Table 1-5, emphasis added)   (http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/a106.htm)

The church which began soon after the resurrection of Jesus, has splintered into so many pieces which have many differing views and rules and orders of worship, until it seems that it is no longer a unified body of believers at all. While it is true that most of them worship God and Jesus as His Son, some have a different viewpoint regarding exactly Who they are.

Some don’t believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, some teach that parts of the Bible, God’s Holy Inspired Word, are wrong or that it doesn’t apply to the “modern church”.

God doesn’t change and His Word is true today just as it was at the time that He inspired the writers to write it down. There are no parts of it which are wrong, unless you just don’t want to believe it because it offends you or someone you love. God’s Word is true because God doesn’t change and He gave the words to those who wrote it down, so why is it that people don’t want to believe it? Because, we don’t want to learn the rules or learn about God.

Many don’t want to become a Christian because they believe that the rules will keep them from enjoying their life. Why do you believe this? The rules in the Old Testament about food and the sacrifices needed don’t apply to us today! The Ten Commandments will condemn you because all of us have broken one or two or more of them and they do still carry the same punishment that they did when they were given.

If you won’t give your life to Jesus and ask Him to come into your life and change your heart into His, why not? Have you felt a hollow feeling in your life and have never been able to fill it with the things of this world? The reason is because that empty place is made for Jesus to fill and nothing else. All of us have felt that place inside us which we know is empty and we feel like something should be there, but we don’t know what. Some of us go for many years without finding out what fits in that place…well now you know. The Holy Spirit of God fits in there and He only comes when you ask Jesus to come in and cleanse you, making you whole and a part of God’s family.