Category: God’s Love for us

Opinion, everybody has one


It has been said that the realists and moralists are on opposite sides of a fence. Are they really? Education in high school and college tells us that Darwinism and Creationism can’t exist together. Why not? Modernists demand freedom from a moral code for individuals but they turn around and demand a moral code for society at large.

You can’t have it both ways. Either you have moral codes for individuals based upon an actual moral code or you don’t. Taking morality out of education and then expecting the product of that education system to abide by a moral code in society is just dumb. Everyone will have their own idea of morality but mine won’t be like yours, neither will line up with the other because there is nothing to compare them to! We as a society seem to be against any type of moral code or moral truth, and yet we expect our children to know how to act in school and society. If they aren’t learning it at home and we can’t or won’t teach any type of morality to them in school, where will their morality come from?

Human beings in the past and in today’s world are not the moral giants that Darwinism wants us to believe. If a child is not brought up from an early age to know right from wrong and have something to turn to as a standard or an example of how to act and be in the world at large, how do you think they will know? They won’t. Their perception of behavior will be whether it is right for me, not if it is right as compared to…what?

The only standard that they will have will be what they have been taught from an early age. Whether that is “kill or be killed” or “do unto others and you would have them do unto you”, today it is dependent upon the parents to teach their children about morals and what is right or wrong. If they don’t or if they weren’t taught themselves, what standard do we need to look at then? Each of us can live our lives one way or another, even without the Word of God as a guide. This is true because many people in the world do just that.

So how can I or anyone else say that taking the Bible out of schools or taking prayer out was the wrong thing to do? Look at the statistics of the children and their performance after these events took place. Grades in school began to go down, teenage pregnancies began going up, problems in school and out began getting worse almost every year. When you don’t have a standard or an edge or a line to follow, how can you possibly keep a line straight? Whether you are drawing a line on paper or trying to point a person in the direction that they should be going, there needs to be a standard which doesn’t change.

God created us with a need to know Him and to know about Him, and when we can’t find Him to fill that need, then we search for something or someone who makes us feel like it is being filled. Whether it is drugs or alcohol or money or things…stuff like everyone else has, we will chase after it until we can fill that empty place or at least feel that it is full for a while. God loves you enough that His Son came down here, became a human being and died on a cross, shedding His blood so that ALL of our sins would be forgiven! We don’t have to do anything other than ask for His forgiveness and determine that we will follow Him daily in our lives from that point on. None of our works or our money will avail us any extra points, because to God without the love of Christ in our lives, they mean nothing!

We are blessed by God!


Do you know this?

“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19

“Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you,…”  Exodus 23:25

God saysWe have many promises in the Word of God, and yet many people seem to ignore them or reject them. The reason usually is that they don’t believe God’s Word or they don’t want to believe in Him period. We are blessed by God because He loves us and cares for us, if He did not our world would be much worse than it is today! Truly, our world is in bad shape as it is but if God had abandoned us entirely it would be in much worse shape spiritually and morally than it is now.

We are made in the image of God and we should act like it. I don’t mean to think of ourselves as gods, because we aren’t and we can’t be, but we should act like His children. Yes, many of us are rebellious children and have been since the beginning, but shouldn’t we try to come near to Him? To get to know Him as He knows us and loves us? God does meet our needs, not our wants, and He will heal us if it is in His will to do so. Why doesn’t He heal all diseases and hurts? He is God and He does what He wants for our good and His glory!

If healing a person will bring the entire family to a saving knowledge of Him, then He will do it. If changing a person’s life from one of following Islam to being a Christian will enable more to come to Him, He will do that too. Even if that person has never read the Bible or heard a sermon! God changed Saul from a Pharisee who was intent on wiping out these followers of the way into Paul the apostle who wrote most of the New Testament from his jail cell in Rome!

God can do anything that He wishes or is pleased to do with each of us, if we will let Him and then follow His leading. He will not drag you into a pulpit to preach, but He will give you the desire to be a teacher and a preacher. He asks us to follow Him but He doesn’t force us, because when you are forced to do something then your heart isn’t in it. That is what God wants…your heart, just as when you fell in love with your spouse. You couldn’t force someone to love you and God doesn’t do that because love can’t be forced!

We are also blessed by Him in our lives because we have His Word as a guide or even a moral compass. The Word of God is absolute Truth so therefore we should learn from it and use the wisdom contained in it to pattern our lives and our societies after. We look at Christian values and morals today as antiquated and out of date, but morality and character can only be learned from One that is absolutely true! God’s Word is that standard that we should be learning from and teaching to our children and grandchildren!

Looking at morality and truth as “quaint” and “old-fashioned” is just a nice way of saying that it is outdated and it isn’t. There are truths in the natural world which cannot be undone, such as the law of gravity. If you drop a glass it will fall and possibly break! If you drop a pen it will hit the ground just as well as the glass did. The laws of God need to be taught to our kids because our society today and for many years has been eroding, not because our education is lacking but because we don’t have a moral standard that is taught to our children.

American society and many of the other countries societies are unraveling at an alarming rate because of the lack of standards that people have to compare to. God’s standards haven’t changed, we have! We have walked away from Him and now it seems that we are running as fast as possible toward a culture that will be more like the days of Noah, and it may already be there!

Religion and the practice of it cannot save you from an eternity in hell. Christianity and living daily for Jesus, giving your heart and life to God as a daily, living sacrifice can do more for society and for you than anything that you can do with your own idea of morality or what is right for you. Because today, moral relativism is taught in colleges so that people are graduating with the idea that “what is right and true for me may not be right or true for you”. With those kind of ideas in their heads, how can any law that is on the books be followed?

How much….?


This is part of nearly everyone’s vocabulary in some form. How much does that cost? How much more will you take? How much more do we/I need to do? Some people don’t know this phrase much in their lives but they are wealthy enough to be able to avoid using it. So, how much do you use it? Have you heard it very much in your life? Questions that some want to be answered and some of them don’t care about the answer at all, to any of those questions.

One question that needs to be answered in your life and in the conscience of the whole world is: How much more will it take before ________?

You can fill that blank space with so many things like “the end of the world” or “people wake up” or even “Jesus comes back” and I am sure that there are others which would fit quite nicely. The Bible has many prophecies about this time in history and at the time that they were given, the images were so horrific the prophets who received them couldn’t describe fully what they were seeing. They had no reference for missiles or tanks or planes or helicopters, so their descriptions seem to be full of all sorts of beasts and fantastic things.

Life today is hard enough to make sense of without trying to figure out God’s Word and its meaning, which is why we were told to ask Him for wisdom so that we can understand the words and meanings of prophecies in the book of Revelation. When some of these visions were given to Daniel, he was told to seal the book until the end and many people have wondered why. It is because most of the things which God showed him couldn’t be understood until now. Other explanations such as the words in Zechariah about “the skin melting from their body and their eyes melting, before the body hits the ground” are vivid depictions of the results of a nuclear attack and its effect on a human body.

How much more graphic could the Bible be in its description of it? We wouldn’t want to know nor could we understand God’s reason for these things. The fallen angels or demons who fell from Heaven with Satan are confusing people all over the world with out of context scripture being taught as if it were true. Some of it is true, but when you teach some of the truth you aren’t teaching the whole Truth of scripture which is how other doctrines are brought into being. Then, new “religions” spring up with these so-called “new truths”. How much more are we going to be deceived by this tactic and these mixed up words?

Until you read God’s Word and commit it to memory and get it into your heart. That is how long the deception will continue. Many people today are moving out of “organized religion”, into churches that teach a lie for the truth because it makes them feel good or at least feel better about themselves. Condemnation is a bad word in these churches because that implies that the people are bad or that they do bad things. I have read the Bible many times, but I am not the type of person who memorizes chapter and verse. At times, I would like to quote it that way, but the Spirit brings scripture to your mind when you need it so that is the memorizing that I depend upon.

WE ARE ALL SINNERS! At some point in your life you have told a lie, you have taken something which wasn’t yours, you have wanted (coveted) something which someone else has, etc. The only One Who has lived without sin, sits at the right hand of God the Father. He is coming back to get His Bride, the Church, one day. How much more will God put up with from us and our rebellious world system? As much as He can until the last person who will accept Jesus as Savior has done so. Our everyday lives will be worse than we thought they would be, if we belong to Jesus. If you are part of the world and don’t want to hear about Jesus then your life may be in pretty good shape…for a while. Which is why many people don’t turn their lives over to Jesus. It is also why Jesus said that “it is harder for a rich man to enter Heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle”, because they feel that they don’t need God or Jesus or forgiveness for anything.

I pray that all of you reading this will pick up a Bible today or tomorrow if you can. Read as much as you can with an open mind and heart, especially the books of the New Testament. Seek God’s wisdom for your life here and for eternity because you do have an eternity ahead of you and it is up to you how and where it will be spent!

 

Are you following the right one?


There are many ways in today’s world to find your way in the world, but are you on the right path? Are you followBelievetheBesting the right One? The world itself is split into many different camps. Some are following their own ways, some are following Christianity, some aren’t following any “religion” at all, some are following man-made religions. It seems that confusion should be the norm in the world and it is indeed happening in many places. Why? For thousands of years, mankind has followed his own path in regard to whether to worship a god or create their own. Some even chose to follow the one, true God.

So, what should we do today? The road is easy and wide when you are following a god created by man or even when you aren’t following anyone but your own ideas. That is the reason that many people follow that path, because it isn’t hard and you don’t really have to give up much to go on that pathway. Some people have told me that you are forbidden so much in following God and Jesus until they just decided not to follow anyone at all. That is not true at all.

It is true that many of the rules in the Old Testament do forbid many things regarding the enjoyment of life’s riches, but the new covenant that was brought about by Jesus doesn’t follow those old rules. It doesn’t do away with them, but your salvation is in Jesus and not in following rules that you can’t keep anyway! Those rules were put there to show the people that they needed a Savior and couldn’t be righteous by keeping rules because unless you are perfect in obedience you can’t do it! Jesus did it because He is the Son of God and did not have the nature of Adam to trip Him up.

We are saved by His grace that poured down from Heaven through the blood of Jesus to us and it paid the price for ALL of our sins! It is a free gift that we only have to accept through faith in Jesus. He did it all so that we could be His feet and hands to take the message, the gospel to the world until He comes again.

Those other gods and paths that some follow may be fun for a while, but where will you spend eternity? I know some of you don’t believe in it but what if I am right about it? You will stand in judgement by God after your last breath here. Are you perfect and sinless, holy in all of your ways?

Think about it now while there is time.

Be watching….


Be attentive and watching because you know not when the Master comes. (paraphrase of Matthew 24:32)

Many things are happening right now and we must not be deceived by those in power or those perceived to have power by others or the media. Keep your eyes on the sky and in the Word of God. Daniel 9 shows many things are coming which will show us the times that we are living in.

There are also many who don’t want to hear anything about religion in general regardless of the eternal effects that learning about Jesus will have on their life. Even if it is true that religion should stay out of the public arena, which I don’t agree with, God does have a hand in this world and on each of its citizens. Like it or not, you will appear before Him one day even if you don’t believe in Him! It seems that many people in the news are taking the view that if they don’t believe in God or the religion which shows them Who He is then He doesn’t exist! How ridiculous is that?

That is like someone saying that they don’t believe the sun is a star or that it won’t rise this morning, if God chose for us not to have the sun to rise today it wouldn’t but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Life is hard enough to get through without Jesus in your life, but it is so much better when He is because you can lean on Him when you need it the most. God does love each of us and whether you believe in Him or not doesn’t change that. Today, it seems that so many people are searching for something, Someone to believe in above themselves mainly because we can’t do or be the person that we need to be without something…Someone to help us! Some look for and chase after money or prestige or even drugs to be that “something” that helps them to get through the day and for some it may work for a while, but it isn’t permanent and it doesn’t fill that space that we all have.

Jesus came so that He could  identify with us and our problems and fears and He came to be the One sacrifice which would take care of the debt that we owe because of our sins, no matter what they might be. We look at sins as small or large like lying to someone is usually considered small and killing a person is a pretty big one, God looks at sin as sin. So, we all need Him. Every church is full of hypocrites because, even if we are saved and practice our Christianity every day we are still sinners saved by His grace and mercy. If we weren’t convicted by the Spirit to change our lives in the first place then we may have gone down the aisle on our own because we felt emotional, not because we wanted or needed to get saved. If that is the case, then it may not be genuine but only God knows your heart and He is the one who will judge you when you stand before Him one day.

Life…again!


You know, there are many people in the world that think that we just cease to exist in any form after we die. Not true at all! God can’t lie and He speaks about life after you die. Jesus said that God is the God of the living, not the dead. Your life, your spirit keeps on living long after your death. Think about this, when Jesus was transfigured on the mount in front of His disciples, He met with Moses and Elijah and spoke with them! Both had been dead for hundreds of years and yet the disciples could recognize them! They were talking with Jesus!

God gives each of us a body, a soul and a spirit. The body dies at some point in our lives, but the spirit lives on and if you are a Christian so does your renewed soul! The essence of who you are lives on into eternity, especially if you are a Christian because you have Life everlasting through Jesus! If you are not a Christian…then your spirit goes to a place of torment for eternity. Your choices take you there, not God. God’s love is still shown toward you in that it is your decisions which have condemned you, not Him.

He loves the person, the spirit that is you regardless…but He doesn’t love or even like the sinful choices that we sometimes make. Which, if you die in your sinful condition having chosen NOT to give your heart to Jesus, then those sins actually convict you and send you to a place outside of God’s realm, into hell. It has many names right now. Outer darkness, Hades, hell, but the part that is most painful is the torment that you are in because of your choices!

We have been given and shown God’s grace by the life that we have here, the blessings that most of us enjoy and because we have been given the choice of following Jesus while we are here or we can choose not to follow Him and live life by our rules. Something that many don’t take into account is that you are responsible for what you have heard and learned while you are living. What does that mean? It means that if you went to church or Sunday school or Bible school growing up, from that point on you are responsible for all of the messages about salvation that you have heard. Even if you live to be 100 years old and you begin going to church when you are fifty, if you have never asked Jesus into your heart and life and you die at 100 then you will be sent into outer darkness away from God’s presence.

Sounds terrible doesn’t it? If you have spent fifty years being a faithful church attending “Christian” why would you be sent to hell? Because, you never gave your heart to Jesus. Going through the motions doesn’t mean anything. It is like going to work and sitting at your desk looking at Facebook all day, looking like you are doing something and then coming home. What did you accomplish? Nothing. You went through the motions of “working”, but you never accomplished anything unless you were confronted and forced to type up something. Jesus said “many will say to me ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we do great things in your name? And I will say, depart from me because I never knew you”.

Sad words to hear from the One Who could’ve saved you from the torment to come.

God’s viewpoint


The title sounds a bit grandiose doesn’t it? How could I possibly know anything about His viewpoint? Well, if you read the Bible which was inspired by His Holy Spirit you can find His viewpoint on many different subjects. Life, love, hate, anger, fear, jealousy, foolishness, adultery, the list could go on and on. He gives His view on these things in a format that is similar to an instruction manual. Some of the books rattle on about how the priests are supposed to carry out their work, but somebody had to tell them!

God views each of us as a child, His child. Those who are following Jesus are adopted into His family because they have washed their sins away by accepting the atonement and His grace. It is a gift which we can’t do anything to purchase or add to because we have nothing to purchase it with on our own! God gives it to us freely, all we have to do is realize that we are sinners and that it is His grace and the blood of Jesus which will save us from an eternity in hell.

Many people will think that, “God wouldn’t send you to hell for your mistakes if He loves you so much.” He doesn’t send you there, it is a consequence of your decision NOT to accept Jesus as your Savior which sends you there. It pains God to see us refuse a free gift which provides us with an eternal home that otherwise we couldn’t have. The love of God is deeper than we can imagine just as the hatred of Satan for us is far deeper than we could imagine.

God sees us when we make all of our decisions, good or bad, and He sees the results of them before we do. That is why we should always consult Him in all things, seeking His guidance and direction first before we make a mistake. If you could step outside of time and see all of the mistakes that you have made and where you could’ve made a difference in your life or someone else’s but didn’t, you would understand how God sees all of us. The difference between us being able to see those mistakes and God seeing them is that, if you are a Christian, He can work out your bad mistakes so that you will make a better choice the next time. Sometimes, He will take you down a path that will bring you to a better place or choice than you had hoped for.

Think about all of the lines and paths that God can see each of us walking, good or bad, and how He can guide you and me without being intrusive so that our decisions still turn out for our good and His glory! Read the Bible because it gives us wisdom to live by, advice in our time of need, and hope for a better tomorrow with Jesus as our Savior.

 

What can I do?


We ask this when we see something that needs to be done and it seems that no one has stepped up to do anything. In the world we live in today…there are many opportunities to help others. So, what can you do?

Through the power of the Internet we can encourage and pray for people all over the world, and prayer is a powerful tool for helping people. But…can we do more? Can you do more? Should we do more?

If we are going to show that we care and have the love of Jesus in our hearts and our lives, then the answer to those questions has to be YES! People cannot see or know how much you love Jesus until you show them, in a tangible way, how much you care. Bringing a message of hope in a blog is one way to do this, but the result isn’t tangible. Hope is good because without it we don’t have much to cling to in this world.

Love is tangible because the love of God flows into each of us every day when we are given the grace to wake up from sleep and go about our daily lives. God loves all of us, He doesn’t like it when we break any of His commandments and do something sinful, because He is Holy and cannot have a relationship with sin. If you have felt Him in your life, even a little bit, then you should respond to Him, positively or negatively but don’t ignore Him.

The only unforgivable sin is the rejection of Jesus’ atonement for your sins which is offered to all at one point or another. You hear a broadcast or a sermon or maybe you attend church once or twice, you hear and feel the presence of the Holy Spirit touch you..and you walk away. Choosing to go your own way instead of following Jesus. It really is your choice, God doesn’t force salvation on you. It is offered freely so that you can begin a relationship with Him. Why would God do it this way? Why not, He is God after all! Getting back to my original premise, in your own strength and your own way of doing things what can you do? You are limited by distance and time and resources as well as physically, God is not limited by any of those things.

He can do, through you or your prayers or even your gift of money to an organization of some kind, so much more than you could ever do! Unless you happen to be blessed with billions of dollars and unlimited time, which very few are, there isn’t any way for you personally to have as much influence around the world and in people’s lives as God can.

Prayer is a big and powerful way to let God know about your problems and those of others, although He already knows about them. He wants us to petition Him to do something that will show people what He is capable of. Healing a child with cancer or a relative which has had surgery recently are two examples but He can do and accomplish them all and He will if you pray and ask Him for this. He truly likes specific prayers like, “Father, I have been diagnosed with a cancerous growth in my colon. If it is in your will to heal me, please do so. I thank you in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

A simple prayer to be sure, but God loves children and we are His children. Pray with the faith of a child and be specific in a child’s way. It doesn’t have to sound like you read the King James Bible to Him, just talk to God as if you were talking to your wife or husband or your grandmother. He loves you and will listen but I must let you know, the only prayer from a person who is lost that He hears is “God forgive me for being the way that I am. Help me to come to know you through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Clean me up and help me to be the person that You want me to be. In Jesus’ name, Amen.” Once you have prayed that prayer, you are what Paul referred to as a “babe in Christ”, you need to join a church and learn more about your Heavenly Father. Read the Bible and ask Him to show you what the words mean to you and your life, then you will be able to do “all things through Christ which strengthens me”.

In Service to Him.

We have a lot to do….


There are many young people and some older ones who have lived their lives without Christ. WE, as Christians, have to tell them about Him. This is not a request, but it is a command from Jesus written in the gospels. Christians have turned the other cheek and been quiet long enough and the only way that they will know, that many more will find out about their Savior is if we do our part and get the message out to them! I know that today, even in the USA, Christians are being targeted as hate groups because of our beliefs which come from the Bible. This treatment will likely get worse in the near future, but we must push our fear aside and tell others that the Hope that they are looking for can only be found in Jesus.

Why should we do this? Because of God’s love for us, because He gave His Son up to be the Lamb, perfect and unblemished, as the atonement for all who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, because all of us fall under that category! There is no one on the Earth now nor has there ever been anyone like Christ! Failing Him and His command is not an option in my being. Like the one who blows the trumpet on the wall to let everyone know about an enemy outside the gate, I want others who follow Jesus to begin to let your friends know, let your family know about Him! We are held accountable for the Truth that we have heard and read in the Bible, therefore we can’t be silent and we shouldn’t be.

If you could save your friend from certain death, wouldn’t you do it if it were in your power? If it were your child or your parent, you certainly would if possible! We are coming to the end of the age of grace, which we have been under for almost two thousand years. Evil is spreading in the world, anti-Christian speech and laws are being passed and reported on around our country and in other parts of the world. The world that most of us grew up in has changed so much in character until it is barely recognizable as the same anymore. It’s not the same as it was, it is much worse!

Television shows and talk shows are bringing up subjects that are occult in nature, much of what is on TV does not fall into the “wholesome” family category anymore. It seems that just in the past fifteen years that it has become harder to find entertainment that is good for the family to watch together anymore. The Internet itself is a place where kids can find anything that they want online, even if mom and dad don’t approve of it. They can bring it up on their phones or their tablet or any connected device available to them.

Even many of the books and games offered on Amazon and other “toy” stores are occult oriented as are many of the games on the Internet. Children don’t think anything is wrong with tarot cards or other occult and witchcraft oriented games or books. Some are innocent to an extent, but if the door to the occult gets opened a crack, many things which you don’t want in your house will have access to your home and to your children.

Read God’s Word and ask for Him to help you understand the wisdom contained in it. Give your heart to Jesus and lead your family in prayer and study of the Bible. The strength and protection that He can give you and your family is needed in these times.

We love and feel loved but….


Humans are selfish beings, you know it and I do too, and when we feel loved by someone we want it to go on forever but there is only one love that can and will do that very thing and it is the love of God toward you! He has loved each one of us for a very long time. He loved us so much that He allowed His Son, Jesus, to die on a cross and take on your sins and mine and everyone’s since the beginning until the last person dies, just for the purpose of giving us grace and forgiveness and a way to become His children!

Isn’t that WONDERFUL!!

He isn’t fickle like we are with our love because if we can’t feel another person loving us then we will find a way to end the relationship and find someone who will love us. God is patient and loving, so deeply and so much until we cannot understand His love. We cannot believe HOW could He love someone who has never gone to church, never read His Word, never prayed to Him, and all of the other sinful things or thoughts that we have had or done in our life. We feel as if we are not worthy of His love. It hurts to think that someone can love us in spite of those faults and sins that we know that we have.

God’s love is so deep and warm that it can wrap you like a blanket that has just come out of a dryer when you are cold and lonely and you really NEED that kind of love and forgiveness. To quote a character in a popular film: “I like warm hugs!”; God likes to give them away! He doesn’t care what you have said or if you are in a gang or part of a squad of soldiers who have killed people for no reason except they don’t believe they way you do. Yes, He can forgive you for those things. He can forgive the doctor and nurses who work in an abortion clinic who murder children every day for money, and they think that they are doing the world a good service. Except, it isn’t. Choice is the god that people use to make them feel better about it, but what does choice do for you? Yes, you can wake up tomorrow and go about your life without worrying about a child to care for and feed but that child was sent to you by God for a reason. You killed him or her before the reason for their life could become real! But God can forgive you too.

We do sometimes find love and feel loved by another person and it is a blessing when that happens, especially when it produces a child to care for and help to see the world that God made for us to live in and to wonder about. Every day should be an experience of childlike wonder at the sky or a butterfly or a puppy but the most wonderful experience is watching a child find things to wonder at and about. To discount that as an inconvenience is selfish in the extreme.

Give God a chance in your life so that you will have a chance to experience His. I heard these words in a movie recently and they are so important, especially today: “We all have two dates on our tombstone a birth date and the day that we die but the important and amazing stuff happens where the dash is that is between those dates.”  

That is where your life can mean something, so live it like it really does mean something. God put us all here for His purpose and the only way to find that purpose is through reading His Word and praying that He will show it to you!