Category: God’s purpose for you

God is great!


God loves each of us. It is His will for you to be great at whatever you are doing, regardless of what you do or who you are. Isn’t that a great way to look at life! Why am I in such a great mood? Because, Thanksgiving was yesterday, but God is absolutely in control and is the most gracious God and He is in control of all, not just my life or yours if you are a Christian, but He is in control of every nation and all of the world!

Yes, there are some terrible things happening in the world, but those are not caused by God but by Satan, who is trying to take God’s glory and any person that he can away from God! Whether it is through war, or death or disease, Satan will do it just to poke his finger in God’s eye so to speak.

The difference with God is that God doesn’t give up on us, because He knows where you are and He knows where you are going!

He will be there in the darkness and the hurt and the painful days. He will be with you when you are on top of the world, and nothing seems to be going wrong. God is there, wherever you are no matter what the situation.

God loves you and will be with you regardless! How do I know? Because, when I was sick a couple of years ago, He was with me. In the night with fever and the dark dreams that were keeping me from seeing Him, He was there. He was beside me when a tornado went over my house while I had fever and couldn’t get up if I had to.

He was with every person that I have prayed with during my time of being a pastor, as I still am. He has been with my nephew after a really bad accident on a four-wheeler, and He is still healing him. Life is precious to God, no matter what the life is. He notices a sparrow when it dies, He knows when a baby is aborted and when one is born. Regardless of the life, He cares for them all. If you will give your life to Him, then you will care for them too. He loved each of us whether we were born yet, or whether we had accepted Jesus yet or not. He cares about all of the life, the creation that He created for us to be stewards of and to give glory to Him.

Psalm 148
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens!
Praise him from the skies!
Praise him, all his angels!
Praise him, all the armies of heaven!
Praise him, sun and moon!
Praise him, all you twinkling stars!
Praise him, skies above!
Praise him, vapors high above the clouds!
Let every created thing give praise to the Lord, for he issued his command, and they came into being. He set them in place forever and ever. His decree will never be revoked.
Praise the Lord from the earth, you creatures of the ocean depths, fire and hail, snow and clouds,a wind and weather that obey him, mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all livestock, small scurrying animals and birds, kings of the earth and all people, rulers and judges of the earth, young men and young women, old men and children. Let them all praise the name of the Lord. For his name is very great; his glory towers over the earth and heaven!
He has made his people strong, honoring his faithful ones—the people of Israel who are close to him.
Praise the Lord!

Amen! Come Lord Jesus!

How many times?


There are riots in the streets over a decision by some legal entity in our society, yet those riots will not change the outcome. The killing of people and burning of businesses and cars only makes the so-called “racial” issue more loaded, more explosive. During a time when the only real racist people are those who lived through it in the sixties and seventies!

Most of the young people in college now and those who may be a little beyond college age, don’t really recognize race as a problem or even a factor in their friendships or relationships. Why should our country keep on digging up the bones of a dead issue? Let it stay buried and move on, please! How do you think that God would act in this instance?

Not with violence or hatred, those are human emotions. Jesus got angry in the Temple, but that is because they had turned the outer court of the Temple into a marketplace and that was not what it was intended to be. Anger, hatred toward your fellow-man, is considered as murder in God’s eyes because the feelings which come out when you act and feel this way toward someone are very violent and just by thinking of the act in your mind you have committed it in your heart, whether you did so physically or not.

Our country and its people need to get back into church, soon, because we NEED God in our hearts and in this nation desperately! We have been pushing Him out of our lives for long enough and it is time that we got on our knees and begged for His forgiveness! Ask Him to come into your heart and cleanse your life and bring you back into a relationship with Him!

We can’t keep this kind of tension in our country because soon it could escalate into a real conflict between races and cultures, essentially another civil war of unrest and hatred and I don’t think that our nation could survive that at all. It would rip this nation apart and America would no longer be a nation, although I can’t imagine what is would become and I really don’t want to.

Please, get into a Bible teaching church, read and study God’s Word and ask Him to show you what He wants from your life and mine. We can’t wait for another “great awakening”, we have to wake up NOW! Before it is too late!

Life is tough, be tougher!


People who are survivors live through things that many of us would cringe at, accidents, war injuries, PTSD, cancer and chemotherapy, the list could go on and on.

My nephew is living proof of this and I feel that it is my duty to tell what I know of his story, at least to a certain point at least.

He was hurt in a four-wheeler accident about a month ago. He and two other boys were on the four-wheeler, which is not a good way to ride anyway, but they were being boys! Anyway, to make a very long story a bit shorter, a truck went to pass by them on the road and the driver of the four-wheeler decided that they should come back up on the road and they ended up in front of the truck. All three boys were hurt, but my nephew was hurt the worst, physically. He is still recovering in the hospital and he has only been in a room for about a week, the first three weeks he was in intensive care. He is strong, in his will and in his body, but it is God and many, many prayers that has brought him this far.

God has a plan for him…He has something to do in God’s Kingdom. I don’t know what yet, he doesn’t know what it is yet, but I hope that when he comes through this, he will find that purpose. I am not going to post pictures from his wreck or his recovery here, but I am placing a link to his prayer page on Facebook. If you wish to help in any way please visit this page. His family will need as much help financially as they can get due to the cost of the treatment that he has already had, but he will be going through therapy for the next year or so. Please, pray for him and if you feel that you can or should help contact them through this page.

He needs medical help, but God is in the help that he is getting. The doctors have been impressed with his progress, but I am not sure that they realize Who was doing the healing because it really is God working through them! According to the news that I got on the night that he had the wreck, the paramedics had to bring him back once or twice before they even made it to the hospital by helicopter. Our God is awesome and He is able to do exceedingly above what we think can be done in ANY situation.

I am not writing this to beg for money for my brother-in-law’s family, although the bills have already started coming in. I am writing this to let people outside of Facebook know that God is awesome and He still heals people today! They had to remove part of my nephew’s skull to relieve the pressure on his brain, although there is no brain damage today. As I said earlier, God has been guiding the doctor’s hands and their treatment of this young man, he is only thirteen years old.

Life is tough, and it is fleeting, his life could’ve been over that night if there had not been a helicopter team able to come pick him up. The other boys lives could have been taken, but they weren’t because God intervened in their lives at that time. I know that some won’t see it that way, but it is true! Even the person driving the truck was not at fault, because God had a plan and a purpose for this to happen. We may not know what His plan is yet, but He will bring it about one day.

Live your life for God. Wake up to know Him, read His Word, pray to Him to give you the understanding of His Word, because He is the only One Who is truly in control of this world, and the people living here and their lives, whether they have given their life to Him yet or not. God loved us enough that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for us and to bring salvation to us, all that we have to do is claim it and realize that we can’t do anything to make our lives better, but He can.

God uses the foolish things…


“But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound
the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty.” 1 Corinthians 1:27

It is so true, God uses the simple things, the people who weren’t the most popular and the ones that nobody thinks will amount to anything,  and He will use them to do and accomplish the most in the world and for His Kingdom. Why would God do that? Because He is God and because He wants the world to see that He can do more with a little than anyone else can do with a lot!

I mean, He did create the world and our universe by speaking into the dark void, “Let there be light!”. The light that God brings into the world and the Light that He caused to shine forth in the beginning is alive! It is not just light like you get from a lamp or even the brilliant light that you get from our Sun, it was and is the Light from His Son! Light which can do more, Light which can cause things to change and people to change, Light which can bring life to a dead place. Light which will bring water into a wilderness or make “dry bones” get up from the ground and become people again!

The Light that God uses is more than just light, but it is also something which we cannot know until we have gained faith from Him and our souls have been revived to be “new creatures in Christ Jesus”! The Light of God also contains His love for us…each of us, because if He hadn’t loved us, then He wouldn’t have taken on the flesh of humanity and came down as a baby to be born into a world that didn’t know Him. A world that had mostly forgotten Him, like today’s world has.

God did exactly that and lived as a human for twelve years before he came to the temple in Jerusalem as a boy. Then He confounded the “wise men” of the day, by answering their questions instead of needing the answers Himself! After this, he spent eighteen years as a carpenter, learning the trade from his Earthly father (although He already knew) before He began His ministry in Judea. After His baptism by John the Baptist, He went into the desert and fasted for forty days before truly starting His ministry.

The men whom He called to become disciples were plain men, not Pharisees or Teachers, but during the three years of His ministry, He taught them all that they needed to know in order to accomplish that which He called them to do. They didn’t need a degree or a paper showing that they were anything more than they were, just plain people who came to know Jesus through faith and to believe that He is the Son of God! During His ministry, He was challenged by the “teachers of the Law” many times, but He passed all of their tests and confounded the wise men. How? Because, He was God! They could not trip Him up! Yet, He allowed them to capture Him, scourge Him and hang Him on a cross so that you and I could have a chance at eternity! He didn’t have to do it that way, but He wanted to do it that way. Then, after three days from sun up to sundown, He came out of the tomb victorious over death and He taught them for an additional forty days before ascending into Heaven! As the angels told His disciples, “He will come again in like manner as you have seen Him go”, and it will likely be soon.

He can use each of us in the same way today. Just as some of the teachers today have gone to school and to advanced degrees to show themselves approved, there are some who are just plain folks like me. Yes, I do have a college degree, but it isn’t in religion or theology. Yet, God has taught me through His Word and through prayer, the knowledge which I need to be useful to Him! My skills are not accepted in the “great churches”, because I don’t have a “seminary degree”, I am just an un-learned man so what do I know? I know that God can take me, just as He did those fishermen, and use me and you to do far more than people think can be done by someone as simple as I am.

Seek Him out today, read His Word and come to know Him through it because He can make you into a giant of faith if you will answer the call on your life now while there is still time. Don’t put it off until tomorrow or next week, you don’t know if you are going to be here that long! While there is time, especially if God is calling to your heart now, answer Him. His disciples did, I did, and many others have over the years. Give Him a chance to be your Lord and Savior.

God’s plans…


We tend to make plans from the time we are able to play with other children, we make plans. Plans for forts, and rescues and wars and all sorts of stuff. When we get older, we still make plans, although we are making bigger plans at this point like what we will major in when we go to college or if we decide to go into the military then which branch and what specialty to follow. God’s plans are never wrong or come at the wrong time, He is never calling an emergency session of the Trinity and nothing catches Him by surprise. He knows what He has planned and that it will do exactly what He has purposed for it to accomplish, whether in your life while you are young or later in your life, His plans will always be done on time.

Just as His signs in the heavens happen at the time that He appoints for them to. The eclipses that we have seen of the “blood moons”, the solar eclipse that will happen next year along with the other signs that happen every day that people disregard or don’t recognize as signs from Him. Like the one that happened during the filming of a mini-series that will be released on Easter next spring. It seems that God is giving His approval to it. Of course there are many who will say that it is just a coincidence, but take a look at it and draw your own conclusion. As a verse in the Bible says: “I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.” Joel 2:30cross1

There are very few times that a cross is formed in the sky, especially with no jets crossing paths to aid it along. God is the creator, and He can form anything wherever He wishes to, whenever He wants it to appear. Your life, your plans are part of His plan and if you will align your heart and your life with His, then you will see the difference that you can make in other people’s lives.

Give your heart to God and the rest of your life will fall into place just as it should. I never thought that I would be doing what I do, but He brought my life around to a point where I could be used in His Kingdom and for His Kingdom. My small church is small now, but it is possible that someone from my church may have an impact in the world one day. I don’t know God’s plans, but He does and He knows exactly how this will work out to His glory!

Listen….


Have you heard from the Word of God lately? Many people don’t want to hear someone preaching from the Word because it is God’s Truth. Some don’t think that it is true or that it is God’s Word, they think that the Bible is just a book of stuff, stories made up by some bunch of old guys which tell a little about historical figures and some of them are good stories but that is it, nothing more. Have you ever really listened to it, really sat down and read it? The Bible is about much more than Jewish history and the kings which ruled Israel, it is a condensed history of the world itself, from the viewpoint of God’s chosen people.

Why did God choose the Jewish people? I don’t know, ask Him? The Word of God is living and alive because when you read it with faith and pray for understanding, it doesn’t matter how many times you read it…you will find something new, even in the same passage or chapter. If you can read it with no faith, just as a book and nothing more and it doesn’t have any effect on your soul or your life, then I feel sorry for you. I pray that a sermon from the Bible will touch your heart, that a verse will open your eyes and prick your soul to want to know the God of the Bible and His Son.

The time that has been foretold in Revelation is coming soon, whether you believe it or not. This generation will see it, will experience it in one way or another. The message that is contained within the Bible is one which points you to Jesus and to His saving of our souls through His sacrifice of Himself on the cross. He did it out of love for us, all of us, not just because He had to but because He wanted to do it. We are all loved by God but our sins are not and that is what Jesus came to save us from, our sinful nature, our rebellious nature, the one that says “Yeah, I know you said that I shouldn’t do this, but I am going to do it anyway.”

If we could just get our “buts” out-of-the-way and out of our life as we go through it, knowing what we should and shouldn’t do “but”….if we could just stop injecting that part of us into the equation of our lives then we would be so much better off. But…that is our nature, it is just us being human, being the people who God made us to be. Except, He didn’t make mankind to be that way, it happened when sin entered into the world that God had made. Yes, there are many truths found in the Bible, in God’s Word if we will read it and learn from it.

Allow yourself to hear the Word at a church, read from God’s Word and pray that God will show you the wisdom that He has for you, don’t close your mind to His Wisdom. He loves you for who you are in Christ, not your sinful lifestyle. If you feel His call on your heart, answer it and tell Him that you need Him in your life because you can’t do it on your own. Seek Him and His Kingdom through the study of the Bible. He will come into your life and change it into what it is supposed to be.

 

No matter what happens….


God is always by your side and He knows where you are, in whatever situation that you might find yourself. He is our Creator and protector and our Rock, all that we have to do is allow Him into our lives, daily, and He can show us what we have in Him and who we are in His eyes.

GodknowswhereyouareGod loves each one of us, no matter what we may have done or how bad we think we are, because He knows the person that you can be in Him. Christ died so that you can have life, abundant and full, in the joy of knowing that you are His when you decide to make Jesus your Savior. I know, that is not theologically correct, God has to call you first and you will know when that call is placed on your heart. You can’t just decide on your own that you are going to become a Christian, any more than you can change your old car into a new one by deciding to do so.

God knows you, better than you know yourself, and He will draw you to Himself so that you can be a saint in His Kingdom and His family. You don’t have to do anything to attain this position, because Jesus has already done all of the work, you just have to believe that He did it for you. In the days that seem like they will never end and the nights which seem to be so lonesome, God is there. He never leaves your side and will never leave your side, regardless of the circumstances in your life. Ask Him to share your life with you and to be your Savior and He will be!

We were created for fellowship with God, but you can’t have fellowship with Him without a relationship. God never leaves any of us, He is always closer than anyone and He can help you in all situations, but He will not force Himself on you or into your life, you have to ask Him to come into your life…into your heart and change you into the person that He already knows that you can be. Be that person for Him and for your life with Him, because without Him we are nothing, with Him we are and have everything!

Honor, Dignity, and Commitment


The character of our nation’s heroes, its Veterans, is uncompromising commitment to their job, their duty, and to their country. We honor their commitment with dignity on this Veteran’s Day, but what about our commitment? Do each of us have a commitment that we are duty bound to honor and carry through? We all should honor our elders, our parents and grandparents but especially our Veterans, whether they are veterans of a branch of the military or of the police service or fire and ambulance services, we should honor them. Why should we honor people who aren’t putting their lives on the line for our freedom? Because they actually do put their lives on the line, every day. When a police person (man or woman), puts that uniform on, it means that they are taking their lives and putting them on the line, not just for a pay-check (which isn’t much actually) but they are putting themselves in harm’s way for us, each of us, every day. Yes, Veterans do the same thing in the line of fire on a battlefield wherever they are sent to defend our freedoms and the freedom of the people that they are sent to protect. The same is true for ambulance personnel or fire service personnel, they put their lives in the line of traffic, or in the heat of a burning house or apartment building whenever they are on their jobs. So, they are all veterans of their respective service, regardless of the field that it may be in.

The same can be said about Jesus and His disciples. They put their lives on the line for their beliefs and for the cause of Christianity, to further the Kingdom of God around the world. We are to do the same, if we are committed to the cause of Christ, to take the knowledge of Jesus to all nations and people. We are also in a battle against Satan and his forces of spiritual beings, demons, principalities and powers which we cannot see, but they are in the world fighting against us and God. They are trying to keep people away from Jesus and the knowledge of Him and His grace toward us. Our fight is with those enemies which we can’t see, but they are there regardless and they will try any form of deception to win their cause, any lie, any death that they can cause to bring our voice down to silence. This is the enemy that we fight as Christians, the ones that can take our loved ones from us and ruin our witness to others if we allow it to happen, if we give in to their forces.

But, we can’t and we mustn’t give in or give up. The time is growing short and the battle lines are being drawn. We have to stand in our faith, we have to learn from Jesus what it takes to be still and know that God is with us and that He is far more powerful than the enemy that we face here on Earth. The victory is already ours through Christ, all that we have to do is claim it in faith by His power and His name. Stand in honor and dignity and commit yourself to Jesus’ cause and ask Him to give you the strength to commit to His cause and to stick with it until the end. God loves you and will give you the victory in all things if you will only believe in Jesus and the sacrifice that He made for you.

Semper Fi!  Praise the Lord! Come Lord Jesus!! Amen.

Love the people, not the lifestyle


Regardless of what you call it, a sin is a sin in God’s eyes.

It can be a lifestyle or a life-choice or it could be a religion or a belief. It can even be a church or a temple or a synagogue but the truth is that regardless of the place that you worship or the religion, belief, or lifestyle that you practice…when God is NOT the object or the center of your life, then you are worshipping an idol. We can make anything into an idol, from our spouse to our car or even a job and it’s paycheck. We can also worship our grandchildren or children or someone else who is dead and gone. We can worship or rely on money or position in a company or life in general, but what about the Creator of Life itself and all of the things which we see, feel, hear, taste and touch on a daily basis?

It seems that we are more concerned with our senses and our surroundings than we are about the One who created it all. It is okay to look down your nose at someone it seems but to put down their religion or their belief is uncalled for, especially if you are talking about Christians.

Oh, I am sorry, I got that one backwards! You can’t put down anyone or their beliefs UNLESS they are Christians!

That is how the media and the world look at those of us who believe in Jesus these days. We are bigots, and we are intolerable, and we are totally against whatever it is that you like to do with your life?!? REALLY!?

Honestly, I don’t care what you do or who or what you may worship or even if you choose NOT to believe or worship anything or anyone! My writing…my witness here is simply because my Redeemer told me and the other disciples to “tell all of the world about the gospel”, that’s it!

Jesus died for us, all of us, so that our sins could be forgiven. God doesn’t like sins of any kind, whether it is the lie being told about taking a pen from work or being a homosexual or even being a mass murderer. To God, a sin is the same regardless of how you rank it on a scale.

Just as you wouldn’t let me come to live in your house, if you didn’t know me, God won’t let you into Heaven if He doesn’t know you! It doesn’t matter what you have or haven’t done in your life, God has always pursued a relationship with each of us. He did it with Adam and He is still seeking that relationship now with each of us, but it is your choice whether you will seek Him out and continue in that relationship.

I am not going to tell you that being a homosexual will keep you out of Heaven, but it is the sin of practicing homosexuality and the rejection of Jesus that will do that. Repent of the sin, ask Jesus to come into your life and change you into the person that God knows you can be! Rejection of God’s grace toward us is the unpardonable sin, there is no specific sin other than that which will keep you from being forgiven!

Turn your eyes and your life toward Jesus…spiritual eyes can see Him and the forgiveness that He offers. You can read and understand His Word too, if you will ask Him to reveal its meaning in your life, because it has a different meaning to each person. What one person gets from the Psalms may be totally different from what another person may get. This is true for each book in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. Seek God and His Kingdom through His Word and ask Him to show you what you need to know and do from His Word. Then join Him every morning or evening by learning more of Him.

Grace under fire or not, we have it.


God’s grace is given to us by Him through Jesus. We can’t earn it, our lives don’t require it, but it is given to us because of His love for us. Why would God love the people who are actually responsible for His Son’s death on the cross? Because He chose to reconcile us to Himself by Jesus’ death on the cross long before anyone uttered a prophecy about Him. When God told Eve that one day a redeemer would come through the seed of the woman, He was speaking of Jesus then.  The actual wording of the text in Scripture was: “And 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” (Gen. 3:15).

But, from that point on, the “seed” which God had spoken of was expected and looked for until His arrival. Jesus was born through the grace and mercy of God by a woman, but with the essence of God inside Him and not mankind. That is why He was able to be the “sinless Lamb of God” to be brought to the cross and give His life for all of us so that we could experience His grace and love through Jesus. The grace that humanity has enjoyed these past two thousand years is particularly and specifically for those who will come to Jesus and ask Him into their lives and into their hearts.

It is God’s grace!

By definition it is many things: skills that are needed for behaving in a polite way in social situations; disposition to or an act or instance of kindness, courtesy, or clemency; a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace.

Truly in the sense of this writing, it is the unmerited favor of God toward each human being on Earth. We do not have to earn it, it is given by God to us through His Son, Jesus. Whether we want it or not is irrelevant, we already have it, it is the acceptance of it that we seem to have trouble with. Grace is God’s love shown toward us in that “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. (Romans 5:8)

The grace that we and the world enjoys now was given to all that day when Christ died for us, all of us. The part that many don’t understand is that it is available, freely, if they will accept it and give their lives to Jesus.

It seems that some think that they will have to give up much of their enjoyment of life and truly, they won’t. The difference that will be made in their lives by accepting Jesus, will change their joy and the things that they enjoy to be like the things which Jesus Himself would do. Granted, your “old friends” may not like the new you, but if the change was/is genuine then they will see a better person than they knew before. One that is more caring, more compassionate, more trust-worthy, more like Jesus Himself!

Would that REALLY be such a bad thing?

Grace is given to each of us by the compassion of God toward us because He cares for us, each one of us. Jesus told His disciples that God knows when even a sparrow falls to the ground. If God cares for His creation enough that He knows when a small bird dies, don’t you think that He notices you and your life EVERY moment of every day!? We are above the birds in His scheme of things, but God notices all and sees all of it from time past until the day time will end.

Your life and every breath that you take is important to God. Don’t you think that you should make Him important in your life too?

Think about it because time is growing shorter by the year and we are not promised tomorrow or next year to live it, so make sure that your eternity is secure in Jesus.