Category: God’s purpose for you

What do you see here?


A picture is worth 1000 words. This safe has been through a lot. Image credit: “safe” – © 2007 Paul Keller – made available under Attribution 2.0 Generic

It has been through a tremendous fire with a lot of heat which is what did all of the damage to it. The fire was particularly hot but the safe was not breached, it seems that it was capable of still being locked even though the outside was scorched and then discarded. I see an analogy of our country and the state of religion in it.

Christians, whether black or white, have taken the heat from people who follow Islam and from people who don’t follow any religion at all. We have not been broken, we have not stopped being Christians but there are some who are discarding their belief in Jesus or their religion. Why is this happening?

Is it because of the state of our country and its economy? Is it because of the state of relations between the so-called “races” of people in our country? Now, before anyone gets all bent out of shape, the reason that I have races in quotes is because God did not make us this way! God created mankind! We are all the same race, whether your skin is white or black, yellow or brown or any shade between those. Our main difference is cultural. There are cultural differences between most everyone on earth regardless of where you may live.

We are brought up by our parents and grand-parents into a culture, regardless of where you live. You may be brought up in a community in Chicago or Detroit or New York, but your culture will be in line with those that you are around.

Christian’s, regardless of race, should follow Jesus’ example. He didn’t pay attention to the cultural norms of his people, He spoke to women and to Samaritans which other Jews actively avoided. He healed lepers, he touched them which no one in His culture would do. We are to be His hands, His eyes, His feet in our time because others need to know Him. How will they know about Him if we don’t take Him with us through our actions or our words?

How can we possibly fulfill the commission that Jesus gave us to take the gospel to every nation and tribe if we don’t do it? If our cultural differences keep us apart and separate us into “us” and “them”, how can we show each other the love of Christ?

At the beginning of this post there is a picture of a burned safe which had been discarded. It did what it was supposed to do because it protected the contents to the best of its ability from the fire. That is what Christians are supposed to be doing too…protecting others from the fire of hell by telling them about the love and forgiveness of God.

Then, telling them about what Jesus did for each of us regardless of our skin color or our race or our culture. He did it for all of us and if you need to know what “it” is I am going to tell you: He took the punishment and the torture of being apart from God as well as the punishment of the cross for our sins!

God loves each of us, and it doesn’t matter which culture we claim or what skin color we have but in order for us to be considered a child of God and forgiven, we have to accept Jesus’ sacrifice and believe that it was for us because it was! The way that the world has everyone thinking is about groups of people and we need to look at each other as individuals. Each of us is unique and different but we are all the same in God’s eyes!

The contents of that safe may have burned up, but it did its job as well as it could. It may not have been designed to take as much heat as it looks like it was exposed to, but we are. Our character is molded by our culture and that character is what we should be showing the world. If your character and your ability is modeled after Christ, then they will see Him and that is the best that we can do as individuals because we were created to be mankind and have a relationship with each other and with God.

Your life and mine is but a whisper


If we look at the time of our existence, the time that we have to make a difference, it truly is but a whisper. Like smoke or your breath in winter, there but a moment and then gone. I know that many look at this and say: “What about those who live to be 8 or 9 decades old or more?”

Is that a really long time in comparison to one thousand years or more? It is not and we were created by God with an immortal soul, one that will never die. So, when you compare our lifetime with an eternity that doesn’t have an ending, it doesn’t matter if we lived for five hundred years it is still like a puff of smoke.

What will you do with the little time that you have? Will you use it selfishly, doing what you want, playing around like a child most of your life and then wondering why you feel so empty? Many people try to fill that empty space with all sorts of fun things like drinking alcohol or using drugs to make them “feel better” but what do those things do for you? Make you feel worse in the end. I know because I have been there. I did those things, even though at the time I supposedly knew Jesus. I wanted to see what the fuss was about.

I didn’t like the way that I felt afterward because I usually felt worse than I had before. Our life and what we do with it is supposed to mean something, we are here to do the work that God has placed us here for. But the only way that we will ever learn that purpose is to submit our life and our hearts to Jesus. I know, submission is not something which we like to do. But, consider this: Jesus came from Heaven to be clothed in humanity in order to be the perfect sacrifice that would pay the penalty for everyone’s sin (from the beginning to the end of the age).

He did this for each one of us and He would’ve done it even if there was only one person to be saved! That kind of love is the kind that we don’t understand and cannot understand with our limited perspective.

God loves each of us enough that He sent a part of Himself to take the punishment for us because there was no other way to do it. He knew this from the beginning, but He allowed us to try our way first and He still allows us the choice, even though it grieves His heart when we don’t choose to ask Jesus into our lives.

Our purpose which we were created for is to glorify God and His mercy and to tell others about Him. The talent that each of us has in our chosen profession, whatever that may be, is secondary to this. The short time that we have to accomplish our life and our purpose is the only time that we will have prior to eternity. Life doesn’t end when your body dies, because your soul lives on.

God is in control of all things and works toward the completion of His purpose whether we can see it or not. The so-called “ruler” of this world, Satan, thinks that he can win but a created being cannot overpower the Creator! Satan hates us because God intended to give us dominion over the earth and all of creation which God placed here. He also hates us because of the favor that God bestowed on us even though we are made of clay. The favor that we received is our soul, the breath of God which made us the way we are and what we are to be!

Nothing can separate us from God’s love except us. We can choose to walk away from it, not believe in it or deny Him altogether…but He still loves us! It is our pride that causes most of our problems today because it is the principle sin! It was pride that was used against us when Satan tempted Eve and Adam and we have been falling into it ever since. Comments are welcome, but advertisements will be deleted.

Our Amazing God!


I have written about this before, but it bears repeating. That our God, the Creator of the universe is amazing! All of the life that is on our planet, not just humanity, but all of the living organisms from single celled life, to the blue whales which traverse the oceans and every tree and blade of grass was created by Him with a word, how amazing is that!

Can any other “god” claim to have done this? No, they cannot because they didn’t and cannot do what our God can do. Have you considered the wonders of our world and the universe that we live in? This did not happen by chance, nor did it happen by accident, it came together because God wanted it to!

He sent His Son to earth as the final sacrifice for our sins and if you believe in Him and the grace that is given to you through Jesus, then you are part of His family and joint heirs with Christ in Heaven! Isn’t that humbling? Isn’t it a powerful expression of love from God to each of us? Yes, it is on both counts because if God didn’t love each of us He wouldn’t have done the things that He has done for us.

He would not have sent His Son and He wouldn’t give us this place that we call home, if He didn’t love us beyond any love that we can comprehend. If God is drawing you to Himself, please don’t walk away from Him, reach out and ask Him into your life and your heart. You will know if He is drawing you to Him and when you recognize it, please don’t ignore Him. Your life before accepting Him is nothing compared to what it can be after accepting Him. Serving Him through your job and the life that you live before your family is an awesome responsibility, because they need to know Him too and if they only see Him through you then that is needed, you are needed by Him to be that witness.

There is so much darkness in our world today that many people can’t see or even tell that there is a light and that light is the love of God and His Son! John wrote in his gospel that:

16. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:16,17)

The world doesn’t know Him because it and those who are in it don’t want to know Him. They are like the ones in Jesus’ time that refused His message, and refused to believe in Him. In the book of Matthew is this verse “For many are called but only a few are chosen” Matthew 22:14

Those who are chose are the ones who will answer the call of God on their spirit, because some will and some won’t. If you think you can live your life without God, you are right, you can…but your life will be limited to this world. Once your life is over here, you will face God Himself and when you do He will ask you what you chose to do with Jesus even though He knows the answer. If you have not accepted Jesus as your Savior, then He will send you into a place of punishment forever because of your decision!

Please don’t let that be you! Give your life to Jesus, ask Him to come into your life, read a Bible and learn Who He is and how He much He loves you. Learn about Him, find out what He can do for you and what He can do through you. Your life will change into one of significance not only in this life but into eternity. Pray about it and ask Him to show you His wisdom for your life, because He will.

 

Live according to the Spirit


“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” (Romans 8:5)

What do we do when we get into a bind? Usually, we cry out for help in some way to someone or sometimes some “thing”. Whether it is a friend or co-worker, a family member or even Facebook, we lean toward finding someone to help us deal with whatever the problem may be. When the One who can help the most in any and all situations is not even consulted in whatever the problem is, then your life could take a very different direction.

I am not saying that God will punish you for not consulting Him but the results could be very different than what they would’ve been had you spoke to Him first! Remember, we are to seek Him first in all things…this is what God’s Word says. We are not to seek out help from those who are powerless to help, especially if the situation requires the One who can affect all parts of a problem, even those that we aren’t aware of yet!

Can you have an effect on all parts of a problem? God can and He does, but only when you ask Him. Many people blame all of the bad things which happen on God, but all things are known by Him yet this world is under Satan‘s rule at this time. He cannot do things without God allowing him to, but he is in control of all the evil and bad things, whether it is natural disasters or from mankind’s own evil ways. We, as Christians, can have an effect on this world through prayer and by living our lives according to the Spirit’s leading.

We have a responsibility to do just that. It is not thinking that you are better than anyone else, but we are to let people know that there is a better way, the way that Jesus lived! By allowing yourself to be led by the Spirit of God, submitting yourself to Him daily, you can be a force for good in the world. Others will see what you have and they will want it, although many will persecute you for not following their religion instead of yours.

Religion by itself is not bad, but those who try to push their religion on others is. Telling people the truth about Jesus and letting them make up their own mind is not the same as forcing them to be or worship one way over another. We, as Christians, don’t force anything on anyone. We just tell others like our Lord told us to do, and then let them make up their own mind whether to believe in Him and change their lives or not…it is your choice.

Your salvation is exactly what Satan doesn’t want you to have! He doesn’t want you to belong to God, because he hates God and us with a hatred that we cannot know. Don’t fall for his lies and the lies of the world. Listen to your heart, read God’s Word and ask Him to show Himself to you through it and He will! There are many in the world who don’t want to believe what the Word of God says and they try to convince others that it is false, but it wouldn’t have been such a popular Book and one for whom many people died for if it wasn’t the Truth! You wouldn’t die for a lie and nobody else would either. God’s Son, Jesus, came to give us eternal life through Himself and belief in that is what many have sacrificed their lives for over the centuries. We are awaiting His return now and I believe that it will be soon, although no one knows when except God Himself, although all of the prophecies have been fulfilled leading up to His return with the exception of the appearance of the world leader that will usher in peace for Israel for a short while.

When that happens, the world and every religion of the world will take notice, but those who have truly been following Jesus will still have hope and the assurance of life everlasting.

Pray like your life depends on it!


If you leave out the power of God that comes with fervent prayer that will not take no for an answer, none of your Bible study or church or choir practice or the church building will do you any good at all. By praying to God like your life depends on the outcome and you won’t take “No” for answer, your life can be immeasurably impacted by what He can and will do in your life!

Especially if you aren’t sure of your position in Christ, fervent prayer is what you need to do. Your life actually does depend on your prayer and how you approach God with it, your present life may not depend on it but your eternal life can be radically changed by what you pray for and how you pray!

For instance, consider how you would pray if your child were deathly ill or even your wife or husband were in such serious condition that nothing that modern medicine has will help. How would you pray then? If you haven’t given your heart and life to God and asked His forgiveness for your ignoring His grace toward you through Jesus Christ, then that is exactly how you should pray for yourself!

You can decide that you don’t want to believe that God would condemn you to hell for that, but it will have the same effect as not believing in gravity, it won’t go away because of your non-belief. Your life, especially your eternal life is in God’s hands but your fate in eternity is in yours. Believe or don’t, eternity is still ahead of you and the result and the consequences of your belief or lack of belief will be totally in your hands.

God loves you and never intended for you or any of us to be sent to hell. It was created specifically for Satan and those who have chosen to follow him by not believing in the saving power of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. This doesn’t mean that you have ever worshiped Satan, but by not giving your heart to Jesus you have put yourself in the same place, the same camp as Satan. Whether you believe that or not won’t change anything either. Your belief or disbelief won’t change anything unless your faith and belief is placed in Jesus. When you have done that, then your life really begins to matter because every word that you say, every action that you do can have a greater impact on those around you once Jesus is in your heart!

The grace and mercy that was imparted to each one of us on Calvary two thousand years ago is something that we can’t understand without Jesus. The love that the Father has for us is also something which we can’t comprehend, even with Jesus but we can get a taste of that love through Jesus’ presence in our lives.

So, what do we do with His presence in our lives once we have it? Jesus told us to “Go and tell the world the gospel, the good news of salvation that is available to all”. Granted, he didn’t say it in those exact phrases but that is what He meant for us to do with our salvation and the wonder of the grace that has been imparted to each of us. If you accept His grace and the salvation that it gives to you, then you are fortunate indeed, because the Creator of everything knew you from the beginning. He knows your name and everything that you do, whether you have given your life to Him or not, so why not make this relationship a two-way relationship? None of us can hide from God, Jonah found that out and many others have as well, especially me! God called me over twenty years ago and I heard Him, I just didn’t want to do what I felt He was calling me to do. So, I ignored Him for a while, like about eighteen years or so.

Then, when I heard Him again it was like He was saying “Can you hear Me now?”, “Are you ready now?” This time, I answered “Yes!” and I have been doing what He wanted me to do, to the best of my ability, ever since. I am not saying that my prayer life is better than yours or that I am more “righteous”, what I am saying about a calling from God is that we have to obey it, we need to obey it. Obedience is the one message that is echoed throughout the entirety of God’s Word, from the beginning to the end it is the one action that gets action in your life and the life of others because that is what God wants from us.

Just like parents when your child obeys you and it makes you happy and proud that they did what you asked of them, God feels the same way! Obedience to a calling from God will move you in directions that you never anticipated, maybe you don’t want to go in that direction, but if you obey the calling of God, it will work for your life and for His purpose.

The Lord is my Strength!


In Psalm 28:7 David writes: “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped; therefore my heart greatly rejoices; and with my song I will praise him.” This verse was George Beverly Shea‘s “life verse” and it should be ours too!

The Lord does give us strength and He keeps us daily in His sight and in His grace. How else could we possibly be the people that God intends for us to be without Him? We cannot do it on our own, we must have the Lord with us every day, throughout the day. Our Lord and our God is the One Who is able to sustain us through all of our trials of life, regardless of what they may be.

In your walk through life, have you considered God? Have you trusted in Him and His grace? He is the only One that can save you from an eternity of torment which was not meant for you in the first place! God loves you and gave His only Son for your life and mine and the only way to come to the Father is through knowing and coming to know the Son, Jesus Christ!

The Father, our Creator, knew each of us before the foundation of the world and He wants us to know Him. Yet, we are just as stubborn and hard-headed as He said the children of Israel were in the wilderness. We turn our eyes toward things which don’t matter especially when we haven’t turned to Him. While we are still dead in our sins, we turn to money, power, greed, fame, or even to things which we own like cars or homes to bring us happiness. Sometimes people still do this even when they believe that they belong to Christ, but if your heart is not full of Him it will turn to stuff which doesn’t matter.

It is time for us to put our lives on the right path and follow the One that came to give us an example to strive for. We may not be able to attain it while we are yet on earth, but the striving for it will make an impression on those who are looking at us and living around us. Your life has meaning and it has so much more meaning when Christ is a part of it because when you are following Him, people can tell whether you say so or not. Your life and your imitation of Christ which reflects Him, shines through the darkest of days and everyone can see it, especially those that need to see Him.

I am trying to emulate Paul the apostle so that I strive to finish the race. I am stretching toward the prize and that prize is eternal life with Jesus. I pray that I will see many of you there too. Please give Jesus a chance in your life.

 

Your life, my life, any difference?


This is not a post to brag or one to belittle anyone. It is more of a confession of circumstances, things which have happened to me and the choices that were made because of them. Some of those choices were good and some were not so good and eventually the results turned out pretty good, but not because of anything that I did on my own.

As I stated in another article (Memories) I have had some interesting jobs in the past and I have seen many things that most people never think about unless they have been in a war zone. Before I worked at those jobs, I was a “normal” teenager. At least as normal as possible in the late ’70’s.

I was the product of a divorce that happened when I was five, so of course I never did understand why my parents split up. For most of my young life, I was angry. I was angry at my parents, and my grandparents for not stopping them from breaking up. I thought that everything could be fixed if they would just get back together somehow.

As I got older, my anger and frustration got turned inside. I was angry with myself. Why? I have no idea. I was just angry, so I started smoking pot then I started drinking alcohol. I didn’t start off with beer though, there was a man in town who would sell it to anyone as long as they had the money, so I started off with whiskey.

I am not going to go through my entire life story here because my life is not interesting enough for that. The only things in my life that were interesting might be the ways that God kept me from killing myself. I don’t know how He did it, but I know that my grandmother was praying for me while I was growing up so that is the reason why I survived I suppose.

To get past my teen years, there are many other things which have happened during the eighties that were the kind of things that most people like to forget, so I will not bring them up here. My life, the one that I have been happy with began in ’91 when I met my wife and my Lord (not in that order, Jesus came first 🙂 ).

When He came into my life I realized that I had been trying to get away from Him during the eighties. I had known about Him while I was growing up but knowing about Jesus and knowing Him are entirely different relationships. Yes, it is relationship that God has wanted all along!

Remember, if you have read the Bible at all, in the beginning after God had created Adam He would come down to the garden and walk with him and talk with him. That is the kind of relationship that God desires from us and for each of us today! The Creator of everything wants to know you as a friend, not as a creature or a pet but as a friend! Isn’t that awesome?

I know that our lives may be different culturally and all, but the Creator, God Himself wants to know you and me personally! I don’t know about you but that is just too awesome not to tell someone! God loves you, all of you, every one of you personally and deeply because He had a part in creating you. He knew us individually before we were born, because He exists outside of time’s constraints. He can see the future and the beginning. He knows when you were born and when you will die.

God is real and He is there because He is. We are here because He wanted us to be. There is no chance or accidental way to explain this universe nor is there a way to explain each of us. We are here, our planet is where it is because He placed it in its place. Exactly at the right distance. There are too many cosmological and mathematically precise formulas in our universe to explain it away by “it just happened”!

Creation doesn’t “just happen”! Complexity doesn’t just happen. Can you take a bunch of sticks or lumber and toss them together and form a house? Even the scientists which discovered our building blocks couldn’t take a replica of what they thought would be the “ooze that existed on the early earth” and zap it with electricity and come up with proteins, let alone a single-celled organism!

Natural processes don’t go from simple to complex, naturally, there has to be an intelligence or a Creator behind it. You can go from complex to simple because eventually everything returns to the elements that it is made from, but nature doesn’t move in the opposite direction.

I have gotten completely off into another topic entirely, but the point is that God is our Creator and He wants to know each of us. All that we have to do is accept His friendship and ask Him to help us to be His friend. We cannot do it on our own, but if we ask Him to come into our lives, He will. Then all of the junk that was in your life and the anger and frustration that was there, it won’t go away but it will be easier to bear simply because you won’t be alone!

He wanted me to come to know Him and He brought me to a place where we could meet and get to know one another. There is no hidden agenda with God, He loves you and the grace that He gives each of us daily should be enough to make you want to love Him too! It is usually our own pride that won’t allow us to admit that we need Him and yet we will allow that to come between us and the most glorious friendship that we could ever have.

Don’t put off something like this because we are only here for a short while and we are not guaranteed tomorrow, none of us are! I may not wake up in the morning in my mortal body, but if I don’t I will wake up…with my Savior forever!

Do you know Jesus?


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pentecost


Repentance is not a single event but rather a point of crisis along with a continuing relationship choice. Repentance is part of a Christian’s regular spiritual life and routine. When you repent of something, regardless of what it may be, you turn away from it and choose another, better path.

Acts 2:1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. 5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?
11 b, we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

Our lives in Christ are important to God, which is why He sent His Son to take the punishment for our sins and die on the cross so that we might be able to receive forgiveness through Jesus. The only requirement on our part..that we have to do is to repent and ask for the forgiveness that has been provided. Now, some might say that they don’t feel compelled to repent of anything in their life so why should they? In that instance, either you are not ready or it isn’t the time yet for your spirit to be called. Which doesn’t mean that you are not wanted by God, He is just waiting until the time, His time, is right. He alone knows when that may be, although you can still pray and ask Him into your life. You will not be refused.

God never will turn away a sinner who asks from their heart and truly repents of things that they know that they have done. It is not a one-time event in your life, just as changing the oil filter on your car isn’t a onetime maintenance item either. We are all sinners and we do it on a daily basis. Nobody is exempt from this fact, even Jesus was tempted but He didn’t sin. What can we do about those temptations? Are we able to control them and ourselves? In many instances, no we are not able to do this with our own strength. But God provided us with the same Spirit that was given to Peter and the disciples that day, which will enable us to resist temptation.

Many people think that He didn’t sin because He was God in the flesh, but it was because He yielded His will to God each and every day..every minute. This is what we are supposed to do, but many think that once they have given their life to Christ, they don’t have to do anything else. If you don’t do anything else, your life won’t really change at all from what it was before you accepted Christ.

Then you will be counted among the hypocrites because you didn’t allow the Holy Spirit which you received to really change your life. This is why there are so many who are not in church, they know the Truth, they may have accepted Christ but they have not followed through with Bible study, daily prayer asking for strength to get through the day, etc. The spiritual fire that some have and many do not and the reasons for the difference is found in that, follow through. The gospel could be preached simply by saying “Believe in Jesus who was sent to die for your sins and ask Him to come into your heart and cleanse you from your unrighteousness”. One sentence, but without prayer and study of scripture allowing you to get to know God, what will change in your life?

William Blake wrote a poem about Pentecost and a few lines from that poem read:

Unless the eye catch fire, God will not be seen.
Unless the ear catch fire, God will not be heard.
Unless the tongue catch fire, God will not be named.
Unless the Heart catch fire, God will not be loved.
Unless the mind catch fire, God will not be known.

We are to be on fire for our Lord because He came down to us. We are to be on fire for God because a part of Him resides within each person who has accepted Jesus as Savior. If we are not on fire for God, why not? Do you not realize that the Creator of the universe came to earth specifically for each person here? Not only here in this church building, but all people are the ones that He came for, whether they know Him or not at this moment or even whether they care that He loves them, he still came.

I have seen a book called “gods at war” and it is written by a pastor who teaches a study based on it. The problem is that there are no gods at war, there is only one God, all these others are inventions of men. These man-made gods cannot fight with the One True God. They have no power because they are man’s imaginings of the “god” that he wishes to be the true god.

Even many people who are in church do this. You may hear people say that “My god would never condemn someone to hell”; in fact, it is not God that condemns people to that place but we ourselves.

Getting back to the day of Pentecost, those who heard the sermon in their own language wondered what they must do when confronted with the truth of Jesus. During the Festival of Weeks, many Jews would come to Jerusalem because they were required to by their religion. All of those that Peter spoke to were from Rome, Crete, Turkey, what is modern day Iran and many other places. Peter answered them and said that they must repent of their ways and be baptized. We can do no less than this.

Are you content in your life? Are you satisfied that you are in a right relationship with our Father in heaven? Many people are and the truth of it will condemn them. They are like the Pharisees, they see no need to repent because their religion and their practice of it feels just fine. As time and our lives will show that one day every person will bow before the King of Kings and we will all be shown the truth of our life. What kind of truth will your life show you?

Do you need Jesus?


In our ever increasingly technological world there are so many devices and links and messages which demand our attention. How can we be attentive to each other as people? I have seen pictures of people who are supposedly having a dinner together and yet all of them are on their “smart phones” and not even talking to each other or even looking at each other! They may be “texting” each other but that is not a conversation! Are we, as people, becoming so insensitive to each other that if it doesn’t happen on the screen in front of us, we have no use for it and don’t even acknowledge it?

Many in the world don’t have cell service abundant enough to be this way. How would your day be if you couldn’t get messages or e-mail or cell service? Mine would be much quieter and yours would too. I know that I am using a medium which I am writing against, sort of, but it seems to be the only way to get a message to the world these days!

Peace With God is a website which points to the only real relationship that matters in this world and will give you the hope of a life in the next. The technology that we are exposed to and dependent upon today will not save you. Man-made religions and ones which have animals or the earth or even other men as the focus of their worship will not help you. Many people believe that Jesus was just a man. If He was then where is His skeleton in the grave that He was buried in?

He fulfilled so many prophecies with His birth and His ministry and His death and resurrection, with many eye-witness accounts of what He did after His resurrection, until there is no doubt about Who He is. Your life can and will be so much more meaningful, to you especially but also to Jesus! Especially when you have given your heart to Him. Jesus is the only way to salvation and an eternal life in heaven. We all have an eternity waiting for us, the decisions that we make here during this lifetime determine where we will spend eternity!

Romans 8:28-30 : 

28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified;those he justified, he also glorified.

These verses point us toward Christ and the reason we are here now because it was through Christ that we received grace from God in order to justify us and allow us to be witnesses to the world for Him. If we are to enjoy an eternity with Christ, then we need to make the decision for Him now, during our lifetime! When death claims each of us and that can happen at any time, there is no second chance!

If you have not made that choice, please consider making it today. Eternity awaits and without Christ it will not be an enjoyable one, but it will never end. With Christ you will be with friends, family and many others who made the choice for life and you will be with them for eternity, but we will have so much more than that. I cannot name the things that we may enjoy because I don’t know the details yet. I just know that pain, suffering, agony, regret will not be part of the eternity that I wait for.

The world is in turmoil and trouble because of the lack of faith in God. We have pushed God out of every corner of our lives and we are paying the penalty for it. And it will only get worse from this point on! I don’t know when the world will wake up to this fact, but when it does it will likely be too late to change the course that we have put ourselves on. The prophecies contained in the Revelation of Jesus Christ tell that when the time for testing begins there has never been a time like it before and unless it is shortened, no life will survive. Read it yourself, it is not a fantasy but it is prophecy and according to God’s Word it will come to pass!