Category: Life is too brief

Are we helping or hurting?


In the world today, there seems to be many who are hurting in one way or another. In many places all over the world people don’t have clean water or enough food. Are you able to help those in need? Are you possibly one who is in need of something? I am not writing today to beg or plead for money to be given to different causes, even though it needs to be given. I am writing to cleanse my own soul of the lack of compassion that the church in general has or seems to have for those who are hurting. Jesus told us in the gospels that “if you do these things to the least of these, you have done it unto me”. He was talking of giving to those who are sick or without food or in need of something, whether it is clothing or shelter or water, or even just a kind word and a prayer. Do we do these things today or are we the ones who are hurting and may not even realize it?

God loves us all and wants to help, but He will not push His way into your life or mine unless we humbly ask Him in, repenting of our sinful ways of living, whether we are addicted to something or maybe someone or maybe even in a relationship that is not in line with what He wants for your life! God doesn’t take control unless we surrender and give Him control each and every day. Just because you have given your life to Him and became a member of a church and got baptized, doesn’t mean that you have Him every day. You have to invite Him along with you daily, because it is your cross to bear. You have to get up and continue the relationship with Him, daily, every day! Yes, you are saved if you asked Him into your heart and really meant it by repenting of your sinful ways, but it is a conscious decision on your part to keep the relationship going every day.

It is what Jesus meant when He told the disciples to “abide in Me”, it means to cling to Him every day and make it a habit like prayer so you won’t have to think about doing it, you just will! Your life and mine depend on God’s grace for our lives and even the air that we breathe is provided by Him because it was created by Him. Many people today don’t believe that God did this, they have been deceived by the beliefs of the world and by our education system.

God loves us and has loved each of us since before the world was created. Since He lives outside of time, He can see the end from the beginning and everything in between. God knows each person in their time and how long they have to live. He also knows exactly what each person will do with their life and when, so nothing catches God off guard or by surprise. The same is true of our planet and the processes on it, nothing catches God by surprise and yet He doesn’t control our world like a clock or a toy.

The Bible is God’s advice to us for life as well as His love letters to all of humanity, not just the Jewish people. It is still relevant today because the advice given is timeless. All of the advice and directions found in God’s Word are relevant for today, even if you think that it isn’t, it is. Once you read through just the book of Proverbs, you will see that it is worth a listen and it is worthy of studying for life. Because it gives you Life everlasting.

What would your friends say?


If you came up to them and told them that they needed to know Christ? Ask them one day, you may be surprised. Are you sure that they know Him? I know that we can’t judge people and their relationship to Jesus and we don’t have the right to do so but don’t you think that we should try to at least tell them about Him? In the politically correct world that we live in today, would it be appropriate to approach your friends to tell them about Jesus? Probably not, but what do you have to lose?

Jesus gave all of His followers the command to “go and preach the good news”, which means that we cannot keep this to ourselves! We are not supposed to keep it bottled up inside. The Living Water of the Life that we have within us has to come out…it has to go somewhere and it needs to go to our friends and family and everyone that we can tell it to. If every Christian told one person and that person accepted Christ and then each of them told one more person and so on, eventually we would win the world to Christ. In today’s world it really wouldn’t take very long with planes and the Internet, the world can learn of Him very quickly.

But, the message about Him doesn’t seem to be getting out does it? Oh, there are many people who are telling His story and who are witnessing to others about Jesus but it seems that we are outnumbered by the people who don’t want to know Him and don’t care whether you tell them or not. Because of Satan’s influence, it seems they want whatever is in the world and not those things which point to a life with Christ. Many people seem to what the quick fix, immediate satisfaction of getting what they want right now and not waiting for it to come to them in eternity.

We have all been brought up in a world where we want faster Internet speeds, instant meals that taste like home cooking, fast food, disposable cell phones, lives and relationships, all in search of something that we don’t know but we feel inside that we need “it”, whatever it may be. The answer to our search is found simply, but we don’t want simple, easy answers. We always try to make something harder than it should be so that we feel like we earned it. The problem with that kind of thinking is that we can’t earn our way into eternal life or into Heaven itself.

The answer to our search and to all of the empty feelings is Jesus, plain and simple. We were designed with a need for Him, but we are born not knowing Him. When you find out about Him and what He means to your life, then you have a choice to make: follow Him and ask Him to come into your heart or turn away from Him and walk away, choosing to do things your way because you know better than God how to handle your life.

What a preposterous idea and attitude! How could you know better than God about anything? He is the Creator and Sustainer of it all, especially of our lives and what we can do with them. I agree that we each know what we want out of life, most of the time, and we might be able to get it. But is it the right thing or the right way to do it? Are you going to get yourself into more trouble and heartache because of the decisions that you make on your own? It is possible, you know?

We don’t make the most intelligent choices sometimes when it comes to choosing our spouse or our cars or even our jobs. Sometimes, we don’t even make the best choices when it comes to choosing our friends. The best choice is to choose to be friends with Jesus. Talk to Him about your other problems, regardless of how small they are or how big they might seem to be. God is bigger than all of your problems and He can handle them all, even the little ones and all of the ones in between.

What would you think if I told you…


that I know what the secret to life is? You would think that I was completely out of my mind, and you would be right! I don’t know the secret but I do know the Person who does! Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit that we have as Christians living in us! Usually I start off a missive with a story or some other bit of information before getting into the “meat” of the message, but time is growing short and you need to hear this.

That’s what the Holy Spirit does for you. The Holy Spirit gave you the secret not only to life here, but to eternal life! He convicted you of your sin. He drew you to Christ (John 6:44). Don’t get the idea that anybody, you or I, can simply come of his own will and his own volition to Jesus Christ. No one could come. No one would come, except by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has given you the secret of life. And He has drawn you there Himself! That’s some best friend, wouldn’t you say? If you don’t want to know Him as your best friend, that is OK, but it is the biggest mistake of your life.

The mistake of living your life on your own, by your own rules will cost you your eternity. It is true that living without Jesus can be fun and there is no Spirit to convict you of any act or sin that you may commit, but our lives are short in comparison to eternity. I know that many don’t really believe that the Bible is the Word of God and some don’t even believe that it is true! My contribution to the world is small, but the One that is the focus of the entire Bible has changed the lives of millions of people around the world. His name is Jesus, the Son of God.

He is my Savior and I am bringing these words to you because I have to. It is my duty to tell others about my wonderful Savior so that you might want to know Him too. He has changed my life from one of sorrow and heartache, depression and fear to a life lived with the promise of eternal life with Him! I was a shy, introverted person most of my life. I was also angry because of my parent’s divorce when I was very young and I took that anger out on many people, but mostly on myself. I thought that I was the cause of their break-up and for a while I thought that if I wasn’t around they might get back together.

Foolish teen-age thinking is what all of that was and if God had not had something in mind for me and had been keeping me from really bad decisions, then I would not be writing this. I did a lot of stupid things like most do while in their teen years like drink alcohol and smoke pot. Granted, those are tame by today’s drug scene, but the drinking alone could have been deadly both to me and to others. My angels had a lot to do to keep me alive and well enough to get to a point where God could use me.

That is part of the reason that many people don’t like “church” I think. It is the serving part that seems to bother people the most, but consider this: Jesus gave up Heaven, immortality,  and eternal life to come as our Savior in human form with all of its limitations and pains so that we might be reconciled to God through Him! And, He did it before we were born!

God saw down through the ages of time and noticed each of us that would believe and come to know Him, and loved us enough to send His Son to die a human, agonizing death on a Roman cross so that we might be able to have a chance at eternity! How can you decide not to serve One Who loves you so completely? Ask Jesus to come into your life, and confess your sins to Him. Ask His forgiveness so that you can be made into a new creation in Christ. You will never regret it and you will have an eternity to enjoy it with all of your brothers and sisters who accepted Him too.

Have you ever hit rock bottom?


Who do you turn to when you are down? What happened to bring you to this place? Is it your fault or someone else’s fault that you are down and out or depressed?

These are legitimate questions about depression and feeling as if you are in a deep well with nowhere to go but up. So, how would you answer them? Many are the answers that go with the last two of the questions and they are as different as we are from each other. The first question, however, is the one that I will concentrate on here because the One that you turn to is the most important decision that you may make in your life.

That includes the decision which you make concerning your spouse or the house that you choose to buy. How can the person that you choose to turn to in an emotional crisis have more to do with your life than your spouse or your home? Because He is your Savior and if the One that you turn to is not Jesus, then you need to examine your life and your heart because if He is not your Savior then you truly do need Him.

In our world today, there are many cares and worries that take up our time and our brain power each and every day and into the night. We are constantly bombarded with advertisements and ads on the Internet as well as from the radio and on television. I don’t know the exact number of advertisements that we see or hear each day, but I am sure it must be in the hundreds.

All of that information, welcome or not, is not good for you and the stress that it causes is even worse. Then, when you get past the stress, there are the bills and the other troubles of daily living. I don’t have to go into the details here but we are all exposed to far more information than we were designed to handle on a day to day basis. It was predicted in the book of Revelation that knowledge would increase at this point in time but the overload is staggering and the more age your mind has on it just makes it worse.

The problems that we have in this life, the ones that affect us individually as well as culturally, are the same ones that have been prophesied and yet many people do not believe this. We will see, in a very short while, that God is always right and that His prophecies are true. Believe in Him and His Son, Jesus. Believe in the saving grace that has been given to each of us without cost.

We don’t have to pay anything for this, Jesus paid the price for us, all that we have to do is accept it and believe. Because, your life doesn’t end here, we all have a soul which will live on with an immortal body. We will live somewhere, whether it is in Paradise with God or in torment with Satan, and we will be there for eternity. Billions of years from now, what decision will you be glad that you made here and now? The only decision which will matter at that time will be whether you decide to give your heart and life to Jesus and believe that He did all that was required for you to be saved….or to decide that you don’t need Him, which will condemn you to hell. Which will it be?

A Father’s place


In our culture, a father is needed in the home today more than ever before. But, there are many who are growing up without one present. Oh, some men are there in the home but they are so caught up in their careers that they don’t have time for the kids and their spouse. But, the sad fact is that for many families there is no father figure around at all. There are too many single parent homes today and the men that are around are not giving the children that are around them the support that a father is supposed to give.

I mean, what can you do about being a father or a Dad if you weren’t raised by one yourself? Did you have a role model like a grandfather or an uncle to teach you the things that your father should have? Boys need a father, a Dad that will be there when they want or need to ask questions, they don’t need a gang or some schoolyard “friend” who may teach them things that they really don’t need.

Our country is reeling from a lack of fathers…of Dads, who need to step up and be the Dad that their children need, even if the child in your family is not yours, they still need a father figure to show them the path that they need to be on! God‘s Word says that we, as fathers, should train a child in the way that they should go and when they are old, they will not depart from it; that is exactly what needs to be done but in the last fifty years there have been many who did not or would not do this! So, why do we seem to be surprised when there are so many men in prison and so many crimes committed by men? They didn’t have someone to look up to or anyone to teach them, so where did they get their example? Who showed them the “ropes” of being a man?

Life is hard enough with a Dad to help you, to show you how to do things and the right way to do them, let alone going through life without an example from a man, especially a Godly man!

Hear, my children, the instruction of a father,
And give attention to know understanding;
2 For I give you good doctrine:
Do not forsake my law. (Proverbs 4:1-2)

The brevity of life


This week our community has lost two people. One died of complications due to illness likely brought on by her age, the other died in a head-on car crash. I knew them both, not well because of events in our lives that have kept us apart, but I knew them.

The lady who died in the car crash, I considered a friend because we graduated from high school together. I have not spoken to her in over ten years just because of life-issues I suppose. She lived in another city, worked there while I worked elsewhere and had to take care of my family and life. Just as we all do, living our life tends to isolate us from each other, even best friends from school who do live relatively close to each other, don’t cross each others path except on special occasions.

The lady who died from congestive heart failure is a family friend and has been for many years. We lived within five miles of each other and at one time saw each other every Sunday at church, until she got too sick to get out of her house much. The point of this is how brief life can be. In the news this week we have heard of a twelve year old who killed a teacher then turned the gun on himself, and another in a different part of the country that killed a teacher.

Both of the teachers were less than fifty years of age. The ladies which I spoke of were in their eighties and fifties respectively. Our lives are not guaranteed to be long and fruitful and in many cases lives are cut short for little or no reason in the days that we live in.

Children die of cancer before they even get started in life, mothers and fathers die in car accidents or other accidents every day, then there are the senseless killings…abortion of babies that can’t even defend themselves, people using drugs or getting off of their medication and killing people. The wars and other engagements around the world kill hundreds of people and its called “collateral damage” because they were not combatants, they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yes, life is brief by many standards. Even when you consider that some live to be ninety or even one hundred years of age or more, it is still brief. Why do I say this? It is because even those who do live that long, usually don’t enjoy their quality of life very much after they reach sixty or seventy years of age. Even with our medical technology, the costs of taking care of your needs exceeds what society says you are worth. Now, they are talking about putting “older generation” patients on an end of life scale! What is that!!

This wouldn’t have been discussed at all thirty or forty years ago and yet it seems to be an accepted topic of discussion in the news today. Our lives are short enough as it is, without the doctors and medical staff helping it along by not providing care once you reach a certain stage in life.

The fact is that God created us with an eternal soul which carries on our life after this body dies, so in truth we should be preparing for an eternity before we die in this world! I know that there are many who don’t believe this, but the question that I always ask is this: “What if I am right?” What will you do if, after spending your life denying God and His existence, you open your eyes after this body dies and you find yourself in front of the Judgement seat with the One that you don’t believe in sitting on it? It won’t matter how long or short your life was because at that point the only question to be answered is, “Why didn’t you believe?”

Your reasons won’t make any difference. Nothing that you did in life which was generous, kind, helpful, or any version of righteousness other than that of Jesus will do you any good at all at this point. Yes, I am trying to scare you! Because the eternity that comes after a life of disbelief and rejection of God‘s grace is not a happy, loving one at all! You have placed yourself in the same camp with Satan and his demons by doing that, and nothing at that point will save you from your punishment.

If, you can bring yourself to realize that you need Jesus and will repent of your sinful ways before you die, then your eternity will look totally different. I can’t tell you how heaven looks or feels or smells, but I am sure that it would be preferable to the other alternative.