Category: Love flows both ways

Wolves in disguise


Many children’s tales tell of wolves in sheep’s skins and Jesus warned us in His teachings that many would come in the latter days seeking to draw people from the church or from faith by pretending to be something that they are not. Yes, it is happening today! Like it or not, we can’t ignore it and we can’t just brush it away because they are here and causing problems in the church and in society in general. Even if I knew their names, I wouldn’t tell you but the way that the “news” programs only report good “news” that looks and sounds good. They are doing exactly what the Bible says, yelling “peace and safety, all is well”, when the world around us is far from that these days.

Are people able to recognize these disguises? I don’t think so. Mainly because we have elected many of them into offices of importance in our country in the last seven years. We listen to their ideas of how the population should be receiving the wonderful news of “affordable health care”, yet very few of us can afford it or the insurance that we are required by law to get. America is not the wonderful land of opportunity that many of us grew up in anymore, it seems to be fuelled more by greed and power than doing what is right and being an example to others.

What happened?

Well, many won’t believe what I am about to say but we brought it on ourselves. Yes, many of you will believe that part but how we did it is not so easy. It was gradual at first and many of the changes started over fifty years ago, but the changes which sped up our country’s headlong fall came about after 9/11. The leaders of our government decided to use a phrase from the Bible to symbolize our resolve and our determination to rebuild. The problem with this was that the phrase and the verse that they used was a prophetic verse which predicted the type of fall that we would experience afterward, but many of them didn’t take the verse in context. They only used the portion which suited them, like many preachers do today.

Today, the “rapture” of the church is preached all over this land by many, yet one of the verses that is used is never used in context. It is only used partially, so that the effect is changed from that which was intended. 2 Thessalonians 2:2,3: “the day of Christ is at hand. 3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition:”

Your life and mine mean much more to God and His Kingdom than we will ever know until we see Him face to face. God has provided the forgiveness and the path to salvation for each of us, all that we have to do is believe in Jesus and His sacrifice and we are forgiven. For many people this is too simple and too easy, yet that is exactly what God has done for each of us…because He loves us.

Yes, the church will be “taken up in the twinkling of an eye”, but not before the man of sin is revealed and the falling away from the church happens first. Hold fast to your faith, watch and be ready therefore because the days are coming when family will be divided over religious differences and greed. Even if you have to keep a secret place for your Bible, do it. Read it, study it, pray over the words that you read and ask God for the strength to remain steadfast in your faith. He is coming back and the whole world will know it when it happens, not just a few.

 

Love, what is it really?


This being a day that many of us associate with relationships and the feelings associated with them and yet many people don’t know what love really is.

Love is not sex or lust, those are associated with erotic love (lust), but that is not the emotion which would bring about a lasting relationship. One which would grow deeper with time regardless of the health of the one that you love or the amount of money that you have.

There is a movie in the theatres today that is making the erotic lust of someone into a “relationship”. It will be like burning a candle with a blow-torch, it is fun for a while but if it doesn’t grow into something far deeper and even more intimate, then it will burn out like that candle.

Many people chase after feelings like those from a sexual relationship or even the feeling that comes with getting high from drugs or adrenaline or even alcohol. These things are temporary and don’t last at all, but the love that doesn’t ask for anything in return, like the love that comes from God, that is mature love. The kind of deep love that lasts through sickness, heartache, poverty and wealth. It doesn’t matter what happens in your life, that kind of love is what we all search for and yet it is the kind that is so hard to find.

It is the kind of love that only God can bring into your life, whether it is through Jesus or by God bringing you and your “soul-mate” together. He is the only One, the only match-maker Who can answer the prayer of someone who is looking for that special someone who will be there for life, regardless of what life may bring. He is the only Person who can show you the very one who will be faithful and true to you just as He is. That is the relationship that we all are looking for, whether it is an intimate relationship with your spouse or with Jesus.

A relationship that is strong and enduring, whether it is between friends or your spouse or children, is what we crave and hunger for in our lives. Yet, even that relationship can’t take the place of the Relationship between you and Jesus. That One is more deep and connected than any that you can have if you will seek Him out when you feel that call on your life. If you haven’t felt that call yet, then I pray that you will seek Him out by going to church and open your heart to Him. Ask Him into your life and read the Bible, pray that God will give you the wisdom to understand its words and the Truth contained in it and He will.

The Love of Christ is the deepest and most enduring Love that is more than you can imagine or comprehend, yet it is available to you any time. Regardless of how your day is going, good or bad, Jesus is there to comfort and to strengthen you. He is there to heal when you feel broken by depression or injury or sickness, just call to Him. Coming to Him is easy if you believe that He will answer you. He doesn’t turn down anyone who genuinely seeks Him with an open heart asking Him to come and heal their lives.

God’s love for us, all of us, has been present since the first day of Creation. He saw down through the ages who would be needing and seeking Him. He knows you and your life, your problems and your pain and He has the answers for those too. No, I can tell you that your disease or other health problems  won’t immediately go away, but He will be with you and help you through them. In some cases, He may heal you immediately so praise the Lord for it when it comes.

Time for our world is growing short, so I urge you to seek God and His grace for your life. Believe it and in Jesus’ sacrifice for you and ask Him to come into your life so that God can give you eternal life with Him. If you choose not to believe in Jesus or in anything that you may read here, eternity will come for you but it will not be pleasant.

Love is the message


How could love be the message of the Bible? With all of the killings and the wars that are fought in its pages, how could the Bible be considered a book based upon love? We will see that very soon.

Love is the message which shines through every book in the Bible. Yet, some people can’t or won’t see it because of the words in the message. God loves each one of us and the people around us, regardless of their race or religion. Of course in the Old Testament, He told the Israelites to purge the Promised land of their enemies, why? Because God knew that if they were left in the land, soon they would become a stumbling block to Israel as a whole. The people would inter-marry with them and begin to worship their gods and their ways and pretty soon, Israel would be just like them. They would no longer be God’s chosen people because they had mixed with the “world” around them to the point that you couldn’t tell them apart.

The love that God has for everyone is the kind that we don’t understand, agape love or unconditional love. It is hard for us to understand it because for us, there has always been a give and take approach to affection and love. But, that is not how God’s love works.

The Church that began with the disciples after Jesus went to Heaven started out with the love of God in their hearts and toward all of the believers. Not only that, but that love is turned outward toward the world itself because we are to take it to the furthest reaches of the world so that others who haven’t heard of Jesus can come to know Him. That is the expression of God’s love. We do not seek riches or power for ourselves, just the continuation of Jesus’ work and His Grace to all who will receive it.

Your witness to them, no matter who they are or where they live, can be expressed through your life or your words or even something that you do for them. It doesn’t have to be done because of your love for them, but because Jesus loved them first and we should too. Many people seem to look at this as loving others like we love each other, but the love that we must spread abroad to others is from God and not ourselves.

Could I love someone who has killed my children or my wife? No, not with my own strength or my love but through Jesus and the love that He has given to me in my heart, yes I can love them through Him. I can also forgive them for what they have done to me or my family through Him as well. It does sound as if I am crazy and to some people I may be, talking of forgiving someone for killing my family. Only through Jesus could I do this, not on my own.

Can anyone feel or express God’s love if they don’t know Him? Feel it, yes, express it..not a chance. God can love and does love everyone. He does not condone the sinful life that they lead apart from Him, but if they repent and turn to Him when they feel His Spirit touch their heart then He will forgive them and take them into His family. It really is just that simple.

Jesus died to atone for ALL of humanity’s sins. The only thing that is left for each of us to do is to believe in Jesus and that sacrifice which happened on the cross for us. Humble yourself to ask Him to come into your heart and change you into the person that you can be, then your life will be forever changed and you will be a new person. The thief on the cross believed in Jesus enough to ask Him to remember him and was saved, that was all that was necessary. Belief, heartfelt and true as a child.

Loving yourself


Many people seem to think that this means being selfish, but that isn’t it at all. Learn to love yourself because you are the only one who can love you that way, except for God. He knows you better than you know yourself and He loves you more than you ever could. Loving yourself is the only way to undo the damage done to you by Satan and the depression and self-hatred that he brings into our lives. Can we do it without being vain and selfish? Yes, through God’s Spirit and with His strength we can.

Do many people think this way? Not many do in our society, I’m afraid. We all seem to be caught up in the latest “reality show” or the latest news on Facebook and Twitter and we don’t seem to have time for each other, let alone ourselves. At least we don’t until something goes wrong in our lives, such as a wreck or an illness, unexpected or not, then we get down on our knees in NEED of God, right now! The only problem with this is that once the emergency is over and there is a healing or an improvement moving us toward being healed, we tend to just say, “Thanks, God, I’ll take it from here.”.

How arrogant we are? Yes, we are independent and we have a choice of whether to be a Christian or not, but the relationship needs to be a deeper one than that. We know it, we just don’t think that we want God hanging around everyday. But you know, He never really leaves your side.

Its like telling your spouse, “I don’t need you today, but don’t go far.” How hurt and unnecessary would you feel if someone told you that? I am not going to presume that God is hurt in the same way that we are, but I imagine that it does hurt Him in some way when we reject Him, even once, let alone on a daily basis. So, what can we do that will help our situation in life and be of service to God too?

Love your neighbor as yourself and for that you have to love yourself first. Because if you can’t or won’t love yourself, how can you love others? Seek God’s wisdom in this through the reading and study of the Bible. We learn how to do things everyday in one way or another, so why not learn of the Creator and how to be His through learning about Him? How can I learn about God? By reading the Bible! It was written by men who were inspired by God to write His wisdom and His laws down so that others could study them and learn to be His and why they should be His.

God loves each of us, far more than we could understand and truly more than we deserve. He has loved us since the beginning, before the Earth was created. In His Wisdom, God created everything so that we would know that Someone had to have been the Creator of this, and up until the turn of the twentieth century, scientists really didn’t deny His existence but tried to use science to prove that He is God.

I know that some people will not believe that statement, but it is true. To love yourself and your neighbor is to show and exhibit the love of God to others as well as experiencing it yourself. To experience something, like love, you need to know love and since God is love you need to know Him. Seek Him while the time to do so is on your side. Read His Word with an open mind and with prayer so that He can teach you that which you need to learn.

Give what?


This morning is just a short admonition of worship.

Give unto God what is due Him.

Your life, because He loved You first; your time because He gives you another day to work and live for Him; your efforts in everything because God formed you and knew you before the foundation of the world and most of all, your love for Him because without Him you can do nothing.

Praise the Lord all of you who are burdened and in need of rest, because resting in Him with praise in your heart is the best rest and peace that you can have.

In His service.

laminin Collossians 1:17 says: “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” 

This is a picture representation of the molecule of a protein which holds our cells together. Striking resemblance to the cross, don’t you think?

Why???


She is not old enough to know what religion is or who Jesus is yet. They are pointing guns at a child from a Christian family! I don’t know if there was any bloodshed or not, especially in her case I hope not. What good reason does anyone have for something like this? What kind of god could possibly ask his followers to kill women and children for being of another faith? I know that God asked the children of Israel to kill those in the land that they were promised and that many people may askaYoungChristian about this very thing. Yes, He did but the reason was to keep them from following a pagan religion and getting away from serving Him. What is the reason that the world is going through all of this upheaval? It has been prophesied by God, the only God that this is going to happen and is happening now.

In the book of Revelation it speaks of this time where people will be killing others because of their beliefs and we see this every day. But, why would you persecute a child that is so young that she doesn’t know the difference between Christian and Islam?

Our lives are short in comparison to the eternity that we all will face. I pray that when Jesus comes, hopefully soon, that everyone will see and know Who He truly is. It will be to the detriment for some who have never believed in Him and it will be the most wondrous and joyful reward for those who do.

In the world that we are living in, it is imperative that we who have Christ as our Savior tell others about Him. Not in such a way as to be pushy about it, just tell people the Truth and go from there. God will always pick up where our words leave off regardless of what you might say, but say everything in the love of Christ. Don’t be forceful, don’t act as if you are better than they are because it is that kind of attitude that has turned many people away from the church in the first place.

We are all sinners, the only difference between a truly born-again Christian and someone who doesn’t know Jesus is grace. That’s it! We are new creations, new creatures in Christ but by the reason of His grace and love, nothing more. We can’t add anything to the equation because no amount of “works” that we do can match the work of Jesus that has already been done.

Yes, we may be persecuted for our faith and our beliefs, but the Holy Spirit will give you the strength and the words needed at the time that you need them to get you through this time of testing. Many people say that we, the Church, are not going to go through any of the dark times, the Tribulation. They could be right, but if they are not then we must be prepared! Search the scriptures, pray, look to Jesus for His love and His righteousness and ask Him for strength before these times do get here, before it is too late.

God loves you and has a plan for your life, however long or short it may be. So, get to work for Him! The pay may not be much but the reward and the benefits are and will be FANTASTIC!

 

 

Lies, lies, lies


In one sense all lies are lies to God. However, as the passage below shows, there is a particular type of lie that qualifies specifically as lying to God. I think of this as “lying on steroids.” Often, this lie is not about hiding things that are wicked, but about misrepresenting things that appear to be good, even righteous. This is where the greatest danger lies for children raised in Christian homes. That is why your parenting must go beyond addressing just their behavior.

“Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet. Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.” Acts 5:1-4

Each day you challenge your children to obey God. In each home this challenge comes with the promise of some kind of negative consequence for not obeying and some type of reward for obedience. Even when you neglect to follow through with the consequences of disobedience, the specter of accountability hangs in the air. Given their sinful nature, the tendency of children is to find ways to avoid these consequences. At the same time, there is also the promise of reward attached to requests for obedience. So again, even when the reward is not consistent (or even not biblical), human nature desires the reward, whether it is deserved or not.

For example, one sibling sees that his sister is rewarded for cleaning. So, he is careful to mention that he too, helped, even if he did not actually do anything. This child realizes that he can achieve what he wants if his parents perceive that he is doing good things. Thus, he might participate by appearing to be busy, but only when mom is looking. Internally, he may be resentful of having to do something he doesn’t want to, but he is motivated by the reward or praise he thinks he will receive. He may even agree that God helped him to obey because he knows that is what his parents want to hear. This deceptive, self-serving attitude may eventually lead to the kind of deception that Ananias and Sapphira practiced. They were seeking praise and status without the sacrificial spirit of truly loving Christ. It was in this way that they lied to God.

As parents, you must not become complacent when your children give only outward compliance to your directions. If you put up with a grumbling, complaining spirit as the price for your children following your directions, you open the door to lying to God. God desires obedience from the heart, not the outward form of ritual sacrifice. (Amos 5:21-23; Isaiah 29:13) So, the mindset that says, “At least he took the garbage out, even though he moaned and groaned about it,” totally misses the point of loving God. This child is not being shepherded. Rather he is being encouraged to believe that God will be satisfied with mere outward compliance to his commands, even when his heart is not involved in his obedience.

Ananias and Sapphira believed that they could trade the appearance of obedience for spiritual status—for recognition from others that they were devoted to the church. But God is not mocked. He cannot be deceived. Lying expresses the hypocrisy of the human heart. This is why the Lord detests lying lips. As lies progress beyond mere self-protection to the point of lying to achieve personal desires, the danger of lying directly to God increases. Ananias and Sapphira tried to manipulate the appearance of doing good. The fatal mistake they made was thinking they could deceive God as well as people.

Lying is not something to ignore, deal with lying whenever you discover it. Don’t allow the busy routine of life to cover patterns of outward compliance. But we must address this sin carefully and wisely. This requires a substantial investment of time and biblical wisdom.

Adult to child or child to adult, which way is it?


When we are young, we can’t wait to get older. When we get older, we want to feel young and act that way. It is so hard to get away from being a child it seems. So, why is it hard to imagine people being childish regardless of their age or their occupation?

We all want to grow up or at least we are supposed to, but looking at the way our culture is today it seems to be taking a long time for many people to do so. If they ever do. Yes, the correct direction is supposed to be from child to adult but it seems that we have gotten confused in the past few decades, not just in America but all over the world. People enjoy things in their middle age that they enjoyed when they were children, even into their later decades of life people tend toward being childish at times concerning some things.

Why is it this way? Because when we get older, we want to have things our way, just as we did when we were toddlers. We may not throw a tantrum about it, but sometimes we do. We are being given things today in our everyday lives that we would’ve had to work for a few decades ago and we get them almost instantly. Games give us instant gratification in winning, you can order anything online now and you would’ve had to travel to get those things years ago, especially books. We can get them instantly delivered over the Internet without having to go anywhere or pay shipping. We can get online and talk with our friends that we haven’t seen in more than twenty years, yet we both are in our own homes hundreds of miles away in some instances and we aren’t even paying for long distance charges to do so!

Our culture and the way that we live in today has gotten so addicted to instant everything and constant information availability, until if something happened to all of this connectivity….we would be totally LOST! Many people would likely even commit suicide because they couldn’t get in touch or look up something. Being childish about some things is OK, being addicted to information overload is just ridiculous. We have intellect and intelligence but to someone coming from a different planet, it would not seem so at times.

Why have we lost our way so badly? Because we have moved away from God and His wisdom. Many of us have Bibles in our homes, many thousands of people have them on their eBook readers but do we read them? Some do, many don’t. The wisdom contained in the Bible is wisdom from God written down through the prompting of the Holy Spirit and it was sent to us for our benefit. Pushing it to the back of the room or throwing it away doesn’t change anything. Ignoring the Word of God doesn’t get rid of any Truth contained in it, just as ignoring the law of gravity doesn’t get rid of it either.

Reading God’s Word, studying it and praying for Him to open your eyes to the Truth is something which all Christians should be doing as we come to the end of the age. Many don’t want to believe that we are so close to it, but when it gets here….you won’t need a news program to tell you that it is, people all over the world will know it at the same time. Our education system has gotten so far from the Word of God and pushed any of its teachings out of the classroom until our society is paying the price for its arrogance in doing so now. The biggest problem with this is that once we have given up on teaching these things, there is no remedy, no way to introduce sanity back into our schools and society again without a HUGE backlash.

Childish, yes we are in more ways than most would like to admit. Sanity and being an adult seem to not go hand in hand anymore and IMO it is because of the absence of the Bible in the home and in schools that is the reason behind it all. How can we fix it? The sad truth is that we can’t. Only the return of Jesus will do that and His return will be sooner than many are willing to admit.

How wealthy are you?


There are many people in the world who don’t have anything at all. They make less than one hundred dollars in a year, so why are we so worried about a piece of plastic and electronics which cannot do anything, yet we guard it like a precious child? I am speaking of the way we, in America, treat our cell phones of course. It seems that many people almost have one permanently attached to either their hands or to the side of their head, but IMO, unless you are spreading the gospel of Christ over your conversation there is nothing that is THAT important!

The Christians in China and North Korea are being jailed and persecuted every day, yet their numbers are growing…why? Because God is blessing the message that they are getting out! They don’t have mega churches, they have to meet secretly in rooms inside their homes like the early church did, but their message is being blessed!

If the church in America would get up off of the couch and begin having study time instead of watching TV, then America wouldn’t be in the situation that it is in! Jesus didn’t lounge around and wait for people to find Him, He went out and found them first and asked “What do you want me to do for you?”, read it because those words are there.

In our country, we don’t think of ourselves as wealthy but to many people in the world all Americans are wealthy. We spend hundreds of dollars on plastic phones to talk and Tweet and surf the Internet with, then we wonder why we can’t get much done everyday! Many in other parts of the world could live very comfortably on what we spend on just one cell phone, even if it is subsidized by the carrier.

I don’t mean to be knocking cell phones, I use one myself, but the point is that we should be doing more for the Kingdom of God and less for our own little kingdoms that we live in everyday. Why don’t we try to do more for Him, instead of being so selfish? It is because of our nature, the one that we have grown up with for our entire life. Our nature, even if we have given our life to Christ, is one of being selfish and concentrating on what each of us want, sometimes just what I want. And, we want it NOW!

The entire culture of the past twenty or thirty years has revolved around personal gratification in meals, cell phones, work, and even when we come to church. People hop from one church or another trying to find a “preacher” who will tell them what they want to hear and not what they should and need to hear from God’s Word! Our culture and the way of life that seems to be in front of the world is that we have everything and are lacking nothing, when the opposite is true! The perceived way of life here is that we have more than enough of food and money when the majority of Americans barely make it from paycheck to paycheck. Even though our paychecks may be a bit more than many in third-world countries have in a year, the culture is different as well as the lifestyle.

Honestly, that is not really the point anyway! We depend more on our stuff than we should and the stuff that we depend upon is just plain junk when you get right down to it. Depending on God and His grace which we receive every day, is the way that Christians are supposed to live out our faith and our lives. When people see us stressing over things that don’t really matter, they think that our faith in God isn’t real or that we don’t think that God can handle it. This is false, since He is the Creator of everything. Our problems are but small trifles to Him and all that we need to do is exercise our faith and put our trust in Him so that the world can see it.

A red moon and a black ring


Both of these have been seen in parts of the world this week (or at least since Friday), but what do they mean for us? The black ring I have no clue about, likely it is exhaust from some smokestack somewhere that just floated close enough to alarm someone. But, who knows? The possible explanations will likely be numerous as well as humorous too.

The “Blood moon”, is a full eclipse of our moon but the dates that it is occurring on this year are significant. This week’s eclipse happened on Passover. The next one will happen on the day of the Feast of Tabernacles in October. NASA says that there is no “prophetic warning” to be seen or interpreted in these events but there could be in my opinion. In the past few hundred years, these events have been seen by historians and they all came before an event in the lives of Jewish people and the state of Israel itself.

Whatever happens in the near future, will be hard on the world and on the people of Israel too. What is going to happen? I don’t know and I am not going to make a prediction about it. We will all just have to wait and see what happens. I imagine that it will be something which the entire world will notice in one fashion or another. How will everyone know? The signs will be unmistakable, but most of the “enlightened” world will come up with an explanation for them in one fashion or another.

If you care to look up the tetrad (group of four) of lunar eclipses which happen infrequently, you will see that they have occurred at specific times in the history of the Jewish people. God uses the heavenly bodies as sign bearers so that the world can see the signs. Our world and the people who refuse to admit that God is real are kidding themselves into not believing in the only One who can truly save us from our own idiocy.

Yes, the Bible is real and the prophecies contained in it are true and will come to pass. Whether you choose to believe that or not, it will not change the outcome. As the cartoon shows an ostrich sticking its head in the sand hoping that the danger will go away as long as it can’t see it, we seem to be doing almost the same thing today.

The rising debt of governments and the people, diseases which were gone are coming back and are resistant to most treatments, tyrants and governments all over the world are trying to control the people that they govern by spying on them and taking their freedoms away bit by bit, specifically these things were not predicted in the Bible but the troubles of the world at the end of the age were.

All of the things that are happening around us amounts to “trouble” I would say, wouldn’t you? Prayer can fix things if you expect it to because you are depending upon the One Who can fix your problem, even the world’s problems. Living in the world doesn’t mean that you have to agree with what is happening, it means that you need to show Who lives in you so that others will see it and want it!

Just because everything else is going down the tube, regardless of the destination, you and I need to depend upon the One who can strengthen us so that we can resist any temptation as well as know Who to go to for the solution to our problems. We can’t do it on our own because in our own strength, we can only do so much and usually it isn’t enough. We can’t resist the temptation that comes in the form of money, or prestige or drugs or sex on our own.

We have to have Jesus in our lives giving us the strength to get through today and then depend on Him tomorrow for the strength to get through tomorrow. One day at a time is how you have to live with Jesus. Tomorrow is still in the future and you don’t know if you are going to get there or not. Don’t hang on to yesterday because it is already past and all of the decisions made then can’t be undone, but today is what you have! Live it with the presence and the power of Jesus in your life and it will be a good day, every day!!