Category: Love flows both ways

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?

I can do ALL things through Christ!


 

Do you realize that God wants you to accomplish a lot in your life? I am not talking about your own things like all of the everyday stuff that weigh us down, I am talking about the ministry that God has given you! Did you know that you have a ministry? If you are a child of God, then you do!

I am not saying that all of us are supposed to have an international ministry, but we are supposed to take our beliefs with us wherever we go. To work, to school, at home, to the grocery store, to the bank, yes we are supposed to walk with Christ and let Him walk with us wherever we go! If you would be ashamed to have Him with you then don’t go there! As a child of God, He is with you all of the time, no matter what you happen to be doing or where you happen to be!

Why can’t I be alone sometime?

You can’t leave God out of your life once you have taken Him into it! You may walk away from Him, but He is always there with you. He doesn’t get in the way, or tell you what to do or not to do but if you have given your heart to Jesus, then He is present in every situation and circumstance that you are, day in and day out.

As Jesus said, “I will be with you always, even unto the end of the age”; there is no greater comfort than this because we are never alone, in our most desperate times or our most joyous days!

Even those of you who may not have given your heart to Jesus or asked Him into your life, He is still watching over you. God knows how many hairs are on your head and He knows when even a sparrow falls to the ground, so of course He knows what you are doing and where you are! You are not alone whether you have accepted Jesus into your life or not.

Then why do I feel alone sometimes?

We feel this way not only because we are social people and when we are alone we feel it. But sometimes we feel alone even when we aren’t alone which truly troubles some people. Do you have friends nearby? Are you able to meet with them? Do they have the time to meet with you? These are the questions that come into your mind when you are feeling depressed and lonely.

God understands because He knows how it feels to be lonely, because He experienced it through Jesus’ life and He will be with you through your time of lonely feelings and other problems which come in our lives. God loves each of us and will help us in all areas of our lives.

If I am not alone, why do I feel so depressed at times?

God is there with you at all times because He is in all places and present in every situation. If you have given your heart to Him, then you will feel Him near you in times of joy, pain, heartache, fear, doubt and yes even when you are depressed. These feelings are not placed on you by God … we are hit with these every day by Satan because he hates God and those who belong to Him. Just as Job was beset by some really bad circumstances in his day, we are too. We may not lose everything, but the spirits of doubt and fear and depression can make us feel as if we have lost it all or may be about to.

God loves each of us and we have an Advocate who defends us before God when Satan accuses us before Him. He is there no matter what the circumstance and He will be there when we arrive at the gates of Heaven. Nothing is impossible with God and there is nothing that He cannot accomplish for you or through you. Give your life and your heart to Him, it is the best decision that you will ever make in your life.

What kind of faith do you have?


Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible, and receives the impossible.

This is the definition of honest, child-like faith, something which many people cannot understand, even though they have a kind of faith too. Take the scientists and professors who believe in evolution for example, the amount of faith that they have to believe in a theory which is still just a theory would have to be more than mine!

Richard Dawkins is quoted thus — “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence.”

There is plenty of evidence for a number of extinct animals and plant life all over the world and I agree with it. There are many different types of animals found in different places and climates, which I don’t and won’t argue with. But…no one has found a transitional fossil of any kind (species) which shows an animal in the process of changing from one type of animal, like one that lives on land or even an amphibian which lives both on land and in water, into another like the theory which says that whales evolved this way.

If scientists claim that evolution takes millions of years, then where are the fossils to prove it? Unless an amphibian stepped into the water one night and the next morning found that it couldn’t get back up on land, how can this be? It seems to me that it would take an enormous amount of faith to believe in evolution happening in that way. So, how can these questions be satisfied? If faith is a cop-out, then scientists are guilty of it too, don’t you think? Jesus said that we only need the faith that a child has, trusting faith, in order to believe and receive the gifts and grace of God. We don’t have to do anything, nor can we do anything to help us get into Heaven. It has already been done, by Jesus Himself. All that we have to do is surrender to Him in faith and believe what the Word of God tells us.

Although, there are many who think that the Book, God’s Word, was made up by the men who wrote it, there are many proofs of its authenticity. Such as the historical account of Israel’s past kings and kingdoms, these have been proven by archaeology and if there is proof of part of the Bible, then the whole of it can’t be dismissed as fiction.

Forty men over the course of fifteen hundred years wrote the books which appear in its pages and yet they are all pointing toward the salvation of the world through the Person of Christ. You couldn’t get forty scientists to agree on enough issues to be able to write a book with sixty-six chapters and coherently point toward one conclusion, whether they were separated by geography or time, let alone over fifteen centuries! The message contained within this Book points clearly to the Savior but it also points to how much God loves each of us. Not specifically for who we are or because of what we may have done, but just because He chooses to.

Isn’t it wonderful that the Creator of this universe loves each of us enough to send His Son, Jesus, to take our punishment for the sin that is in our lives! It is very humbling as well, because He knew me…He knew each of us before we even knew about Him! All of this information is in His Word, the Bible, along with the promises that He made to Israel and most of their promises have been fulfilled. If those promises were fulfilled, don’t you think that those promises to us about salvation, and eternity will be fulfilled too? Give your heart and your life to Jesus because He loved you first.

Our dear friends


Many times in our lives, we come to know some dear friends. Those that you can talk to without worry of being criticized regardless of the topic of conversation. The ones that you can call upon for anything or nothing just because you want or need to talk. Though dear friends like these are few in number usually, their value is far above any amount of money or anything that this world seems to deem worthy. Though some of these friends are humans and I do value them above many other humans, I am referring this time to our pets. Those pets that actually show emotion and feeling toward us not the ones who could care less whether you are there or not as long as they get fed.

Specifically I am talking about dogs (but cats are okay too). I have nothing against cats really, I just never have owned one which lived in the house. I live in a rural community so cats come and go as they please all the time. There is never a day when you don’t see one or two, but they really don’t belong to any one family. Whoever will feed them, they will hang with you for a while and come back to visit occasionally, but staying put in one spot doesn’t seem to be their forte’.

I have owned a few dogs in my life and they were all house dogs like chihuahuas or pekingese and right now I have a dachshund. All of these were wonderful companions and one still is and hopefully will be with our family for a few more years yet. God created dogs to be our companions and over the years, we have bred different breeds or characteristics into and out of them to create dogs which we enjoy having around.

House dogs or toy dogs as their group is known by kennel clubs, are a joy to have especially once they are house-broken. They greet you with enthusiasm in the morning and they wait for you patiently to return home, yet they greet you like a long lost friend when you arrive.

In my opinion, they are like little angels from God Himself because of the friendship that they offer and the comfort that they give as well. They don’t ask much of us except to love them and care for them, like we would a child in our home. The love that they give to us reflects the care and love that we give to them just as we are supposed to reflect the love of God which was given to each of us to the world around us.

God loves us and He loves His creation, which includes our pets. He cares for all of the creatures which He created which is shown in God’s Word. In Matthew Jesus tells His disciples this:

Matthew 10
29 …and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.

God cares for all of creation. Us, the birds and animals that we are given charge of to care for, every living creature on this world God put here for a purpose. Each animal fulfills that purpose without question with the exception of man. The animals do it by instinct, we have a choice and many of us choose not to even get to know our Creator let alone learn what His will is for our lives.

It is usually our choices or our pride that drives us away from friends and from God too. It could also be our own problems and our selfishness which drives our friends away but your pet doesn’t care about that. They will stick by your side, just as God does, through the good and the bad so don’t give up on them or on Him. They are representatives of Him too and just as much a part of creation as we are.

What shall we do then?


Should we believe the testimony of man as many seem to do in the world today or should we cling to our salvation through Jesus?

There are many today that are leading people in the wrong direction, some of them supposedly doing this from their pulpit in the church. What will become of them and their followers? If they will pray and humble their hearts toward the God that is spoken of in the bible, then they can and will be saved from their transgressions. Yet, many people today place their faith in the messenger rather than the message. This was a fine thing to do when Jesus was the messenger before He ascended back into Heaven, but today the messengers are just as flawed and sinful and the one bringing the message (yes, I am including myself in this ).

We are all flawed, sinful human beings and none of us who stand on this earth are any better than anyone else, but there are some who think that they are and they are the ones who are leading others astray. They are subtle, like the one that they are serving and not the One that they think they are serving. Many deceivers are present in this world today, but they have learned well. The message that they bring is wrapped in words that are beguiling, some of them from centuries past, some of them from recent times but their meaning is that we can do it ourselves and we don’t need God’s help.

We cannot do it without Him! Can you command a storm or rain on parched ground? Can you tell the sun to come up an hour later today? We are the created and not the Creator, only He can do those things if it pleases Him to do so! It would bring glory to Him and would make us see that He is in control and not us, but there are many today who would scoff at signs like these.

Our God, the only God, is in control even when things seem to be going wrong. We only have to place our faith and our trust in Him because He will bring about good things from what we see as bad. Our times and our time-table don’t line up with His unless we are surrendered to Him and know Him by His Word. When we walk with Him daily, then our wants and our desires will be the same as His, although we will still be attacked by Satan and his demons in very subtle ways.

Some of those will be our own feelings like depression or feelings of not being in control, which we are not, or even emotions which overwhelm us to the point of hopelessness. All of these come from the one being who is trying to derail your faith and your belief in God and His Son. This has always been the goal ever since Eve decided to follow her own desires rather than listening to Adam and God.

Before anyone gets upset or thinks that I am blaming Eve for our problems, I want to make it clear that she had encountered a master of lies, Satan himself. Adam couldn’t have withstood him either and he didn’t so it wasn’t the woman’s fault! They both knew what God had commanded, yet they chose to follow their own desires. God knew that this was coming before they did so it wasn’t a surprise but it still hurt His feelings just the same.

If we really knew Him and the awesome power that is being held back because of His love for us and the grace that has been given to us through Jesus, we would be humbled beyond measure. Considering His power to create or destroy with a word, how could you tell Him that you don’t believe in Him? What pitiful arrogance we have to confront the Creator of everything and then tell Him that we don’t think that He is real so we won’t believe in Him!!

These words and deeds are being done all over the world today. In different ways and different words but the message toward God is the same. We should be on our knees begging Him to forgive us and to take us as His sons, pitiful though we are, and make us as His servants just so we can have a place at His table if nothing else!

The time is coming when mankind will bow to Him. When that time is, no one knows but it is coming and soon. The prophecies of His Word are clear enough for all to understand and we are in what is called the “birth pangs” prior to that time. We will know when that time has come, but for many it will be too late. Read God’s Word, study it carefully, pray over it so that you will understand what you read and then get your heart ready for Him, ask Him into your life because He is the only cure for what is ailing our world and each of our lives.

If not God then what?


There are many today that are trying to prove that God doesn’t exist and that nothing was before the Big Bang which started everything. But, let me pose a question here: What or Who started or initiated the Big Bang?

It didn’t just explode on its own even if it did contain all of the matter in the universe. What existed before the Big Bang? The singularity from which it proceeded from maybe? Just a huge lump of matter which was condensed to a point and yet contained everything? The Creator existed before the so-called Big Bang and He was the One who started it.

There is no way to prove my “theory” any more than astronomers or cosmologists can prove their theory of its going “boom” on its own so I won’t get into that discussion. Although, God was and is the Creator of all according to His Word and the discussion that He had with Job, so according to my faith that settles the issue.

Why does it seem that one of three people seem to want to ignore the facts around them especially that the order of everything is too perfect for it to have happened by chance? Perfection is the way that He planned everything, because that is His way.

Chance and accidental happenings on which evolution depends in the early part of earth’s history could not produce the variety of life or the abilities that the animals on earth possess. In the short amount of time that life has been present, even if it may have been over four billion years, life could not have changed from single-celled animals into all of the various forms of life that is present on earth.

God brought all of this into existence by His power and His voice, as the Bible says “by His Word”. So, why is everyone denying His existence? I know, not everyone is denying God’s existence but according to the news and the people in the news it seems that way.

Getting back to Creation, God created mankind and all of the animals as adults, they didn’t start life as babies so why does everyone seem to think that the universe is billions of years old? God created it with the appearance of age because only mature galaxies and solar systems work the way they are supposed to when they are created. The theories about clouds of gas condensing into planets and stars is great but how long do you really think that would take?

Our God, the Creator of everything, is awesome! He can stretch out the cosmos in all directions and place stars and galaxies in any place that He wishes to without exceeding the speed of light. There is no possibility that it created itself nor did it just go “boom” and then billions of years later solar systems and planets and animals and people just happened to appear. If God was not the initiator of it all and in every aspect of it, then we would not be here.

Give God the credit for it because that is Who did it all. Can we make it without Him? No and why would you want to try? What if He gave up on you and stopped giving you the sun to power the weather and photosynthesis in our plants which give us oxygen to breathe? Can you create these things?

I don’t think so. God loves us enough that He gives us every good thing that is needed for life plus He sent His Son to take the punishment for our sinful lives. Not just yours or mine but everyone on the planet from the beginning to the end of the age. If you decide to ask Him into your heart, please don’t think that you can take Him off like a glove and go do what you want to do when you want to do it. It will come back to bite you if you do. You very likely didn’t really ask Him into your heart to begin with if you leave Him in the church or don’t even go to church after asking Him into your life.

I mean, how would your spouse feel (if they stayed with you) if you left them at the church after the ceremony. Then claimed them the next Sunday or when you came back to church. That relationship will not last very long. How do you think Jesus feels if you ask Him into your life and then you leave Him out of your life all during the week until you come back to church? Think about it and let me know what you think too.

 

What is the truth?


Is the truth found in our everyday lives? Can each of us have our own version of what is true or not? If we did, then everyone would be fighting over which truth was or is the real one! How can we know which truth is the right one? Is it the one that we are taught as children by our parents or is the truth that we are taught in school or college the correct one? What about if we make up our own truth, wouldn’t that be the one for us? If so, then which truth is the one for my next door neighbor or the people who live in the next country?

People have been arguing over the truth or a lie for centuries without either side knowing which one is correct. So, how can we be sure about the validity of the truth? The only real, way is to ask the author and finisher of Truth, Jesus! How can we know what the truth is if we don’t read God‘s Word on it because His Word is truth!

The Word of God is the truth regardless of what truth you may be looking for. So how can we know that it is the truth? Simple, if God’s Word is not the truth, then we have absolutely no hope!Nothing in the mind of man can save us from the judgement to come if we have not accepted Jesus as our Savior!

There is no religion which was conceived by man which will get you into Heaven because we are sinful creatures! We are not able to save ourselves from destruction and judgement and we cannot be sinless on our own merits. Jesus came to pay the price for us because He is the only One who could and He did! He obeyed the Father‘s will and submitted Himself to the hands of man to be put to death on the cross! The only thing that we can do is to trust in Him and believe in Him and the work that He did for us, then submit our life to Him so that we can tell others!

The Truth is that God loved us before we were born and sent His perfect Son to be the sacrifice which would satisfy all of the requirements of the Law that we cannot! Jesus did this for all of mankind, whether we each accept it as a gift of grace from God or not is our choice! It is not forced upon us, we are not required to act on this knowledge but it is for our own good that we do so! It is provided for us, without cost or obligation, but we need to realize that it is for our own salvation and for the glory of God! It is our responsibility to give our lives as living sacrifices to God daily because it is the least that we can do in light of what He did for us.

The truth is that God does not need us, but He wants us to know that He loves us and has provided all of the provision, the sacrifice needed for us to have the righteousness of Christ imputed to us through our acceptance of Him! God created each of us with knowledge of Him and the moral goodness that is needed for us to live in our societies, whether we have lived that way or not is our own choice and the product of our upbringing. Even those who have never had a sermon preached to them know that there is something more than what they have, and they search for it. They try to find it in many things or in drugs or alcohol or even sex but none of these satisfies their craving because the only way to fill that empty space is with Jesus!

 

Do you see the love of Christ at your church?


In our world and our culture, the love that we are commanded to show to one another seems to be in short supply…even in church. So what are we to do? Well, the first thing that you can do is make sure that your heart is right with God! If you don’t have Jesus in your heart, then the love of God won’t be there either and if it isn’t there then it won’t show up in church or anywhere else. People will wonder about your walk with Christ, whether it is genuine or not, if the Spirit of Christ doesn’t shine through.

This is something which can’t be faked. You can act like a Christian, you can attend church for decades and teach Sunday school, you can even be a pastor and still not be saved if you know the words and what is expected of you! In other words, you can walk and talk it and still not have it because you are just going through the motions and that is all! Many people in our country are doing just that because if there really were over ninety percent of Americans that were real Christians, then every church in the country would be full to overflowing every Sunday!

I am not trying to upset anyone with this, although I may get a few feathers ruffled, but some people do need to wake up! We need a revival in our country, a revival and an exodus back to God, back to morality and knowing the One who helped to make this country into what it has been for over two hundred years! If we don’t put Him back in charge of many areas of our collective lives in this country, we are going to reap the penalty for our refusal and for turning our backs on Him and for pushing Him out of schools and each person’s lives as much as we have.

God loves each one of us with a love that nobody can come close to understanding, except maybe a mother. The love that most mothers feel for their children is the only bond that imitates God’s love for us. I am also emphatically not calling a mother’s love imitation! It just happens to be the only bond that comes close to that which God has for us and would like to share with each of us. Just as when you talk to your mom, God wants to talk to you, but we need to learn to listen. Get away from the computer and the cell phone, leave the e-mail out of it because He doesn’t do e-mail. You have to be able to hear His voice and His voice is one that is quiet, so you have to be, as the Word of God says, “in a quiet place” away from the distractions of life so that you can hear from Him. Personally, I used to talk to Him and try to listen while I was driving to and from work. If you are alone in the car, turn the radio off and tell Him that you are listening…talk to Him just like you do to any other friend that you have, He will hear you.

His love will show through you and others in your church when you are connected to it. When you are listening to Him, you will find out things that your Bible doesn’t have in it..you will come to understand scripture better when you pray about it. God reveals His wisdom to you when you come to Him. Many people today seem to deny the existence of God, they don’t want Him to hold them accountable for their actions but He does and He will, like it or not. Life is given to each of us by Him, daily to live, to love, to serve, to witness to others. What we do with our life is our choice, but our choice has a price. If you choose to follow Jesus and live through Him, other people’s lives will be impacted by your choices and yours will too. If you choose to live your life selfishly, doing only what you want to do, how you want to do it, you will affect some lives too but at the end of this life what will you have to show for it? Some people have big homes, fancy cars, money to burn and fame and all the “fair-weather friends” to go with all of this, but you can’t take any of that with you when you die! When you are gone, so will your so-called friends be, they will be off looking for someone else who has the money or toys that they like, but where will you be?

Many people say that when they die, they will just be dead period. Jesus said that this life is not the end, it is just the beginning. We are created with an eternal soul and that soul will live on, according to what your life was here and through your life on earth. This is the training ground for eternity, so what are you training for? A life of love, compassion, hope, and knowing that you have all of that secured through the sacrifice that Jesus made for you? Or will your eternity be filled with regret and pain, knowing that you could’ve made the right choice which would change your eternity…but you didn’t. You only get to change your mind while you are here in this life, once you pass to the other life the choice has been made.