Category: Non-belief

What is success to you?


Have you ever thought about that? Today, money, fame, and all of the toys which go with them signal success to many people. The problem with this is that all of those things is that they are temporary. Although, it seems to many people, these temporary things are far more important than an eternity that is out of sight and in their future. This is another lie or deception which Satan has made so important and prevalent today. It is almost as accepted as the theory of evolution because all of the things which I mentioned at the beginning are tangible and they can be felt and seen!

The biggest problem with those “rewards” is that you can’t take any of it with you when you die! You can be buried in a tomb or a casket which is very expensive, but what good will that do you? Your spirit is gone into eternity and no matter how luxurious your casket or tomb or vault may be, the body that is left behind will eventually turn to a moldy husk and in about a thousand years or so, there will be little left except maybe some bones. Your life on Earth is over when you breathe your last breath, that much is certain, but your spirit is eternal and it or rather you will stand before God to give account for your life’s accomplishments.

If you are a Christian, then your reward and your eternity is certain, particularly if you did very much for the Kingdom of God during your life here. Your salvation brought God’s Spirit to live inside your temple, your body, until the day that your work here was finished. If you did not give your heart to Him and ask for Him to bring His Life into yours, then you still have eternity ahead, but it will be one of regret and anguish because you left Jesus out of your life.

I know that many people say that “My God would never send anyone to hell”, and they are absolutely right! God doesn’t send you to hell, your choices in life send you there and if you have chosen to live without Jesus and to live life according to your whims, then that will be your destination. It saddens God to see us refuse His gift of salvation, when it costs us nothing to embrace it and accept it. Jesus did all of the work necessary for you to have an eternity in Heaven, and yet there are millions, maybe billions of people who have chosen another way. One which doesn’t include Him, and that pathway doesn’t lead to Heaven, although many think that it does.

Success and a successful life is one lived in accordance with God and His Son. It may not include riches or houses or cars, but your eternal home is on a street paved with gold! Your home is made by the Creator of the universe and it is there for the asking, all you have to do is accept it through belief in Jesus and His atonement for you. Won’t you consider it?

Are you a follower?


Of the many people who attend church on a fairly regular schedule, how many are really following Jesus in their daily lives? The answer may shock you. According to a study done recently, eighty-three percent of the people in the United States said they were Christians. But, when they were questioned further and asked about their relationship with Jesus and their belief about salvation coming through faith in Him alone and about the authority of the Bible and its inspiration by the Holy Spirit, the numbers tumbled to around eight to ten percent.

What happened?

Many people think that if you are a good person and you attend church once or twice a year, then you will go to Heaven. Not true.

Do you believe that Jesus was and is the Son of God? That He lived a sinless life and died for the atonement which is given to every person that is called by God? Do you have faith in God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit or the Trinity of Almighty God? Can you discern truth in the Bible and in your everyday life?

Or is there another pathway to get to Heaven through your works and donations? Jesus said that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and no man comes to the Father except by Him. Believing in Him and giving your life to Jesus is the ONLY way to get to Heaven. There is no broad road to walk on with no holes and no rocks and other obstacles along the way. It is a path to follow by giving your heart to Jesus and asking for His forgiveness of your sins, repenting of them and turning your life around to follow Him.

This doesn’t mean that you can say those things, get baptized, and then go back to your old life. If you do this, then your heart was not changed at all and you are still living like you did before you heard about Jesus. Your heart hasn’t changed therefore you have not changed. It isn’t a magic formula, but you have to realize that you NEED Jesus in your life before something happens and you stand before God without Him.

God loves each of us and wants us to have a relationship with Him and the entire body of believers, and the only way to do that is by giving your heart to Jesus by believing in Him and asking Him to forgive you and make you whole. Why do I keep telling ya’ll this? Because, it is my job! Because the numbers shouldn’t fall from over 80 percent down to ten percent. Deception and lies are being spread abroad all of the time, even inside the church today, yet there are many who don’t see it or can’t discern it because they are not in God’s Word enough to be able to see when something is taught and taken out of context.

God sent His Son to Earth to purchase your pardon through His blood. He went through a scourging which left Him bloody and bruised, then He was nailed to the cross and withstood the shame and scorn of His people for six hours and then surrendered His Spirit into the Father’s hands. All of this was done to purchase us, our pardon for eternity and for our forgiveness. Would you turn away from something which is given to you without cost to you, but which Jesus paid for with His blood and His life?

Everything that could be done for each of us in order to purchase our souls and our place in eternity, has been done. It doesn’t require anything from you except that you believe in the One Who gave it all for you and that you repent of your sinful life and follow Him. Telling others with your life and your witness because we are supposed to tell others! Why? Would you be satisfied in Heaven without your children or your parents? Then tell them! Tell your friends and your co-workers, your students and anyone who will listen. If they won’t hear or refuse to accept Jesus, their blood is on their hands, not yours. It is God and His Spirit which will bring them to Himself, if they refuse then there is nothing else you could have done.

Be a follower of Jesus and tell others about what He has done for you. Satan will try to convince you to not follow Him, to go back to your old life, your comfortable life and your friends. When you stand in front of God after your life is over, which one of your friends will be there to help you? Will Satan stand there and say that you didn’t know what you were doing? No, he will be waiting for you to exit the room because he has a place for you…in hell.

How do you live?


Are you a Christian? Do you believe in Jesus’ atonement for your life? Have you walked with Jesus or did you just get baptized and go on with your life?

Do you deny that Jesus is real? Do you believe that He was “just a prophet”?

If you believe and you accept Him as your Savior, then the first sentence should apply to your life, but are you living your life according to His will for you? It is a question that needs to be answered by all of us. Have you “given your life to Him”, but then walked away from the church and never went back? You are denying Him.

If, on the other hand, you fall into the group of people who don’t believe in God or Jesus at all, then who do you believe in? Yourself? Satan or Allah? Mohammed? Can you change the color of your skin or your hair by thinking about it? Of course not, you and I are not going to be gods and we can’t do anything like God can.

Has Satan appeared to you in a robe of white with wings so bright you couldn’t see? He can you know. Mohammed is dead and he isn’t coming back until God raises him up one day to pay for what he did in his life.

Satan can appear as an angel of light and he can tell you that he is Gabriel if he chooses to, but that doesn’t make it the truth. Mankind is easily deceived and especially when it comes to the master of lies who has had many thousands of years to perfect his deception. One day there will be a man who will appear to be our savior and he will be able to do things that will look miraculous, like Jesus did, but he will be a false savior. Many people will be taken in by him and his words and power that he shows, but he is not the Son of God.

All of those words that I wrote in the past couple of sentences are foretold in Daniel and in the book of Revelation. It is God’s Word and it is True. It will come to pass. I don’t know when, but with all that is happening around the world I would bet that it won’t be much more than a decade or so away. I could be wrong, of course. The point that I am trying to make is that when this person shows up and everyone seems to think he is so wonderful, that should cause a bell to go off in your mind. Remember what you may have heard or read in the Bible or in Sunday school.

Don’t just follow someone blindly because they seem to be more than they are! Many false “Christs” have appeared in the past, but they all died. Many things are going to happen in the near future which will cause many people in the church to leave their faith behind. When all of this begins, take notice and get a Bible and read it. If you have lived a life which wouldn’t have been acceptable to Jesus, then you should repent and ask for His forgiveness.

Why? Because if you see all of these things happening then the end is getting very near. When the peace treaty between Israel and all of her enemies is signed and the Temple begins to be built, take note of who is brokering that deal. All of these must happen before Jesus comes to get the elect, His church, His Bride. Make sure that you are part of that number. In the picture there are many promises for His elect, if you have repented of your sins and given your heart to Him and asked for His forgiveness.

So many choices….


There are truly a number of choices for us to choose from relating to religion and our belief systems, whether they point to God, the Creator and the Godhead which is focused on in the Bible or not. In today’s society, it seems that almost any belief which focuses on something or someone outside of the God of Judaism or Christianity, is perfectly acceptable. Why? Because, there is no compulsion or consequence to your actions when there is no absolute Truth to compare to or live by. Most of the other religions of the world have differing ways of reward and punishment regardless of the entity that they follow, but even then most of them don’t have a credible group of witnesses to back them up, as the Scriptures do from the historical record.

Then, there are those who choose to not believe in any supreme being at all. Choosing therefore to be their own “supreme being”, their own law unto themselves. This could be considered a form of idolatry, but if you don’t believe in God or Allah, then believing in yourself is considered just fine in today’s society. I am not bashing those who use belief in yourself as a way to get people to feel better about themselves, but when you are the one who supposedly controls your own destiny then you have a problem. Not with me or my own beliefs, but you will one day find that it was really God all along and that He does exist whether you like it or not.

Just as light and heat, gravity, stars and planets exist so does God and Satan, not believing in them doesn’t change that. Just as a comedian once said something like this “you can confess all the way down that gravity doesn’t exist, it won’t change the outcome.” This may not be a direct quote as I can’t remember the exact words, but the gist of it is the same.

Life on Earth is tough and it is not going to get any easier whether you believe in God or Allah or have no belief system at all. The troubles of this life are easier to bear when you have a belief in God, because you can have hope that one day He will make all things new just as He says in the Bible. Your life on a daily basis can be easier to bear with the stresses that we all have because of your faith in God. If you think that your life is fine without Him, that is your choice and He doesn’t begrudge you for it.

We are not forced into belief, it is our choice to come to faith in God when we are convicted that our life is in need of Jesus. If you never feel that conviction from Him, then all that I can say is “I’m sorry”.

Some have said that Christians are blind and they follow blindly, but consider that faith is having a hope in something which is not seen yet it has been promised by One Who cannot break His promises. James said it best by this:

Dead Faith (James 2:14–17)

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

When you have been saved by faith in Jesus Christ, that is an action because you have faith in Him. Therefore, you will do things in your life which reflect that faith so that others might see it. It doesn’t bring you glory but it does glorify God because it was Him Who called you to faith and you answered. Please, open your heart and mind to the possibility that God’s Word is True. Look at it as the Israelites did while they were captive in Egypt, they were told that one would come who would bring them out of bondage. They didn’t know who or when, but they had faith that God would keep His promise and He always does.

 

Noah and the condition of the world


Have you seen the movie or read the story in the Bible? Jesus told His disciples that at the end of the age, the world would be exactly as it was in the days of Noah. The world at that time was so bad that God decided that mankind was so evil that He was sorry that He had created them.

Our world is unfortunately coming very close to that point. People are ignoring the truth found in the Bible. Nobody wants to hear a message of hope that hinges upon belief in Jesus, but they are perfectly fine with any other “god” that you want to mention. People are being imprisoned and threatened with death for their belief in Jesus, let alone telling someone about Him!

I haven’t even started on the drug trade or the slavery that is going on, sexual and otherwise. Then there is all the crime that is rampant in the nations, not just America but most prevalent here as well. Crimes against children, murder, kidnapping, rape,….the list could go on and on. The point of this is that our world has gotten to the point of being very close to the evil ways that was present at the time of the Flood.

Of course, there are plenty of people who deny that there was a flood or even a Creator-God for that matter. They don’t seem to want to admit that many of our phrases and sayings that we are comfortable with actually came from God’s Word! Why???? The arguments against His existence and the Truth found in His Word are many and varied but the main point of all of them seems to be that nobody wants to be held accountable for their way of life, regardless of what they may be doing.

Everyone seems to want to make up their own version of “god” so that he is tolerable of whatever they are doing and will still allow them into Heaven anyway. By denying the Bible and its truth, they are turning away from the Creator just as the people did in the time of Noah. Even if the world doesn’t end in the next fifty years, the truth and the veracity of the Bible can’t be questioned although many would argue that point. The end will come when God decides that it is time and not before. It can’t be rushed, nothing that we do can make Him speed up the date. He already knows when it will happen, but many of the people in our world are ignoring the signs.

The signs in the heavens, the condition of mankind on Earth, the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, the crazy weather that we have been having and that is getting more destructive…all of these things are foretold in the Bible. Maybe not specific places or types, but the warnings are there. We, as Christians, need to be telling as many as we can about Jesus because there isn’t much time left. This generation that is alive today will very likely be the one which will see the Tribulation and the coming of the Son of Man. It is not an “if” it will happen but “when” it happens, it will still come as a surprise to many even though some have heard it for their entire lives.

Please, be on the watch. Read, pray that you will be given the understanding to see the signs. Tell your family and friends about the Lord so that they won’t have an excuse for not knowing and hopefully they will make the decision to follow Jesus too. Every minute that passes by is one that we can’t get back, but it also brings the Second Coming a little closer. Watch and pray that you don’t fall into temptation.

In His Service.

How many times is the word “believe” found in the Bible?


How many times does the word “believe” or one derived from it show up in the Bible?

The word or one with believe inside it, appears 249 times in the Bible. You would be astonished at how few times it really shows up in the Old Testament though. I have published this elsewhere on another site of mine under another name, but I am putting the same disclaimer here: I researched this information using the search function on my Kindle Fire inside the King James Bible. The results may be different from other areas or concordances but the numbers that I have here came from this search alone.

In Exodus, it shows up six times. That is all of the times that the word believe or believeth is present in the book of Exodus, the chronicle of Israel’s journey out of Egypt and on the way to becoming a nation.

In the book of Numbers, it only shows up one time and that is in chapter 14. Why does belief or believe not show up any more than this? God is the only One who knows that answer.

In the book of Deuteronomy, the word only shows up one time in chapter one. Strange isn’t it? A fundamental word that goes along with and that the Christian faith hinges on seems to be absent from the very books that were written at a time when belief should have been easy because of the miracles being done by God for the people of Israel.

In the Christian Bible, the next time that it shows up is in the book of 2 Kings in chapter seventeen and it is only present that one time.

The next time is in 2 Chronicles in and it shows up twice in chapter twenty. Then once more in chapter thirty-two.

After that, it shows up three times in the book of Job, once in chapter nine and twice in chapter thirty-nine.

It also shows up in Proverbs in chapter 26 once, and it isn’t referring to belief in God even then.

Then it makes an appearance twice in Isaiah in chapter seven and in chapter forty-three.

In the Old Testament, the word only shows up twice more after this. Once each in Jeremiah chapter 12 and once in Habakkuk chapter 1.

So, altogether in the Old Testament believe or a word derived from it shows up a total of 20 times. Even during the time of their liberation from Egypt when God was doing so many miracles and wonders, belief or believe never came up much and out of the thirty-eight or thirty-nine books in the Old Testament, depending upon which Bible you have, the word “believe” only shows up twenty times, why?

The New Testament seems to have most of the occurrences of this word. Why? Because belief was and is necessary, along with faith, in the One that we should believe in, Jesus.

In Matthew alone believe shows up nine times!

In Mark it shows up 18 times, almost as many as in the entire Old Testament!

In Luke, believe shows up nine times, but in the book of John alone it shows up 94 times! Now, this sounds like a lot and in some results that I have searched through it showed up only forty-three times.
That is because some searches on the Internet Bible boards only show exactly the word “believe”, while the search that I did shows it and the word of believeth as well because I was searching through the King James Bible.

The point that I am making is that John’s gospel and the books written by him all focus on our belief in Jesus and in Who He was and Who He is. Yes, the demons of Satan and Satan himself believe in Jesus but they don’t have the same belief as we do. They will not bow to Him nor will they serve Him because they have chosen to be against Him and against God. So, how many times have we charted the word “believe” so far? At this point, only 150 times between the Old and New Testaments up to the book of John. So, there are about ninety-nine more occurrences of the word believe or believeth in the New Testament.

Why so much emphasis on belief? Believing in Jesus does save your soul! It is the first step toward a life of service to Him and in your sanctified life with Him. Belief doesn’t and cannot come to someone without God’s grace touching your soul, your heart and bringing you to a point of realization that you truly NEED Jesus as your Savior! Believing that Jesus accomplished everything needed for you to be saved doesn’t come to you from works and it doesn’t come to you when you decide to do so because you don’t decide to become saved. God is the One Who calls you to be saved through your belief in Jesus as your Savior.

Being a Christian is a process that begins with belief in Jesus and in His message for our lives and taking that message into your heart, striving to become more like Jesus daily. What does that mean? Asking forgiveness for your sins by confessing what you have done and accepting God’s forgiveness because of your decision to accept Jesus as your Savior is just the beginning of your walk with Him. Searching through the scriptures for references to Jesus is a wonderful exercise that will increase your faith in the truthfulness of God’s Word, but it will also humble you because you will find that God has loved us, not just Israel, for an eternity. He has known each person and how they will choose to live their lives since before the world began. Your life after accepting Jesus as your Savior doesn’t require you to work out your salvation. But…you will want to learn more of God’s Word because you will want to know your Heavenly Father and reading His Word is the best way to learn how He speaks from it and to us.

That is why belief in Who the Trinity of the Godhead is important to your salvation, because all three Persons of the Trinity are involved in your salvation every day. Belief in Jesus is the first step, accepting Him as your Savior is the second step, confession of your sins is another step along the road of becoming a Christian. God sent Jesus to do the work of reconciling mankind to Himself by being the perfect sacrifice for all of our sins, which He did. Then, the Holy Spirit, which is another part of the Trinity, comes into your life when you are saved and teaches you while you search for more of His Truth. So, the entire Person of the Trinity is involved in your becoming a fruitful Christian, not just Jesus.

Please forward this to anyone that you know that needs to come to Jesus. It is important because God thinks that they are important and that you are important. We all have a part to play in God’s plan, some may have a small part and some may have a bigger part. Just as the different parts of our body do their jobs, we as Christians need to do our job regardless of the role that we play in God’s plan and His Kingdom.

Give God the Glory that He deserves, because I cannot continue doing this alone. I am not alone of course, I have Him and His Spirit to guide me and you do too. The words that I have put here don’t come from my mind alone, but from His. I am just a messenger, but don’t disregard the message.

True lies, really?


How can we believe the things that are being taught today? Unproven theories are accepted as truth, lies are taught as if they are from God. What are we supposed to believe anymore? Can we believe anything or anyone today or from the past? I don’t know about believing just anyone, but the One that you can count on and believe in is Jesus the Christ!

Many people seem to think that He lied about Who He was and nearly everything that He said, but He did not. All of the miracles were seen by more than one person, sometimes more than fifty or one hundred so they were verified according to Jewish law. His disciples saw Him taken up into the clouds and angels told them that He would return in like manner, so that proved His claim as being the Son of God and the Messiah. I know that many of these take faith in God and in His Word to truly believe, but many of the things in the Torah are also historical fact and our Old Testament contains much of the Torah if not all of it. Jesus quoted many things from it during His ministry.

The theories being taught today as facts are still just theories because they can’t be duplicated or verified by transition forms from say a fish to a reptile or an actual fossil of a “missing link” between man and ape. Most of the fossils that have been found were small pieces of a jaw or a leg or part of a vertebrae, the genetic makeup of the animal that it belonged to can’t be identified, so it is not proven to be one or the other. Genetic markers don’t survive fossilization just as cell structures and blood don’t. Yes, there are rumors of blood vessels being found in the leg of a dinosaur, with blood in it no less, but it was never widely reported. Many even disregarded it as a quirk or an accident, nothing more.

But, what if the account of creation is true like the rest of the Word of God? If there really was a world-wide flood and the world is only about ten thousand or so years old then blood could survive in a leg bone. Dinosaurs and man existed at the same time on this earth. Would believing in the Word of the Creator be such a bad thing? I think I would rather believe in Him and His Word than in much of the history and science that is taught in our schools today as fact! I would rather stand before Him and say that I did believe in Him and His Son rather than having the audacity to say that He doesn’t exist! I really don’t think even the most devout atheist will be able to stand before God and tell Him that they don’t believe in Him!

Consider that before you jump to a conclusion about Him that’s based purely on your own thoughts and beliefs or lack of belief. Just as saying that gravity is not real doesn’t take it away, not believing in God doesn’t remove Him from His throne either.

New age, what does it really mean?


Many people think that “new age” is a reference to our placement in time, like the twenty-first century, but the name has been in use for many more years than in just the past decade. For a complete list of what and when this began see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Age.

For many people in the world, the new age movement began to be popular in the 1960’s, which is why it is associated with all of the crazy stuff that went on during that time. Even many gurus latched onto it with their beliefs and teachings about meditation and an all-inclusive religion. One that doesn’t claim superiority  or even claim that it is right or the only way, like mono-theistic religions do.

New age tries to develop a harmony between science and religion so that you can sort of, have your evolution and creation at the same time. What a concept!?

Really?

All of the religions in the world that are apart from the three mono-theistic religions of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, have some component of work that has to be performed by man in order for him to reach a level of being above his place in the universe. An attainment that can only be reached by doing things in a correct way or prescribed manner during a person’s lifetime. Where does this work-based belief get you? Tired, frustrated, anxious, scared, wondering if you did enough or did it right, is that how you want to reach the end of your life? Full of worry and scared that what you have done or haven’t done in this life may not have been good enough?

I know the arguments of people who claim to be atheists or agnostics, I have read some of their books. The crux of the matter is this: what do you believe? If you don’t believe in anything after death, then you don’t have anything to fear, do you? You’re just dead and that’s it, so what’s the difference? OK, but what if you are wrong?

If your belief is Scientology, will the Thetan‘s carry you to a place and change you into a god? Will Allah take you into his bosom and give you eternal life? There are many other religions in the world which claim to bring you into a state of oneness with the universe, but will you know it or does your essence just merge with the cosmos forever and you fade away like a puff of smoke?

I don’t know what happens after we die, but I do know what is promised in God’s Word. Jesus said that we would have eternal life if we only believed in His sacrifice and that it paid the penalty for our sins. Is that such a crazy idea? Its not any worse or crazier than some others I don’t believe.

The New Age thinkers don’t know any more about what happens after death than any of the rest of us and they won’t until they die. The problem is that we can’t come back and tell anyone Who we ran into or what we found out on the day that we crossed over life’s threshold into eternity. It really is a mystery that cannot be solved by anyone who is still alive. I know that there are some who have had near death experiences and came back to tell what they have seen, and some of them I believe are credible and as truthful as they can be.

The truth is that we can’t really know until we die and it seems that many people just don’t care what happens after their body dies. Many people think that all of our existence stops when our body dies but according to Jesus, our soul continues on and we will have a glorified body to go with it. So, if this life is just the beginning, don’t you want the eternal part of your life to be more than you ever hoped or dreamed about?

Yes, I do believe that Jesus is the only way to Heaven because He said so. That is all that I need because of my faith in Him. It is true that there are many other religions out there but do they claim to be the pathway to heaven? Most of them don’t actually, they claim other types of existence such as reincarnation or they don’t claim any eternal existence at all. I think I would rather believe the One Who says, “Today, you will be with Me in paradise!”

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.

Can you live without Jesus?


Unfortunately, the answer is yes, anyone can live here on earth without Jesus in their lives or in their heart, but can it truly be living? Can you really be alive without Him? I once thought so and I thought that I was enjoying myself at the time, but I was only fooling my self.

We were not meant to live without a relationship with Jesus or God Himself! Originally, mankind was created to have a daily encounter with God in all aspects of his life here on earth. We are supposed to have that close relationship with Him every day, many times during the day. I know, there are many people who will say that only preachers and others who serve in places of worship and as worship leaders are supposed to have that kind of relationship with Jesus.

But, that is not how it was in the beginning. In Eden, God told Adam that he was to have dominion over all of the animals and the birds and He also spoke with him every evening. Isn’t it strange that the Creator would want to walk and talk with His creation? God didn’t think so at the time.

Until he sinned, Adam was pure and righteous and could come before God about anything and ask anything of Him. The earth yielded its bounty to him willingly with no effort on Adam’s part before he made his mistake and thought that he knew better than God. When he chose to go against the command that God had given him, he stepped out of his comfortable life and into the one that he and generations to come would have to endure.

God knew that this would happen and He had made provisions for it, so it wasn’t a surprise to Him but it made mankind’s life much harder. Which was supposed to cause us to seek Him, to want Him to be in our lives. Of course, Satan had his plans for mankind as well and it didn’t include getting to know God.

I could recount the whole creation/pre-flood saga but the point is that since Satan was cast to earth after his rebellion he is provisionally the ruler of this world. This is the reason for the bad things which happen everywhere, although God is in control of how far Satan can go with his plans and won’t allow him to really cause as much trouble as he would like to.

In reality, religion itself is the creation of Satan. He devised all of the gods which people have been worshiping for thousands of years. He or some of his fallen angels very likely appeared to man at some point in their angelic forms or their demonic forms and that is where many of the pagan gods and myths came from.

He has always been able to stir up our emotions because he knows where to tweak our unconscious minds and hit our most vulnerable parts, the parts of us that we may not even know about having. Even after we come to Christ, Satan still hits us in those areas and will cause us to stumble and fall if we don’t lean on and depend on Jesus every day for our strength.

Our life is in Jesus and the life that we have here is better when we are His. Our troubles don’t go away when we become Christians, but they are far easier for us to deal with when we have His strength in us to help us with those troubles.