What would you do?

Silly question, huh? You don’t even know what I am referring to. How would you answer this in certain situations of your life? Stumped? In many of life’s situation’s, whether they are the life changing kind or not, we need to ask someone this question before we make up our own minds. Because we can get caught up in the moment and make the wrong decision hastily and then regret it later.

Many times in the past, I have made decisions without going over it with a family member or a friend first and I paid for it later. Of course you don’t see that coming, and there is no way to know until after the damage has been done. The point that I am making is that we are people, we all make mistakes and the best way to live a life of purpose and meaning is to make a point that sticks in someone else’s mind. That is what I am trying to do with this.

Today, life is hard, and it isn’t going to get easier. God’s Word spoke of this time and it is still speaking to us if we will listen. Just as when you ask someone’s advice on a decision that you know that you need to make, the Someone that you should ask is always available.

In the prophetic books, especially in the book of Revelation, John tells of a time when knowledge increases and people are running around everywhere. Many of them are looking for something or someone to give their lives a true meaning and purpose, many of those also don’t know that they are looking for that. They just feel that something needs fixing, or that they need something but many of them don’t really know what that something is.

We have all been created with a place in our soul, in our heart, that yearns for God. We may call it “desire”, or “a hunger for more”, or some other name, but the One that the desire is really drawing us to may not be apparent to us, at least not at first. We strive through our daily lives looking for an elusive fix for something, and for many years at times we don’t know what it is that we are trying to fix. God offers this fix for many areas of life and yet many don’t decide to come to Him, giving excuses of all kinds that don’t mean anything in this life or in eternity.

In spite of what many have been told and taught, we each have an eternity to live. Not here on the earth, but with God in the Heaven which He will bring you to if you are a child of His. If you have not made that decision real and permanent in your heart and changed your life, then you truly need Christ in a most desperate way. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the One who died to pay for all of mankind’s sins and rose from the dead so that we can have eternity with Him if we will take hold of the gracious gift that we have been given.

Excuses and the thinking that “I have plenty of time to do that later”, are from the ruler of this world, Satan himself. You can choose to believe or not, it is your choice after all, but…what if what I am saying is true? God can save you through Jesus and the belief in Him that He came to save you because that was His purpose for coming! Putting off the decision of your eternal life is not something which you should do, even for a few minutes because your life is not guaranteed.

Accidents happen all of the time. On the street, on the sidewalk, at home, even when you are at work or at church, your life could be coming to a close and you don’t know that it is coming. But when it comes, regardless of your age or the time in your life that it does, your life ending here is the beginning of your eternity wherever that eternity might be. Please, make the decision to seek someone about this most important decision of your life, your eternal life. I would like to meet you one day and know that this site made a difference to someone.

Can racism be fixed?

It is a topic on many people’s mind for some reason, especially in America, but why is it so important? What is bad about racism? Why do we still have it, even after more than forty years of “the dream”!? What can we do about getting rid of racism?

For starters, we could just program our children to not notice the color of people’s skin. It is done in schools all of the time, the “programming” of our kids. But what about the adults, the ones that have lived through the sixties and seventies ad nauseam, where will it end? Those of us who saw the riots in Los Angeles, the shootings in Chicago, etc. cannot just forget. Then there are the family stories of lynchings and the slavery that was endured by great-great grandparents. Yes, all of this must be taken into account but what can be done about the racism of today?

Can we fix it? It cannot be apologized away. There isn’t enough gold or silver or any amount of groveling which will pay the price to a people who were taken from their home land, sold into slavery by their own people or who were conquered and then sold. Nothing that can be said or done in reparation for over four hundred years of slavery and bigotry and hatred!

I am a Caucasian male, born in the same year as our President. Yes, I have seen the terror in people’s eyes, the fear and anger during the late sixties when I was just starting school at about the same time that Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered and a few months later Bobby Kennedy was shot while campaigning! The thing is that none of my family, as far back as I can trace, has ever owned a slave. Yet, “crackers”, white people like me, are blamed for every slight, every injustice that has ever happened in the past one hundred years or more.

Why? Because of racism. Not our racism, but the racism that exists in our culture. I don’t blame African-Americans for this, it is not their fault. It is not my fault that racism exists in the South or in America as a whole. I believe that Satan himself has used racism to great effect in America and has used it to stir up so much hatred and enmity between people who don’t know each other, they just know that skin color and culture are different between us. God created mankind, He did not create certain races of people to do certain things and others to do other things in this world. God created one race that had many different shades of skin color because of the climate that they settled in, not because one is better or worse than any other!

God is the only person Who can bring about the end of racism and bigotry and when Jesus comes back and rules the world as King, it will happen! This is not an “if” or a “possible” outcome, it will happen because Jesus said so! At the end of the Tribulation, when the one-thousand year reign of Christ begins, there will be no more bigotry and racism and those who try to keep it going will answer to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords! God removed His people from slavery after four hundred and thirty years, He did not endorse it. Those who were in slavery in Israel were to be released on the seventh anniversary of their slavery, it was not to be a life-long servitude unless the slave loved the family enough to become a bond-servant and it was the slave’s choice not the masters.

We cannot do away with racism by our own choices. Humanity doesn’t have the moral and ethical capacity to get rid of it or any other bigoted ways of treating people, not on our own strength at least. The love of God through Jesus can open our eyes and our hearts so that we no longer act on our cultural and familial learned behavior toward others, but if it has been taught from an early age it is still there. Only the change wrought by Jesus in your life and mine can cause it to be any different, so the choice is clear…choose Christ as your Savior and follow Him. Serve Him as your Master and Lord because He is the only Master to whom service is due!

Are you for real?

Is your form of Christianity the real thing or is it more like what is seen outside of the church? Don’t mistake my remark for an accusation, it is not, but there are many in the world who have a “form of Christianity but deny its power” which is why there are people who claim that there are hypocrites in the church.

There are many in the world, about two billion or so, that claim to be Christians but if we all were doing the things which Jesus commanded us to do (like love our neighbors as ourselves) the world would be very different from the way it is today. Evangelism by a quarter of the world would have a tremendous impact, especially if it did not involve bombs or killing in any way. How much good could be accomplished this way?

Here in America, some over-the-counter allergy medication has been changed so that you have to have a prescription for the “real” thing. The stuff that you buy OTC just doesn’t work like the real thing and that is what I am referencing about Christians here. Are you for real or are you a Christian in name only?

Being real about your faith and the hope that you have is necessary because fakes can be seen by all. Anyone who knows a real Christian, one that lives their faith every day whether they are at church or at home or at the grocery store, can tell the difference. Your friends can tell the difference too, because when you claim Christianity and don’t live it then it is evident that you are a hypocrite.

2 Timothy 3:5 mentions people who “look like they are religious but deny God’s power.” (It also says, “Avoid people like this.”) Being religious and appearing to be a Christian doesn’t cut it, just like putting on a uniform and giving the appearance of being a police person doesn’t cut it either (and is illegal). True, you won’t go to jail for impersonating a Christian, but if you try to get by with it for long enough you will pay a price.

What do I mean by “pay a price”? Your appearance to others and to the outside world of being a Christian my help your reputation, it may allow you to do many good things for people. But if your heart has not been changed by the presence of Jesus then when your time comes to meet God at the end of your life, then all of the things that you did and the time you spent in church will convict you before Him.

Why will it convict you at that point? Because if you have never asked Jesus into your heart and allowed Him to change you, then all of the truth that you have heard in church washed over you but never penetrated your heart. Like being baptized but not really being saved, you just got wet. I went through these motions a few times and it makes you feel good for a while, but if the commitment to follow Jesus is not present then it doesn’t last long. A Christian that has never accepted Jesus as their Savior is not a Christian. They were just present in church in body not soul and they occupied a seat. Some may even have been deacons or teachers in Sunday school.

I have even read about some pastors or bishops who had been filling their positions for many years and yet became convicted at some point of the emptiness in their life and their heart and finally came to the point of asking Jesus into their lives. It was at this point that their ministry truly became effective and real to them and to their congregations. It was hard for me to understand how someone that had been teaching from God’s word and performing the duties of a preacher and yet they had never really given their heart to Jesus!

Make sure for yourself and for those who come in contact with you, because they are watching you to see if you are for real. If you claim Christian ideals and beliefs then people are really going to watch and listen to every word and deed, to make sure that you are real. So make sure for your sake now and for eternity.