Huddle up!

In the game of football much of the game’s outcome depends upon what is said and done during the huddle. Of course, the talent that each player brings to the team counts a lot as well, but if each player listens to the plan and follows it, the plays will go as well as they can, depending on how the other team interprets your formation and your strategy.

In life, we have a much harder problem because our enemy can see into our minds just as well as God can. Satan and his cohorts can get into your mind and manipulate you in ways that appeal only to you and your desires. This is why we are instructed to put on the “full armor of God” so that we can be more successful in our life while following Christ. The full armor of God is shown to us in these scriptures:

Ephesians 6:11-18 King James Version

11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;

15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;

16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

These pieces of armor are only good if you place your life inside of them each day. Neglecting to do any of this can cause you to stumble, which we all do, but make sure that you get up and pray asking God to strengthen you and give you the wisdom and courage to follow Him every day. God emptied Himself into human flesh in order to make a way for us to become His children. He gave His life on the cross so that we would not have to go through the punishment and pain associated with a life that rejects Jesus as Savior.

Some people see God as being outside of the universe and outside of time and He is, but He is also present here. Some may say that with all of the evil in the world, where is God? Think of it this way: without an ultimate, pure, and Holy God there would be no option for evil. In some ways, the idea of a balance is right except when you look at an Asian Yin/Yang symbol there is good and evil on both sides. That is not how the world is nor is it how God designed it to be, there is good and evil…period.

The picture below shows what I am talking about. There is only one or the other, they don’t mix and there isn’t a little of one on either side. We are given a choice and many choose one side or the other, you can’t stand on the middle line and claim both. Yet, many people try to actually live on that line until they find that the Screen shot 2012-07-23 at 10.49.14 AM y can’t live there. You have to choose one or the other, you can’t wobble over here one day and then change sides and to back to the other.

God loves us that is why we have a choice in life simply because you can’t force someone to do something, like love you. Trying to make someone do something which they don’t want to do would be similar to giving a cat a bath or putting water back into a bottle while it is being poured out. Unless the cat has been trained to allow you to give them a bath, you will be needing medical attention before the bath is over!

We are God’s creation, made in His Image or as it is said in Genesis, “let us make man in Our image” since God is a Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are the only part of creation which God actually used His hands to mold and shape the clay from which He fashioned mankind. Some may wish to ask “when will evil be taken out of this world”, the only answer that I have for that comes from the book of Revelation. At the end of the millennium of Christ’s reign on Earth, there will be one last battle and Satan’s forces will be crushed. Then the White Throne judgement will occur and all of those who sided with Satan and did not seek Jesus in their lives will be cast into the lake of fire for eternity. That will be the end of evil as we know it.

Seek Jesus out in the Bible and learn of Him, ask Him into your life and ask for His forgiveness, then follow Him until He comes again or until the end of your life. Yes, there will be trouble and trials, even with Him in your life, but the reward in Heaven will be so much sweeter!

The Narcissist Who Loves Me

I found this to be thought provoking, and very much in keeping with God’s Story. Read it and learn of your Creator.

What are we to do?

As human beings, we are to live and grow in our lives and with wisdom and using the knowledge that we gain in life we are to conduct ourselves as moral people. Can we do this on our own initiative and strength? To a point, yes we can but no further. Our strength and wisdom will only carry us as far as the next person with wisdom, which may be beyond ours, or rather they perceive their wisdom to be beyond ours. Then we have to submit to theirs and learn from them as much as possible. This is humanistic learning and wisdom, which gains us nothing. Yes, sometimes, we will learn from others wisdom but many times their knowledge and wisdom is repackaged from another source.

The best source of wisdom is the Bible because it is the Truth of God and His Wisdom, brought to us through the Holy Spirit and written down by disciples and prophets, poets and kings. All of the wisdom or knowledge that I have placed here has come from Him and from the Bible. I can’t come up with all of this on my own, yet I have had many comments which say otherwise. Life is different for all of us. For some it is hard to get through one day to the next, for others it seems to be the easiest walk in the park you ever strolled through. Learning about life is a hard lesson at times, because it isn’t something that you get out of a book, with the exception being the Bible.

God showed the people of Israel how to live and gave them the instructions, if they would follow them. But, they didn’t. They had lived among idol worship in Egypt for over four centuries and wandering in the desert for forty years didn’t get that out of them. When they came into their land of promise, they said that they would follow Him and do as He commanded. Sometimes they did, but many times they did not and they paid for it with slavery and being exiled from their homes and their land. God had told them that they would be blessed and would be a blessing to all IF they would obey Him and follow Him in all of their ways. They didn’t listen.

Even today, we have been blessed by having the whole Bible to read and learn from and many people still scoff at it and say that it isn’t true. Yet, many of the prophecies in it have all come true. The only ones left are the resurrection of the dead in Christ and the Rapture of the Church and the Tribulation foretold in the book of Revelation. Read from His Word, prayerfully and with an open mind. Ask God to show you what He wants you to see in His Word, again with an open mind toward Him. Read the book of Romans and all of the New Testament before you go into the Old Testament, because it helps to read the fulfillment of one which explains the other, or at least helps to explain it.

I look forward to seeing you in His Kingdom!

The meaning of a Christian life

For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
2 Corinthians 5:14-17 KJV
http://bible.com/1/2co.5.14-17.KJV

Cracks and pieces missing

Have you ever noticed, maybe in a museum or in a cupboard, that with time some pottery or china will have little cracks or pieces missing? Is your life today feeling a little cracked with pieces missing or gone? Did you know that God can fix that? Yes, He may have allowed the cracks to happen, but it is because He is trying to get your Spirit and your faith to expand so you can do more and endure more. Life is in itself a work in progress, just as pottery and other artistic endeavors are also. We as humans live and breathe as a work in progress from the day that we are born until we die. Life is never the exact same from day-to-day, yet we look at it as if it is.

We see our lives as a continual struggle of sleep, waking hours, eating and then sleep again. Simplistic though it is, it is true isn’t it? It doesn’t matter what type of job you have or where you work, which falls under the waking hours, the rest of the day usually falls in the time of eating food or sleeping with a little TV thrown in to dull the day down before going to sleep.

My representation of life in those four areas is simple, but if you think about it then it is the truth. Getting back to our title about cracks and missing pieces, where do they come from? Some come from our own existence, some of the cracks are there because God put them there so you would depend upon Him more, the missing pieces are those parts of yourself that seem to get lost. Some of them are lost when a loved one dies or when some tragedy occurs in your life or in a close friend’s life. They are not totally lost, it just feels that way. That part of you may have fractured into many thousands of pieces and it feels like it is gone, but God can put the pieces back together again.

Sometimes we can feel the cracks and fractures in our life, but think of it in this way: God may be using this trouble and the problems which we feel through it to cause a change in us. The judgement that came against Israel in times past was specifically for the cause of bringing them back to God…to relying on God every day! Captivity in Babylon, slavery in Egypt, slavery through other people in the Old Testament like the Assyrians, each of these was designed and used by God to get God’s people to turn BACK to God! Trouble in this life is there for a reason, specifically to refine us into better and more dedicated people in God’s service.

God loves us deeply, far more deeply than we can understand with our limited minds. In reference to the cracks and chastisement that we may go through, think of it like a weight lifter beginning to lift weights. At first you are very sore, so sore in fact that you can barely lift the bar without weight on it. Then, as those muscle fibers grow and repair the damage of lifting weights, they become stronger and you have to add more weight. You tear and work the muscle tissue so that it will grow and become stronger, that is what these trying times in your life are and God uses them to make you and your faith stronger!

Life everywhere is hard and trying to an extent, depending upon where you live. Seek God and His Wisdom from the Bible, not just one or two verses from it but the whole Bible. He can guide you and give you wisdom and strength to make it through the most tough and trying times in your life. He helped to get Job through his trying times, He helped the Jews get through their slavery and back into their homeland, He helped those who were scattered all over the world to come back to their homeland after WWII. God will help you too IF you will seek Him out and follow Him daily! Time grows short, don’t wait.

Each person matters

It doesn’t matter whether you are rich or poor, homeless or live in a mansion or a penthouse, all of us matter in our lives to Someone. The person that we matter to may be our spouse or friends, co-workers or partners, we may even matter to some office or position that we hold but the most important Person that we matter to is God. Yes, I said that each of us matters to God! He cares even if we didn’t get an answer to the prayer that we prayed last night or last week. He has cared about you since before the Earth was created because He has known you and known about you since then.

You are important to Him because He created you for a purpose that only you can fulfill, a job that only you can do and nobody else. Do we realize this in our lifetime? Sometimes we do if we are paying attention to His voice. If not, then we will trip along through life, ignoring that little voice that part of our conscience or whatever you want to call it…until we truly NEED Him! Then we will call out to Him loudly and insistently. Will He listen to these prayers? Yes, and He may use the outcome of them to touch your heart again, just to get your attention.

You do matter to God. Believe it or not, He has always had an interest in this little speck of dust and all of us who are made of its substance. He has been able to see you and your family from far back in time before you were born and yet He has always had a purpose and a place for you. All that you need to do is believe in Him and follow His lead, live your life for Him so that others can see Him through you. Why you may ask? Because He paid a price for our atonement, for our sins and frankly it is the least each of us could do!

The world today, particularly outside the Christian faith, thinks that we as Christians should just shut up and go away. One day, God will call all of us to Heaven and then you will see the kind of world that you have without us and His influence in it. He will still be in control, but it will be a world under judgement at that time and not one that will be hospitable to anyone. Seek Him out while there is time, while there is life in you to do so because when your life is over here, eternity begins whether you like it or believe in it or not!

Pride….

You and I and every other person in the world has dealt with it themselves or seen the consequences of it in someone’s life. Why is it that this is the tap-root of all sins, because it is the biggest! It will sneak into your life a little at a time or it will well up in your head until you feel full of yourself to the point that nobody wants to be around you! At first you may just “feel good” about what you are doing or living through in your life or your work, which is fine as long as it doesn’t take root in your mind. How do I know about this? Because I have allowed it in my life and in my ministry.

Just like an addict admitting that they have a problem before getting help, you and I have to admit that pride has come into your life and tried to ruin things. Maybe it did cause some problems, but hopefully you are able to recognize it before it gets out of hand. God brought it to my attention through my church and it stung…no it hurt! I felt like I had been stabbed in the back and I had been….by Pride! The spirit or demon that pride is associated with loves to take ministers and ministries apart, especially if it will destroy a church!

Thank God that I was willing to listen and wait for the Spirit to show me what was going on. Pride causes so many problems in our world until it is hard to track it down all of the time. It is responsible for breaking marriages up and for causing problems in businesses but he specifically targets churches. From the members to the pastor and every person in between, pride can have and does have an influence on us all. That is why there are so many scriptures pointing out the problems with this emotion or feeling or whatever you want to call it!

There are many verses in the Bible which reference Pride and you can follow this link and see what they say. The damage which pride can cause is sometimes so deep and painful that it can’t be repaired, particularly if it involves a relationship. The flames that pride can cause in a marriage or a church can burn so hot and cause such deep wounds that many times the damage won’t be repaired in this lifetime. That is why we are cautioned to not think so highly of ourselves because this is the beginning of pride.

Proverbs 11:2 When pride comes, then comes dishonor, But with the humble is wisdom.

This is only one of many scripture verses regarding pride. Many of them are in the Old Testament, but there are also many references in the New Testament. Seek God’s wisdom in this and all of life’s troubles and follow His advice because it is based on His wisdom and Truth.

For God so loved…

The beginning of the passage from John 3:16 is a beautiful and gracious statement, “For God so loved the world”. Because He did and He does love all of us regardless of the country that we live in or what religion that we cling to in our daily lives. Whether you are a religious person or not, there is something that you use in your life to guide you and direct your life. It may be your own personal feelings or abilities or it could be a religion that you aspire to be a true follower of. But…God still loves you even if you are not a Christian and haven’t accepted Jesus as your Savior.

That is the very reason that Jesus came to live as one of us, blamelessly and sinless in His life so that He could die on the cross and make atonement for all of us. This was His purpose while He walked and preached to those who would listen and really hear His message. He loved us first so that we could come to Him humbly and broken, knowing that our sin and our version of “righteousness” would not avail us any honor or acceptance in God’s sight.

Look at a pure white canvas or sheet of paper. It is as pure as we can make it, yet allow just one spot of dirt or ink, even one as small as a period like this (.) and it isn’t pure anymore. True, we can and do overlook a spot like this everyday but when we are exposed to the Holiness of God, we won’t be able to cover our sins because only the blood of Jesus can do that.

The next part of that verse is “that He gave His only begotten Son”. This is something that we cannot understand! Could you give your only son as a sacrifice so that one other person could live? I don’t think anyone could do that, even for a close friend! God gave His Son so that ALL of us would have a possible way of forgiveness for ALL of our sins, big and small, if we would put our faith in Jesus and in His atonement for us!

Believe! The next part of this verse, “that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”; belief in Him and His sacrifice is the requirement for eternity, is that too much to ask?

The eternity that I am speaking of here is an eternity in Heaven, with God and His angels and His Son! Many people seem to think that if you die without God or Jesus in your life, then you are just dead, period. Not so! Jesus spoke of hell and there is a place of torment for those who have rejected the grace and mercy which is offered to all! The reason that I mentioned this is that you are the person responsible for your eternity due to your own decisions in this life. God does not sentence you to hell or an eternity of torment, your decisions are responsible for that.

The stimulant of God’s Word

I could not put this message in any better words. Enjoy!

What I Want to Leave Behind

My Lesson in Grace

They say you can’t take anything with you when you die. That’s not entirely true. Yes, you may not be able to take material possessions or money with you when you leave but you can take the greatest thing of all – what you gave away. Think about that for a second. All you can take with you is what you gave away. When I stand before my Lord Jesus Christ, I want to hear the words “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” How can I hear those words? That depends on what I am willing to give away. I’d like to think that I’d give every single thing I have away if God so instructed me. I strive to be that obedient.

I refuse to allow possessions to define my existence. When I am gone, I don’t want my children to look at things or money that I…

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