Category: Religion

Separate or Congregate, which one is right?


When Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to a Baptist association during his presidency, he did not add into our Constitution the words “separation of church and state”. It is not in the Constitution in any form at all, but it seems that it is used most frequently when people don’t want anything to do with the Bible or the absolute truth of God’s Word!

There is no separation of Church and State in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. The premise for this comes from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to a Baptist association in Connecticut that feared overreaching government power. An extreme view of separation of church and state has become part of the common American belief system and it is terrifying.
Here is a copy of that letter from the archives of the Library of Congress:
Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptists
The Final Letter, as Sent
To messers.: Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.

The “wall of separation” being spoken of is such that our government would not require nor establish a religion of the state or nation, it did not mean that religion, whether Christian or otherwise, could never be taught or practiced in government offices or schools so long as that practice was of the individual and not of the requirement by the state or nation.

We have used this misunderstanding in ways to push God and Christian religion out of our schools and our children’s education so much so that we are paying the price for doing so at this present time. Today, being the National Day of Prayer, I urge all of you to pray that God doesn’t push us out of His grace and that our great nation comes back into the knowledge and the grace of Almighty God. If we do not, I fear that our way of life is in danger of disappearing and that this nation will no longer be a nation under God but one that is under the condemnation of God!

We are a nation which was founded for the reason of furthering the Kingdom of God and it has been under His Grace that we have been established all of the years that this country has been a Christian nation. We accept other faiths and the religious practices of other cultures and we don’t oppress their practice, but in the past hundred years, Christian faith and beliefs have come under fire from government and legal challenges of all kinds. From the removal of prayer from schools and the removal of the Bible to changing the names of holidays so that they are “more politically correct and do not offend others”. What about the offense to Christians? Do we not have a say or a voice in our own nation?

Are you a child of God?


Jesus_Loves_UHave you given your heart to Jesus? Have you even considered it? You know, when Jesus told the disciples to let the children come to Him, he was talking about the little children. But, now He is speaking of the children in faith. Babes in Christ, like you may be. We are to come to Him, just as we would to our Earthly father or brother for comfort and help and to feel loved!

He cares for each of us, whether we have given our heart to Him or not. He will give you love and grace even more when you are His child, even though many say that they don’t want to be a child of God we are really His anyway because He is the Creator. Many of the things which we have been taught in school, and sometimes at home, tell us that we are worthless and that we came from an ape. We are not responsible for our actions because we are just animals and prone to do things by instinct.

 

This is not the TRUTH!!! We are created by God, destined to do His will in our lives. Whether we choose to do so or not is our choice, but the path is there. Yes, whether we choose to follow it is our own choice. It is not forced upon us nor is it required that we do so. God has a plan for your life, but you do still have a choice and that is what separates us from animals of all kinds. The choice to do or not do things based upon what we know in our hearts is right or whether we choose to do them because of our selfish and prideful side.

Also, the price for your salvation has been paid in full already. You don’t have to do anything except claim it and ask for Jesus’ forgiveness. He loves you enough that He willingly gave His life so that each of us could come into the family of God. He wasn’t forced into that decision, yet it was required so that mankind could be reconciled and justified by Him to God the Father. There is no other way into Heaven, no back door or loophole, only Jesus can let you in and He will if you follow Him daily and do the things that you know that you should do as a child of God.

I don’t mean that you have to have a worldwide ministry, just being who you are in Christ everyday is enough but if you are called to do more or be more than that don’t refuse or hesitate. Just follow Him and He will give you the power and the ability to do that which He has called you to do.

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.

A red moon and a black ring


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Bible is not Dead either!!


There is a great movie out called “God’s not Dead” and it is one which all of us need to promote and go to see with someone who needs to see it or even a bunch of someone’s! A survey came out today that I heard about and it talks of how the church, the body of believers, has failed to defend the Bible.

It doesn’t need to be defended, it needs to be read and taught, faithfully and truthfully because it is the inspired, truthful Word of God!! Written down by men who were moved by the Spirit of God to write His wisdom and His Word’s down so that others might be able to read and understand. The Bible is relevant to us today and it was relevant to those to whom it was given as a message or advice or even a warning at the time, but the message is the same today.

We are moving away from His teachings, even some church leaders are watering it down and changing it so that it doesn’t mean what it originally did. In some ways, it has been changed like our history so that it really doesn’t say what actually happened. We are supposed to take the Message of the Bible as God’s Word and since He cannot lie, we are to believe it as the Truth. If you are not a Christian, it is certain that this won’t mean anything to you, faith and the belief which comes with it are things which people who belong to the world can’t understand.

I apologize for offending you with the statement above, but it is the truth. Just as someone who is not a computer programmer would not understand the instructions of a programmer, the words and the promises of the Bible are meaningless to those who have not accepted Him by faith either. The Bible is just a book of the history and ancient stories of the Israelite nation and the heroes and the patriarchs and none of it is useful for today. Faith is required in the service of God and in understanding His Word and the promises contained in it and if you are not willing to give your heart to Jesus in faith, then you are lost.

If you are serious about seeking Jesus, then pray about what you need to learn from God’s Word and ask Him to give you the message and the wisdom to understand it. Seeking Jesus is a daily task, it is not something which is accomplished and then you move on. It is a daily reading of the Word, prayer about what you have read and the knowledge contained in it, asking God to reveal Himself to you through the reading of His Word as well as prayer about your own salvation.

If you have not been drawn to Jesus or felt that you truly needed Him in your life, then seeking Him is going to be a very bland experience. You will know if you have felt it because you will have felt that something is missing in your life and that there is something which will fill that empty spot. But you don’t know what that “something” is, it is not a thing….it is Jesus. The Bible speaks of Jesus from Genesis all the way to Revelation. He is the Seed of the Woman, the Rock that the water came from in the wilderness, the Tabernacle, the Spotless Lamb for the sacrifice that was required for the remission of sins. Give your heart to Jesus and learn of Him through reading God’s Word and praying for Him to come into your life because your life and your work will be so much more fulfilling now and in eternity if you do.

Edit: I was pointed toward a website which showed some disturbing things about the movie which I refer to in the first paragraph and I need to address the points of that now. I have been writing this blog for a while now and I have noticed that there are many in the movie industry who believe with their heads and not their hearts and it seems that the producers of the movie “God’s not dead!” are only intellectual Christians. They have knowledge of God and believe that He exists but they don’t have faith in Him nor do they give His Word any credibility as being factual at all. They try to insert man’s wisdom, such as it is, into the Creation account as well as in other places. Changing what they wish along the way so that it fits their life and what they want to do instead of changing their lives to learn about God and changing themselves by His grace to be able to do what He calls them to do.

Also, there are many true Christians who are doing this as well today. Allowing evolution and the big bang to be placed in between the first verse and the second verse in Genesis. Anything could be put there in someone’s mind and it would fit whatever you wish, but the Truth which resides in the Word of God is that all of it is true or none of it is. The truth contained within it must be the Truth because God cannot lie, and if we are trying to change the Word in any way then we are nullifying it and we will pay the price for our arrogance.

Read God’s Word as the Truth. Pray about it, investigate any book, movie, or television show and compare it to the Truth found in God’s Word. If it can’t stand the test of Truth, then regardless of who is promoting it, don’t go to see it. I haven’t seen it yet and likely will not go to see it. Thank you for pointing me to the right review of the movie so that I could fix my own assessment of it.

Think about it, please,while you have the time.

Are we helping or hurting?


In the world today, there seems to be many who are hurting in one way or another. In many places all over the world people don’t have clean water or enough food. Are you able to help those in need? Are you possibly one who is in need of something? I am not writing today to beg or plead for money to be given to different causes, even though it needs to be given. I am writing to cleanse my own soul of the lack of compassion that the church in general has or seems to have for those who are hurting. Jesus told us in the gospels that “if you do these things to the least of these, you have done it unto me”. He was talking of giving to those who are sick or without food or in need of something, whether it is clothing or shelter or water, or even just a kind word and a prayer. Do we do these things today or are we the ones who are hurting and may not even realize it?

God loves us all and wants to help, but He will not push His way into your life or mine unless we humbly ask Him in, repenting of our sinful ways of living, whether we are addicted to something or maybe someone or maybe even in a relationship that is not in line with what He wants for your life! God doesn’t take control unless we surrender and give Him control each and every day. Just because you have given your life to Him and became a member of a church and got baptized, doesn’t mean that you have Him every day. You have to invite Him along with you daily, because it is your cross to bear. You have to get up and continue the relationship with Him, daily, every day! Yes, you are saved if you asked Him into your heart and really meant it by repenting of your sinful ways, but it is a conscious decision on your part to keep the relationship going every day.

It is what Jesus meant when He told the disciples to “abide in Me”, it means to cling to Him every day and make it a habit like prayer so you won’t have to think about doing it, you just will! Your life and mine depend on God’s grace for our lives and even the air that we breathe is provided by Him because it was created by Him. Many people today don’t believe that God did this, they have been deceived by the beliefs of the world and by our education system.

God loves us and has loved each of us since before the world was created. Since He lives outside of time, He can see the end from the beginning and everything in between. God knows each person in their time and how long they have to live. He also knows exactly what each person will do with their life and when, so nothing catches God off guard or by surprise. The same is true of our planet and the processes on it, nothing catches God by surprise and yet He doesn’t control our world like a clock or a toy.

The Bible is God’s advice to us for life as well as His love letters to all of humanity, not just the Jewish people. It is still relevant today because the advice given is timeless. All of the advice and directions found in God’s Word are relevant for today, even if you think that it isn’t, it is. Once you read through just the book of Proverbs, you will see that it is worth a listen and it is worthy of studying for life. Because it gives you Life everlasting.

Who Can I Make Happy Today?


There isn’t much more that I can add to this except that I agree.

birdchirp's avatarRedbird's Roost

smile
Fully half the joy of living
Is the joy of joyful giving…
The other half is gratitude,
Without stint or latitude.

Then let’s be thankful we’re alive
Can work, and laugh, and love and strive
To make another life worthwhile
By glad’ning hearts that need our smile.

View original post

A re-blog of another great blog


I don’t usually do this, but I am linking to this because I couldn’t find a re-blog button on their site. This blog post applies to us all and I hope that you find it useful.
http://newvintageleadership.com/too-busy-to-be-prayed-for/

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.

What would your friends say?


If you came up to them and told them that they needed to know Christ? Ask them one day, you may be surprised. Are you sure that they know Him? I know that we can’t judge people and their relationship to Jesus and we don’t have the right to do so but don’t you think that we should try to at least tell them about Him? In the politically correct world that we live in today, would it be appropriate to approach your friends to tell them about Jesus? Probably not, but what do you have to lose?

Jesus gave all of His followers the command to “go and preach the good news”, which means that we cannot keep this to ourselves! We are not supposed to keep it bottled up inside. The Living Water of the Life that we have within us has to come out…it has to go somewhere and it needs to go to our friends and family and everyone that we can tell it to. If every Christian told one person and that person accepted Christ and then each of them told one more person and so on, eventually we would win the world to Christ. In today’s world it really wouldn’t take very long with planes and the Internet, the world can learn of Him very quickly.

But, the message about Him doesn’t seem to be getting out does it? Oh, there are many people who are telling His story and who are witnessing to others about Jesus but it seems that we are outnumbered by the people who don’t want to know Him and don’t care whether you tell them or not. Because of Satan’s influence, it seems they want whatever is in the world and not those things which point to a life with Christ. Many people seem to what the quick fix, immediate satisfaction of getting what they want right now and not waiting for it to come to them in eternity.

We have all been brought up in a world where we want faster Internet speeds, instant meals that taste like home cooking, fast food, disposable cell phones, lives and relationships, all in search of something that we don’t know but we feel inside that we need “it”, whatever it may be. The answer to our search is found simply, but we don’t want simple, easy answers. We always try to make something harder than it should be so that we feel like we earned it. The problem with that kind of thinking is that we can’t earn our way into eternal life or into Heaven itself.

The answer to our search and to all of the empty feelings is Jesus, plain and simple. We were designed with a need for Him, but we are born not knowing Him. When you find out about Him and what He means to your life, then you have a choice to make: follow Him and ask Him to come into your heart or turn away from Him and walk away, choosing to do things your way because you know better than God how to handle your life.

What a preposterous idea and attitude! How could you know better than God about anything? He is the Creator and Sustainer of it all, especially of our lives and what we can do with them. I agree that we each know what we want out of life, most of the time, and we might be able to get it. But is it the right thing or the right way to do it? Are you going to get yourself into more trouble and heartache because of the decisions that you make on your own? It is possible, you know?

We don’t make the most intelligent choices sometimes when it comes to choosing our spouse or our cars or even our jobs. Sometimes, we don’t even make the best choices when it comes to choosing our friends. The best choice is to choose to be friends with Jesus. Talk to Him about your other problems, regardless of how small they are or how big they might seem to be. God is bigger than all of your problems and He can handle them all, even the little ones and all of the ones in between.