Category: Religion

“Take the gospel to all people..”


This is part of the command which was given to the disciples by Jesus before His ascension to the Father. We, as Christians today, are also recipients of this command by extension because we are supposed to be His disciples today! Have we taken His gospel to all people? Not our version of it, but His gospel! That is another of my problems with some churches, in the past and in modern times. It seems that many of our “denominations” have taken their creed, their ideas, their doctrines too far and they give equal weight to their man-made rules and the Bible.

How can we, as created beings, give our laws and doctrines the same weight in spiritual places as God’s Word? Did any of you bring about a world today? Can you stop time and make the sun do your bidding? We are not gods! So why would laws made in a church conference meeting have the same weight in worship services as God’s Word? Mankind’s words should never be taken in any context as being equal to the Word of God! Yet, there are some congregations which do this on a regular basis.

I believe that we are going down a very dangerous path if we are doing this. The church today, regardless of the name or denomination, should be based upon the whole Word of God and nothing more. If you must have rules in your church that are different from the words found in the Bible, then they should be just rules for your church and nothing more.

God doesn’t share His throne with us, nor does He share it with a specific denomination which follows their man-made rules more than His commandments!

When men and women in a church think that their words are equal to the Word of God, there is a real problem. The church today HAS a real problem. We need to get back into God’s Word and stand on His Word because if we represent Him it is His Word that we are supposed to be holding up for the world to see, not our ideas and our “rules”. His Word has proven true time and time again in prophecy and in its wisdom and content. How many of our representatives in Washington or anywhere else can you say that about?

God’s Word is the Word of Truth and if we are not going to believe it and at least TRY to live by His Word, then we should stop claiming to be Christians or believers!

John 3:16,17 says:

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

If we are not teaching and preaching these verses from God’s Word and the other truths contained within it, then we shouldn’t be teachers nor preachers at all! When you hear a “sermon” which sounds like it came out of a “self-help” book rather than the Bible, you should RUN out of the building and leave that place! Even though much of the wisdom written in self-help books does sound like it has some basis in God’s Word, the sermon in a church should be from God’s Word, not from a man’s own wisdom.

Are you satisfied..with God?


You know, it sounds like a very silly question doesn’t it? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about His satisfaction with us? Actually, it really is a give and take relationship…a two-way relationship between you and God! Why wouldn’t we be satisfied with Him? Maybe He didn’t answer your prayer the way you thought He should or maybe something happened to you or a family member and you prayed to Him about it and got no peace about it or no answer at all.

God is not a genie! He is the Creator of the entire universe from the largest galaxy to the smallest particles of matter! He doesn’t have to answer your prayers the way that you want Him to! Especially, if your ideas and your wants conflict with what He has waiting for you! God loves you more than you know, but you need to realize that He is in control and learn to be satisfied with Him!

Satisfaction with God is not something which is automatic because we are not satisfied with out own lives most of the time. Being satisfied with God is knowing that He has your best interests in mind and knowing that He can see the future of this action or this prayer and He is going to work in your life for the best outcome, no matter what! Granted, there are times when the best outcome may be to bring you home to Heaven rather than allowing you to suffer here on Earth. We may not have the ability to heal your problems, but God can.

Although, sometimes His way of healing happens to include your travel to Heaven to stay. The connection between believers and God has to do with your Spirit which changed you into a born-again, sanctified Christian is always in communication with God, even if you are not. The Spirit living inside you is part of the Trinity and it is that part which is always in touch with God, as long as you haven’t quenched the Spirit’s influence or grieved the Spirit in any way.

The question about those two things weighed on my heart for a long time until recently, so I will give you the definition that I received. Quenching the Spirit is concerning something that God wants us to do and we don’t do it, grieving the Spirit is when you do something that is against God’s command or purpose in your life, like drinking a beer or smoking a joint especially when someone else may see you do it. You have grieved God’s Spirit in your life and you have ruined your testimony in front of someone else who knows that you claim to be a Christian.

We are complicated beings made in God’s image with a physical body, an immortal soul and if you are a Christian you have the Holy Spirit residing inside you to teach you, comfort you, strengthen you and guide you through whatever life throws your way. In order to live that kind of life, you need to learn about Him and His ways so you can listen to His voice and recognize it as God. The only way to do this is by reading God’s Word so you will know what His voice, His Word sounds like. It will always involve a relationship to either Himself or Jesus and it will never seek to do something which is against a command in the Bible.

Learn His ways by reading His Word and praying about what you read. Go to a Bible teaching church, regardless of the denomination, so that you will hear from His Word and not just someone’s ideas about God. Being satisfied with God and His provision for your life is something which we all need to do, even though it isn’t easy sometimes. It is a learning process just as being a Christian is. Yes, you can become a Christian by giving your heart to Jesus, but you have to learn to walk with Him on a daily basis and learn from Him and the Word so that you can be an effective witness to others.

When you give your heart to Him and truly ask Him to forgive you and make you His, you are a babe in Christ and just like babies we all have to grow and learn. Being a Christian is not automatic and it isn’t the easiest job to learn either, but it is well worth it! Satisfaction with Him will come as you learn more about Him and mature in your faith. Put your trust…your faith in Him like you see children trusting their parents or like your dog trusts you and you will learn quickly that it is the best relationship that you have ever had!

So much…so fast…


What can we do? It seems that life, daily and around the world, is moving too fast. We start a new year and then six months have gone by, almost in a flash. News, shootings, wars, politicians vying for your vote and trying to tear their opponent down. Why is all of this going by the way that it is? Is it because we are getting older or is the world around us speeding up? Maybe the ruler of this world is causing everything to happen in such a way that we see it happening and it is just too much to grasp.

I think it is because of all the information channels which we have at our fingertips. We have Facebook, we have the Internet and all of it’s news sites, we have cell phones which can get online anywhere at anytime, and we still have the news and news papers. Although to us in this day and age, the television and the newspaper are out of date the minute they print a story or when it is broadcast.

At the beginning of the 20th century life moved a lot slower than it does now. In 1916, the world was involved in World War 1, the Ford Motor Company had made cars available as long as you didn’t mind it being in black, a few people had an early version of the telephone. For the most part, people still traveled by horse and buggy and most people were farmers or ranch hands if you lived out West. There were still a few territories which had not even become states yet. It had only been fifty years or so since the Civil War had ended.

Now we are only one century from that point and where are we? Everyone seems to be doing their own thing, regardless of whether it is the right thing or not. Cell phones with cameras are in everyone’s hands today, so nothing is private anymore. You can be recorded doing anything, anywhere at any time. There are very few farmers anymore, food is produced by corporations and shipped in from all over the world, except for a few local markets. We have been through at least four wars since the first world war and the second was worse.

We have had much strife and endless society problems since the “new century” began, but have we managed to do anything constructive in the last fifteen years? Not really.

I have seen over five decades of life and yet that is just the beginning of life for many. Over that time, there have been many problems in society, in our country yet when you consider all of the promises that have been made by various politicians…nothing has really changed for the better. Why are we still dealing with so much racism and hatred? Is it because of true racial problems or are they magnified by those who wish to keep us at each other’s throats? I believe it is just that!

We have taken God’s Word from education and that is against God’s ways, because He said that we should train our children by His Word. We have taken prayer out of schools and the pledge of allegiance too, all in the name of “political correctness”. Just so others, even if it is only one person, are not offended in some way. All of this political correctness began early in the last century but it really gained traction in the ’60’s and has become like a chain on every part of life today.

The only way to get our country back on the right track is for there to be a national revival. Come back to God’s house and learn from Him what is required, what is needed. God loves each of us, yet we have pushed Him away to the point of receiving judgement from Him and it seems very likely that we will get just that.

Turn ye back to the Lord! God has not given up on us, yet we have walked away from Him. He changes not, but we have moved away from Him and we, as a nation, seem to think that we can make all things be right on our own. We NEED God! I pray that anyone who reads this will repent from their sinful ways and return to Him before it is too late.

Amen.

What is important to you?


There seems to be many people who are running around searching for something which makes them feel good. The travel to places which are beautiful, they go to sports arenas and watch football games and baseball games, some go to race tracks and watch professional drivers run around in circles. Many go on trips called vacations to places that they do not live, to see things for a few days and live there for those few days, sometimes in the lap of luxury. Then what?

You come home. The excitement and the newness of living has worn off. You are sitting in a house, a home, with the same people who went on the vacation but..something is missing. You feel restless, unsatisfied, nervous, anxious, what do you do? Many who can afford to will be off on another trip, somewhere. Anywhere but at home, in a place that is boring and uninteresting.

Contentment is hard to find, unless you have allowed it to find you first. Contentment is a state of mind where you know where you belong and to whom you belong. You don’t have to be married to be content, but it doesn’t hurt! Paul wrote “I have learned to be content in whatever state I find myself in” Philippians 4:11 , wouldn’t it be great if we could all find that place?

Contentment, what is important to you, these two are not exclusive, they are the same. Have you found your place, your “happy place”, the place where you are content and fulfilled with where you are and who you are? Sadly, some people never find that place. Many search for it their entire lives and don’t realize it until they are on their death-bed. By then, it’s too late to enjoy it. I see it in many of my friend’s lives and some of my classmate’s lives as well. Over the years I have watched many of them chase after something which is elusive like a puff of smoke.

A few have found it, but some are still looking even after their children are grown and they are retired from their jobs. Why? Your job doesn’t usually give you contentment and sometimes neither does your family. It seems that many people are content until one or the other is gone, the job or the family and children. Then what do you do?

We identify with our jobs or our family during the productive years of our lives and then when we get to a point, whether young or middle-aged or past 65, where we have the option or maybe we have been forced to “retire” from work, we find that our identity was our contentment. Now that we are past the point of being productive in work or raising a family, life is a big question mark now. Who am I? What do I do now?

Seek out your Savior! If you have not done this during your so-called “productive years”, then truly you need to make it a point to do it today! Why? Because, that place where you have placed your contented feelings during your career or while raising a family is now empty. It was supposed to contain the Holy Spirit all along! Ask Jesus to come in and clean out the space which has been occupied by life and all of its busyness and place His Spirit in there!

That is where Paul got his contentment from. He was a murdering, hunter of the followers of “the Way”, until Jesus stopped him and got in his face. If you have felt the call of Jesus, but you have pushed Him aside, it isn’t too late. Seek Him out in scripture and in a real Bible teaching church, then ask Him to come into your life and clean out the cobwebs and the left over stuff from your life. When He does, you should begin to study and read His Word!

It doesn’t matter if you haven’t understood it before, with His Spirit helping you, the meanings will be clearer. If you can’t grasp something that the Bible says, ask Jesus to make it plain to you so you can.

Then, the things which are important will rearrange themselves and begin to line up from His perspective and your perspective will be lined up with His. That is contentment and being in that place is more rewarding than any “vacation” or any amount of fun that you could have before. I don’t mean that you have to stop doing those things, just keep your eyes focused on Jesus first. Take Him with you, learn to love things from His point of view. He is the Creator, so enjoy His creation, and when you do it in that order…contentment will come to live with you.

Seconds, minutes, hours….


We are very attached to our measurement of time. We seem to obsess over how little we seem to have, but the issue has always been with us. From the moment of our birth until the day that we die, the seconds, minutes and hours tick by whether we use them or not. Yet, we complain about not having enough. We have 86,400 seconds allotted to each of us every day. What you do with them is up to you. From midnight to sunrise there are approximately 21,600 seconds which most of us sleep through (if we sleep until 6 am).

From that point on until midnight the next night, you have 64,800 seconds until the next day begins.

Looking at our days like this, it seems that we waste more time than we thought we did. Is there anything that we can do about this? Not really. We have to sleep, we have to eat at some point, and many of us have to drive to and from work every day. By the time you factor in all of that, most of your day is spent.

Jesus said that we should work while the day is here, because the night comes and no man can work. There are many who do work night shifts, but in His day the only people who did so were shepherds who watched over their flocks at night. During the night hours, the only other people who are out are criminals who steal, kill or otherwise commit crimes. Today, there are the police and firefighters who are also working during the night, along with nurses, doctors and emergency medical personnel.

Why am I writing about time here? Because, we all have a limited amount of it in our lifetimes and we must be about the work that we are assigned by God while we can. It is true that we may have other jobs to perform as well, but if you are a Christian then you have a job assigned to you to let others know about His love for them! They need to know because they will be sent to hell and if you have the chance to tell them and you don’t, then you will have to answer for it.

I don’t mean to frighten anyone, and you won’t lose your salvation but you may lose a reward in Heaven for not telling the people who you could’ve and you didn’t. Compared to eternity, our life passes by like a second on your watch. We should be trying to do all that we can to tell those, particularly those who you count as friends and relatives, about the love of Jesus and that He died for them! If they don’t accept the gospel and accept Him or they tell you that they are already saved, then you have done all that you can to help. It is up to the Holy Spirit to convict them and bring them back from the far country.

Time is precious and it is coming to the end of the church age as I type this. It is true, we may have another ten or twenty years, but in my heart and according to all of the prophecies which have been fulfilled I am not sure how much time we really have left. Do what you can and then give the matter over to God.

In His Service.

Prayer..is it necessary?


Some religions require you to pray a certain number of times each day, but is that enough? Are we praying for the right things or are we just reciting prayers that we learned as children? Prayer is a two-way communication not just a request line! Saying the same prayer over and over again doesn’t work, because you aren’t speaking to God if you are just repeating words which have no substance or meaning.

God is our Creator and He is interested in your life every day, not just when you are in trouble or you feel the need to get in touch with Him. Prayer is like talking to your Dad or your Mom, except that God can actually do something about a problem no matter what it may be!

The reason that I am writing about this is that it seems that many people use prayer as an emergency line. When something happens that they can’t handle, they cry out to God for His Presence right then! God hears these prayers, and He will answer them in His time not yours. He is God, not a bell boy or a genie and He doesn’t do your bidding regardless of how much money you gave to the church last year!

God loves each of us and He hears our prayers, what we don’t understand is that He wants a relationship with us. One that is in communication on a regular basis, not just when something in your life is going wrong! As it says in Numbers and Exodus, when you teach your children His statutes at rising, when you are walking along and before bed. God desires to hear a word or prayer from you when you get up, thank Him for your rest and for allowing you to get up, as your day progresses thank Him for your success during the day and when the day is through thank Him for strength to get through another day.

These prayers don’t take long to say and they don’t have to be complicated, they can even be as simple as “Thank you, Lord, for today” or “Thank you for waking me this morning, Lord.” It sounds like a trite, simple prayer but isn’t that the kind of prayer that you hear your children saying when they are young? God likes those prayers too, even if they are coming from you and me.

So much yet so little…


madewholeinHeavenI have written about this topic before, but maybe under a different name or title. Why do we see “stuff” as our measure of success? Yes, I have heard the adage about the one who dies with the most toys wins, but it isn’t true! You could have all of the money, fame, toys, real estate that one person could never use all of it and enjoy it yet when your death comes you will not take any of it with you. Oh sure, you could be buried in your favorite car or your leather recliner if you wish, but when you are standing in front of God to give account of your life…you will be there alone if you don’t have Jesus as your Savior.

Many people seem to think that life ends when you breathe your last breath here and its true that your physical life does end. But, we are beings made up of a body, a soul and a spirit and after your body dies, the other two live on into eternity. Where they live in eternity is up to your decision now, while your body still lives! A life lived here of 80 or even 100 years seems to be a long life, but compare that to 1,000 years or even 10,000 years! Ten thousand years is just the beginning of eternity! Even after one million years, eternity hasn’t started good yet!

So, what you do with your Savior does matter! If you accept Him and repent of your sins, then your next residence will be a sure and wonderful place to live. Toys, grown-up or not, don’t follow you into eternity. Money doesn’t mean much when you live on a street which is paved with gold. The gates of the city of Jerusalem in Heaven are made of solid pearls and other precious stones which are not found here. Your soul is worth more than ALL of the money on Earth which is approximately 300 to 500 trillion dollars the last time I checked on Google. I know that wasn’t a scientific search, but as I said it is an approximate amount.

HELL-105818653518Consider the alternative: If you haven’t given your heart to Jesus or repented of your sins, then your eternity will be in the same place as the angels who rebelled with Satan. Punishment in a lake of fire which never goes out, for eternity. God doesn’t send you there, you do by making a choice of doing things your way and believing the lie that if you are good enough, God will let you in. Our religious lives and all of the works that you can do and the money given to the poor are not good enough! If you haven’t cleansed your heart by asking Jesus to come into your life and saving you and then repent of your sins so that you can become more like Jesus until your death, none of your religion or your position in the church will matter!

Daily problems and an eternal cure


Yesterday was my son’s birthday and we were supposed to go out to eat. He and his mother did, I had sinus problems which caused me to get sick enough to puke and had to stay at home. Ruined my day in some ways, but we had pizza and birthday cake (chocolate) with ice cream for dessert so all around, a pretty good save!

Life goes on regardless of your health problems, good or bad, we all have them. God is there to give you peace and comfort and to strengthen you at those times when you truly need it. My day, yesterday, began in a weird way anyhow. Dreams which were so vivid I felt I could touch them, but I didn’t want to because of the nature of them. It was as if Satan was showing me a video of what is going to be in outer darkness and the parts of hell where the fire is not!

I was, at least, able to call out to God and get out of that situation, but the nausea remained and grew worse. Why am I speaking of my day in this way, particularly here? Because, I need for you to know that I have days like this. I may be a pastor of a small church and a blogging pastor too but my days are not always “on top of the mountain” days. I do have fits and sputters of days and days where I fall entirely into the valley where the demons live. Yet…God carries me through all of those unsavory places with His Strength and His peace.

Is life perfect? Of course not…at least not yet. It will come as close as possible when Jesus begins His rule on Earth for one thousand years and then when the new Heaven and Earth come it will be perfectly wonderful beyond anyone’s wildest imagination! I can’t give you much of a description because of a limited imagination and the fact that there are no detailed descriptions of our future home. John tries to do it and some other writers attempt to give you a description of it, but from what some reported visitations have said in movies and books, the colors and textures of Heaven just don’t translate well into ordinary language.

Our minds can’t put into words the views and the texture of it and then you have to think of the clarity and the smell of Heaven, it would be like I have written before “like trying to describe blue or red to someone who was blind from birth”! They don’t have a concept of the color and if they haven’t seen it before then a description falls far short of what it is! It is the same with any description of Heaven, those of us on Earth have never experienced a perfect world, one which has deeper, richer colors and textures and even smells than we can experience here.

Life here is limited to our place…where we live, what we are exposed to and our ability to understand all that God has placed in our life. We can’t understand how a person living in Mongolia or the Congo or India lives because “we haven’t walked in their shoes or their sandals”. Even in America, there are many different cities and problems within those cities where we can’t understand the reason for the violence and other problems because unless you live there, you CAN’T know anything about it!

The best part of being a Christian is that we can live here expecting Jesus to come and we will have a home there too. Why bring this up today? Because, we all have problems and there are bad things happening in this world every day but…God is in control and He knows what is happening and why. Could He stop many of the things which are happening? Yes, but what would we learn from life if an angel came to our rescue every time? What would we learn about life and living if we looked for God to give us everything and we didn’t have to do anything for it?

We would be treating Him like many people look to the government today, waiting for their stamps and their money to be put on the card again. There is no need to try to get a job or go to school because the government will take care of all your needs.

Having faith in God to take care of your needs is not the same as Him providing everything for your daily life. He does want us to depend on Him, but if you aren’t willing to live your life as if you are His child then why should He? God loves you so much that His Son took on human flesh to live among us and then die for our sins so that we can belong to His family! If you can’t be bothered with living the way He wants you to, then He might just let your life be like you are living it rather than the way it could be.

So much strife


Today it seems that is all that is on the news, whether it is a cable channel or a national network. Everyone seems to be having truly hard times in the world that we live in. From wars and persecution in the Middle East and Asia to natural disasters like the flooding in South Mississippi and Louisiana. Is there anything or anyone who can help or even cares enough to help?

It seems that the government has taken a holiday since the beginning of the flood in the South and nobody seems to care one bit about the people caught up in it. Is there anyone who will help? Yes, local people and police and fire departments are helping. Some churches and other organizations are helping as much as they can. The national guard has been called up in most of the areas, where the flooding is the worst, to help with rescues and to keep the looting down.

Why do these problems and disasters bring out some of the good and some of the really bad in people? It seems that the bad is more pronounced because of these situations rather than bringing out the better side of people. So what happened?

I am not sure exactly. Many of the people who are looting and doing other crimes are young people who should know better! Why aren’t they being taught right from wrong and how to be productive citizens rather than being people who demand everything be given to them for free? I am sure that our schools had nothing to do with this, because they don’t teach morals in schools anymore because the teachers aren’t allowed to.

What happened? Well, about fifty-three years ago prayer was taken out of schools as well as teaching from the Bible and lately our pledge of allegiance has suffered the same fate because of being politically correct and not being offensive. All of these things have taken pride in your country and the sense of right and wrong out of education. Life isn’t fair to everyone and our progressive government from back then and today has made it harder for those on the lower socioeconomic scale to get out of their situations and make life better.

Jesus came to do the same thing. He did not intend for everyone to share equally in all things, like socialist countries do, but Heaven is meant for those who belong to Him. In Heaven we will all be equal because we will be serving Him in His Kingdom! We will have different jobs to do and abilities to use to do so, but in God’s eyes we are equal but different. Not due to the color of our skin, but because He gave each of us a talent and a purpose before we were even born and we will fulfill our purpose in His Kingdom!

Have you asked Jesus to come into your life and to forgive you of your sins? If you haven’t, what are you waiting for? None of us are guaranteed to see another sunrise, but we have today, right now. If you have felt the Spirit calling you to repent and come to Jesus, don’t put it off. Come to Him, ask Him to forgive you for waiting so long and then make sure that you find a Bible teaching church or at least someone who knows Him and can lead you in studying the Bible.

Do you believe in Jesus?


I could’ve put anything at the end of that sentence, but Jesus seems more appropriate, particularly for this site. Why is this an important question? Because if you do believe in Him and have asked Him into your life then your eternity is sure regardless of the religious climate we live in today. If you don’t believe and have no desire to believe in Him, until you realize your error you will always be searching for something to fill the emptiness in your life.

How do I know that you feel empty and unfulfilled in your life? God designed us to be spiritual beings, not in a nonphysical sense but men and women who desire to know God and have a relationship with Him. If you don’t know Him and you don’t have a relationship with God, then you will feel empty in a way that can’t be explained medically or physically. I know because we all feel this at some point in our lives. Not one of us on this Earth, with the exception of Jesus, was born with God’s Spirit living within us. There has always been a void, an empty feeling, like something is missing but you can’t put your finger on it.

Many of us try to fill that spot with all sorts of things, sometimes we do this for a very long time, but until you find the right “fit” nothing will make the emptiness go away. There is no amount of money, prestige, or fame which will take the ache of the empty space away. No drug or relationship will ease the feeling that something just isn’t right. So, what can we do about this? Well, the only thing that we can do is search for the one thing which will fill that void but if we don’t look in the right place, we will never find Him.

I am speaking of Jesus and He will come into your life and change your heart and make you a “new Creation in Christ“! God loves you and every other person on this planet and He has provided a way for your salvation through Jesus. It is not a salvation through a legal system of things which you have to perform or adhere to in a certain way, it is not a salvation which is based upon your actions or your own beliefs. Faith in Jesus and in His sacrifice for you, believing that He did this to pay for your sins is the only requirement.

Yes, you may get baptized afterward and begin to tell people what He has saved you from but that isn’t absolutely necessary. Think of the thief on the cross, Jesus told him that “today you will be with me in Paradise“, and he couldn’t get baptized or tell anyone about His Savior! Yes, it is wonderful to tell others about Him and what He has saved you from, but isn’t it great that you really don’t have to work to attain salvation on your own merit!

The time for this Earth and the secular governments running it is growing short and we should be searching for our Savior. He is not a man who lives here with might and power and money, but He is the Son of God and our Creator. Be prayerfully seeking Him if you don’t know Him yet. Trust in His Word and His atonement for you and your sins, because there are no other paths to Heaven except through Him, regardless of what you may hear in the media or from the Pope.