What does it take?

Does it take miraculous healing in your life for you to believe in Jesus? Some do feel this way. They are “asking for a sign” just as those who crucified Him. He told them that “no sign will be given to you except for the sign of Jonah“. What does that mean exactly? Jesus spoke of His burial after the crucifixion where He would spend 3 days in the grave and then rise again.

But He didn’t spend three days in the grave? According to the way the Jewish calendar marks days, He did. Their calendar is based on the lunar cycle and they count days beginning and ending at sunrise and sunset. He was arrested during the night of Friday, beginning of the day, His “trial” lasted into the early morning, and then His body had to be taken down before sundown which was the beginning of their Sabbath. Then, of course, the third day began at sundown on the Sabbath and by sunrise on the first day of the week, His tomb was empty!

So, what does it take for you to believe in Him for your salvation? He came out of the tomb just as He said He would. He stayed with His disciples for 40 days and then ascended into the clouds. Even the angels who spoke to the disciples on that day said He would return in the same way when He comes back. Isn’t that enough proof?

I know, there are also people who don’t believe that the Bible is true. Well, I don’t have the patience or the knowledge to prove the Bible to you except to tell you that ALL of the prophecies contained in it’s pages have come true except for the taking up of the church (the rapture) and the prophecies contained in the book of Revelation. So, if you are stubborn enough to ignore all of the evidence then you are welcome to enjoy the wrath of God during the Tribulation. Thank you for your attention.

We are His workmanship

Those who don’t follow God…

The increase of his house shall depart, And his goods shall flow away in the day of his wrath. This is the portion of a wicked man from God, And the heritage appointed unto him by God. Job 20:28‭-‬29 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/job.20.28-29.KJV

But, what about those who don’t follow God and seem to be blessed beyond measure? God may be testing them to see if they will acknowledge Him and the blessings that they have. It is also possible that the devil is making sure that they get their “wants” in this life so that they might not seek God for His blessings. There is always a struggle in this world between our needs and our ideas of what we “need” to have. One of those is an actual need and the other is just something that we think we need.

When you are following God’s precepts and His wisdom, He will supply all of your real needs if you are depending on Him for your provision. But…for many people, Christians or not, truly depending on God for your daily needs is not as easy as it sounds. Most people don’t wake up thanking God for giving them another day to be in this world. Many don’t even give any thought to Him until something in their life goes wrong or turns in a direction that they weren’t expecting. Then many of them blame Him for whatever is going wrong!

If you don’t know God or Jesus as your Savior, why would you blame Him for whatever is going wrong in your life? He doesn’t punish you for things that aren’t going your way just because you haven’t heard His voice in your spirit/heart that you need Him. Many times that small voice may not show up in your “spiritual ears” until He gives you a seed of faith that will allow you to hear it and sometimes it takes a bad diagnosis or some other problem in your life that will get your attention!

When you hear Him and decide that you need Him as your Savior, I’m loathed to tell you this but this is when the devil puts a target on you and your life. Why? Because now you have gone over to the enemy’s camp. While you are living your life without Jesus as your Savior, the devil doesn’t really care what you do. But when you give your heart and your life to Him then you become a problem in his eyes. You will have trouble in the world even after you’ve given your heart to Jesus and possibly even more than you had before but now you have Him to lean on for strength and protection.

Watch “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross (Hymn Charts with Lyrics, Contemporary)” on YouTube

Watch “Satan uses our reality to mess with our revelation. 🐍” on YouTube

Repent and be baptized…

Teach me…

Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: And cause me to understand wherein I have erred. How forcible are right words! But what doth your arguing reprove? Job 6:24‭-‬25 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/job.6.24-25.KJV

How wide and deep is your faith?

When we hear the call of Jesus in our hearts and choose to follow Him our faith is the drip that becomes, or should become, a roar in our lives. God uses the Holy Spirit to touch our hearts and plant a seed that will grow into a new creation. It is our responsibility to help that seed to grow by watering it with the Living Water of God’s Word.

Some people tend toward watering it occasionally, like once or twice every year. Some who feel God leading them into a deeper relationship will water it a few times every month. Those who demand to be His disciples and want an intimate relationship with Him will water that seed every day regardless of what is going on in their lives. On the drive to work, while they are at work they will listen to Bible readings when they can. They will listen to praise and worship music and be in the spirit of worship on their way home.

I’m sure there are some different people who fit into a category in between those that I spoke about in the paragraph above and there are a few who dive deeper into the Scriptures than the disciples I spoke about as well. My point is that we, as Christian believers, fall into all sorts of slots and categories. Some are deeply involved in the mission field, some teach classes at the church, some lead Bible study sessions/classes at their homes and then there are some who have received Jesus and are confused about their role so they don’t do anything with it except attend church…sometimes.

There were people in all of these areas even in the early church but not many. Why do I say this? Because, most of the people in that early church just fifty to one hundred years after Jesus was taken up to Heaven were Jewish converts to Christianity. They had the Scriptures that were taught in their synagogues and had learned to have faith in God from their history and the prophets and had been persuaded that their Messiah was Jesus Christ! While it was true that there were also many pagans who had come to know Jesus as their Savior, a good percentage of the early church were, like Paul, converts from Judaism. Their faith was built on the Old Testament and what they had heard from the disciples and Paul himself. Most of them had unshakable faith.

The church today has become more “flexible” in their teachings and in their faith which can be a good thing but in some areas of the “message” flexibility can be a bad thing. Because it can lead many to believe that they can live like a Christian and not commit deeply to it. Being “like a Christian” is like being “sorta pregnant”, it doesn’t work that way! You either are or you’re not!

A lament of Job

It stood still, But I could not discern the form thereof: An image was before mine eyes, There was silence, and I heard a voice, saying, Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his maker? Behold, he put no trust in his servants; And his angels he charged with folly: How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, Whose foundation is in the dust, Which are crushed before the moth? They are destroyed from morning to evening: They perish for ever without any regarding it. Job 4:16‭-‬20 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/job.4.16-20.KJV

Job had lost everything, even his health, but he would not blame God for it. He praised God in that he didn’t blame Him for all that had happened, but he also asked many times why this was happening. His integrity and his faith in God never waivered.

This is the kind of faith all of us should aspire to. I don’t want to go through what he did in order to have this strong faith but studying God’s Word should produce in each of us a steadfast and unshakable faith that will carry us through all of our trials.

You have a mighty God, live like it!

When I am afraid,
I put my trust in you—Psalm 56:3

So many people in the United States claim to be “Christians” yet less than half of them attend church as “OHO” (On Holidays Only) Christians. How can you claim to be one and not live it each day? I know the “pandemic” threw everyone out of sync with what we were used to but if you have faith in God why not trust Him for your protection from a bug like covid-19?

I don’t mean that Christians should be on the street corners preaching every day but if we could just determine to pray for our country and the world itself for just one hour each day I believe it would make a big difference. If our churches would get a few faithful people together and all of them would pledge to pray for revival and for our world one hour each day, it would make a big impact. Especially if one person started at…say 8 am, then the next one began praying at 9 am, then the next one at 10 am, and get enough people to do this for 24 hours this week it could truly make a change in our world. I know that it would be difficult to get up during the wee hours of the morning but some people do that just to go hunting without any idea that they will be successful.

It is just an idea but our world needs radical ideas right now and prayer doesn’t have to be a constant drone of the Lord’s Prayer. Just be praying for God’s intervention in the affairs of mankind and for those on your church’s prayer list or your family even. Talk to God like you would to a friend and then shut up and listen because He might just speak to you too.