Overcome with prayer

Help, this morning I woke up at 2:35 am. Thinking about all of the people that I might’ve hurt in my lifetime. With an ill-spoken word or by ignoring them or some other way that I didn’t think of at the time but for some reason it is coming back to haunt me today. This morning it woke me up and all I could do from then on was pray and ask for forgiveness. I know the Lord has forgiven me but I pray that the spirits of those that I have hurt will convey this message to them as well.

“I am sorry for whatever I said or did in the years past.” I can’t do anything more than this.

Our lives are too short to push each other away or to cut each of us out of the other’s life. It won’t be long before that day comes when Jesus will come for His church, His Bride and if you aren’t a part of that then your eternity will be very different from mine. Whatever happens in this life is meaningless unless it is done for Jesus Christ. Friends, family, and acquaintances, and Facebook friends are great when the times are good but when things go wrong or your health is getting worse you will find out which ones are really your friends.

I am not bringing this up as a rant but as a call to repentance. Our country and the whole world needs to seek Jesus as our collective Savior and repent of our sinful lives and of pushing Him away. If you have felt His touch in your life, especially with the troubles that we have all had these past two years, seek Him to be your Savior. He is waiting, all you have to do is open the door and invite Him in.

Let us reason together

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. Isaiah 1:18‭-‬20 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/isa.1.18-20.KJV

The Lord is my strength

The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him. Psalm 28:7 KJV https://bible.com/verse-of-the-day/psa.28.7/56536

If we were on our own…

If there was no Savior. If there had not been a Seed of the Woman…humanity would be lost and without hope. At the very beginning, we would’ve been walking east from Eden as Cain did. We would still be worshiping idols in Haran. We would be living in slavery under a Pharaoh or serving Goliath and the Philistines. All of this would’ve happened if God did not care about us. He would’ve just created humanity and then sat back and watched. He would have seen mankind wipe each other off the face of the Earth long before Abram was born or even soon after Noah was born…if God didn’t love us.

If He had left us on our own, He would’ve had to create mankind over and over again until we finally understood that we needed to follow His wisdom and His way. But God didn’t do that because He can see down through time what was going to happen and that He would have to “move the pieces” so that things would work out the way He wanted them to. If you don’t believe that God is in control of this world, read the book of Daniel.

God places kings and Presidents and others who think they are in “control” and He does it so that His glory will be seen when His plans come to pass. Nothing happens here that He is not aware of. Can we make our decisions? Of course, we can but God is still in the background making sure that His prophecies come about.

Soon, the whole world will know that He is God and that the Bible is true. When the dead in Christ rise into the air and those of us who are Christians join them to be with Him forever, the whole world will know it! They will come up with some crazy story about what happened but anyone who has heard an End-Times sermon will know what happened and many people will be looking for the Truth but it will be too late. The Tribulation and the wrath of God will be coming soon after this and there will be no escape.

The deep love of God

According to David in the Psalms, God’s love is unknowable and it is beyond our comprehension. If you are in hell, His love is still there. If you are on a mountain, He is there. If you are in the depths of the ocean, He is there. His love is everywhere that you are because He loves you. So why does the whole world act as if God is a Bad Person? The whole world seems to think that God doesn’t care about His Creation at all.

If God didn’t care about His Creation, everything in the universe would just vanish into nothing. “He holds all that exists by His Word”; the entire universe is held together by His power. Nothing that we see or know would exist, not even us, if He did not have the power to keep it all together.

Your life and mine, the fish in the sea and the birds of the air are all a part of His daily work. Not because He has to do it but because He wants to keep creation going until His Word is fulfilled. God has decreed that until everything is accomplished that He intended for His creation, not one part of His Word would be nullified.

God knew each of us before the Garden was created or the Earth or anything in the universe so why do we doubt Him in everything that He says in His Word? Jesus came to save mankind from themselves and from their sinful ways. He came to give us a chance and a choice but there are so many who either don’t want His offer of grace and mercy or they don’t believe in Him, to begin with. “A fool says in his heart that there is no God”; what does that say about most of the world?

Our country and the entire world are running as fast as possible away from God. The problem with this is the same problem that the prophet Jonah had. When you try to run from God, you usually run into Him. You can’t run from God!

Are you joyful?

A Psalm for ^ogiving thanks.

Psalm 100

1 Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!

2 Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!

3 Know that the LORD, he is God!

It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!

5 For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

This Psalm gives us the way that we should be worshiping Him every day! Why should we be so joyful? Because He has saved us from an eternity of separation from Him. That would be an unbearable eternity even if it wasn’t accompanied by the fire of the lake of fire. You will be in a place where there is no life-sustaining water or love…forever!

Why would anyone want to be in such a place? Seek out your Savior because He loved you enough to come and die for your sins so that you might live with Him into eternity. God knew that each of us would need Him at some point in our lives. Some of us will seek Him out and give our lives to Him and some of us will hear messages about His love and forgiveness, sometimes for years, and they may never give their life to Him. Why?

Some of us are not interested in following Him even if we feel that tug on our heart and we recognize it as the Holy Spirit. Is it because we think we are good enough or that we don’t need Him? I can’t say that about anyone because I don’t know your heart. I know at one time that I fell into that deceit about my own idea of my righteousness. God knows your heart and He knows that you need Him, so when He touches your heart you should listen to His call and respond to it.

Should we give thanks and be joyful in our worship of Him? Yes, every day! Because there is no other way for us to be saved, and we cannot save ourselves, from an eternity of separation if we don’t accept Him as our Savior. Some believe that they don’t need Jesus as their Savior. How could that be true? He came and paid the penalty for all of the sins of the world, every person’s sins and their penalty. Could you do that? No! He was and is the only One Who could fulfill all of the prophecies about Himself that were in the Old Testament and He did!

God loves you. He made it possible for you to have an eternity with Him in a place where everything is made to exalt Him and show His love for His creation. Eternity with Him will be the most enjoyable time of your life and there will never be a day with pain or tears or problems during that time.

Do not return to your old way

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Romans 12:2 KJV https://bible.com/verse-of-the-day/rom.12.2/2600

Love like He does

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 1 John 4:7 KJV https://bible.com/verse-of-the-day/1jn.4.7/13737

Joy in the Lord!

“Nehemiah 8:10 KJV

10Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

Every day should be as a holy day unto our Lord because Christians have salvation through Jesus Christ! We were chosen by Him to be His and to be a blessing to those around us because of our joy in Him. Have you ever thought about why you should have such assurance in Him? Consider what you have been saved from. When you gave your heart to Jesus and began following Him daily, not just on Sundays or holidays, the Holy Spirit changed your heart to be a new creation in Jesus Christ. You are not the same person who was born on a particular day to your parents. You are a new Christian born of the Spirit into God’s family and a joint heir with Jesus Christ! That is enough to bring joy into your life!

We have also been saved from an eternity of misery and pain by being in hell because of our choice to refuse God’s gift of grace through Jesus Christ. There will be many people in hell who thought they would be in heaven and there will likely be some in heaven who thought they might be in hell. Salvation brings us to a place where we can be part of God’s family and assured of a home in heaven. We are brought to the point of salvation by God’s Spirit touching our lives and convicting us of our NEED for Him. That is when we feel an overpowering need to find Jesus and to ask Him for His forgiveness. Most people will follow through with seeking Him out and beginning their journey with Him, but some will turn away.

Those who turn away from God’s calling for them to be saved will likely be doomed to hell because once you have been brought to the conviction of your need for salvation and then turn away, you will not be brought back again. If you accept it then you will be saved from that eternal punishment but there is no middle ground…no gray areas where you can be a Christian and then keep being your “old self” whenever you feel like it. Living and being a Christian is like being pregnant…you either are or you’re not!

God loves each of us and those that He calls to belong to Him are convicted by God’s Holy Spirit to know that what they were doing before He called them was sinful and they need to repent of it and follow Jesus. Have you felt that tug on your heart? Have you made your decision to follow Jesus Christ or will you turn away from Him? No decision is a decision and it may be one that you’ll regret for eternity.

Who was this Man?

Was Jesus just a man, like many people seem to think? An ordinary man could not walk on water. An ordinary man could not walk up to a grave after his friend was buried four days before and call him from the grave by name. An ordinary man could not orchestrate the place of His birth or His parents…God did. Jesus was and is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, and He has brought hope and healing to many millions of people in the last two thousand years. No normal “man” could do that.

Jesus died on a cross, one of the cruelest ways to die, and He was buried in a borrowed tomb but He rose again and walked out of that tomb on the third day. During the time after His resurrection, He was seen by all of His disciples and by at least five hundred at one time. Then He was taken up into the clouds while His disciples watched and two angels told them, “Why do you stand gazing into the sky after Him. He will come again in like manner one day”.

Jesus is our Savior and our Hope and the many who have placed their hearts and their hope in Him over time could attest to that. Many thousands of people have died for their faith in Him and you wouldn’t die for a lie or for “just a normal man or a prophet”. Many have died for their faith in Him that they wouldn’t recant and the “church” caused many of those deaths because people were reading God’s Word in their own language rather than coming to mass and listening to the Word of God being read to them in Latin. One day that church will be judged for those deaths.

God is waiting for the last person to come to know Jesus as their Savior and when that time comes, the church will be taken up and the world will mourn because they missed it. But then they will find another “messiah” and the time of Jacob’s Trouble will begin. The Earth will become more like hell than heaven during this time and I pray that any or all who would like to know Jesus as their Savior will seek Him out today because none of us are guaranteed tomorrow.