Be humble in God’s hands

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: 1 Peter 5:6 KJV https://bible.com/verse-of-the-day/1pe.5.6/67117

Can we relate?

Consider this: God the Son comes to Earth as a man, dies on a cross to redeem mankind’s sins as a human being and then rises again from the dead to be alive forever as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He was called the Living Word of God and the Son of God as well as many other names in the Old Testament. What I am bringing to your attention here is that He is the Creator of…everything. Perfect in judgment and unbounded in His love for us, sinless and Holy yet compassionate and caring. What can we, as humans, compare to Him? Even though His love for us is beyond our comprehension, His justice toward those who refuse His gift of grace and mercy is still righteous.

So…can we relate to Him? Can we understand Him? Only with the Holy Spirit guiding us and directing us can we possibly grasp even a tiny fraction of Who He is while in our mortal frame. His holiness would cause us to fall on our face so we could not look at Him in His glorified state. But He spent three years or so with a group of men, teaching them and showing them and many others the love of God. Not the vengeance and wrath of God but the caring and loving God that many people didn’t think existed. He showed compassion even to the demons when they asked to be sent into the herd of pigs rather than outer darkness.

Jesus is the embodiment of God’s love and compassion but when He returns He will also be judge to all of the nations who didn’t treat His Bride, the Church, very well. He will also be the judge of all who were against the Jewish nation over the many thousands of years past and up to the present time.

All of us who call Him our Savior and Lord were chosen by Him before the foundation of the world was set in its place. God was never caught off guard by the rebellion of Lucifer and those who followed him. God knew that with the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil mankind would rebel against His rule and determine to follow their own way. Today you can see it happening everywhere and it is getting worse as time moves toward the end of the age. When that day will be nobody knows but nearly everyone will know when it does happen. It will catch many people by surprise because they didn’t care to notice the signs ahead of time. Everyone who has ever gone to Sunday school or church or a revival or to Bible camp will recognize what has happened. Especially those who are left behind to see the anti-Christ come to power.

I pray that before that day arrives many more will come to know Jesus as their Savior because the time that will come after the church is taken up will be like hell on Earth for seven years.

What do you believe?

In our world today, many people don’t want to believe the truth. They would rather believe the lies and deceit of those who tell them what they want to hear. They would rather believe a politician than a preacher who is telling them about the Savior that they need. God loves each of you! He doesn’t like the life that you lead or the lifestyle that you cling to because it is not the life that He designed you to live. We are destined by our Creator for a certain task and we only find out about that task and our ability to fulfill it if we give our heart and our life to Jesus.

Now, some of you might say that “I don’t care about that destiny stuff if it involves going to church all the time!” Christians don’t go to church all of the time! We only go to church when the doors are open. My point is this: your eternity depends upon your decision about your Savior. If you accept Jesus as your Savior then your eternity is sealed and you will seek to do and be whatever God wants you to be in this life and the next. If you choose not to accept Jesus when you feel His touch during a service or at a revival or watching a preacher on TV…that may be the last time you get to choose. None of us are guaranteed to wake up tomorrow morning. We may have a wreck on the highway tonight or we might have a stroke or a heart attack before tomorrow morning.

Does that put fear in your bones? I have been accused of trying to scare people into accepting Jesus as their Savior but that doesn’t work. You have to feel His conviction of your heart that you are a sinner, like all of us are, and that you need Him as your Savior right now…tonight. It is usually a call that feels like you need to do it right now before something happens. If you feel that at some point, please don’t walk away from it. This life is very short compared to eternity and no amount of money or things will buy your way into Heaven. The only currency accepted is that you surrendered your life to Jesus Christ and repented of your old sinful life and followed Him for the rest of your life, however long or short that might be.

Bear fruit worthy of Him

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. John 15:4 KJV https://bible.com/verse-of-the-day/jhn.15.4/67130

Be merciful

Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Luke 6:36 KJV https://bible.com/verse-of-the-day/luk.6.36/420

Who is our Savior?

He is the only way to Heaven and an eternity with God. Seek Him while you have time.

Think on good things

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Philippians 4:8 KJV https://bible.com/verse-of-the-day/php.4.8/58420

Forgiven…

Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, Thou hast covered all their sin. Selah. Psalm 85:2 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.85.2.KJV

Where would you go?

There are many people in our world today who believe in a beautiful place called Heaven or Paradise, either name works for me. But if there is a Heaven then there is a hell too. Why do I bring this up right now? Because there are many people who think that hell is going to be a party. They think that they will see all of their friends there because they didn’t go to church and had nothing to do with Jesus in this life. Part of that is true. Heaven is the reward for those who have followed Jesus in this life and tried to tell others about Him until the day they were called home.

Hell was originally created as the punishment for the devil and his demons, fallen angels who had rebelled against God and were cast out even before God created the Earth and Adam and Eve. It was never intended for humanity but after the fall in the Garden, mankind became so bad that God had to choose one family to start over with and He destroyed the rest of the world. Satan has caused so much of humanity to worship other “gods” in order to hurt God and attempt to destroy His image in mankind.

Heaven is God’s home and the home of every redeemed person who has accepted Jesus as their Savior. There is no description of Heaven which will do justice to what is there. Some people have been given short glimpses of it during an incident of “life after death”, some have come back and tried to paint it or describe it but, like the prophets and the apostle John, there is no way to adequately describe the complete beauty and majesty of Heaven. The pure, golden streets and the sea of glass (if that’s what it is), everything there is similar to Earth but…more complete and more beautiful than anything you can see here.

I pray that anyone who reads this will seek Jesus as your Savior soon. Please, don’t get left behind when the church is taken up.

Are you listening to Him?

So many times in our lives we go to church, we sit through a sermon and then go home. What did we hear? Did you hear His voice or were you thinking about something at work or a problem at home? Many people, young and old, think about many different things while they are in church but God has brought you there to hear His Word preached. Not because your preacher is such a great orator but because there are lessons contained in every word found in God’s Word.

Now, I don’t mean that we have to pick apart the Bible word for word because much of the meaning in God’s Word is only found in the context of the words and paragraphs. When you choose one verse or even one or two words you are taking them out of context and they can be used in ways that can damage those around you. God loves each of us deeply, but He hates the sin that we live our lives in. Of course, if you are a Christian your sins are forgiven but that doesn’t give you or me a license to go back and keep sinning.

The only lasting treasure that we will have is those things that we have done for Jesus in this life. Anything else is just straw and wood which will be burned up by the testing in Heaven. Lasting changes in our lives are made when the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and changes us from the sinful creature that we were born as to a redeemed “new creation” who can rise to walk in our new life with Jesus Christ! It doesn’t matter if you have been going to church for your entire life and you were raised in a Christian home, if you have never asked Jesus to come into your heart and change your life then you are just a sinner who has been in church for a long time.

At some point during a sermon, your heart will feel God’s touch and you will know exactly how sinful you really are and you will want Him to come in and change you so you can be His disciple and follower from that point on. You may be twelve when this happens or you may be eighty-eight and if you’ve been in church for your whole life you will have a hard time understanding why you feel the need for Jesus. Rest in the knowledge that God’s call goes out to each of us at the appropriate time, never early and never late but always on time.

If you’ve been in church for a long time and you finally go down to ask Jesus into your heart, your decision will have a profound effect on those who have known you for years. Because you’ve been “doing church” and other people have thought for all those years that you were a Christian. It will have the effect that God wanted it to have and you may not have to witness to anyone about it. Those in the crowd will see your transformation. Don’t push God’s touch away, please seek Him out as soon as possible. Don’t wait because we don’t know how many days God has given us. We may have a couple of years left or less than a week, so make your time count for Jesus.