Category: Salvation

Where are you, God?


During our time of trouble and heartache we sometimes ask this question but do we expect an answer? According to Psalm 139 we can find God all around us in any situation that we find ourselves in. Here are a few verses from this Psalm to encourage you and me today:

You Have Searched Me and Known Me

For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

1 O LORD, You have searched me

and known me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;

You understand my thoughts from afar.

3 You search out my path and my lying down;

You are aware of all my ways.

4 Even before a word is on my tongue,

You know all about it, O LORD.

5 You hem me in behind and before;

You have laid Your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go to escape Your Spirit?

Where can I flee from Your presence?

8 If I ascend to the heavens, You are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle by the farthest sea,

10 even there Your hand will guide me;

Your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me,

and the light become night around me”—

12 even the darkness is not dark to You,

but the night shines like the day,

for darkness is as light to You.

13 For You formed my inmost being;a

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise You,

for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Marvelous are Your works,

and I know this very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from You

when I was made in secret,

when I was woven together

in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;

all my days were written in Your book

and ordained for me

before one of them came to be.

This isn’t the entire Psalm but it gives us an overview of the way David looked at and thought about God and Who He is. God is not some prating old man or a genie like many try to make Him out to be. He is the Creator of everything and He needs nothing from us…but He does want our fellowship. Do we owe Him our fellowship? YES! Our next breath is in His hands, our next heartbeat is also in His hands. Everything that we live for and work toward should be in His hands. If your heart belongs to Him and you’ve accepted Him as your Savior then live like it!

Don’t walk around saying that you are a Christian and then go home or to a bar and drink alcoholic beverages. I’ve done this but it still tarnishes your witness toward others even if you are drinking at home, your family sees it and your Father in heaven sees it too. God is your Redeemer and your Creator so turn to Him for your relaxing times and your refreshing time by getting into His Word and learning from the One Who created you and knows you better than you know yourself.

When you are at your lowest…


God never leaves your side! He is always there regardless of the day that you are having. You can’t see Him but if you have given your life and your heart to Jesus, He is only a prayer away. It doesn’t have to be a King James prayer either. Something as simple as “GOD! I need You!”, your Spirit will pray for you even when you can’t think of the words to say or if you can’t speak at all. God is there!

In the book of Job, one of the oldest books in the Bible, he never let his faith wither and die. Even when he had boils on his body and had lost everything that he had, Job still didn’t blame God for his troubles. Did he cry out to God? Absolutely! Did he speak to God in a tone that was disrespectful? A couple of times, but Job was human. He was in pain and had suffered many losses. His children and his wealth all gone in one day. How many of us could’ve gone through that without blaming God or turning away from God? In today’s society I am not sure that there would be many people able to be strong in their faith like Job.

I read that right now there are fewer than 50% of Americans who attend church or even believe in God and that is a frightening statistic. Even after World War 2 the percentage of people of faith was about 72% or more. We are truly living in the last days before the Tribulation prophesied in the book of Revelation. Life on Earth is not going to get better in the next decade or so, it will get much worse. I pray that anyone who reads this blog with an open mind will seek out Jesus as their Savior. God has not given up on us and He knows all of your secrets and your failures but He also sees your potential and He knows exactly what you are able to do.

God’s Holy Spirit will strengthen you and give you the words and the ability to be a powerful voice for Him no matter where you live and work. Everything that you say or do is being watched if you claim to be a Christian. People you don’t even know watch you to see if you are true to Jesus and your claim as a Christian. Especially if you wear a shirt or some jewelry that identifies you as a believer. Don’t be ashamed of your faith. Wear it proudly so it can be seen. Someone else may see it and they might not say anything to you but it will plant a seed in their heart that they should see who Jesus is and maybe they will become a Christian too.

Live and walk in the Spirit


Amen

Listen…


Have you ever noticed these two words: listen and silent

They contain the same number of letters and even the same letters as the other but they are arranged in a different order. Both are useful in a time of hurt and pain. When you need to listen, be silent. You can’t hear much when you are talking or listening to music or watching a video because your attention is usually on the conversation or the video.

God has given us His Word, the Bible, to be able to seek and to know Him and His ways. Leaving it on a shelf or under some other books doesn’t help us to know Him at all. Open your Bible if you have one. Get one if you don’t. Read it and learn about our loving God. While it is true that He is a vengeful God and a jealous God, He is also loving and compassionate. He sent His own Son, Jesus, to die for us…in our place to pay the penalty for our sins. We may not understand His ways at first, but if you read the Bible and ask Him to reveal Himself to you, you will begin to understand.

God loves each of us but He sees and knows every thought and every deed that we do before we finally decide to believe in Him for our salvation. Once we have asked for Jesus to come in and cleanse our hearts, those previous sins in our life are wiped away and God doesn’t dwell on them ever again. We do, but they have been removed as far as the East is from the West. Give Jesus a chance in your life, be silent while you seek Him in the Bible, and pray for Him to reveal His will for your life. Listen to His wisdom and you will find it.

God’s will for you is only found when you read His Word and learn more about Him because His will for each of us is found in it.

What do you truly believe?


When the Pharisee, Nicodemus, came to Jesus at night He told him that you must be born again. Nicodemus couldn’t believe at first what Jesus was saying. “I can’t go back into the womb and be born again!”, Jesus told him that He was speaking of a spiritual rebirth. “What does that mean?” he asked. Jesus told him that to be born of the spirit meant to believe in his heart that He was the Messiah, the Son of God. Not believe in your head through knowledge but to commit your heart and your life daily to following Him. This commitment cannot be made because of your knowledge of the Bible or even your knowledge of Jesus. You may have a degree in Bible studies from a seminary or a college but if you have never truly given your heart to Jesus, confessing your sins to Him…you are not saved. This is something that is totally between you and God. I don’t know your heart, only God knows for sure, but until you have felt your heart break and you know that you need Jesus as your Savior you will never truly give your heart to Him.

The Holy Spirit of God can touch your heart and your mind and you will know that you need Jesus as your Savior. Many people feel this touch and then decide that they will do it later. You are not guaranteed a “later”! You don’t know if you will even be alive tomorrow! I could die in a car accident today or you could yourself, no one knows for sure how much longer we have in this life. We make plans for a weekend outing or a vacation for a few months from now but we are only hoping that we will be able to go on that trip. We don’t have a guarantee that we will be alive next week or next month, but many of us make plans far in advance regardless.

I have heard while watching a TV program that some celebrities have read the Bible completely through from Genesis to the book of Revelation and that may be true. But…reading God’s Word doesn’t change your heart unless the Holy Spirit reaches down and touches your heart first. If that doesn’t happen or it hasn’t happened then reading the Bible is like reading any other book. It only gives you knowledge. The spiritual aspect of the Bible doesn’t come into your mind or your heart unless the Holy Spirit breaks your heart and you realize that you need Jesus Christ as your Savior right now! When the Holy Spirit touches your heart, God gives you enough faith to know that you need Jesus because without faith His Word doesn’t mean anything to you.

Without even a small amount of faith you can’t please God in any way! Your life as a Christian cannot begin without a small amount of faith, trying to do it on your own will fail every time. Your strength is not enough. Peter and John and all of the disciples could not have started the church that Jesus told them to do without the Holy Spirit’s anointing. They couldn’t do it with their own strength. Jesus even prayed the night before His crucifixion, “Father, let this cup pass from Me!”, His human mind and body were terrified of the punishment that He knew was coming in just a few hours. But…He said, “Nevertheless, let Thy will be done.”. He submitted to the will of God that His sacrifice for each of us was the only way to pay the penalty of sin for every person that would accept Him as their Savior.

If you have felt the touch of the Holy Spirit on your heart and you know that you need Jesus as your Savior, don’t turn away from Him until you have asked Him to come into your life and into your heart and save you. Ask Him for His forgiveness and to make you a new creation in His Kingdom. We may not live past the next hour or even the night tonight so make this decision today while you can. Please do this before it is too late. Jesus loves you enough that He gave His life for yours, don’t turn away from Him today.

When you desire Him…


Many people seem to think that this means you can get everything you want from God, but that’s not the message in this verse. The message is when you desire God and His ways more than your own, He will give you the desires of your heart. In other words, when your desires and God’s desires for you line up together you will get the assured promises that He wants for you.

Living your life here as if God owes you something is the biggest lie that Satan ever put into the world. God doesn’t owe us anything but we owe Him everything! He provides the air that we breathe and the sunlight for our world to produce food along with the rain to grow all of the vegetables and herbs which make our food taste good. Seek your salvation in Jesus Christ and your appreciation for Him will be more than you can understand. He gives us the joy that our soul seeks every day and the assurance that eternity is with Him.

Why won’t you listen?


There are so many sermons being preached by so many preachers yet churches are closing all over our country. Membership is dwindling and people don’t seem to care that the beliefs which shaped our country have gone out of favor with the young and old alike it seems. Some still go to church on a regular basis but many just sit there and barely hear the message at all. What is happening to the church? The people who are in the church don’t seem to care that their beliefs are getting weaker by the year. Even those who live in areas where there are churches on almost every corner of the square seem to have lost their way. Why?

Some people think that it is because of the lack of spiritual teaching, particularly from the Bible, that children and their parents should’ve been exposed to. Some lay the blame at the feet of our government for taking the Bible out of education and for taking prayer out of public schools as well. While those reasons have likely contributed to our country’s moral decay over the last fifty-plus years, it can also be traced to God’s Word and the prophecies contained within it.

At the end of the age, there will be a “falling away” meaning people will gravitate toward other “ways” or pathways to get into eternity and heaven. The problem with this is that there is no other way to get into heaven! Only through belief in Jesus as your Savior and repenting of your sins, then following Jesus for the remaining time that you have will you be able to redeem your sins and be granted righteousness through Christ. I am not saying that you have to do “works” to gain entry into Heaven. I am saying that there has to be a real change in your heart because of the Holy Spirit’s conviction that you need Jesus as your Savior! If you aren’t convicted of your sins and your need of a Savior you wouldn’t look for one. I wouldn’t have sought out Jesus either if I had not been convicted by His Spirit.

At the time of the end of this age, the Church age, there will be a falling away and it is happening. Christians in democratic countries like ours are being persecuted for their beliefs. Right now it isn’t as bad as it is in other countries but it is starting to be seen. This will only get worse, especially when the church is taken up and the world falls into chaos at the beginning of the Tribulation. I am writing this to warn those who have the time right now to seek your Savior while there is still time to do so. Being or becoming a Christian right now is not hard to do, but during the Tribulation, it will be dangerous to the point of losing your life!

How do you walk?


Spiritually. Do you walk on your path thinking that you will get to heaven your way? Have you heard about Jesus and walking in His footsteps like His disciples did? Which way will you go?

Many people today hear about Jesus and they hear a very restrictive message. One with all kinds of rules and things that you can’t do or shouldn’t do if you want to go to heaven. Jesus said “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through Me“, so what does that really mean? It means that if you want to go to heaven you have to believe in Him for your salvation and ask Him to change your heart so you can be an ambassador for Him!

If you are walking on your own path and your own ideas about being a good person and basing your salvation on being a good Christian who has been in church for their whole life, you will find yourself on a very slippery slope to hell. Doing “church” and being a good person or at least as good as the person next to you in the church is the devil’s deception. You have to pattern your life by following Jesus and asking Him to help you to be better than you were because only the Holy Spirit can make that change in your heart and your life. You can’t do it on your own!

When Jesus said that the pathway to heaven is narrow He meant exactly what He said. The road which leads people to hell but it looks like the road to heaven, that is the one that Satan is leading many people down. They go to church and give their tithes and they sing the songs and they study their Bibles on a certain night during the week but they aren’t being taught about the salvation that Jesus brings. They are being told that they can get to heaven doing just what they are doing and nothing more. They’re not being told that Jesus is the way to salvation and that He died to save them from hell. They’re not being taught that God provided the way to salvation through Jesus Christ because He is the only way for salvation.

The abundant life that Jesus promised is in eternity. We are not promised wealth or an easy life. Jesus said that we would face troubles in this life because of our faith in Him but He said “don’t be troubled because I have overcome the world“. Seek Him because He is your only way to gain access to eternity in heaven.

Only what is in your heart…


Juat as an apple tree can only produce apples…

There are only two kinds of people in the world, those who have given their heart to Jesus and those who have refused to let Him in. The line separating them is a very fine line but if you listen to their speech and watch them long enough the difference will be shown clearly. Make sure which side of this line you want to stand on because once this life is over you cannot change what is in your heart or Who you were following at the end of it.

God’s law…


God’s law shows us what we can’t do. You cannot keep it perfectly like Jesus did but if you put your faith in Jesus and live your life daily by His law and His teachings you can be a blessing to those around you. I don’t mean that you will be able to keep the ten commandments perfectly even after you have been born again but you can strive toward that goal. When you break one of them you are guilty of breaking all of them. God doesn’t place one commandment above another. One sin will send you to hell, in particular the sin of rejecting Jesus as your Savior.

If you feel the touch of the Holy Spirit convicting you of your sins, whatever they might be, please don’t turn away from this call from God! Remember, we don’t have a promise of living until a certain day or year, you may not live through tonight, I may not be here tomorrow either. So when the conviction from the Holy Spirit comes to you, act on it! Seek Jesus as your Savior and ask Him into your life. Allow Him to change your life so that you can live, not only in this life but in the Life to come.

“It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). You and I can’t escape the judgment completely. Christians will be judged for what they did after they gave their heart and their life to Jesus. Those who did not give their heart to Jesus and live the rest of their life any way they chose to will be judged for one decision and that is the rejection of Jesus. If you have been born again, your eternity with Him is certain but if you have lived your life in a Christian family and you’ve been to church every day that there were services but you have never given your heart to Jesus…what then? You’ve done all of the things needed to be seen as a Christian, why aren’t you saved?

You have washed your life in the Word as it is preached in your church. You have read the Bible and committed some scripture to memory, isn’t that enough? No it isn’t! You have gone through all of the outward rituals that everyone in your church can see but if Jesus isn’t in your heart and hasn’t been invited and received to cleanse your heart then you are like a pig that has had a bath. You are clean on the outside but your heart has not changed. When you release that pig after it is cleaned it will go right back to the mud and wallow in it just as before. You cannot make yourself into a Christian by going to church and reading the Bible. Jesus has to come, after being invited, into your heart and change you into a new creation. Once this is done, you won’t feel right if you try to go back to your old way of living. You will have a hunger for God’s Word and you will feel better inside when you read it and the Holy Spirit will help you understand it. You will be a sinner saved by the grace and mercy of God!