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.

Do likewise

“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12 ESV https://bible.com/bible/59/mat.7.12.ESV

God’s wisdom for your life

1 My son, forget not my law; But let thine heart keep my commandments: 2 For length of days, and long life, And peace, shall they add to thee. 3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: Bind them about thy neck; Write them upon the table of thine heart: 4 So shalt thou find favour and good understanding In the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; And lean not unto thine own understanding. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he shall direct thy paths. 7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: Fear the LORD, and depart from evil. 8 It shall be health to thy navel, And marrow to thy bones. 9 Honour the LORD with thy substance, And with the firstfruits of all thine increase: 10 So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, And thy presses shall burst out with new wine. 11 My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; Neither be weary of his correction: 12 For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; Even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. Proverbs 3:1‭-‬12 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/pro.3.1-12.KJV

Prophecy coming true

Matthew 10:22
You will be hated by everyone because of My name, but the one who perseveres to the end will be saved.

Luke 21:16
You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you will be put to death.

Luke 21:18
Yet not even a hair of your head will perish.

John 15:21
But they will treat you like this because of My name, since they do not know the One who sent Me.

Jesus told His disciples these words of prophecy 2000 years ago and they are coming true almost every day in the news and in our world today. Many more will come true very soon, so I ask you to please read these verses and chapters, seek out the Lord as your Savior, repent of your sins and be saved by the name of Jesus and belief in Him. Amen

Cry unto the Lord

Our nation has come to an anniversary that we need to come back to the Lord our Comforter. The Sunday after the attack on 9/11/01 nearly every church was full with people seeking answers from God. As the weeks went by and turned into months people went back to their work and their lives and seemed to forget the One Who is in control of all on the Earth whether good or evil. We remember those who died in the attack twenty years ago but we have moved even farther away from God in the last two decades. Why?

I believe that it is because most of the world, including America, doesn’t want to believe in God and His truth. The Word of God is true because it was given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Men could not have written all of the books in the Bible on their own because it tells of our Redeemer from the beginning all the way to the end. There is wisdom and history and poetry and prophecies contained within its pages, yet every page points toward the Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

It is His name, Jesus, which causes so much division and hatred to be piled on the church and the believers in the church. Even He said that we would be hated because of His name. This is why much of the Middle East is in such turmoil and has been that way for many, many years. Religion will cause men to do many terrible things but the relationship that we have with Jesus is not a religion…it is our belief and a relationship that other religions do not have within their belief system. God loves each of us not because of anything that we have done, because He loves His creation and in particular mankind because He made us in His image.

We did not evolve from apes, as the religion of evolutionism says. Why do I call the theory of evolution a religion? Because you have to have a tremendous amount of faith to believe all of its claims. Even more faith than I can muster, although I do have faith in Jesus and in God and His Word because I believe it is the truth because the Spirit of God gave the words and the prophecies to men who wrote them down so we could read them and learn from them. I pray that everyone who reads this blog will seek out Jesus as your Savior today because life is so brief and we are not guaranteed tomorrow.

You will be comforted

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Matthew 5:4 KJV https://bible.com/verse-of-the-day/mat.5.4/74704

Are we in the last days?

With everything that is going on in the world and in America too, I would say yes we are. How close are we to that day when the church is taken to heaven? Only God knows that day and hour. If you have ever read the books of Daniel and Revelation then the news today sounds almost like it is following a script from a movie. Maybe not word for word but in those two books of the Bible, God lays out the order of things which are happening right now. He told this to Daniel when Israel was taken captive into Babylon over 2500 years ago. Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 24 about the way the world would be near the end of the age and John wrote down the book of the Revelation about 2000 years ago. Yet, if you read these passages and the chapters containing them, even with the images that many people have trouble with, you can see the pestilence and wars and economic hardships and weather patters going out of control in all sorts of places.

If you know Jesus as your Savior, the Holy Spirit will open your eyes to all of these so that you can discern what is happening around us and around the world. If you don’t know Jesus as your Savior then I suggest that you need to seek Him out as your Savior…soon! His appearance could come at any moment and if you are not taken up with the church then you will be living through the Tribulation spoken of in the prophecies that I mentioned earlier. Life on Earth is going to be much worse than it is now once the church is taken up. As Jesus told His disciples, “these are the beginnings of birth pains” right now, so you can imagine how bad it will get afterward.

I pray that all who read this post already know Jesus as your Savior but if you don’t, please don’t wait long. Seek Him while He can be found tonight in the Bible or at a Christian friend’s house. Please make sure that you are or soon will be His before the Trumpet sounds and millions of Christians leave this world for our eternal home. After the church is taken up, there will be an economic crash that will hit every nation on Earth so hard that no amount of printed money will be worth the paper it is printed on. The food shortages will hit soon after and there will be riots in the streets because of the lack of necessary things like water, electricity, and jobs too.

Don’t wait, look for Jesus as your Savior tonight. I pray that you accept Him as your Savior and I will see you in Heaven one day soon.