Category: Salvation

Strange times we live in


Well, it seems that the groundhog was right. We are all getting a bit more winter weather even in the deep South. In reality, winter doesn’t actually end until around March 21st anyway but the temperatures that are being felt in the southern part of the United States don’t come to our neck of the woods very often.

Life has a way of throwing curve balls when you least expect them and this happens to be one of them. I pray that when this winter storm moves north it doesn’t carry so much of a punch with it as it has had here. In other ramblings, the time that we are living in was foretold long ago in the Bible. Even the changes in the weather and the unusual way that politics is working in these last few years of the church age. All of it is found in Matthew 24 and in the beginning chapters of the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

The truth is this: we aren’t living in the strangest of times, those are yet to come. I pray that most of you who read this have given your heart to Jesus and are reading His Word and learning of Him during these trying times. If you have not but you are curious about Christianity and the promises of His Word, please seek Him in the New Testament and do it soon. There are dangerous days ahead of us especially for those who have not made a commitment to Jesus and are following Him now. When He calls the believers home to be with Him the world for those who are left will be much worse in many ways than it is today.

Becoming a Christian today is not hard if you will answer the call on your heart when you feel it. Sometimes the touch of the Spirit is not very noticeable and sometimes He will call you in a dream so that you know exactly Who called you and that you can’t let it go until you are His. God knows the ones who will answer His call and the ones who will hear it but turn away so make sure that you are in the first group. Eternity is a very long time to live without God at all.

Right this moment we enjoy His blessings, although some people may not see their circumstances as blessings. We have air to breathe and usually a warm place to sleep at night. Food to sustain us and clothes to cover us. Some may not have these “luxuries” and to many people these simple things don’t sound like luxuries but to someone with no food to eat for a week or two just a small serving of fries from McDonald’s would be wonderful. Those of us who live in what is called the “developed” world who are poor in wealth would almost be considered rich in some countries.

God blesses us with far more than we deserve and yet there are so many without the necessities like clothing, shoes, water and shelter that many of us take for granted. Life is hard in many parts of the world that most of us in America will never see first hand. Even if we visited those places we wouldn’t want to stay and help because we cannot understand poverty of that magnitude. God knows each person on this Earth and He sees all of the conditions that they live in. Many of them cry out to Him even though they don’t know His name, their soul cries to the Maker of all there is and He hears their cry. He will repay those who could help but choose not to or are too greedy to help. When this age is over and the work that God is completing is finished they will have their reward or their punishment, whichever He gives to those who have done His will and to those who refused to follow Him and be the “light in the darkness” for this present age.

Honorably love one another


To be devoted to your family and to each other is one of the commands that Jesus left with His disciples and we should follow that command as well.

Distractions


I don’t have to explain this title because everyone is distracted in one way or another. Some more than others, some not so much. The real question is this: what is distracting you?

If you believe in a higher power which one do you truly believe in? Allah? Buddha? Krishna? New Age religions?

Why would you put your faith in these who have been dead for centuries? God has been here since time before time and He will be here into eternity. He is the Creator, all of these others got their “wisdom” from someone else.

We are distracted because we have lost our way trying to form our god into one that is easier to handle and believe in rather than believing in the God and Ruler of the universe, the One Who created all of it…right down to the sub molecular particles that are part of everything. God’s idea for each of us is simple and it involves our worship of Him. But that isn’t all that we will do into eternity. I’m not going to speculate about our jobs in Eternity with God. Praise will be part of it I’m sure. Worship and thankfulness will certainly be in evidence all of the time. I don’t know what Heaven will be like so I can’t tell you…but I do know that it won’t be anything like the punishment that Satan and the fallen angels who followed him will be living out into eternity. Those who chose not to believe in Jesus for their salvation and repent of their sinful lives will also be in that place of darkness and pain.

Distractions that we have now will not be in Heaven or hell. We will be totally focused on the love and the eternal happiness that we will enjoy in God’s Presence. Those who chose to follow the anti-Christ or even their own idea of “god” will feel God’s wrath during the Tribulation and into eternity in hell. How do I know they will feel it? Because Jesus said the “smoke of their torment rises forever“. You see, our souls live on into eternity whether we are in Heaven or hell and those bodies which we are given to live in also feel pain and joy and sorrow and misery but our bodies in eternity never die. Why do I bring this up? Because I want to make sure that when you stand in front of God and He asks you why you didn’t believe in Jesus for your salvation? It won’t be because I didn’t tell you if you read my posts here.

Since this disease has shut down my in-person preaching I have to tell others about Jesus here. Some will listen and believe and some won’t, but it is still my job to make sure that the message of Jesus Christ is here for you to read and make your decision. As it says in John 3:16-17: 16 For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him.

Please, seek Jesus Christ for your salvation while there is time. We are not guaranteed tomorrow morning so if you don’t know Him please make sure of it tonight.

What time is it?


People used to ask this a lot especially if they didn’t have a watch. But now our phones and our “smart watches” have the time and the number of steps we have made today and our heart rate and….!

So what is it time for?

It is time for us as human beings to start acting like human beings and not like animals toward each other. It is time for us to notice the world around us and realize that the complexity of this world could not happen by chance or “natural selection” as the theory goes. Everything on our planet did NOT come from one single celled organism billions of years ago.

It is also time for the world to realize exactly Who is in charge. The Democratic party? No! Is it the Communists or the Socialists? No! God is in charge of the world because not one blade of grass grows without His influence. Not even a sparrow falls to the ground without God’s knowledge of it. So, if He is watching the grass and the birds, don’t you think He cares for and keeps His attention on your life and mine? Of course He does!

The reason that we are so important to Him is because He created us to be in His image and to worship Him. Life doesn’t move and have a meaning without Him. Your life, without God in it as the Motivator and the Strength behind every move you make, would truly be without hope or meaning. God loves each of us whether we care for Him or even believe in Him. Will He save us from an eternity in hell? Yes, if we ask Jesus to come into our life and our heart and we repent of our sins and follow Him.

Living a Christian life is not hard unless you live in a country where religion is enforced and it isn’t Christianity. Some people think that it is but reading the Bible isn’t hard today because there are many translations which make it easy to read and understand. Once you become a Christian and the Holy Spirit lives within your heart, He will help you to understand the concepts of God’s Word much easier.

It is time for us to seek Jesus as our Savior and as your Savior! Because the time that we have been living in for the past two thousand years is called the church age. It hasn’t always been pretty or fun and the church has made many mistakes during that time, who hasn’t? We make mistakes every day just being ourselves. Humanity has made some really big mistakes over the few thousand years that we have been on the Earth. God will be bringing all of that to an end soon and if you would like to see what comes next you need to belong to Jesus and He needs to be your Savior.

Jesus is the Way

Be still…


Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. Psalms 46:10 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.46.10.KJV

Where are we on God’s time?


People have wondered this and pondered this for centuries and nobody really knows the answer. Some think they know, but if you have ever read some of the prophetic books from God’s Word and not taken them out of context then you know that we are very close. What do I mean by that? According to God’s Word, “a thousand years is as one day“, so we could be only a bit more than two days past Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to Heaven.

Even Jesus said that “no man knows the day or the hour, not even the Son but only the Father“. We need to be reading and studying His Word and making preparations for the departure of the church. Not any specific church but those who truly belong to God and have given their hearts and their lives to Jesus. These are the ones that will leave this Earth on that day when the trumpet of God sounds and the dead in Christ rise from their tombs and those of us who are alive and remain will be caught up (taken up) to be with Him forever.

God’s time and His timing will happen in the way that His Word says it will because He is God and He cannot lie. There are many who do not want to believe this and many who don’t put their faith and trust in Jesus for their salvation. Many of them think that because they have been in a church service for their whole lives that they have Jesus. Others think that just because they do all of the things that Christians do and attend church and all of the other outward signs of being a Christian that they are a Christian. They may be but if they haven’t truly given their heart to Jesus and begun following Him on a daily basis and not just when they need Him or on Easter and during the Christmas service…then they are fooling themselves.

Outward appearances and working in a church, even being a pastor, doesn’t make you a Christian. The Holy Spirit comes into your life and makes you see that you need Jesus in your life and in your heart and when you acknowledge His calling on your life and turn your heart over to Him, repenting of your old life, then you begin your daily walk with Jesus. It can last as long as God needs it to last. A few hours or days, maybe a few years or even decades but usually He calls you to be His witness to a specific person or people because you are the only one who may be able to reach them and turn them toward Jesus.

Why do I write these words? Because this is the only way that I can be a witness to other nations around the world. God gives me these words to say because He gave me a gift to write in ways that others can understand. I don’t have fancy seminary degrees but I am a pastor and I’ve studied the Bible every day for the last ten years. It never gets old and it always has a different message in some small way or another when I re-read it. I’ll see something or understand something about a passage the second or third time around that His Spirit didn’t reveal last year or from two years or more in the past.

I am writing this now because the time is growing short, the church age is coming to a close. When will this happen? I don’t know. It could be tonight or tomorrow. It could be next year or five years from now…maybe even ten years away but it is coming to an end. When that happens there will be lots of confusion in the world and many disasters will happen because of those who were driving or flying a plane suddenly vanish. Make sure of your destination and your salvation because things will get worse once this does happen. I pray that you will be taken on that day to be with the Lord.

Love the Lord…


How powerful is your testimony?


Our witness to the world is found in our testimony. Your testimony and mine does not have to include every deed that you have done but it is supposed to show that God has saved you from your mistakes. All of us have them. Some are worse than others but even those who aren’t old enough to have done as much as others, God can save you from all of them.

Some people tell preachers that they have been too bad or even too evil to be considered as a convert to Christianity. There are no such people! God has accepted those who have been murderers, thieves, drug dealers and drug users, harlots and prostitutes and He will accept you as a child of His through Jesus Christ because you can reach someone that no one else can.

Your testimony is powerful enough to bring someone into the family of God and it is possible that you are the only person that can reach that person. They may belong to another church or they may not go to church but if you can talk to them, God will give you the words that can bring them into the family. It may even be someone who has known you for a long time. They know your past and what you did in years past before God changed your heart to serve Him. That person doesn’t exist if you have put away your sinful life and turned to follow Jesus. You cannot make them see the change, although they may see it but they don’t want that change. Sometimes they will reject your testimony because of pride or anger at you because of some slight or emotional hurt that you caused many years ago.

Ask the Lord to melt their hearts so that they can receive His message for their salvation because it may be that only He and His Word can do what your testimony and your changed life cannot do. Even Jesus could do few miracles in His home town because they looked on Him as the Son of Joseph and they had watched Him grow up with His brothers and sisters. They said “he’s the carpenter’s son, where did he learn these things?”

God has used so many people in the past and He still uses circumstances and problems and people today to get people who have rejected Him to turn back to Him. He used many of Israel’s enemies to chastise them when they were disobeying His commandments. He raised up a ruler in Egypt to oppress the people as slaves so that He could judge Egypt and their gods. God can use your life and your testimony to change people’s lives today as well. It may be something you say or something that you do that could cause them to seek God for their life’s troubles and their salvation. It may be something that you write or a sermon or an inspiring post or link on Facebook that gets their attention and turns them toward God.

Only God knows how you will accomplish His will in your life and it may not happen until your death or afterward but God can accomplish His will through you in some way to bring others to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Go and tell others and make disciples of them


This is what we’re called and commanded to do as followers of Jesus Christ. Go into the world and take His message with you to those who need it because everyone does.

Always on time


You know someone who is always late or always early everyone knows someone who fits at least those descriptions. Then there are some who fall in between those as well. But when it comes to finding a Savior or leaning on God for your provisions, whatever they may be, He is always on time. As long as you recognize that it is His time and not your idea of “on time”.

Why do I bring this up? Because we are living in a world that is unpredictable. We have no idea when things will turn around and get better or even if they will get better. Our life may be one doctor visit from a really bad day that leads to something that we don’t want to hear right now. There could be a wreck this afternoon while our loved ones are trying to get home from work. Hopefully it won’t be them involved in the wreck but it could be. We aren’t given or guaranteed a safe and happy life, with or without Jesus.

God watches over every part of your life, especially when your heart belongs to Jesus but He also watches over those who haven’t made that decision yet as well. Some might tell you that God doesn’t care about you until you ask Jesus into your life but it is God’s grace and mercy and His Holy Spirit which touches your heart and makes you realize that you actually need Jesus in the first place. It isn’t the preacher or even the sermon being preached that gets your attention. It is God’s touch on your heart and soul which lets you know that you are a sinner and if you died on the way home without Jesus, you will go to hell.

It is a very thin line that separates us from eternity or if you want to think of it in wintertime terms then it is very thin ice that you are standing on in this life. If God has a plan for you and a job for you to do for Him then you will be called one day soon. Because there isn’t much time left for us to be in this world. Too many of the things which are supposed to happen (prophecies) have already happened or are happening now and are bringing us closer to the day and the hour of the Trumpet of God calling the dead in Christ to life eternal and those who are alive who belong to Him will be caught up to the clouds with them (the Rapture of the Church).

Believe it and live or choose not to believe and live through the Tribulation, if you can. I have been accused of trying to scare people away from hell, and I plead guilty as charged. Hell is a hot and fiery place of torment where you go for eternity if you have rejected Jesus as your Savior during this life. It is not a quick “poof and that’s it”, the Bible says that the “smoke of their torment rises forever” because God did not create hell for humanity to live out eternity in. It was meant to be a place where Satan and his followers would be punished for their choices but since even the refusal of Jesus and the salvation that belief in Him brings is a choice for Satan then you will live out your eternity with him in hell.

Choose life everlasting in heaven with God now while there is time because when you draw your last breath in this life, you will open your eyes in eternity and in front of God as your Judge depending upon your choice now, today. Believe in Jesus for your Salvation because there will not be a chance to make that choice if you die before you make it.