Whom do you serve?

We hear a bit of wisdom from Jesus’ own words many times and we don’t even realize where it came from or who said it. It is mentioned in movies and in books. It is used for many purposes, good and bad. Yet it was meant as a way that Jesus was making a point to His enemies when they were trying to catch Him with a politically charged question. They asked Him, “Teacher, should we pay taxes to Caesar?” He then asked a question or two of His own. “Show me the coin. Whose likeness is this?” Of course it was Caesars likeness and Jesus knew this. Then He told them flatly: “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).

Each of us owes a debt to Jesus and to God Himself that we could never pay and it concerns our salvation and the price that was paid for it. Even if you have never given your heart to Jesus or asked Him to cleanse you and make you a disciple of His, He paid the price for your sins. When you feel the touch of the Holy Spirit in your life and on your heart, it is Jesus Who is knocking on the door to your heart. You might tell me or someone else that God wouldn’t accept me because I’ve fought with that Spirit for a long time, so long in fact that I barely feel or hear it anymore. If you feel a nudge or a very slight touch from Him I pray that you will answer that call, that feeling, His touch the next time that you feel it.

God can use your talents for His Kingdom. Even if you feel that they don’t amount to much, God can change your direction and give you the ability to be His watchman or His prophet. He used many men in the past and He is still giving out abilities to those who will answer His call. We may not see miracles happen when we want them to but they will happen when the time is right and it fits His time. Jesus said that “faith the size of a mustard seed” can move mountains. God can give you more than that but your faith still has to be turned on by your belief in the Creator of the universe. Faith to move a mountain won’t lift a grain of sand if you don’t believe.

God has been in our past and He is here today. Watching and seeking anyone who will hear His Word and take it to heart and believe what is there in the Word, the Bible. Many people in government and in some other organizations work very hard trying to take any reference to the Bible out of public view. If they would realize that God loves them and seek to do what it says in the Bible…taking the good news to everyone who will believe, with the same passion that they use trying to get rid of it the whole world would have a revival of faith in the One True God of the Bible.

But…because of the time that we are living in at the end of the church age, there are so many false teachers who are preaching and teaching doctrine that sounds good and it may even have some references to the Bible in their doctrine, but it has been twisted out of context. Scripture has been used by thousands in this manner over the centuries. Taken as one verse and used as a doctrine or a rallying cry but when a verse is used like this its power is twisted and can be used to enslave people or to turn their beliefs toward something or someone who is not who they say they are.

I pray that everyone who is seeking to know Jesus will seek Him in His Word, Old and New Testament, because He is there and we carry His image within us even when we were sinners. We should all consider that fact and seek to be worthy of His image until the day that He comes to take the church home with Him.

Can God use me for His purposes?

Working for God and by extension Jesus as well is the most important job and, besides being a parent, is the most rewarding job that you can have. Does it pay well? Not in this life but when you repent of your sins and you’ve given your heart to Jesus, tell others about your Savior! God reward for His apostles and children is eternal life in heaven and being able to walk into a city where the streets are paved with pure gold.

He is the Creator and He knew you and me before we were born. Did He know that we would give our hearts to Him? Yes and He knows what you are capable of doing for Him and with Him in your life. When God knew you in the womb, He knew your capabilities. He knew then and now what you are capable of accomplishing for yourself and for His Kingdom. Just as He knew each and every person in the Old Testament and what they could do and would do if they would willingly follow His directions and do the things that He tells them to do.

God want us to obey His commands and directions and when we become His children by giving our lives to Him we should do this out of gratitude for His love. It was because of His love for us that Jesus came and paid the price for us on the cross. Jesus did this because of His love for each one of us and because He knew that we would be useful to Him and His Kingdom. Why? Because each of us has at least one person that we can reach for Jesus that nobody else can reach. Some of us may be able to tell many people about His love for us and what He did for our salvation.

The point is that in the past God has used a murderer and a pagan idol worshiper for His purposes. He used a prostitute and a gentile woman for his purposes. He used a donkey that spoke to his master for His purposes and He used a fish to carry Jonah to a city called Nineveh so that the people might be spared from the wrath of God. He is the Creator and He can use your talents even if you don’t think you have any.

Give your heart to Jesus and give your life and your talent to God’s Kingdom. He will show you what to do and where to go and it may just be down the street or across the hallway but He knows that you can reach that person and show them that He loves them too.

We are blessed

All of us should thank the Lord for His blessings every day that we wake up.

Do you know Jesus?

I need to tell you a story. It’s kinda sad but it turns out good in the end.

I heard this story from a good preacher friend of mine. No names but it could make a real difference.

This couple was really strong in their faith and they dated for a number of years before finally tying the knot. When they finally did, they were riding to their honeymoon on a motorcycle. Just outside of town they passed an 18 wheeler and for some reason the driver decided to move into their lane, I suppose in the process of passing someone else. The driver didn’t see them and rolled right over them.

Somehow the girl lost both of her legs and bled out at the scene before help could arrive. The husband lost a leg and an arm. He died on the scene as well but there was a good Samaritan following behind them that had stopped to see if he could help. Since the girl was already dead, he went to the guy and asked if there was anything that he could do for him.

The guy told him that “I’m going to die soon but I need to ask you something. Do you know Jesus as your Savior?” Then…he passed.

Seven words.

A few months later the good Samaritan came to their church on a Sunday morning and came down front to join the church. The preacher asked him to give his testamony and the story that I just relayed above is the story that he told. But…he didn’t know Jesus as his Savior prior to those seven words. He came to their church to find out about this Savior that they had because he wanted to know Him too.

There were and are many stories like this in the Book of Martyrs that I’ve read most of. This one isn’t in there but the sentiment is the same. The last words of a believer made a difference in someone’s life…an eternal difference.

Crumbs all along the pathway…

Every chapter in the Bible points toward Jesus and salvation through Him. I’m not going to place the scripture references here except to give you a general idea of those crumbs of wisdom found in nearly every chapter of God’s Word. I know I changed from every chapter to “nearly every chapter” and that was intentional too.

While it is true that the Bible points toward our Savior from the beginning to the end, every chapter doesn’t explicitly say it that way. Some are just allusions to Him. Some of the crumbs are very subtle and easy to overlook but they are there. As God told Abraham that he would be the father of many nations, He also told him that his people would be in slavery in another land for over four hundred years, but there would be a savior. That savior was Moses, who was a type of Christ, who came along at the right time to deliver Israel from bondage.

In many other books of the Bible other saviors have shown up. Some have come as kings, some came as judges, some came as prophets but God used each of them to teach and to deliver Israel from their enemies. But even after being delivered they would soon go back to disobeying God’s commands and his laws. Their prophets repeatedly told the people what was needed to get out of and stay out of being captured by their enemies. Sometimes they listened and sometimes they didn’t. Occasionally they would obey for a while and then fall right back into the same rebellious behavior that got them in trouble before.

Kinda sounds like the way most of the world, especially America, is today doesn’t it?

Is it any wonder that this virus came so suddenly on the world last year? Is it God punishing us? Could be, but I’m not going to be the one to say so. God can use China or Russia or Iran or even a tiny virus to get the world’s attention but if they don’t look to Him for help or guidance then they will die in their sins and without Jesus. I know, nobody wants to hear that there is only one way to be saved or gain entrance into heaven but it is God’s law and He is the only One Whose opinion that I count as being true. Like it or not, God’s Word and His promises have all come true except for those prophecies that are in the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

I believe that His Word is true from the beginning to the end and one day soon the whole world will notice it. They may not want to believe it, but when all of the Christians who believe in Jesus for their salvation are taken up in the clouds to meet Him in the air…those who see it will believe and they will be sorrowful like losing their first-born son or daughter.

Read the book of the Revelation for yourself. It is the only book of the Bible that has a blessing for those who read it and believe.

How can we…?

In our country and in our communities and in our homes we need the answer to this question. Many of us don’t even know how to finish the sentence though. How can we feed the homeless? How can we get our country back to belief in God and His Word? How can we be a light to the world when we are in the process of turning the lights out in our country?

America has had a responsibility for over two hundred years as a Christian nation and now we are denying that it was ever built on His principles. We are pushing hard to get any mention of God out of our education systems and even out of the public square. So…why would God bless America today when we are pointing fingers and shouting so loudly that we want nothing to do with your religion!

I realize that the last few posts here have had a lot of my opinion in them but if you look around in America and listen to our media outlets all that I’m doing is pointing out the obvious. There will come a time, likely sooner than most think it will happen, when God will withdraw His Spirit from the whole world, not just from America. He will do this because we are rapidly becoming a world like Noah’s world was. The hearts and minds of people are evil, in God’s eyes, continually. We are calling good things evil and evil things good.

So many young people have turned their backs on religion, especially Christianity. Why? Because of its claim of Truth and what they see as restrictions on their lives. No one wants to be told that they shouldn’t do this or that because it is sinful. Everyone sees that their friends are doing these things and they seem to be having a good time so why can’t I do them as well? The only way that I can get most young people or anyone else to realize what they are asking is by asking another question: would you take your Mother or your grandmother with you to see what you are doing? Would you be comfortable if Jesus was there? If the answer to either of those is no, then why would you do these things?

Most would answer: Because I want to do them! It is my life and you can’t tell me what to do!

While it is true that I am not your father or your preacher, God can still see what you are doing. He knows the words that you’ve said during your “fun”. He can see every thought and every action that you are doing which is against what you learned in Bible school or Sunday school. The point I’m making here is that most of you have likely been in church at least once in your lifetime and you’ve heard the good news about Jesus taking your sins to the cross and paying your penalty for them. All that you have to do is believe that He did this for you and know that unless you ask Him to be your Savior and repent of those sinful actions and turn away from them to follow Him you will be lost.

Many of us…in fact most of us shook our fists at God in our youth saying that we were going to do what we wanted and there was no way that He was going to stop us! Some of us were smart enough to not really mean it but only God knows who meant to repent from their sins one day and which of us would not and only He knows your heart’s direction from this point on. God loves His creation, each of us is a part of His creation and He knows your heart and the path that you will take. I pray that you will seek Him out as your Savior and lay aside your sins and your selfishness and turn toward Him and give Him your heart from this point on. Read the books of Romans and John in the New Testament so that you can come to know Jesus as your Savior.

It depends on how close you are…

Your life is very precious to God because He knows each of us before we are born. Yet…it takes us many years to understand and know that we truly need God in our lives. We grow through our childhood and if we are fortunate enough to have parents and grandparents who teach us about Him, we may come to know Him early in our lives. If not, then He may have to get our attention in some other way and sometimes it isn’t very much fun at all.

God came to the prophets and to Mary and Joseph by sending His angel, Gabriel, to them personally or in a dream. In this way He told them what He needed from them and how they could do His will. This, of course, hinged upon their willingness to obey God and the word that He sent to them. They had the choice, just as we have a choice, to believe Him and actually do what He asked of them. In the case of His prophets and the Earthly parents of Jesus, they did choose to do His will.

Many people today don’t even believe that the Bible is true and that it is God’s Word. “It is just some old dusty book written by a bunch of crazy old men”; this is a quote from some of the “pastors” of what is being called the “emerging church movement” today. These false teachers do n’t even believe that Heaven is a real place! As crazy as this sounds, they are drawing young people and many others away from Bible-teaching churches today. This was foretold in the book of Revelation.

I pray that all who read this will seek out a true Bible-believing church and pastor and stay there. Get into God’s Word and study it and then read it and study it some more because He is coming soon and unless the relationship is real, you will be left behind to go through the Tribulation.

Next generation…?

Whichever one is prominent at the moment, I’ve lost count. Some have been born in the last forty years or the last ten or twenty years but what is their belief system or their moral compass? Have they learned anything from their parents or grandparents about what it means to have a belief in God or any “higher being”? Mostly due to the removal of prayer and the Bible from the public schools of America we have at least two generations who have never read from or heard any Bible verses while in school. Unless you were able to attend a private school the use of God’s Word in education was taken away in the early sixties.

Of course after graduating from a private school and beginning your college years, you get back into the public school area and you are slapped with mostly liberal views and no chance of a Christian viewpoint unless you read and study the Bible on your own. Our country was founded by Christians regardless of the “history” that is taught today. Even the “ivy league” schools in the northeast were founded to be seminaries for religious training in their beginning years.

Why has it changed so much in the two centuries plus forty-five years? Mostly because of science and the liberal bent that our leaders in Washington, DC have pushed in their lawmaking in the past 130 years or so. It has become more socialist than Democratic in the past sixty years or so but still God is being pushed out of any mention on the news or in public office except in derision. It seems that a Christian perspective is looked down upon and ANY other religion is pushed forward to be seen as a better alternative…even no religion at all!

Why should is strike anyone as odd that America or some mention of it is not found in the book of Revelation or during the Tribulation? It is very likely that we are not a country which has enough power to be seen as a nation at that time. God has not taken His hand off of our country yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it happened during the next few decades. Be praying for our leaders both in the military and in office, whether you agree with them or not because they truly NEED our prayers and God’s wisdom whether they will acknowledge it or not.

Just my two cents.

What kind of light are we shining today?

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Matthew 5:14 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/mat.5.14.KJV

Is your church teaching it’s members directly from the Word of God? If not then there’s something terribly wrong. Jesus Christ told the disciples to go and preach the Gospel, the Good News, to all who would hear. This was done in the early church before the crusades.

Ever since then, the “church” has been through many changes. Some were good but most were not. The original church tried to live peacefully with those who did not believe. Then, there was the Roman Catholic church that incorporated many pagan beliefs into it’s services to attract the pagans. Later, the church began to break up into denominations. After the Reformation happened, the church became…the best term for it would be fragmented.

Different teachings of doctrine and differing interpretations of the Bible’s message. The “big national churches” wanted to keep people from reading the Bible which was written in Latin and so the service was also done in Latin until Tyndale and a few others began to translate the Bible into English so that a common man could read it and come to Christ. So in many ways, the church has spread the message of Jesus Christ and it has also hurt the message as well.

We are supposed to study and learn from God’s Word so that we can take His message to the world around us. At work, at school, on the street, at a restaurant or anywhere else you come into contact with someone who is searching for the Truth of Jesus and His message of a loving God Who is willing to forgive you and save your soul from the punishment that we deserve for turning away from Him. Jesus came to bring that message to all who would listen and embrace the salvation that is offered by His sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection too.

That is our blessed hope. He said that He would come again and take us to His home in heaven and we are closer to that now than we have ever been. I pray that you will seek Him out as your Savior soon because we are not guaranteed tomorrow. God loves you and if you have felt Him touch your heart don’t turn Him away.

What does “giving your life” mean?

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was asking His Father if there was another way but then He said “nevertheless, not My will but Yours be done”. I know, it sounds as if I am giving a talk/sermon/post on giving your life to Jesus and in a way I am. But in our time, in the 21st century, giving your life to someone or for something means a lot more. Consider it this way: Jesus was living in the first century. He was a carpenter Who also happened to be the Savior of the world and the Son of God. His parents who raised Him were not rich in wealth. He wore very simple, home-spun cloth for His clothes. In our world today, His condition would be looked on as a man living in a very poor state of being.

God’s Word asks us to give our life to Him, surrendering everything that we have to have all of His riches in glory. We can’t imagine how Heaven is going to be. Even the prophets in the Old Testament and John the apostle didn’t have the words to describe what they saw in their visions of heaven. Any description that we can come up with today would fall very far from the reality that is there. Why do I go to such detail to tell about what we can’t describe? Because when we are asked to give our life and surrender everything to Jesus…are we able to truly give it all to Him?

For most people, the answer would be a very loud “NO!”. God cannot have my business or my family or my home! The reality from God’s perspective is that those things that we don’t want to give up are really His anyway, He is just blessing us with them while we are here. But, many of us don’t want to admit that what we see as our possessions are actually on loan from God, including our family.

Surrendering your life means far more than most of us consider but the giving of our life to Christ is necessary for our eternal home. Asking Him to take everything in your life is not telling God to take your family or your business or your home away from you. It means that you aren’t holding anything back! You aren’t telling him that “this box of goodies is mine but you can have the rest”. That is not how it works. God either has ALL of you and your life or He has nothing. Just as some people today believe either ALL of the Bible as God’s Word or they don’t believe any of it, you can’t pick and choose this part but not that one. It is the same with your life, you cannot choose to give Jesus part of your life and heart…He either has all of it or none.

Make the decision to give Him everything so that He can return the favor and the blessing to you.