Category: Salvation

Why did God ask for Isaac?


In Genesis 22 God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, his firstborn son of his old age. Why? Many people, pastors included, preach that it was a test of Abraham’s faith and it was but there is another reason. The firstborn belongs to God, of animals and men, if the firstborn is not redeemed by another sacrifice then they must die. Now, today the sacrifice could be service to others or service to God. My mother prayed to God that my life would be used by Him when I was a baby. She told me that she dedicated me to God when I was born. When she told me this many years ago, I didn’t want to know what it meant and I didn’t really care because I was angry about the way that my parents were in court fighting over child support.

It took many years for me to realize what she was saying, but since I became a pastor I have learned what the phrase “first fruits” really means. In Abraham’s case, Isaac had not been redeemed by the sacrifice of an animal so when Isaac got old enough, he was around twenty years old at the time, God asked Abraham to sacrifice him on the mountain. I’m sure that didn’t make Abraham very happy. In fact, he likely did not sleep much during the night prior to the trip.

But his faith shows up even before they make it to the mountain. When he and Isaac leave the servants with the donkeys or camels that they were riding, he told them that “I and the boy will go to the mountain yonder and worship and we will come again unto you”. Abraham had the faith to believe that if God allowed him to sacrifice his son of promise, then God would raise him to fulfill the promise that He had made about Isaac and his descendants. Because God had made that promise and He would have to raise Isaac from the dead if that promise was real!

The promise was real but God didn’t have to raise Isaac from the ashes of sacrifice, He provided a substitute for Isaac just as God provided a substitute for our sins in His firstborn Son, Jesus. Many of the Old Testament saints and prophets looked forward to His coming and they saw Him and rejoiced. Have you come to know Jesus as your Savior and Sacrifice for all of your sins? All that we have to do is have enough faith in God and in Jesus as our Savior believing that He gave His life as a ransom for each of you. He redeemed you just as the ram in the thicket redeemed Isaac many years ago.

Give your life and your heart to Jesus because your life needs to be redeemed. If you don’t then your life, your eternity will be in hell with Satan and the rest of the people who rejected Jesus as their Savior. That is the only sin that leads to an eternity outside the presence of God.

Jesus is the way to eternity


Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? John 11:25‭-‬26 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/jhn.11.25-26.KJV

The tomb where He was laid in is empty because He’s alive!

Make me a blessing


We seem to be at a crossroads moment in our lives whether we are Christians or not. Each of us gets to a place where we look around and wonder if this is all there is. How can we live a blessed life each and every day when we can’t see or touch our blessings? The problem with this kind of thinking is that our life and our breath is a blessing every morning!

Job 33:4

“The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.”

King James Version (KJV)

It seems that many Christians have forgotten about that but God’s Word says so in many places. God has blessed each of us with a planet to live on that is tolerable in its climate, gentle with its gravity, and has a stable orbit that gives us four seasons in a year to plant, harvest, and enjoy the fruit of our labors. These blessings are just a few of the details that God did for us to be able to live and work to praise Him and give Him the glory for our lives. But…do we? Most of the population dismisses all of these details out of hand because of our schools and the curriculum that is taught in them.

Astronomy and physics classes teach that all of these happened to our solar system by chance when the opposite has been proved by the number of exoplanets that they have found. Years ago many scientists believed in God and the order of how our solar system was laid out was considered to be His blessing for humanity. In fact, it truly is a blessing because most of the planetary systems that have been found show planets that are far too close to their star for life. Many of these systems have no rocky planets with water, that we know of. In fact, most have gas giant planets whirling around their star so close that they are nearly touching it. If the study of other systems has shown anything it is that our solar system is completely unique because they have not found others like it within an observational distance of our home planet.

God designed the universe and placed us in the precise place that was perfect for our lives to exist. Many scoff at this and say that out of all of the stars and other star systems that there must be other life-giving planets out there. There could be some but I don’t believe we will find them by using our telescopes and our intellect. God may have placed other people and planets out in the vastness of space but if He did they are too far away for us to hear them or for them to hear us. So the opening line from Star Wars is very likely the truth “…a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”. 

We are blessed by God in that we are isolated from other civilizations. Not because we should be but for the same reason that the Jewish people were told not to mingle with the people of the land that God had given them. Because their ways and their religions were not compatible with the blessed life that He had given them. So we should truly count every breath and every step that we take on a daily basis as His blessings for us on that day. Give thanks for every one of them, even if it hurts to take those steps and those breaths that we are given each day.

Our lives are temporary


For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: 1 Peter 1:24 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/1pe.1.24.KJV

Turning away from the Bible?


Many people, it seems, are more than willing to turn their back on the Bible just because someone can make a case against its accuracy. But if you pick up a copy or two you will find that most translations do agree with each other. So why do we turn away from the book that has shaped civilization for at least the last five centuries?

Mostly it is due to our own idea of what Truth really means to us today. Some people who have turned 30 or even younger are turning away from the Bible and the churches that teach from it. Truth is not relative or individual. God’s Word is True and it is the Truth. Like it or not it was given to the Jewish people first but salvation comes through Jesus Christ and belief in Him alone. Each of us has to have faith to believe in Jesus and in the Truth of the Bible and God is the Author and Finisher of our faith but you won’t hear that from a church that doesn’t teach and preach from the Bible.

The refusal of people to believe God’s Word is a far more dangerous tone to take than what is happening in regard to our healthcare and the election too. God is not some fairy tale and His Word has been proven to be true. The prophecies have all come true except for the taking up of the church, those who believe in Jesus for their salvation. When that prophecy finally happens the whole world will know that God is real but whether the news will report the truth about it will be another “spin” which will hurt more people for eternity.

Why do I defend the Bible like this? Because if it isn’t true…then God is a liar and that is something that He cannot do. The life that is in the universe and that which we see every day on Earth could not be here if it weren’t for God and His Son keeping the little things and the big things in balance. There are so many documents which prove that the Torah and the Prophets are true and have been copied accurately down through the years. There are more than five thousand copies of most, if not all of the New Testament.

Please go to a Bible teaching church, pick up a copy of the Bible if you don’t already have one and begin reading it. So much of the Bible backs up the New Testament because Jesus and His disciples only had the Old Testament to read and go by. We benefit from Paul’s letters which were written mostly from prison due to his preaching about Jesus and His sacrifice for our salvation. In fact, Paul wrote almost half of the New Testament himself so if it weren’t for his letters we would have a much smaller New Testament and Bible.

I urge everyone who reads this to tell others about it especially if they don’t go to church or if they don’t know Jesus as their Savior. He came to give us eternity with Him and save us from an eternity in hell. Make sure of your salvation because not one of us is guaranteed to be here tomorrow.

Look to God for your help


Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. James 5:13 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/jas.5.13.KJV

Prayer and praise will bring you through your trouble and will bring you joy when your trouble has been put down!

God’s mercy sustains you


Whether you have accepted Jesus as your Savior or not, God’s mercy keeps you until He decides that your time is up. He keeps all of us in this life by His mercy and His grace, giving us a chance to accept Jesus Christ as our Savior. God knows each of us better than we know ourselves but it seems that our country is on a road that will carry not only us but the whole world along toward a cliff. We truly need Him and His answers soon, just as Charlie Brown said:

As branches cannot bear fruit…


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/bible/1/jhn.15.4.KJV

PTSD-Pray through sin’s denial


How should we live and act when we sin each day of our lives? Should we just shrug it off and tell ourselves that “God has already forgiven us through the blood of Jesus because I am saved by my belief in His atonement for me.” These words are true…but God’s Word says that we should confess our sins and He is just to forgive us. We should NOT assume God’s forgiveness because of our belief in His Son.

Consider this: many people, especially in the “Bible Belt” of the South, THINK that they are truly saved by Jesus but their life doesn’t show behavior that proves this out. Why is that? Because of our culture in the South. We attend church almost from the day we are born and we grow up in the church. Many of us can quote Scripture almost as good as our pastor can…but have you truly given your heart to Jesus? Did the conviction of His Spirit touch your spirit and show you that your life doesn’t reflect what you say you believe?

Many of the people in America, whether you are from the Midwest or the Northeast or the South, claim to be Christians! In some recent polls, there has been as many as 80 to 90 percent of the population making this claim. Then why are so many churches closing their doors because there are too few people in the congregation to keep the doors open? Those same polls show that when the questions get down to true, serious, Bible studying Christians the percentages drop to as little as fifteen percent regardless of their location in America. Now that this “new” coronavirus has hit and churches have been told NOT to meet together in groups of more than fifteen persons I wonder how many more churches will close their doors?

So…should we pray through the denials that we have been inflicting on ourselves for more than forty years? Of course, we should! The Church is the people who make up the Body of Christ here on Earth, not the buildings. Prayer is our connection to God in all of His Glory and it is He that will bring about a return to church and the study of the Bible. How can we just hide behind a tree the way Adam did when he heard God walking in the Garden so long ago? We should confess our sins and beg for His forgiveness of our sins. It was our sins which nailed Jesus to the cross and it was for our atonement that He died and rose on the third day to bring that forgiveness to each person who will ask for it with a humble heart knowing that each of us is truly in need of His forgiveness today and forever.

The instances of PTSD that we hear of today can come from many different situations, but God can get each of us through them if we will learn to rely on Him every minute of every day. What do I mean by “different situations”? The teenager who was sent into a war zone during the Vietnam war gets it because of what he feels or sees around him in the jungle. If he sticks his head out too far the enemy may put a bullet in it. The child of an alcoholic develops it because of how their personality changes and they become violent for little reason. A policeman or woman develops it because of the culture that we live in today that seems to be hunting cops while they are working. Firefighters and ambulance workers get it because of what they see and hear and fear during their shifts. God can help us through all of these but we have to know Him to come to Him for our comfort during our episodes of PTSD. Seek Him every day for His strength and His comfort in every trial, no matter how small or big it may seem to us.

Seek to know Him humbly


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/bible/1/1pe.5.6.KJV

The whole world needs to know Jesus as their Savior but there are too many today who don’t even know Who He is. They don’t know Him as their Savior because so much of the world’s population don’t want to know Him.