And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; Philippians 1:9-10 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/php.1.9-10.KJV
Like Mary at the tomb knew that it was her Lord and Savior when He spoke her name because no other person could express their love for her like Jesus. She felt it, she knew it was her Lord. Jesus calls us to become adopted into the family of God as His adopted brothers and sisters. God loves the world’s population regardless of country or ideology or skin color which is why Jesus came to pay the penalty for ALL of our sins and that penalty was not only His death but complete separation from His Father which He had never known before!
Jesus, our Savior, did this because of His love for humanity, for all of mankind, and yet He was rejected and still is in many countries. This begs the question, “Why is Jesus still rejected today?”. Is it because of the exclusive nature of His offer of salvation? My personal opinion is “Yes, that is the reason people of other faiths reject Him”.
Why? Because they don’t like being convicted of their sinful nature and their daily lives reflecting that. They live as if there is no tomorrow and mostly do whatever they feel like doing as long as they don’t hurt anyone. In some cultures, it doesn’t matter if they hurt someone because of their faith, especially if it is different or contrary to the dominant faith in that place. But, have you ever wondered how they would feel if they were the ones being ridiculed and spat upon because their faith was not the socially or politically acceptable faith?
God’s voice brought the cosmos into being at His command. Isn’t it a wonderful privilege and an honor to be able to study God’s Word in order to learn more about Him and His requirements for us? I do believe that having a written record of His statutes and laws and all of the poetry and wisdom that is contained in this Book is actually the best education that anyone can have. Reading it and studying it helps us to know His voice and how He sounds so that we will know for sure when He does speak to our spirit. We will know that it isn’t our ideas or our voice but His!
Coming to know Jesus as your Lord is one of the easiest and hardest decisions that a person can make. But it is also the best decision because it directly affects your eternity. Many people think that there are many rules and regulations to follow if you want to be a Christian but there is really only one requirement and that is to believe in Jesus for your salvation. Because unless you have been convicted of your need for a Savior, you won’t seek Him at all. But when you do feel that you need Him there are no hoops to jump through in order to be ready for it. Just believe that He died and rose again to pay for your sins and the penalty for them. Once you do that, your heart will change and you won’t be the same person that you were before.
You will do the same things which the apostles did or you will be able to do them and you will want to do them. Tell others how He changed your life and made you into a new creation with a heart that wants to do what He did and what Peter and John and Paul did. Tell others about this wonderful person that has saved you from the pit of hell and changed you so that you can say with confidence that “Jesus is my Lord and my Savior”. The thief which asked Him to remember him when He came into His Kingdom believed in his hour of need and he knew that he deserved the punishment that he got, but he asked Jesus for His forgiveness anyway…and he got it! Don’t turn away from the only Person who can save your soul.
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. John 13:35 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/jhn.13.35.KJV
If you are a Christian, are you working for Him? I don’t mean that you have to be a pastor or a deacon but are you living your daily life as a Christian? Again, you don’t need to be a Gideon, although that ministry does many good things for God. Gideon in scripture was a man who thought he was not a significant man, but God doesn’t always use a strong warrior to accomplish His purposes.
Remember the movie, Captain America? He began as a man who could not be in the Army because of his medical problems and he was a bit too small and weak. God loves to use people who can’t do what He asks because the job requires more than they have. He wants people who will submit to His will and do what He asks of them in faith. In many ways, God wants us to listen and obey His leading but we have to be willing to listen and really hear Him in our Spirit. Then we should DO what we hear Him telling us. Because when we hear Him but then decide that we can’t do what He is asking in a way we are admitting the truth.
We can’t do all of the things that God requires without Him and His Spirit giving us strenght and the ability to acomplish His will. Working with Him, our purpose is true and it will accomplish that which God desires to be done. So many go through life thinking that they have to earn their salvation when it was paid for on the cross fully and completely. All that is required of us is that we believe in Jesus and that His work did this.
Today we celebrate His Resurrection and His victory over death and our eternity purchased by His blood which cleanses us from the stain of sin. Believe in Him for your salvation and you can be in heaven with Him for eternity.
And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. Mark 16:6 KJV https://bible.com/verse-of-the-day/mrk.16.6/51184
For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Psalms 30:5 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.30.5.KJV
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Psalms 22:1-3 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.22.1-3.KJV
Are you trusting the government to “fix this pandemic”? Does anyone in our government even know or have an idea what this really is? Yes, it is a disease with similarities to the flu but no one knows the period of infection or the transmission vector other than through the air by droplets or possibly by touching a surface that may be contaminated. As far as we know it wasn’t engineered by anyone it just started infecting people but the strangest part of this virus is that it can cross over to animals like dogs, cats, even tigers. There aren’t many viruses which can do this. Did it catch us by surprise? I think it did. It began in China last fall and it is contagious enough that with our mobile population it has spread all around the world in about six months.
When will this virus go away? Nobody knows for sure. It may level off for a while during the summer months, but it may come back this fall or during the winter, we just don’t know. But…God does. Is He responsible for sending this virus into the world? I don’t know, but it’s possible. He could be using it to get our attention and get us to turn back to Him. We’ve pushed Him and most of His laws and His Word out of education and from most of our public places like courtrooms. When Israel did that, God used the Babylonians and the Syrians to come and enslave them until they turned to God and begged Him to send them a savior.
Sometimes this would work for a while, but usually in a short period of time they would be right back to worshiping other “gods” and He would have to get their attention again. Why are we so hard headed when it comes to following and worshiping God? We will do it for a while and do it faithfully, but when the hard times ease up we usually move to the point of, “We’ve got this, God you can go back to your house until we need you again”. God provides the air that we breathe and the water that we drink and every bite of food that we eat. Where in that sentence do you see a place where we DON’T NEED GOD!?
I know that many of you think that all of those things which I listed have been available to us for thousands of years so why should you thank God for them now? Okay, hypothetically, lets say tomorrow you wake up and you are having a really hard time breathing or getting enough air to let you be able to move. Would you blame God or would you seek Him out and beg Him to help you? If the doctors can’t find a reason for it and can’t really help you except by putting you on a respirator, don’t you think you should be talking really seriously to the Creator Who formed you in the womb? Since He is the only One that can help you at this point? Now how wonderful does that air feel when you take a breath?
God does love each of us deeply and He has provided everything that we need to live. He also provided a Savior to atone for all of your sins and mine so that we could be with Him in Heaven one day. You don’t know when your appointment will come to meet Him but it is coming. It could be tomorrow or next week, are you ready to meet Him? Do you know Him? Does He know you as a friend and an apostle? If you can’t answer those questions positively and without doubt, then you need to be seeking Him in His Word and through honest, heartfelt prayer too.
If you meet Him before I do, I pray that you will be known by Him as a “faithful servant” even if it was for a day or two or twenty years even. You need to make sure while you can in this life.
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Matthew 26:41 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/mat.26.41.KJV
