Wants…and needs

All of us have come to this part of life and looked outside of the Word of God for the answer. We don’t want to hear that God rewards a cheerful giver because who is happy about giving away their livelihood? Being a cheerful giver doesn’t mean that you are happy giving away ALL of your money, but don’t be a grudge or a Scrooge when you do give your tithes to Him. God looks at the heart and He knows your reason for doing every little thing that you do. He knows is you are genuine about your faith and about tithes.

And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two MITES, which make a farthing. ( Mark 12:41-42 ) A farthing would amount to about a halfpenny worth in the time that Jesus was there. How is it possible that the widow gave more than all the rest? Because she gave to God from her need. Those mites were all that she had, but she knew that God would supply her needs because of her gift in faith.

The rich young ruler which came to Jesus asking how he might inherit eternal life had done all that was required to be righteous as far as the law was concerned but Jesus saw that his money was an obstacle to him. When Jesus told him to give his money to the poor and he would have riches in Heaven, he couldn’t do it. Money meant more to him than eternity.

Why do I bring this up today? Because there are many who look toward riches and having their wants met by having money enough to do whatever they want rather than looking beyond this life into eternity. God can reward you today if he chooses, but nothing that you can have here can compare to your home in Heaven forever!

Consider having enough money to fill a box 3 ft. square with $100 bills. I can’t tell you to the dollar how much that would be, but it would be more than I have ever had! If you had it in the bank, you couldn’t get it any time you wanted. If you had it under the mattress, you would be worried that someone would steal it. If you had a safe at home, it would be full unless it was a very large safe. What could you do with it?

Many people would be afraid to spend it because once you begin spending it, it goes like it is on fire. If you invest it carefully it might grow even larger, then what do you do? If you invested it foolishly, it might disappear in a day or two, then we are back to an empty box.

God has a home for you where your address is on a street made of pure gold! So pure that it is like glass! He formed your dream home from His Word, made not with hands but by His Word. No mortgage, no bills, and all of the time in eternity to enjoy it! What could you do with that! Take eternity one day at a time, the problem is that there is no calendar in Heaven. But, that won’t matter.

God loves you enough that your place is secure IF you have asked Him into your heart, so please consider that and don’t turn away from His call to your heart.

Alienated….

Does anyone feel this way today? There are days when I feel this way and it even encroaches upon lonely, even with friends and family around. Why is that? Mostly it is because, I think, of my disability. I don’t have a daily job to go to, I don’t work except when I preach at church on Sunday. My “self-worth” isn’t tied to a career or a job anymore.

The good news about this is that God sees me as being worth His grace and His love! Just as He sees you and every other person on this planet, He looks at us with eyes that have seen all of the good and the truly horrible in humanity, and He still loves us! Why is that?

Because He is God! He can do whatever He pleases and it pleases Him to love us!

His love is so far above what we know and feel until it won’t be known by us until we are in His Presence…if we are born-again Christians. If you haven’t given your heart to Him and asked His forgiveness for your ways, then you will face Him as a person being judged for their life, their words and deeds, and everything that you gave approval of in your life.

Alienation is loneliness but it can bring you closer to Jesus if you will seek Him in it. Depression can be overcome by Him in your life by seeking His guidance through prayer, and reading the Psalms. All of our hindrances and limitations can be brought under His strength and under His tutorship if we will let Him take the wheel of our life.

We weren’t meant to do everything alone and without Him in our lives. We try to do a lot before we find out about Jesus and we try to do it with our own strength, our own ideas, our way of fixing things. Until we find that most of the time, our way is not going to work. We still feel empty and inadequate, unable to meet the deadlines and the requirements with our strengths and our ideas.

What are we to do?

Submit your life to Jesus and ask Him to cleanse your heart and your life so that you will be part of the family of God. Believe that He died for your sins and took the punishment for them, then ask Him to forgive you and He will. The grace of God has been extended to you through Jesus, all you have to do is ask for it and it is yours. You won’t be alone anymore because a part of God’s Spirit will live in your heart from that point on!

The plans of Satan

I’m reading “The Third Heaven: The Birth of God” by Donovan Neal, Natalie Davis and wanted to share this quote with you.

This quote below is from a speech which Lucifer/Satan was giving to his followers, his fallen angels, regarding how they were to interact with humanity. His plan seems to have worked very well considering how our world is today, don’t you think?

“Follow the pattern that I have set, and make the male dominate the female, set young against old and use their hues and shade of skin to divide them. Raise up among them great ones, and those of low estate plant greed and envy in their ranks. Sow fear and distrust amongst them, that they never see unity of worship to El”

In our world today, there is no “unity of worship” toward God or almost any other religion. We are fractured and broken to a point of disagreement which staggers the imagination. Many divisions in the church such that there are approximately 38,000 denominations worldwide. How is this unity of worship, even though almost all of these are Christian churches? We split on disagreements between friends, deacons and the pastor and many other things it seems, sometimes we split over trivial things.

The church which started on the day of Pentecost, is not the church that we have today. Most congregations are more interested, it seems, in the number of people listed as members and the attendance on Sundays, as well as the amount given in the offering plates, than they are in serving the Lord and becoming more like Jesus!

To give you a bit of accuracy and credentials to back this up, here is a definition which will clear things up a bit:

“Denominations. A denomination is defined in this Encyclopedia as an organized aggregate of worship centers or congregations of similar ecclesiastical tradition within a specific country; i.e. as an organized Christian church or tradition or religious group or community of believers, within a specific country, whose component congregations and members are called by the same denominational name in different areas, regarding themselves as one autonomous Christian church distinct from other denominations, churches and traditions. As defined here, world Christianity consists of 6 major ecclesiastico-cultural blocs, divided into 300 major ecclesiastical traditions, composed of over 33,000 distinct denominations in 238 countries, these denominations themselves being composed of over 3,400,000 worship centers, churches or congregations.” (Barrett et al, volume 1, page 16, Table 1-5, emphasis added) (http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/a106.htm)

The church which began soon after the resurrection of Jesus, has splintered into so many pieces which have many differing views and rules and orders of worship, until it seems that it is no longer a unified body of believers at all. While it is true that most of them worship God and Jesus as His Son, some have a different viewpoint regarding exactly Who they are.

Some don’t believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, some teach that parts of the Bible, God’s Holy Inspired Word, are wrong or that it doesn’t apply to the “modern church”.

God doesn’t change and His Word is true today just as it was at the time that He inspired the writers to write it down. There are no parts of it which are wrong, unless you just don’t want to believe it because it offends you or someone you love. God’s Word is true because God doesn’t change and He gave the words to those who wrote it down, so why is it that people don’t want to believe it? Because, we don’t want to learn the rules or learn about God.

Many don’t want to become a Christian because they believe that the rules will keep them from enjoying their life. Why do you believe this? The rules in the Old Testament about food and the sacrifices needed don’t apply to us today! The Ten Commandments will condemn you because all of us have broken one or two or more of them and they do still carry the same punishment that they did when they were given.

If you won’t give your life to Jesus and ask Him to come into your life and change your heart into His, why not? Have you felt a hollow feeling in your life and have never been able to fill it with the things of this world? The reason is because that empty place is made for Jesus to fill and nothing else. All of us have felt that place inside us which we know is empty and we feel like something should be there, but we don’t know what. Some of us go for many years without finding out what fits in that place…well now you know. The Holy Spirit of God fits in there and He only comes when you ask Jesus to come in and cleanse you, making you whole and a part of God’s family.

Inner strength and beauty

Have you noticed that people who stay together the longest have these two in spades! Inner strength comes from your character and that is truly based upon your beliefs, whatever they might be. Strength on the inside is the kind which comes from outside yourself, it is not physical but spiritual and it is in contrast to your beliefs and your faith in that which gives you strength.

Is your faith in a “man-made” religion or god? If it is then your faith is in something which cannot last. We have many religions which are manufactured by man, although some of them seem to be based on the Word of God. Many people have taken a few phrases or verses from one chapter of the Bible and created an entire doctrine around it. It may not be what Jesus taught or even based on anything which He said, but it sounds good and it can be said to “be based on God’s Word” even if it is only based on one or two verses.

Man-made religions are not the same, even though to the outside world they appear to be the same. If you get enough people to follow your teaching and they like the message enough, then they will back you when it comes time to build a larger church. Sometimes, a sermon or a theology which is based on or around the words and teachings found in the New Testament is not very popular. Because…it is based upon the Truth of God’s Word! There will likely be fewer people who like your message, but those who do are committed to learning about Him.

Inner beauty is found in people whose character is shaped by their belief in God and Jesus Christ. Yes, there are some who are beautiful regardless of the religion which they follow or even if they follow any religion at all, but they are few in number. I am not speaking here of outer beauty, but the kind that is inside a person. Outer beauty comes from your parents but it doesn’t really last because as we grow older, out face will change and our body changes. We don’t look as “beautiful” or as “handsome” as we may have when we were younger. Beauty is fleeting and it is only skin deep as far as your outer beauty is concerned.

Inner strength comes from our faith in something or Someone greater than ourselves, like Jesus. The martyrs from the past, who were killed in horrendous ways like burning or being gored by bulls or ripped apart by lions, faced their deaths with dignity and strength that they drew from knowing that they belonged to Jesus! Nothing could separate them from Him because if they died, regardless of the manner of their death, they would be with Him!

Today, we all need strength from God more than we do anything else. Because of the persecution and the negative things which are said of Christians these days. In the next decade, it will likely get much worse than it is now and it is not something which your children are prepared for. We aren’t prepared for it! But…its coming. Lean on Jesus and learn about Him from the Bible, even if it is outlawed to possess a Bible, keep one hidden somewhere that you can read. Make sure that you have a place to go that is safe, if possible, because we are coming to a time when unrest is going to be everywhere.

Times are changing

What can we do? Not much really, except pray and turn our hearts back to God. Our world, this nation, and every nation on Earth needs to turn toward the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Why should we do this? Because we have pushed Him out of our lives! We have taken prayer and Bible reading out of our schools and we are reaping the consequences of that decision.

Some people may not notice that this is happening, but if you ask anyone who grew up in the sixties and seventies they can tell you that our world is definitely NOT the same anymore. So many problems, so much anger and violence, so many wars and things which are happening all over the world. These we see and hear about on the news programs or on the Internet on a daily basis and they change our perception of people in our world.

We look at people in a different light. We think about them in ways which are wrong, because we are allowing outside influences, like the news, change our perception. God knows each of them and you. He doesn’t change His ways and we should try to be more like Him. No, we will never be perfect in this life but we should strive toward that goal through Him and by knowing Him.

Why am I saying this? Because…the world is the way it is today simply because we are coming to the end of the church age or the age of God’s grace. He hasn’t given up on us, but His plans are in motion to bring about His purposes in the world. Many people can’t seem to believe that this is where we are today, but if you have read the Bible and the prophecies concerning the end of the age, then most of it makes at least some sense.

No, we can’t understand His ways or why things are happening the way that they are, because they seem so wrong to our way of thinking. But, God sees the picture outside of our time and space and He knows what is going on and how it will work out. This is the message to all who read this post: God has it all in His hands and His ways are better and more perfect than ours because He can see the outcome before the beginning.

Seek Him and trust in Him in all of your life’s journeys, no matter how small or big they might seem to you…because God is bigger than your problems! It might not seem so right now, but He is!

What is your trigger?

It seems that today, people get “ticked off” at the drop of a pin or anything that has happened to someone who they don’t know at all. Maybe they have something in common with that person and feel that it, whatever “it” was, was directed at them in general. Such as the people who protest against police violence toward “black men”. They are protesting because they perceive that all police are racist and have a chip on their shoulders against all people of color. Which is not true, but for some reason it is coming to the front of news stories more and more today. Why?

Some would say that it is because it is happening more often and that the violence is justified. The “trigger” is very subtle though and it is not happening more often, it is because everyone in the street has a smart phone and it is capable of recording video of anything, anywhere and at any time. There doesn’t have to be a news crew around, but by recording an event, regardless of its significance, and uploading it to the Internet then it may become newsworthy.

I have a trigger which moves me to pray for all of those who come to this site and read or just look around. I don’t know most of you, but God does. Even if you have never attended church or sat through a sermon, God knows who you are. He values you above the riches of the whole world. He loves you enough that if you were the last person on Earth, He would want you as His adopted child. It isn’t fear or anger or frustration which drives us, it is our collective need for this world to be healed and all of the problems which we face every day to be taken care of. Only Jesus can do this.

Other religions boast of having more followers or having larger church buildings or worship centers, it doesn’t matter what they are called. If you aren’t worshiping God and His Son, Jesus, then you are in the wrong building. I know, there are many who would tell me that my way of thinking is too small or non-inclusive of others, but aren’t most religions today? Islam doesn’t allow for other faiths, you have to accept theirs, yet no one ever tells them to be quiet and not pray or not tell others about their faith. It is the same with any other faith in the world, with the exception of Christianity. We, who are Christians, and believe God’s Word can’t read our Holy Scriptures in public. We cannot pray openly, we cannot tell others about our Savior because it offends people.

Jesus said to turn the other cheek when someone strikes you. I think we have done that far too often, yet we are still doing it. Why? Because, Jesus said for us to endure persecution to the end and we will be saved. Is this world going to be better in the future? Yes, it will when Jesus sets up His Kingdom and rules the world from Jerusalem. But, until that time comes we must endure.

Yes, there is anger and bitterness in many cities today but there is also…hope. Hope for tomorrow, hope for a peaceful day today, hope for reconciliation between police and those who protest against them. Where does this spirit of hope come from?

Jesus.

The world can’t give you hope, but He can. The world doesn’t care about you or your circumstances, but He does. The world is ruled by the spirit of Antichrist, Satan and his followers and it shows in the news and in our papers every day. Jesus loves you and wants all of us to share in His love but in order to do that, we need to accept Him and then share Him with others too.

How do you live?

Are you a Christian? Do you believe in Jesus’ atonement for your life? Have you walked with Jesus or did you just get baptized and go on with your life?

Do you deny that Jesus is real? Do you believe that He was “just a prophet”?

If you believe and you accept Him as your Savior, then the first sentence should apply to your life, but are you living your life according to His will for you? It is a question that needs to be answered by all of us. Have you “given your life to Him”, but then walked away from the church and never went back? You are denying Him.

If, on the other hand, you fall into the group of people who don’t believe in God or Jesus at all, then who do you believe in? Yourself? Satan or Allah? Mohammed? Can you change the color of your skin or your hair by thinking about it? Of course not, you and I are not going to be gods and we can’t do anything like God can.

Has Satan appeared to you in a robe of white with wings so bright you couldn’t see? He can you know. Mohammed is dead and he isn’t coming back until God raises him up one day to pay for what he did in his life.

Satan can appear as an angel of light and he can tell you that he is Gabriel if he chooses to, but that doesn’t make it the truth. Mankind is easily deceived and especially when it comes to the master of lies who has had many thousands of years to perfect his deception. One day there will be a man who will appear to be our savior and he will be able to do things that will look miraculous, like Jesus did, but he will be a false savior. Many people will be taken in by him and his words and power that he shows, but he is not the Son of God.

All of those words that I wrote in the past couple of sentences are foretold in Daniel and in the book of Revelation. It is God’s Word and it is True. It will come to pass. I don’t know when, but with all that is happening around the world I would bet that it won’t be much more than a decade or so away. I could be wrong, of course. The point that I am trying to make is that when this person shows up and everyone seems to think he is so wonderful, that should cause a bell to go off in your mind. Remember what you may have heard or read in the Bible or in Sunday school.

Don’t just follow someone blindly because they seem to be more than they are! Many false “Christs” have appeared in the past, but they all died. Many things are going to happen in the near future which will cause many people in the church to leave their faith behind. When all of this begins, take notice and get a Bible and read it. If you have lived a life which wouldn’t have been acceptable to Jesus, then you should repent and ask for His forgiveness.

Why? Because if you see all of these things happening then the end is getting very near. When the peace treaty between Israel and all of her enemies is signed and the Temple begins to be built, take note of who is brokering that deal. All of these must happen before Jesus comes to get the elect, His church, His Bride. Make sure that you are part of that number. In the picture there are many promises for His elect, if you have repented of your sins and given your heart to Him and asked for His forgiveness.

Techno-stuff

We all live with and use these things all of the time. From smart phones to thermostats which know if you are at home or not, our lives seem to be flooded with technology in almost all areas of our life every day. What would happen to us if that technology suddenly stopped working?

For some people with pacemakers it would mean that they get to see God sooner than they expected. For others, for instance if you were a patient in a hospital, it might mean the same thing. Some people would notice that their car won’t crank or even run at all. Technology runs every part of our lives these days or at least a significant part of it, so what would we do if an EMP went off and wiped out all of the electric grids and anything which depended upon electricity or electronic circuits?

This is the scenario that is ahead if a militant state or group gets the ability to launch a nuclear EMP bomb into the high atmosphere. Within three days every grocery store would be cleaned out. There would be no alarm systems anywhere in America and no fire truck or police or ambulance would be able to respond to calls for help. Your car wouldn’t crank and your cell phone and computer won’t work again. The entire electric grid for America would be shut down because they are dependent upon computers and electricity. An EMP would send our country back as a society to the point of being where our great grandfathers were about 150 years ago!

It is a scary scenario to think about but if someone had this ability, and many do today, our world would be drastically changed. We would have to go back to either using horses or if you happen to have a classic car or truck, one which was made at least 37 years ago, then you may have transportation until the gas runs out.

Technology has spoiled us to the point of being dependent upon it for everything that we do. Our world, not just America, is dependent on it for business and banking and communication so without electricity to power our technology, our way of life will revert to being like it was almost two-hundred years ago. Also, we don’t know how long the effects of an electromagnetic pulse would last. It could be months or even years before we could get things back to the normal that we are accustomed to today.

Why am I bringing this up today? Mainly to get some of you thinking about getting prepared for an event like this should it happen in the near future.

God is coming back in the form of His Son, Jesus and He will put the world back together again the way that He meant for it to be. But, until that day comes we shouldn’t just sit around and wait for Him to fix everything! Prepare for the worst, hope for the best and tell others about Jesus! This is what the church is supposed to do until He comes again. We will see the world go through much trouble and hard times before He returns because the apostle Paul said that “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;” 2 Thessalonians 2:3

Be prepared, read and study the Bible, pray and fast to strengthen your faith in Him because these things were foretold through the Spirit of God to the writers of these letters. God’s Word is true and it does tell the end before it comes, these things will happen, when we don’t know. Be mindful and watch and pray that you will be counted among the faithful. Amen.

Umber

The color of umber is brown. Not a dark brown but not exactly “paper sack tan” either. Truthfully it is like a lightly roasted coffee in color. Why am I bringing this up on this blog? Because there are discussions and arguments arising about the way that Jesus is portrayed in paintings and in our culture.

Some say that He should be portrayed as white, others say that He is black, actually He is neither one. Jesus was born Hebrew as a Jewish Israelite. If you have ever met someone from Israel you notice that they have skin tones which have an olive complexion. What does that mean? It means that their skin will tan easily in the sun.

Our Savior did a lot of walking throughout Judea in His lifetime, therefore He most likely was very dark-skinned where the sun struck Him. His face, arms, feet, and lower legs were likely very dark. The depiction of Him being white by artists who painted Him or otherwise portrayed Him is a nod to the culture of their day, racist though that may have been.

Our ancestors, the ones who began all of this in Eden, were very olive-skinned so that when their offspring came about a myriad of skin colors and complexions would be genetically possible. God knew then and He knows now exactly what He is doing genetically in this world. He is also giving us the ability to choose our spiritual pathway in our lives and He has been doing this from the start.

God doesn’t care if your skin color is dark or light, olive or even very darkly pigmented, He cares about your soul…your inner man. That is the part of you that lives on into eternity and your culture, your “skin tone” will likely be in eternity as well so we will all be able to see who we really are or were in our previous life on Earth. No one will lose their identity after death. Jesus spoke of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob being alive in eternity and our names and all that we have done in the service of God will follow us into eternity too.

Living here in this life is far different from what we will see or know in Heaven and for those who won’t give their hearts to Jesus, their eternity will be a true living hell. The descriptions of hell are varied but the regrets and the separation from God’s love and all that we have known in this life will be with us through eternity. The color of your skin, your culture, your lifestyle or how much money you had on Earth will mean NOTHING!

I was given a very tiny glimpse into heaven once and the gold streets are pure enough to shine like the Sun and the gold is like glass. Some of the buildings are made of a substance like opals only more pure and clear with walls a cubit or more thick. They reflect God’s glory with all of the colors imaginable but a description would not do them justice at all.

The descriptions found in the Bible are man’s attempt at describing things which our minds can’t comprehend fully, so I can’t either. Race doesn’t mean anything in the end. We are all God’s children and all of us are descended from Adam and Eve, since God cannot lie I don’t understand why we deny that we are all related.

He is our Savior!

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God has done all that is needed through Jesus, our Savior, to save each and every one of us. All that is required of us is to believe like a child that He did it and ask Him to come into your life, into your heart and soul and you will be a new creation in His Image!

It doesn’t take your works or your money or strength to be saved and righteous enough to be allowed into Heaven because nothing that you or I can do in our strength is good enough to bring you into His Presence! He provided all that you need to be saved, all that you have to do is believe it and ask for it.

Unfortunately, many people look at this as being too simple, too easy. They want to help in some way. The problem with us helping is that we get in the way.

So, what will it take for you to believe in Him? People have been teaching that God punishes us so that we will learn certain things when the fact is that Satan is doing that. Of course, he won’t do that unless you are a Christian or you are thinking about becoming one because in the spiritual realm if you don’t belong to God then you are part of Satan’s group. I don’t mean that you worship him, but if you aren’t or you haven’t given your life to Jesus then as far as Satan is concerned you are not dangerous to his cause.

God loves you because He created you for a reason. What that reason is and when you might get busy with it is only known to Him until you are drawn to Him and make your decision to follow Him. The reason that I don’t make a distinction between God and Jesus is that they are part of the Trinity, which includes the Holy Spirit. All of them are part of One Creator. Like it or not they all show up in Scripture.

God has made a way for you to be saved from sin and the consequences of it, all you have to do is claim it. Will you?

Read the scriptures in Romans and John, not just one or two passages but all of them. Pray that God will show you why you need Him and how to come to Him. He loves you and He wants a relationship with you. It is up to you to seek Him, because He doesn’t force faith on you nor does He chase you down.

http://jesusfilmmedia.org/1_529-jf-0-0/