Category: Salvation

Time….


Time is measured by us in seconds and minutes and hours, then days, weeks, months and years. If you wish to measure longer periods of time then it can stretch into much more than that. What is my point for writing this today? Well, as you may have noticed, time is slipping away at an ever increasing speed. Some of the younger folks may not see it that way, but the older that you get it seems to speed up monthly. Why is that? If you have children it is easy to see it happen because you see your children grow up and they do it so fast it seems. The older they get, the faster the years seem to go by, at least for you. They don’t see it that way, at least not yet.

Time ticks by us without us really feeling it go. It just floats away like a cloud of smoke and you can’t get it back. The time that it takes for me to write this is time that I will never have again. It has been about six hours or so since I woke up this morning, but that time is gone. I can’t re-live it and I can’t go back and reclaim it.

God can see it as though as it began just a moment ago. He can see yesterday as it was and He can see tomorrow before we ever get to it. He can even go all the way back to the beginning of Creation and go through all of that again if He wishes to. Why? Because He is God!! He lives outside of time, so He can see the end and the beginning any time that He wishes to.

Why am I pointing all of this out? You might think that you wish to do what God does and go back and change things in your past so that things will be different in your future. Sounds great doesn’t it? The problem with that is that depending upon the size of the change, your life will be so dramatically different that you might not recognize it. One other problem with it is that you might not like the “future” that you end up with. Then what do you do? Small changes have big consequences, big changes have BIG consequences, so you might change the person that you marry or the subjects that you study in school and the grades that you got.

These are the temporal consequences that we could not and should not be able to change. God gives us our life as it is because He knows the end result and He knows that it will work out for you and for Him and His kingdom. It is a subject that is fun to imagine about. The money that you could’ve made if you had done things this way or the difference that marrying the “right” person might have made in your life. These are things that we can imagine but that God knows would be best left alone and thankfully we don’t have the capability to do this. We see it portrayed in science fiction films and shows many times, but it would be so easy to really cause real problems if it were possible, so thankfully it is not.

Your life and your purpose are in God’s hands and the effect that your life has is dependent upon who is in charge of your life. Is it God in your heart and in the driver’s seat or is it you? Considering that you don’t know everything and I don’t either, I would rather have God in the driver’s seat because everything will work out according to His plan, which is always the plan that counts. The only thing that is necessary for each of us to do is to believe in Jesus’ atonement for you and me and the sins that we have committed, no matter how bad they might’ve been.

When we accept Jesus as our Savior, then we need to decide to put Him in control of our lives and the leave the outcome in His hands. When we do that, His Kingdom will be glorified and we will have eternal life with Him. It is a winning combination!

Think about it, pray about it and seek Him because when you do, the best will come to you in eternity.

Adult to child or child to adult, which way is it?


When we are young, we can’t wait to get older. When we get older, we want to feel young and act that way. It is so hard to get away from being a child it seems. So, why is it hard to imagine people being childish regardless of their age or their occupation?

We all want to grow up or at least we are supposed to, but looking at the way our culture is today it seems to be taking a long time for many people to do so. If they ever do. Yes, the correct direction is supposed to be from child to adult but it seems that we have gotten confused in the past few decades, not just in America but all over the world. People enjoy things in their middle age that they enjoyed when they were children, even into their later decades of life people tend toward being childish at times concerning some things.

Why is it this way? Because when we get older, we want to have things our way, just as we did when we were toddlers. We may not throw a tantrum about it, but sometimes we do. We are being given things today in our everyday lives that we would’ve had to work for a few decades ago and we get them almost instantly. Games give us instant gratification in winning, you can order anything online now and you would’ve had to travel to get those things years ago, especially books. We can get them instantly delivered over the Internet without having to go anywhere or pay shipping. We can get online and talk with our friends that we haven’t seen in more than twenty years, yet we both are in our own homes hundreds of miles away in some instances and we aren’t even paying for long distance charges to do so!

Our culture and the way that we live in today has gotten so addicted to instant everything and constant information availability, until if something happened to all of this connectivity….we would be totally LOST! Many people would likely even commit suicide because they couldn’t get in touch or look up something. Being childish about some things is OK, being addicted to information overload is just ridiculous. We have intellect and intelligence but to someone coming from a different planet, it would not seem so at times.

Why have we lost our way so badly? Because we have moved away from God and His wisdom. Many of us have Bibles in our homes, many thousands of people have them on their eBook readers but do we read them? Some do, many don’t. The wisdom contained in the Bible is wisdom from God written down through the prompting of the Holy Spirit and it was sent to us for our benefit. Pushing it to the back of the room or throwing it away doesn’t change anything. Ignoring the Word of God doesn’t get rid of any Truth contained in it, just as ignoring the law of gravity doesn’t get rid of it either.

Reading God’s Word, studying it and praying for Him to open your eyes to the Truth is something which all Christians should be doing as we come to the end of the age. Many don’t want to believe that we are so close to it, but when it gets here….you won’t need a news program to tell you that it is, people all over the world will know it at the same time. Our education system has gotten so far from the Word of God and pushed any of its teachings out of the classroom until our society is paying the price for its arrogance in doing so now. The biggest problem with this is that once we have given up on teaching these things, there is no remedy, no way to introduce sanity back into our schools and society again without a HUGE backlash.

Childish, yes we are in more ways than most would like to admit. Sanity and being an adult seem to not go hand in hand anymore and IMO it is because of the absence of the Bible in the home and in schools that is the reason behind it all. How can we fix it? The sad truth is that we can’t. Only the return of Jesus will do that and His return will be sooner than many are willing to admit.

What have you done lately?


Well…lets see, I washed the dishes and the clothes. Then my son and I took the garbage out and got the mail. Yes, this is how my day has gone today, so far. What have you done? Are you a child of God? Do you know Jesus?

As you can tell, I was called a few years ago to be a minister, not just a pastor of a small church but one out here where everyone can see and read what I say. The words which I put out here are not my own exactly, they come from the Holy Spirit because I can’t take the credit for all of the things which I have put here. I can’t help but inject Jesus into my posts. This is not an “online diary”!!! I would never put my own personal life out here so that everyone can read it and learn about me!

I am not important nor am I the person that needs to be learned about, but Jesus wants to know you and He wants you to learn about Him and ask Him to come into your life! You know, there are many people who have never heard about Jesus, even in America, let alone the entire world! It has been two thousand years since Jesus ascended back to His home with the Father, and even though the church was told to go out and tell others about Him and the salvation that God offers through Him, there are many who either haven’t heard the message or don’t understand it.

We are the “body of Christ” on Earth but if we don’t put feet to our faith and go to those who need Him, they might never know about Him and the grace that has been granted to us! If you don’t know Jesus, then it isn’t your fault at all. It is just that you are not part of the solution, yet! Have you had trouble in your life since you heard of Jesus? If you have heard only one sermon or maybe one family member told you about Jesus, yet you said that you weren’t ready yet, or maybe you think that you aren’t good enough to come to Jesus, then today…right now is the time to ask Him to come and clean up your life and your heart so that you can belong to Him!

I know that some people have said that, “Jesus wouldn’t want me. You don’t know what I have done.”, well maybe I don’t know what you have done in your life. The number of sins that you have committed and the people who you may have hurt is none of my business, but Jesus knows! If He is dealing with you and your heart, you will know and if you can feel that then Jesus has decided that you are needed in His Kingdom. You can do something for the Kingdom of God that no other person on Earth can do, but you can!

God knows exactly what you can do and how much, so He will put you where you can and will be the most useful to Him. Yes, it sounds like you are a servant to Him and we are to an extent, but our relationship means more to God than just our service. He wants this relationship to be a two-way relationship like He had with Adam and Eve in the Garden before they disobeyed Him. Can you do this on your own? Absolutely NOT! We cannot do or be the servant that God wants or needs us to be on our own strength and there is nothing that we can do that will “help” God save us and get us into Heaven!

Jesus did everything that was necessary for us to have salvation and enjoy the grace of God in our lives and there is nothing that we can add to it that will make it better. You can’t improve on the perfection that God provided through Jesus, all that we have to do to claim our salvation is to believe in Him and what He did for us. Belief through faith in Jesus is all that is necessary, once that is accomplished then you are free from sin’s hold on your life and you are able to be the person that God intended for you to be!

No matter the time….


I have read some sermons from C.H. Spurgeon and John Edwards lately and today I was listening to a sermon given at a crusade of Rev. Billy Graham in 1985 and what I have noticed is that the urgency of the message and the conditions of the world have been the same as today in each instance! Whether it was twenty-nine years ago, over one hundred years ago or even two hundred years ago, the conditions of the world with wars, crime, adultery, drunkenness, and all other sins being rampant in its time period! We were taught that the world of George Washington was a more genteel one, but not according to John Edwards’ sermons, then one hundred years ago during Rev. Spurgeon’s time it was also claimed to be a more genteel and Victorian era. Not so.

During the middle of the eighties we know that the world was trying to get as much as possible whether it was money, power, or possessions and it seemed that nothing could slake the amount of greed and hatred that was present in our culture. Much of that has not changed in the last twenty-nine years and a good bit of it has gotten worse it seems. So, why is the message of Jesus not being taken up by the world? What is it that is keeping the Christian faith from making inroads into areas which have been evangelised for a long time?

The reason is told and foretold in the book of Revelation. The spirit of Antichrist is rampant in the world at large! I don’t mean that there is a demon doing all of this, although they are out there, but the spirit of unbelief is alive and well and that is the spirit of Antichrist! So, how can we get past it? Just keep doing the same thing that Jesus told us to do. Tell the world about the Good news of Jesus and the salvation through Him that is offered to all by the grace of God!

That is the message that we, as Christians, need to get out to the world. Whether you go and tell those in far off lands or just your family and those that you work with and those that you meet who will listen. Time is growing short, the time that is foretold is coming soon. I don’t know when, nobody knows except God, but Satan knows that his time is coming to a close so he is stepping up his attacks on Christians and Jews. Any who claim faith in God or in Jesus, regardless of their nationality, are enemies of Satan and he has hated humanity since the beginning!

All of the time that we have had and the percentage of people who claim to be true Christians who follow Jesus faithfully totals up to only one-quarter of the population of the Earth?! Satan and his demons and powers have been very busy during the past couple of thousand years and they still aren’t done! Can we make a dent in those that need Christ and His message? Not on our own power! We have to be walking in step with Jesus and allow Him to help us with our message and with getting it out to those who need it. The Holy Spirit will take the message that we get out into the world and make it work because “the word of God never returns to Him void”!!

Who is this Man?


 “Nobody knows the exact date of His birth, and yet His birth has divided all of history to A.D. and B.C. He never, so far as we know, wrote a book, and yet more books have been written about Him than any other person. He never painted a picture or composed any poetry or music that we know of, and yet He has been the inspiration of the greatest music, art, and poetry that the world has ever known. He never had any formal education, yet more schools, colleges, universities, and seminaries have been founded in His name than any other person who ever lived.” – part of a devotional that I received from Love Worth Finding Ministries

Of course the man in the reference above is Jesus the Christ, our Messiah, the Son of the Living God. His influence on the world is undeniable, whether you believe in Him as the Messiah or not, and the effect that Christianity has had in the past two thousand years is polarizing. So, what is it about Him that makes people either love or hate Him and His followers? There is not middle ground concerning Christianity either, it is black and white.

He said it Himself, “And if the world hates you, know that it hated me before you.” John 15:18; so why does the world truly hate Christianity and Jesus in particular? Because of many things which don’t have much to do with the religion, such as His race and because His blood had to be given in order for us to be justified and sanctified by belief in what He did for us. Those are the two main points that I have noticed about those who are against believing in Him. What has that got to do with anything?

Just because He was born into the Jewish culture and God required a blood sacrifice to atone for sin? Big deal! The sins of Adam and Eve were covered by the blood of an animal that had to be killed in order for them to have clothing and from that point on the blood of an animal was required as the sacrifice of atonement for sin. The only difference is that on the cross, the perfect Son of God is the One Who gave His life as a ransom for all, not just a few but all! That is the part which the world wants to reject. Nobody wants a gift that cost that much to be given to them for free, everyone wants to earn it, but there is nothing that you or I can do to earn and be worthy of His sacrifice! Everything was done on the cross that needed to be done and we can’t add to it!

No amount of work on your part or mine will aid in any way your entrance into heaven. Accepting Jesus as your Savior and Lord and believing in what He did for you and for everyone else is all that is necessary. Though, you will be led to do more after you are saved by His grace it will not add anything to your entrance into Heaven except that you may bring a few people with you. Please, pray about the scriptures that point to Him in the Old Testament while you read them, then look up the references in the New Testament that show the fulfillment of the Old. Once you realize that He was there from the beginning as the Son, until He came as the Son of Man and He will come as the King of Kings, you will know your Savior is Jesus the Christ as the Son of the Living God!

 

 

Life today?


So, what do you do? Is your so-called “life” bound up in your occupation or in something else? Does your family enjoy most of your time or do you spend it working at the office? Do you travel a lot on business? These are occupations or at least the reflections of what is important to you. So, does your life reflect what is really important in your life or even what is important to you? Or does your life reflect things that you desire or “stuff” that really doesn’t count for anything?

These questions are some that we all need to ask ourselves at least once, not just once a year but once a week and sometimes once every day! Your life will be far more and have much more meaning if you latch on to Jesus and His message today! Living your life with Christ in the center is the best way to live it, even if it costs you your stuff, it may not cost you everything but it will cost something. Some of your friends may not like it that you are really following Jesus, they may not want a “Christian” as a friend because it will make them look bad!

You know what? If they feel that way, then they weren’t your friend anyway! Being a friend of Jesus and following Him is far better and more rewarding than having friends here which are just friends during the good times. Life comes from God, the air that we breathe comes from Him, the ground that you walk on every day was created for you by Him. The beating of your heart and the heart of everyone around you is His grace toward you for today. You are not guaranteed tomorrow, so the beating of your heart will only go on as long as God decrees that it will.

He loves you and me and everyone else on this planet and only He knows why!! He may not like some of the things which we do or say about Him or against Him, but He still loves you regardless because He is God! We need to love Him in return for the air that we breathe and the job that we have and the family that we have because He gave all of those things, good things, to us. I know that if you are in an abusive relationship you might not think that it is a blessing and you may be right, but God is still with you in the place where you are no matter how dark or hellish it might be.

God cares for you and for your family. He loves us, all of us so much that He sacrificed His Son so that we would have the covering of Christ’s blood to allow us to come into His presence every minute of every day if need be! We don’t have to go to a priest, we don’t have to have a certain amount of money or power to get God’s attention! All that we have to do is be humble enough to tell Him that ” I messed up, God, please forgive me and cleanse me from my sinful ways. Come into my life and my heart and fix what is broken. Thank you, Lord, for loving me enough that I can come to you for this and for all of my troubles and trials. In Jesus’ Holy name I humbly ask this of you, Amen.”

That is all that it takes to be a child of God. Just a simple, humble prayer. No haughty spirit will get this, no prideful person need come, no un-repentant person should “try God” because it won’t work! God knows your heart, He knows where you were last night and what you said on the phone to someone who you shouldn’t have been talking to. Nothing can be hidden from Him because He sees each of us as we REALLY are at all times. Even a prayer that is said humbly as the man in the temple did, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner!”, is heard when it comes from a repentant heart! Please, give Him a chance to show you His love and mercy while there is time to do so. Don’t just read this and think about it, do it!

 

What do you do?


In the New Testament book of Colossians in chapter three and verse seventeen it says: “And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus and in (dependence upon) His person, giving praise to God the Father through Him.” AMP

In this verse of scripture, Paul is writing to those who have come to faith in Christ who are trying to reconcile their vocations with their new beliefs. He is telling them that regardless of your vocation, do it as if you are doing it for the Lord. If you dig a ditch, do it as if Jesus asked you to do so. If you are a doctor, treat your vocation as if you worked for the Supreme Physician.

All of us cannot be missionaries or preachers or evangelists, but we can do what we do as if we are doing it for Jesus. If you are a professional football player or golfer, play like you are playing for Jesus and the same goes for any other sport. Regardless of the work that you do, do it as if you are working for Jesus because you really are.

He gave you the talent and the ability to do what you do and the job or the business that you have so that you can be and do your work for Him. I know that many people don’t treat their job as a gift from God or a blessing from Him but it is. God gives to each of us a measure of faith as well as skill in an area that nobody else can match and we have that skill regardless of our education, it was given to us from birth. We may not find out about it until later, maybe after we have attended school or finished school, but it has been there nonetheless. I never thought that I could write much, until years after I graduated from college. I finally found my voice through finding my Savior and He gives me the words to write or say, I am just the messenger.

Your vocation, whatever it may be, is a doorway to other people’s lives. If you work in a hospital, you see people who are hurting in many ways almost every day. I used to work in the laboratory of a hospital and the specimens which we processed were from many people every day who were dealing with cancers of all kinds, HIV, viruses, you name it they were suffering from it. Nurses, Doctors, and all who work in hospitals should be on their knees every day praying for those who they have to care for, regardless of whether they might know any of them or not.

We should be praying for our country and those in Washington who are in charge of the laws of this land. We need to be praying for our military men and women who are serving and putting their lives on the line every day. Prayer should be in our minds and on our hearts for the whole world to come to know Christ, because Satan is busy changing the minds and hearts of as many as he can to turn against Christians and Jews. We are in his sights as a nation founded upon those principles, even though our country is trying to abandon them as fast as it can it seems.

Even though it has been two thousand years since the crucifixion of Jesus, He is coming back! We need to be prepared for His return by doing as much for His Kingdom as we can, whether it is just by praying or if we can preach or teach others to know Him. Teach your children about Him and your grandchildren because they need to know as well. Your family and your friends are the hardest to tell about Jesus if they don’t already know, so in many instances you may just have to pray and invite them to a Bible study at your home. Prayer can cover many things, especially in the lives of those who haven’t come to know Jesus.

Give your heart to Him, tell others about Him, live your life and your vocation as you would with Him by your side. This is the way to eternal life, follow it…follow Jesus and He will guide you.

Beauty in the Cosmos


If, like me, you watched the series Cosmos on television then you were struck by the wonder and majesty of all that mankind has discovered. The beauty of the galaxies and nebulae, and of the planets in the system where we are at home. But…did you notice that they completely disregard any sort of notion that all of this was designed by a Designer? Nowhere did they show any kind of religious splendor and humility toward the discoveries of the universe itself. Everything in our universe came from a microscopic singularity that just exploded one day and blew out all of the matter, dark and otherwise, into the universe. Then, all on its own, everything just organized itself together into galaxies and stars and planet systems and bacteria, etc.

Come on! Entropy and the universe at large does not work that way and scientists know this! What happened? They theorize that gravity pulled everything together and then nature took its turn. Really?

Yes, the galaxies and nebulae are beautiful to look at and wondrous to behold, but their beauty points not to a random accident of gases and rocks coming together but to the awesomeness of God! He is the designer and builder of all that we see in the heavens. He is the One who put the stars in their places and called them by name. He is also the One Who called forth the light to begin the whole of creation in the first place. No super-collider of any kind is going to find God in a microscopic particle that lasts for a nanosecond and then vanishes!

God can only be found in the Bible, which Isaac Newton studied. They didn’t mention that in the series. Most of the great scientists up until Charles Darwin, believed what is in God’s Word and their research in the heavens was simply to confirm God’s Word not to deny it or to refute it. The answer to your problems, whatever they may be, is Jesus and the relationship that you will have with Him when you ask Him into your heart. God can heal the hurts in your life whether they are emotional or physical and He most certainly can answer your spiritual questions and confusion.

God is the answer when all other answers fail because He is our Creator and everything which is was created by Him, including all of humanity. The ones who have committed sinful acts such as rape, murder, sodomy, stealing, disrespect toward parents and other sins are still loved by God and He will forgive them of their crimes against His commandments if they will repent and ask for His forgiveness. Then follow His ways and His Truth. When they do this, they are adopted into His family forever. You don’t fall from grace after you have received it, you may stumble and fall down by doing something out of character for a Christian but you have not been tossed aside by God. Satan is just trying to make you think that is what will happen.

The world and the cosmos are all God’s handiwork, there is no denying it. You can’t say that these things just miraculously came together without a Miracle Worker! It isn’t possible! As I have said before, your life and everything in it came from God. Your talent, your family, your job, your income, and yes even the pets that you enjoy the company of all came from God’s hand. Many are prideful enough to think that they did all of these things, but you can’t even change the color of one whisker let alone have an effect on your life! God loves you and if you have felt His call…His pull on your heart and have not answered it, I urge you to do so as soon as you can!

Think about it and ask Him to show you what He has for you.

Time…is…ticking…away…from…us


We have a certain amount of time to live, but only God knows how much each of us has. What are you doing with your time?

Do you spend it worried about your bills? Working to make more money so you can pay more of them off or are you trying to buy more “stuff”?

We need to be concentrating on things which have an impact in our life and in the lives of others. Not just as workers or business owners or …. well you get the picture, but as people who genuinely care for one another. In today’s world that is something that is sorely missing. I don’t want to bring up any news headlines, but people are not taught to respect each other nor are they taught, it seems, to respect life itself. Too many news stories are on the web and television about life being taken for no apparent reason. Yes, this has happened in the past, but not to the extent that it is happening today.

You and I only have today. We are not guaranteed tomorrow or next week, let alone next month or next year! We may live to be seventy-five or eighty-five if we are fortunate, but then there are those who may not make it to the end of this sentence or even to sundown today. The point of this is that time is precious and it begins ticking away the moment that we are born. Your heart beats many thousands of times during the day, pumping blood to all of your vital areas. But, it will only beat so long and God knows exactly how many beats that each of us has left.

Yes, God knows how long you will live and how you will die. He knows when too, so what are you going to do with the rest of the time that you have? What will you do about the eternity that you will step into when this life is over? Regardless of what you may have heard, there is a life after this one and it doesn’t end, how you will spend it is dependent upon your decision in this life, here and now. Will you give your life to Jesus and ask Him to forgive you for your sins, regardless of the sin? Will you ignore what that empty area in your life that you feel needs something in it but you don’t know what it is? That is the part of you that God created which desires Him to fill it with Himself!

Only the Spirit of God fits in that part of you, and if it feels empty now, just try to put something else in there…it will feel worse. It will feel as if it gets bigger and bigger until you decide to fill it with Him. The emptiness in your life will not go away until Jesus fills it with Himself, so to consider something else is foolish.

It has taken me about forty minutes to get this far and that is forty minutes that none of us will get back. Seek Him while you can. He will empower you to do things for His Kingdom that is true, but the rewards in heaven are such that we can’t imagine while we are alive now.

Is your culture affecting your religion?


In many areas of life, it seems that culture trumps religion, regardless of which country you might live in. What kind of religion do you practice? Today, it seems, every religion is acceptable in the public square except Christianity! It doesn’t matter if you are a practising witch or an Imam, you are accepted by everyone as long as your religion doesn’t involve belief in Jesus!

Culturally we are all accepted in the grand scheme of things, nobody seems to have any trouble with other cultures as long as they are not trying to impose their culture on others. So, why is it that we label Christians with that sort of label? Like they are pushing something on everyone around them? According to God’s Word, no one is going to Heaven apart from Jesus, period. It doesn’t matter what cultural background you have, where you were born or what color your skin might be. The fact is that you need Jesus in your life and His Spirit dwelling inside your heart.

The only way that you get this is by believing in Jesus as the Son of God and not just some prophet. A prophet cannot get you into Heaven. Being a member of a church or a religious organization will not save your soul. Giving your time, your money or a few hours per week while attending church services will not save your soul! The only Savior that we have who can save us is Jesus. Belief in Him and the atonement that He bought for us on the cross is the only way to be saved from the condition that you are in.

Money, power, prestige, the size of your house or the car that you drive makes no difference at all! Because, when you die, someone else is going to get all of it! None of it goes with you and it makes no difference to God how rich you were or how poor you might have been in the world’s eyes. Like the beggar who went to Paradise and the rich man went to hades, the ground is level in front of God. If your heart is right with God and you have faith in Him and His Son, then you will be richer than anyone on Earth. If you have not accepted Christ and the grace that has been extended to you through the death and resurrection of Jesus, your money will not make any difference and neither will your nation of birth. Jew or Gentile, we are all the same when we stand in front of Almighty God.

You will be asked, “What did you do with My Son and why should you come through the gates of Heaven?” If Jesus puts His arm around you and says “This one belongs to Me, Father.”, then you will have nothing to worry about. If you hear the words, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.”, then you are to be most pitied. Your eternity will be a long, hard, and painful one.

Consider this and pray about your life and your eternity, please.