Category: Salvation

Pain and…


I left the end of the title open because it needs to be. All of us go through life with pain at some point. Arthritis, achy joints because of age or other problems, or plain, worn-out joints, so just getting up from a chair or bed is sometimes painful. Whether this causes us “suffering” is an individual thing. The pain can be sharp or intense sometimes but most days it doesn’t last for long. On other days the pain is a constant ache and it seems to become less achy as the day goes on but it never really goes away. What is my point in beginning my writing today in such a manner?

The point is that each of us has to deal with pain at some point in our lives. Sometimes it is because of age or disease. Sometimes it is because of the loss of a family member or a close friend. In either instance, the loss is felt deeply and it may take a long time for us to learn how to handle it. Emotional pain is the kind that never goes away. We need to seek God’s strength to help us through it every day.

Our world and the problems that we have to live with each day are caused by the sin that Adam brought into the world. We can’t fix them on our own and we can’t fix the problems brought on by the sins against God in the garden. Our sins cause the problems that we have in our world today. We can’t blame the problems that we have today on our parents or grandparents. Our world and its tribulations were brought on because of our sinful ways today, not because of someone else’s actions that were done years ago.

Jesus said that we would have trials in this world but He also said that we should have faith in Him because He overcame the world. Have faith in Him for your salvation and your provision for today and tomorrow and for your eternity that is to come. He is the only way to gain access to Heaven. It is our faith and belief in Jesus that brings us salvation and nothing else.

How many times is the word “believe” found in the Bible?


This post has been so popular I want to re-post it today.

Tracy Eldridge's avatarThe Living Message of Christ

How many times does the word “believe” or one derived from it show up in the Bible?

The word or one with believe inside it, appears 249 times in the Bible. You would be astonished at how few times it really shows up in the Old Testament though. I have published this elsewhere on another site of mine under another name, but I am putting the same disclaimer here: I researched this information using the search function on my Kindle Fire inside the King James Bible. The results may be different from other areas or concordances but the numbers that I have here came from this search alone.

In Exodus, it shows up six times. That is all of the times that the word believe or believeth is present in the book of Exodus, the chronicle of Israel’s journey out of Egypt and on the way to becoming a nation.

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Commit your work to the Lord


Redemption…


What does it mean to be redeemed? The word, redeemed, can mean many things. It can mean that you are saved from the situation that you were in. Whether that situation was slavery or sin or debt, redemption from any one of these can bring joy and peace to you and your family. Redemption from sin is the one that I’m writing about here because it was and is part of the message and the mission of the church that Jesus and His disciples began so many years ago.

What does redemption mean to you? In my life, it has brought peace and joy that I never imagined I would ever have. Mainly because those two emotions can’t be gained by anything that we can do ourselves. Peace and joy only become real in your life when you have something that you cannot lose regardless of how the world around you tries to take it from you. Salvation and redemption come to us through our belief in Jesus and only by our belief in Him.

Don’t be afraid


Live blessed…


Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: They will be still praising thee. Selah. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; In whose heart are the ways of them. Psalm 84:4‭-‬5 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.84.4-5.KJV

When this Psalm was written, David was no longer writing them. But the message is still the same. Blessed is the man or the country that gains wisdom and strength from the Lord and the knowledge of His ways. All of us are blessed whether we believe it or not. God has given us the Earth as our home. He created the atmosphere and the water and all of the things that we need for life. God even created all of the trees and the animals and the grass and the air that we breathe, so shouldn’t we give thanks for everything that we have?

God loves His Creation and everything in the universe is His creation. Although it is true that many people believe that all of the stuff that we see in space and all around us came about by accident…none of it did. There had to be a Planner and a Creator to put everything in its place and create it the way that it should be. Creation doesn’t just happen. A car or a building doesn’t just happen because all of the parts are there. There has to be a plan and a designer and a builder to make those things happen so we were created by God, the Designer, and Builder of everything.

So…are you blessed? Yes! All of us are blessed by God each and every day of our lives. Live your life as a blessed and loved child of God. If you don’t know Him as your Savior then seek Him out as soon as you can.

God is good!


Blessed…


There is no other place to put your hope except in the Lord.

Have you been called?


When God calls you, will you answer His call on your life? God chooses each of us that are called to become His adopted sons or daughters but some of us are so busy we can’t hear Him. Sometimes we are too busy to know His voice when He does call us. The only way to know His voice is by reading His Word.

Do you know that each time you have heard preaching about salvation or some other teaching from the Bible…you are being called by God? There isn’t a time that we are in a church or listening to a television sermon that God hasn’t ordained that time as a call on your heart to become a disciple of His. Each of us has heard many sermons and teachings from God’s Word. Whether we are young or old, every time God’s Word is preached or sung in a song, God is calling you or me. Even if you have read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation just once or many times, each time God is speaking to you. It may be a different message each time. One may come from Psalms, one may come from Matthew or John or the book of Romans, but each time God is calling you to become His child through faith in Jesus.

I have read the Bible about ten or more times in the past decade or so and each time I get a different message from the same passages. Why? Because God’s Word is alive and it reads us as we read it. Some people don’t believe that but that is because faith hasn’t revealed it to them yet. You can only understand God’s Word through faith. Without faith, the Bible is just a book of history and poetry with some prophecy scattered here and there.

What causes you to turn away from Jesus? Is it your job? Is it your family? Is it your pride? Life can get in the way because of all of the distractions and problems that we have. But…God is calling people every day. Some of us don’t see it or know those who’ve been called but there are many who give their lives to Him each day. God loves us as His creation but He doesn’t like the way most of us live each day. We go around living our lives as if the Bible and its message either don’t matter or it is just a fantastic story. One day, when the Trumpet of God sounds and the church is taken away the whole world will recognize that the Bible’s stories were right.

At least some people will recognize that God’s story was telling the truth. There will be many in the world who refuse to accept God or the Bible, so they won’t believe that the “disappearances” had anything to do with God. I pray that anyone and everyone will seek to know Jesus as their Savior. Seek Him for your salvation today while there is time.

Have you believed in Him?


According to John, our belief in Jesus is what gives us eternal life. It has to be belief in Who He is and the atonement that He provided for us through His sacrifice on the cross. He was the perfect Lamb of God that provided a sacrifice with all of the requirements to pay for the entire world’s sins. He provided a way for everyone to be reconciled to God by our belief in Him and His sacrifice. It is that belief that must be more than just belief in Him as a person but in Him as your Savior. Many people, if not most, have heard of Jesus and know Who He is or Who He claims to be but they don’t believe that He is their Savior. They don’t believe that He is the Son of God and the Messiah, their Messiah.

Jesus is mentioned in Islam and in their holy book but only as a prophet and nothing more. Yet many are coming to a saving knowledge of Him by seeing Him in their dreams and He is telling them Who He is and that they need Him as their Savior. God knows who will commit their life to Him and who will not and many of those who swore that they would never know Jesus are becoming followers of Him anyway. Because He is seeking them in their dreams and explaining to them their part in His Kingdom.

All of us have a part to play in His Kingdom and He is calling all of us to come to Him for our salvation. All we have to do is to accept Him as our Savior when we feel the touch and the conviction of the Holy Spirit in our lives. That conviction tells us that we can’t be a part of His Kingdom without giving our hearts to Jesus. I pray that everyone who feels it will give their hearts to Jesus.