Category: Salvation

Can a broken vessel be useful?


Can you be useful to God when you feel broken? Many of us are actually broken in some way. It may not be a brokenness of spirit but it could be because of personal tragedies. So…could you be useful to God’s Kingdom even though you are broken?

Most of us could even if we don’t feel like being useful. Most of the time, when we are broken, our spirit is broken and our emotions feel all mixed up during this broken time. God refers to us as vessels of His Spirit and vessels should be useful but if they are cracked they can’t hold much. The vessel will leak. 

Whenever God calls you and you feel broken would you answer His call? You are being called by God so the task can only be accomplished by you. If you are feeling like you can’t do it because something is missing in your life or in your walk with Him…God can fix that part and give you the ability to accomplish the task at hand. Your emotional baggage and your depression and brokenness should bring you closer to God.

All of us are broken in some way and it doesn’t take a genius to know this in our world today. With the pandemic and the wars and all of the other problems like inflation and high fuel prices, how could we NOT be broken in one way or another? So much uncertainty and anxiety about all kinds of problems that most of us can’t fix in our daily lives can cause even more of the same. It just keeps repeating.

Compounding the problems around us is the media’s ignoring signs that life is not getting better but more complicated. Then there is all of the social media drama that keeps cropping up about one thing or another that has no real meaning in the long run. Life at the point that we are living in right now has more than enough “drama” without the nit-picking stuff that shows up on Twitter or Facebook. 

There are days that I would like to go back to the days when we had AOL and email and that’s it! No cell phones, no Twitter, no Facebook, no TikTok. Granted, the generation that has grown up since 2007 could not handle being without a cell phone. But, we could truly do without most of the social media that it seems everyone obsesses over today. All of the angst that people have to handle from life itself is enough without adding to being socially acceptable and not hurting someone’s feelings.

Consider the day when the Trumpet sounds and the church is taken up to be with Him in Heaven…social media won’t matter at all on that day. There isn’t a single story or tweet or post of any kind that will be taken into Heaven and your status or how many “friends” you had on Facebook or Twitter won’t matter one bit.

The only friendship that will matter is the one that you have with Jesus. If you don’t know Him as your Savior and He doesn’t know you, then you won’t be taken up into the clouds. Knowing about Jesus will not save you. Being a member of a certain church won’t provide entry into Heaven. Only belief in Jesus as your Savior and a life that reflects a change in your heart will make a difference. So, if you don’t know Him yet I suggest you need to search Him out in the Bible, pray and ask Him to come into your heart and repent of your sinful life today! Not tomorrow or next week because none of us is guaranteed even to wake up in the morning. Make sure of your salvation before it is too late.

Prayer is effective


Put on the armor of God


Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:10‭-‬12 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/eph.6.10-12.KJV

There are many times in a Christian’s life that we feel like we’re being targeted by Satan, at least I do. Sometimes he will target people who are not Christians too but the point is that without faith and prayer and our knowledge of God’s Word, we have no real weapons to fight him with. God gives us faith when we are convicted of our sins and turn to Jesus for our salvation. Sometimes we feel that it isn’t very much faith but even a little bit can go a long way if we use it without doubting that God can bring us through our problem whatever it may be.

Why is the church today so ineffective in reaching out to people? It is because the body of Christ, the church, isn’t using His Word effectively and defending itself from Satan’s attacks. God has given us a way to triumph in every situation that Satan can throw at us but until we use the spiritual weapons that we have access to we will fail every time. We are able to be victorious in the fight as long as we have faith in Him and use that faith to call on Him to fight for us. God doesn’t leave us defenseless against the enemy.

But, like any weapon, if we don’t use it correctly it doesn’t help us. A gun can’t kill people unless there is a person behind it aiming it and pulling the trigger. In the same way, the weapons that we can use against Satan are useless if we don’t know how to use them. An excuse for not knowing that we have them will not help us. Just as not having a life preserver won’t keep you from drowning if you don’t have it. We don’t have an excuse for not having faith if we are Christians. We have faith but we don’t know how to use it.

Learn from God’s Word about the weapons that you need before you need them because getting them after being attacked will not help you at all.

The Ten Commandments


Can you keep these completely? Have you considered that God wrote these on stone tablets and gave them to Moses? Have you ever considered that GOD is the Creator of EVERYTHING? That is the Person that you pray to and worship every Sunday morning! When we pray we are speaking to our Creator and most people just shrug their shoulders like it’s no big deal. Why?

Jesus came because He wants a relationship with you, me, and everyone who will give their hearts to Him. He knows when you will follow Him but why do so many of you wait? You don’t know if you are going to wake up in the morning! None of us knows how many days we may have left and it is only in this life that we can come to know Jesus as our Savior. Once you die, that’s it! You don’t get a second chance. 

Once, I was accused of trying to scare people into giving their hearts to Jesus and I’ll admit that I tried but only God can bring you to the point of knowing that you NEED Him. The Holy Spirit has to touch your heart and bring you to the knowledge of your sin and that without Jesus as your Savior you will go to hell. Some of my friends from years ago, when I was a firefighter, said they would have the fire put out by the time the rest of us got there. No, they won’t! There is no light in hell, only heat and an absence of God’s Spirit and presence. There is no way that there will be a party in hell the way many people used to say. There is no water in hell either!

Remember the parable that Jesus told about the rich man and Lazarus? The rich man asked Father Abraham to let Lazarus come and just dip his finger in some water and put one drop on his tongue to cool it in the heat. Hell was made for Satan and his demons because they wanted to rule in Heaven. It was not made for mankind but Satan likes to trick people into thinking that it doesn’t exist or that they have plenty of time to make peace with God. The only peace you can make with God is by accepting Jesus as your Savior!

Your life here is short compared to even one thousand years. Imagine living in your eternal body in hell. Your body can feel the heat and the separation from God and at that point, you know that you can’t get out of hell. The pain that you will feel will be from the separation from God but it will be from the heat of the lake of fire too because your body cannot die even though you will want the pain to stop. 

The only remedy that will keep you from going to hell is by giving your life and your heart to Jesus. There is no other path and no other remedy for your sins. Jesus paid the price to buy your soul with His blood and He paid for all of your sins with it as well. All you have to do is accept Him as your Savior and repent of your sins, then follow Him until He comes again. The period of grace for this world is drawing to an end and His coming could be at any time. Don’t wait until it is too late.

Have you encountered your Savior?


What kind of question is that? What do you mean?

I don’t mean have you heard about Him or even accepted Him as your Savior. I do mean, “Have you had an encounter with Him?”

We go through life every day passing by people on the road and on the sidewalk…but we don’t know them. We may never know who they are even if we pass them for many days or weeks or even years. But, what about Jesus? Do you just pass by Him in church? Hearing messages about Him but not really getting to know Him. You might ask me, “How am I supposed to get to know Him?”. By surrendering your heart to Him and reading the gospels about Him and what He did. That is the best way to get to know Him and actually have an encounter with Him.

Some of you might say, “I don’t need Him. Not right now, I’m too busy to worry about my salvation”. Do you truly believe that you have many more months or years ahead of you? Not one person on the Earth knows if they will wake up tomorrow morning…not even you or me. So, how can you just push Him or even the experience of Him away so easily?

We are living at the end of the church age. Jesus could come to take the church, those who have given their hearts to Him, at any time. He has loved all of humanity since the very beginning, although He has not loved their sinful ways. Can you say for certain that you will be a part of the church, the Bride of Christ when He comes to take her to His Father’s house? If you are not sure, then you need to make sure.

Jesus looked at those He ministered to with a love that we can’t understand because it didn’t require anything from those He was ministering to. He didn’t need money or jewels or a home. He already had access to all of that and more. God doesn’t require anything from us except our obedience and our devotion. No amount of work is needed for us to be saved from hell. Only our belief in Jesus and our repentance, turning away, from our sins. Why does an encounter with Him seem to frighten people away?

It could be that the price of following Him is too high. How could that be? He doesn’t require you to spend your entire savings to follow Him. All He asks for is your heart and your belief in Him to be His disciple. Then go and tell others what He has done for you. It’s not required but your testimony to others will show how much He has done for you and maybe they will want Him as their Savior as well. The blind men that He healed only asked for their sight back and He healed their blindness. He also gave them “spiritual eyes” to see Who He was and to know that they needed to follow Him and they did.

With everything that is happening in the world today, we need a Savior in more ways than we know. The Savior that can give you an eternal place in Heaven is Jesus Christ. Seek Him while there is time.

When will You show up?


We want to ask this especially when we are going through a tough time. The bills can’t be paid because the money isn’t there. You can’t buy groceries, again, because of no money. You get a diagnosis that frightens you and surprises you at the same time…so when will You show up in all of this, God?

The days that we are living in and through today bring questions like this to mind. We may not voice them aloud but they are there. There is something that we need to remember in all of this: God is always here with us. He knows when a sparrow falls, so don’t you think He knows when you are having trouble? Even if you haven’t given your life to Him yet, He still knows and He is never more than a prayer away.

God loves every one of us. He loves us even more than we think anyone could and He does. So, why do we feel alone and abandoned at times? Don’t blame it on Him because He hasn’t moved. Most of our loneliness comes when we either push Him away or we don’t invite Him into our problems. We think that He isn’t interested. Realize this: If God knows how many hairs are on your head, don’t you think He cares about every other part of your life? God knows you and me far better than we know ourselves.

Your life is precious to God and He wants to treat you as such but when most people don’t believe in Him as their Savior why should you receive any help from the God that you don’t believe in? Many of us have made “god” in our image and that is the god that we worship, even in church. He is not judgmental. He doesn’t require us to do anything for His Kingdom. We have created an idol with our idea of who god is and we have placed him in a box to be brought out when we want him and need him. That is not God the Creator and Father of Jesus.

We have to follow our Savior, Jesus, every day. Make sure you read the Bible so you will know exactly Who you are following and why. God loves you!

What will it take?


There have been hundreds of sermons preached in America and around the world, maybe even thousands since the time that Jesus Christ was here. How much more preaching will it take to get people to realize that God’s Word is true? God inspired the men of Israel to write the books that they wrote and yet we think that the Bible is just some old, dusty book and nothing more.

Consider the parable of the pearl. A merchant found a pearl. Perfect in all of its dimensions and without a flaw. He sold everything he had in order to purchase this pearl. This is exactly how God views each of us. Our soul is worth more to Him than all of the wealth in the entire world and in today’s economy that would be in the trillions of dollars. I’m not speaking of the human race, I’m talking about your soul or my soul. God values each of us that much. So much in fact that if I had been the only person to be saved by the death of Jesus on the cross…He would’ve still died just for me or you or any one of the billions of people on Earth.

Not only does God value us that much but He loves each of us that much. It doesn’t matter if you are Jewish or a Gentile, God still loves you that much. Just think about that for a moment. Is there anyone that you would give your life for like that? I can think of a couple of people but to do it for someone I don’t know…I don’t think so. The thing that we have to remember is that God knows each of us and He knew us long before we were born. He knows each person intimately enough that He doesn’t wonder what kind of person we will become because He already knew that long before we were born.

I pray that each person that reads this will think about this for a few minutes. Consider how much God cares for you and that He would’ve died for you even if you were the only one that could be saved by His death on the cross.

Do you know Jesus Christ?


Does He know you?

Knowing about Jesus doesn’t help. Knowledge of the Bible, attending church, and knowing about Jesus does NOT save your soul. You have to believe in Him for your salvation and repent of your sinful life, and determine that you will never go back in the direction you came from. Follow Him into eternity. Ask Him to come into your life and cleanse your heart and soul. He will do it if you mean what you are asking Him for. He knows your heart. He knows if you are just saying the words or if you are sincere about your repentance.

Saying the words and walking down the aisle at a church is not enough if your heart is not in it. God loves you and He made a way for you to be saved from hell. Through your faith in Jesus and your belief in Him as your Savior, you can have eternity with Him. You have eternity ahead of you even if you go to hell but you will not see God after your judgment. Hell was prepared for the devil and his demons, not for humans. Hell is the total absence of life and God is not there. He knows what is happening there, but He isn’t there.

If Jesus knows you then you don’t have to worry about hell. There are many people who have attended church for most of their lives and they have never really accepted Jesus as their Savior. As I mentioned earlier, attending church does not save your soul. Jesus Christ is the only way to gain entrance into Heaven. Give your heart to Him and your eternal home is secure. Faith comes through hearing the gospel and it takes faith to bring you to salvation. I pray that even more of you will give your lives to Jesus soon because we are living in the time of the end of the age.

The word “but…”


Many times you read it or hear it said, “but, they followed their own way”, and that is when things go wrong. There are also places in the Bible where the writer says “but God remembered” and it is usually those “but God” moments that really make a difference not only in the nation of Israel but in our lives too. It is those times when we decide not to follow Jesus and we create our own “but” moments. “But I want to do it this way or that way”; the problem with this is if you have been called to be a Christian, you are supposed to be following Jesus in your daily life. Yet, we look at our lives and, if we are honest, we can see that our lives work with Jesus as our Savior until we decide that we know better and we come to one of these “but, I want to…” moments.

It is unequivocally clear that it is at those times when we get off of the pathway that Jesus is leading us on simply because we see something off to the side that we want to pursue. It might be a shiny new car or this new job but it isn’t what God was leading you toward. So we follow our own desires in that “but” moment. It is usually at this point that we find that this new path or job or whatever it is that we wanted isn’t what we thought it was. Then…we have to come back into a right relationship with Jesus and begin again on His path.

That little three-letter word “but” can bring a lot of heartache and misery into our lives. Especially when we are just starting our walk with Jesus. We will get distracted by something or someone and walk off into the briar patch and then realize that we have gotten into something that we shouldn’t have gotten into. Sometimes we realize it right away but most often it is after we have been off of the “narrow way” following Jesus for a while. The best part of following Jesus is that He never walks away from us. He is always right next to us and when we decide that our way isn’t working, Jesus takes our hand and we begin again.

While it is true that life is a highway, it is the narrow path that leads toward your eternal home. The highway may be smooth and easy but the path that leads to eternity, even though it is narrow, it is more productive and it doesn’t have the same dangers that are on the “easy path”. That little word and thought, “but…”, can lead you into some wonderful places but it can also lead you down some dangerous roads. Seek out and follow Jesus while there is time.

Hobbled, but not done


I broke four of my toes on my left foot yesterday afternoon. Now, I’m getting around with a cast on but I’m not done yet. God still wants me to work and post for Him and for you too. Life is not over, I’m just having to move a little slower these days.

He is working on healing the fractures and I’m still putting His message out here so people can read what He gives me to say. God is good even when things go a little sideways. Job got through His ordeal and I will too. Thankfully, I haven’t lost everything the way he did but I’m used to getting up and walking without problems or a cane. I guess I’m going to have to slow down and be a little bit more careful from this point on.

God provides for our provisions in this life as long as we live according to His commandments and follow Jesus as your Savior. There is nothing that can stop you when Jesus is your Savior. He is on your side when you have given your heart to Him. It doesn’t matter if my legs are broken or my foot is broken, I will be in His house to worship Him regardless of the pain or difficulty. God loves you more than anyone on this Earth could ever love you and He cares more about your little problems than you do.

Give your heart to Jesus and follow Him for your life and it will be more than you can ever manage or imagine. You may not be wealthy in this life but your home in Heaven has been built by the Creator of all and the road going to your home is paved with gold. His authority is over every sickness and ailment in our lives and everything in the universe does as He intends and tells it to do. My fractures will be healed and I will be walking without these implements before my birthday on November 1st.