“Our Father”. Do you truly comprehend the significance of those words? God is, collectively, our Father since He is the Creator. But…have those two words ever sunk into your consciousness enough to truly register their meaning? Consider this: Adam was God’s son and the father of humanity, and Jesus is God’s Son and our Savior but He told His disciples to pray to God as their Father too.
Why? Because we become adopted sons and daughters in God’s family when we accept Jesus as our Savior. We have His blood covering our sins. We are God’s children. So when you pray to God, Our Father, you are literally praying to the only Person in the universe that loves you as much as He loves Jesus.
Let that sink in for a minute.
You are loved by God! So much that He gave His Son to pay the penalty for your sins. Jesus died and rose again to be your Savior and to pay the penalty for every person on Earth. It is your responsibility to accept this gift through faith in Him and live your life to attain your maturity in Christ. Walking with Him every day, not just on holidays and on Sunday mornings. It takes discipline to wake up and tell Him “Thank you for today”. It takes perseverance to read and study His Word for thirty minutes every day. It takes prayer, asking Him to give you His wisdom from His Word, and the understanding to know how to apply it.
The life of a Christian or a saint, as they are referred to by Paul, is not an easy one. The devil is going to target you so he can trip you up and cause your witness to be stained in some way so that others won’t follow you to be more like Jesus. The only way for any of us to stand on those days of trial is to study and apply the wisdom that we gain from God’s Word. We won’t know it or be able to apply it if we don’t read it…daily.
We are living in the last days of the age of Grace. Don’t turn away from the call of God in your life. Seek Him out in the Bible. Learn about Him and His nature. Follow Him every day and keep His Word in your mind and your heart for your own protection and for your salvation too.
It is also the only relationship that can give you a place in eternity with Him.
There are many people searching for meaning today. They want meaning and a purpose in their lives but don’t know where to find it. Can you reach them with an answer? Some of them are just kids, teenagers really, that have no idea where they are going. They are following the trends on social media and some are going in the wrong direction. Can you help them find their way? You would think that their parents could help them but most parents today seem to be just as lost as their children are. Even some who seem to have everything together on the outside are still searching and trying to find their reason for living. Why has this happened?
If you go back far enough you can find the answer to what happened, not only in our country but in the world itself. Some people think it happened when JFK was killed or when the Korean War was over, which has never actually happened yet. The 20th century had many points that you could call and even label as “life-changing” or even cultural changing. But the most dramatic change came after the decision to remove the Bible from our education system and then remove prayer from schools altogether.
Why do I call this point the most dramatic change point in the 20th century? Because it took the standard away. For most of the history of America, the Bible has set the standard of how to conduct yourself in life. It was studied in school for many years and before public schools were common, parents taught their children from the Bible as the primary textbook for reading. While it is true there have been many people in our past that didn’t like some of the moral teachings found in it, the Bible was still the book that our founders used as a guide for many of the laws and statutes.
Without a moral standard, our country has slipped into anarchy and chaotic behavior in many areas. The most telling of which is sports and family values. There are few values left in our society because everyone seems to want to use their ideas for their standard. You hear many people saying “You have your truth and I have mine”. The problem here is that truth is found only in God’s Word. When we begin to make decisions based on our version of truth or to live our lives based on our idea of truth and justice, we’ve thrown God’s Word out and replaced it with our ideas of morality, justice and fairness and that makes us our own “god”. Think about this for a minute and remember some of the political speeches and newscasts in the past couple of years.
God’s prophecy of the end of the age tells of this time when people will make their own laws and forget God’s Law. They will be “lovers of self and idolators”. In 2 Timothy 3, it says this and more: 1 But understand this: In the last days terrible times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without the love of good, 4 traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5having a form of godliness but denying its power.
I pray that anyone who reads this will seek out Jesus Christ as their Savior and give their heart to Him, then live the rest of their life as a follower of Him. When the day comes when the Trumpet sounds, you will be called to be with Him forever.
Life is kinda hard these days. With all of the diseases like COVID and the wars going on, the threat of nuclear war from Russia…we are living at the beginning of the end of the age.
I am writing this in the hope that those who read it will seek out Jesus Christ as their Savior. God’s Word tells of this time and we should get ready for the Trumpet of God. When it sounds, the dead in Christ will be resurrected and those who are alive and remain in Him will be taken to Heaven with Him.
Are you ready? Do you have all that you need to be saved?
All that is needed is salvation through belief in Jesus Christ. He is everything that is necessary for your eternity.
Seek His Kingdom and your salvation in Jesus Christ then your eternity will be assured.
John said that He was the Living Word. He was the Word which was with God and Who was God. By Him, everything was made and He was with God from eternity past all the way into eternity future.
John 1:1: 1 In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through Him all things were made, and without Him, nothing was made that has been made. 4 In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Even talking about Jesus in the past tense affirms this. He was in the past, He lives in the present and He will be King in the future. Jesus is the Son of Man and the Son of God and according to the Bible, He is the Son of David by His lineage in Mary’s family and His Earthly father’s ancestry too. God had this planned from the beginning of creation. Jesus was referred to in Genesis as “the seed of the woman”. Why? Because God was His Father and He used Mary’s DNA to create the child that Jesus would be born into the world but Jesus didn’t have the sinful nature of a human father.
Jesus is the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament when you see the word capitalized. He is the Rock from which the water came to keep Israel alive in the wilderness. He was the manna from Heaven to feed the people while they were in the wilderness for forty years, the Bread of Life. So, why do we tend to discount Him in our lives today? Is it because we don’t want Him until we need Him? That could be part of the reason. It seems that most people want to use Him as a “genie” rather than dedicating their life to Him as a disciple.
That is not how God wants to relate to us but it does seem to be the way we want the relationship to be. Most of us try to place Jesus and God in a “box” that we can take out and use when we feel the need and then we put the box up as we do with Christmas ornaments each year. The world around us and the people who don’t believe in Jesus as their Savior think that God is either a very mean judge or someone who can grant all of your wishes.
God has never been like a “genie” in the Old Testament or the New Testament. We can’t command God to give us our desires now. He provides for us everything that we need not our desires and when your heart is regenerated by the Holy Spirit your desires become the same as His. Your life with Him should become more like His disciples’ lives were in the time that they .followed Him every day. We shouldn’t make our relationship into a once-a-week thing, it should be every day with Him. God loves each of us and He made a way for us to be with Him through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Please, don’t push His call away. Answer it and become His child by accepting Jesus as your Savior.
Any time that you want a relationship of any kind you have to invest some time in it. Nothing comes quickly that is lasting. Money doesn’t. Friendships don’t. Marriage relationships don’t begin with deep, abiding love. There is affection and hope and a friendship that should develop as well but eventually, love becomes deeper and more meaningful and not so dependent on feelings or things. This is also how a relationship with Jesus grows. By learning about Him in His Word, praying to Him for understanding and wisdom, and learning to follow Him in everything that you do.
A relationship with Jesus doesn’t come from one hour or so on Sunday morning each week. If you don’t seek Him on a daily basis in the Bible and go to church to learn more about Him on a weekly schedule, then you are missing out on so much. The disciples were with Him every day for over three years and even that was just the beginning. Marriage and a relationship with Jesus require the same commitment in your life but many people don’t look at either relationship with regard to a commitment.
You and I are required to be accountable in every relationship but our society today wants to choose whether we should be accountable or not. It seems that most people don’t want to be accountable for their relationships or for their actions on a daily basis. Whether we are accountable in this life or not, we will be held accountable when we are standing in front of Jesus when we come into eternity. Whether you like this idea or not doesn’t matter, God will hold you accountable for every word and deed in this life. If you have accepted Jesus as your Savior then you are still accountable for how you conducted your life after you became a Christian.
While it is true that your sins are covered by the blood of Jesus, your witness of Him and the change brought into your life by Him is still a part of your life. We are required to tell others about the wonderful things that Jesus has done for us and if you don’t tell someone when you have the chance you will still be held accountable for how you did it or not. You will have to explain why you didn’t tell someone who may not know Jesus as their Savior. How many people have you been around every day that need to know Jesus as their Savior? How many people have you been in line with or encountered at the store that you might have told about Jesus? Do you even think about telling others about Him?
When Jesus told His disciples to begin in Jerusalem and then take the message to the whole world, this is also our order to take what we have been given to those who need it. God has given us the most valuable gift that we could ever have in this life…salvation through Jesus Christ. Isn’t it worth giving away? The value that God places on each of our souls amounts to more than all of the wealth in the world and it was worth it to Him to sacrifice His Son to save us from eternal death. That gift that we have been given by our Creator and our Savior is worth giving away even if we only give it to one person who will receive it.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. Psalm 23:1-6 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.23.1-6.KJV
God leads us as a shepherd. Jesus is our Shepherd as well since He is also God. So, why don’t we acknowledge Him as our Master and Lord? Yes, many Christians truly follow Jesus and see Him as their Master and Lord, but why are the denominations split on doctrine and procedures? Why can’t the Christian church of born-again believers get along on doctrine and belief too?
There are so many divisions within the church because of Satan and his influence over the centuries. He has made so many inroads into the church that many things that are believed and taught in the church didn’t come from the gospels at all.
I don’t want to dwell on the influence of our enemy but on the goodness of our Lord. He does provide and care for us even on those days when we don’t feel it or even notice it happening. He gives us peace and He helps to quiet our spirit when the world gets to be a bit too much. God is good to us all of the time because He loves us and we need to notice it every day. Even when things aren’t going exactly as we had hoped, He is still working in the background for our good.
Don’t turn away from Him or the call in your life that He has placed there. He knows that you are the only person that can accomplish that certain thing that nobody else can do. So, be willing to follow Him and allow Him to lead you toward that goal. So much good could come from it and you may never know what happened until you are in eternity with Him.
These go together of course but they should be dealt with long before they get out of hand.
All of us have these from time to time. In our friendships, in our relationships with each other, and in business too. So what can we do about it? Well…that depends on the type of relationship. If it is between business partners sit down and talk about it. Find out what is the real problem and try to find a fix for it. If it is between friends, sit down and talk about it. Don’t just push each other away and let it fester into something that will break your friendship, especially if it is something that can be fixed. Put your pride away and try to be civil about your relationship. It is hard to do in our “my way” world because everyone seems to want things to always go their way and have no respect for the other person’s feelings or reasons for their actions.
This is especially true in marriage. “Me, and my and mine and I” really don’t belong in a relationship between husband and wife, but often those are the words that start an argument that can lead to divorce. It seems to be inevitable primarily when the children are grown and the “partners” are not on the same page anymore.
Life gets in the way and it can cause disagreements even between people that haven’t really had an argument for a long time. Personal issues, financial issues, sexual wants, and needs all get in the way of a lasting relationship and today the word “compromise” seems to have been taken out of our abilities and our marriages.
All of these problems can be solved through faith and prayer IF we are both willing to work on the relationship. When you get frustrated and tired of fighting or disagreeing, that is when someone will just give up on keeping the relationship going regardless of what kind of relationship it is. Thankfully, God doesn’t give up on us like this but we do. Many marriages and friendships are lost due to being tired of the words and the drama that goes along with them. As a friend of mine said, “It just gets old and I’m tired”.
The problem that I see in this is that each of us in a long-term relationship has been blessed with that person by God Himself and it is our responsibility to look beyond big or small disagreements because we should be honoring Him in this as well. Whether it is a friendship or a marriage, it has been given to each of us for a purpose. Finding out that purpose and holding on to it is our responsibility as Christians. Unless you have given your heart to Jesus, this won’t really apply to you. Being devoted to Christ and devoted to those in our lives goes hand in hand but our relationship with Jesus comes first. If that foundation isn’t there, the other relationships will also fail.
The foundation having Jesus Christ at the center of your life gives every relationship in your life a firm foundation, to begin with. If that isn’t there or if that relationship hasn’t been dedicated to Jesus, to begin with then there will be trouble in the long run.
The Living Message of Christ 