Category: Service to Him

Today


Today

Today I woke without much pain.

Today, I thanked God for this blessing and for my friends and family.

Today, I will read God’s Word and learn from the Source of Truth.

Today, I feel His Presence all around me.

Today is the day that I will die to self and live for Him.

This is a poem, not designed to impress anyone or cause anyone to think about themselves. It is only for a daily walk with God. The words speak of a daily acknowledgement of God and His Presence in your life and mine. Some days, the first line may read like this: I woke up hurting all over, and I thanked God that I am alive to serve Him one more day.

Decide what your day will be like and how you will live it with Him and through Him, because you may only have today to do so.

Where does your strength come from?


To many people in this world today their strength comes from themselves and their own actions. It comes from their ability and their job or from their family and the strength that they gain from them. But, what happens when one of those is not able to strengthen you or keep you going? What do you turn to then?

Where do you look for strength and compassion when just one of those pillars cracks, when something goes wrong in your life? The people that we depend upon and the strength that we depend upon in life usually are just as weak as you are, spiritually and physically! We are weak, some of us are physically strong but without spiritual strength and our dependence upon Jesus for our strength in Him you will not be able to stand.

Not only to be able to stand up in the morning, which is not the strength that I am referring to, but the spiritual strength to stand against the sins which can drag us down. Standing against Satan and his demons and the temptations which are placed in our way every day, that is what spiritual strength is for! You can’t get it from a job, your family, your bank account, your friends, none of these worldly things can provide for you spiritually!

Yes, they can give you advice, but is it Biblical advice? Did they get it from God or their own mind or their own experience? What good will that do you? Your own advice and experience has not really helped, so why would you listen to them? God knows you and He knows what today had in it and what tomorrow has coming. He will be with you through all of these problems and pain and He will give you the strength to get through today and tomorrow and the next day.

Life is always one day at a time, one minute or hour at a time. Days don’t go by any faster for you than they do for me. The problems that we see each day, the pain that we feel each day are ours, but we don’t have to handle it alone because God is always available and He is with us no matter what or where we may be.

Seek God through His Scriptures, especially in the Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. These three books have more wisdom in them than all of the “self-help” books combined. Learn of God’s ways, not just the way that He guided the Israelites but also the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. He loves us, all of us, so much that He sent His Only Son to die on a Roman cross for the atonement of ALL of humanity’s sins, not just a few but all of them.

He will strengthen you in all of your problems and give you the wisdom to get through them. He will do this, not because He has to but because He wants to help you with your life. The lost keys, the misplaced bills, the bad grades or the forgotten birthday. He will get you through them all and give you wisdom in all that you do, IF you will trust in Him and follow His teachings for your life every day.

God uses the foolish things…


“But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound
the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty.” 1 Corinthians 1:27

It is so true, God uses the simple things, the people who weren’t the most popular and the ones that nobody thinks will amount to anything,  and He will use them to do and accomplish the most in the world and for His Kingdom. Why would God do that? Because He is God and because He wants the world to see that He can do more with a little than anyone else can do with a lot!

I mean, He did create the world and our universe by speaking into the dark void, “Let there be light!”. The light that God brings into the world and the Light that He caused to shine forth in the beginning is alive! It is not just light like you get from a lamp or even the brilliant light that you get from our Sun, it was and is the Light from His Son! Light which can do more, Light which can cause things to change and people to change, Light which can bring life to a dead place. Light which will bring water into a wilderness or make “dry bones” get up from the ground and become people again!

The Light that God uses is more than just light, but it is also something which we cannot know until we have gained faith from Him and our souls have been revived to be “new creatures in Christ Jesus”! The Light of God also contains His love for us…each of us, because if He hadn’t loved us, then He wouldn’t have taken on the flesh of humanity and came down as a baby to be born into a world that didn’t know Him. A world that had mostly forgotten Him, like today’s world has.

God did exactly that and lived as a human for twelve years before he came to the temple in Jerusalem as a boy. Then He confounded the “wise men” of the day, by answering their questions instead of needing the answers Himself! After this, he spent eighteen years as a carpenter, learning the trade from his Earthly father (although He already knew) before He began His ministry in Judea. After His baptism by John the Baptist, He went into the desert and fasted for forty days before truly starting His ministry.

The men whom He called to become disciples were plain men, not Pharisees or Teachers, but during the three years of His ministry, He taught them all that they needed to know in order to accomplish that which He called them to do. They didn’t need a degree or a paper showing that they were anything more than they were, just plain people who came to know Jesus through faith and to believe that He is the Son of God! During His ministry, He was challenged by the “teachers of the Law” many times, but He passed all of their tests and confounded the wise men. How? Because, He was God! They could not trip Him up! Yet, He allowed them to capture Him, scourge Him and hang Him on a cross so that you and I could have a chance at eternity! He didn’t have to do it that way, but He wanted to do it that way. Then, after three days from sun up to sundown, He came out of the tomb victorious over death and He taught them for an additional forty days before ascending into Heaven! As the angels told His disciples, “He will come again in like manner as you have seen Him go”, and it will likely be soon.

He can use each of us in the same way today. Just as some of the teachers today have gone to school and to advanced degrees to show themselves approved, there are some who are just plain folks like me. Yes, I do have a college degree, but it isn’t in religion or theology. Yet, God has taught me through His Word and through prayer, the knowledge which I need to be useful to Him! My skills are not accepted in the “great churches”, because I don’t have a “seminary degree”, I am just an un-learned man so what do I know? I know that God can take me, just as He did those fishermen, and use me and you to do far more than people think can be done by someone as simple as I am.

Seek Him out today, read His Word and come to know Him through it because He can make you into a giant of faith if you will answer the call on your life now while there is still time. Don’t put it off until tomorrow or next week, you don’t know if you are going to be here that long! While there is time, especially if God is calling to your heart now, answer Him. His disciples did, I did, and many others have over the years. Give Him a chance to be your Lord and Savior.

Good news for ALL people!


Our God and our Savior loves you all and you have an appointed time with Him! It is not a judgement time, if you just come to believe in Who He is and what He did for you!! This is a simple message but a powerful one, so powerful in fact that after the dream that I had of Him this morning (it is 3:12 a.m.) I had to get up and write this to tell all of you the good news!!!

God truly is NOT dead, He is alive and Jesus is coming soon to claim His Bride for His own. But that news alone is not the GOOD NEWS, it is that if you truly believe in your heart and confess Him before men then you will be saved, that’s it! We are not required to do anything or perform any “tasks” for Him, just believe as a little child that Jesus did what God’s Word, the Bible, says that He did. When you can come to that belief in faith like a child, then you will be changed into a child of God.

I am not saying that you will fly up to Heaven the moment that you are saved, but your soul, your spirit will be counted as a citizen of God’s Kingdom and from that moment on you are not the same! He loves you and wants to bring you into knowledge of Him, a loving knowledge of Himself, like that of a toddler to your Father! That is the kind of relationship that God wants to have with you from the moment that you believe and on into eternity!

Isn’t this AWESOME, the Creator of the universe wants to know you personally, every day. Not just at Christmas services and Easter, but every day. He cares for you like nobody on Earth can, just because He is God! You don’t have to do anything to receive this blessing, except answer the call in your heart, in your soul that you may have felt before, but you didn’t know what it was or even why you felt it. Yes, the emptiness that you have felt is telling you that something is missing, and that something is Jesus! Nothing will fix the feeling, nothing else will work in that spot in your heart. It is a place that only one Person, only one relationship will be the right one and that is the relationship with Jesus that needs to begin today!

Don’t put it off until tomorrow! Now is the appointed time to be saved and to come to know Him for Who He is, He is your Lord and Savior and He has always been waiting for you to come to Him. He doesn’t force you into a relationship, forced servitude is not a loving relationship. You have to be willing to come, you need to learn of Him and about Him, because only in Him and through Him can you be saved from the fate that awaits Satan and his demons.

Why would a loving God do that to you or anyone else? Because, if you have rejected His offer of grace and mercy through the belief in Jesus and His sacrifice, then you are no better and no different from Satan, who wanted to place his throne above God’s throne! You are rebelling against God when you choose to be separated from Him, but it is your choice, God is not the One who condemns you to hell, you are. By rejecting His grace and your salvation through Jesus, you are rejecting God Himself and all that He is offering to you, and by doing that you are no better than any demon or principality or even Satan himself. The “lie” that many people have believed is that they will always have the time to come to know Jesus. But, we are not guaranteed tomorrow. We have been given the grace and the ability to come to Him today and only by accepting that grace, by asking Him to come into your heart and change you into the person that God knows you can be will you be able to stand before Him with all of your sins covered in the righteousness of Jesus.

That’s it…that is all that is required or necessary. Just belief in Jesus and in His sacrifice and asking Him to change you into the person that you should be. Give your life to Him because He is coming…sooner than you think!

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.

Have you ever hit rock bottom?


Who do you turn to when you are down? What happened to bring you to this place? Is it your fault or someone else’s fault that you are down and out or depressed?

These are legitimate questions about depression and feeling as if you are in a deep well with nowhere to go but up. So, how would you answer them? Many are the answers that go with the last two of the questions and they are as different as we are from each other. The first question, however, is the one that I will concentrate on here because the One that you turn to is the most important decision that you may make in your life.

That includes the decision which you make concerning your spouse or the house that you choose to buy. How can the person that you choose to turn to in an emotional crisis have more to do with your life than your spouse or your home? Because He is your Savior and if the One that you turn to is not Jesus, then you need to examine your life and your heart because if He is not your Savior then you truly do need Him.

In our world today, there are many cares and worries that take up our time and our brain power each and every day and into the night. We are constantly bombarded with advertisements and ads on the Internet as well as from the radio and on television. I don’t know the exact number of advertisements that we see or hear each day, but I am sure it must be in the hundreds.

All of that information, welcome or not, is not good for you and the stress that it causes is even worse. Then, when you get past the stress, there are the bills and the other troubles of daily living. I don’t have to go into the details here but we are all exposed to far more information than we were designed to handle on a day to day basis. It was predicted in the book of Revelation that knowledge would increase at this point in time but the overload is staggering and the more age your mind has on it just makes it worse.

The problems that we have in this life, the ones that affect us individually as well as culturally, are the same ones that have been prophesied and yet many people do not believe this. We will see, in a very short while, that God is always right and that His prophecies are true. Believe in Him and His Son, Jesus. Believe in the saving grace that has been given to each of us without cost.

We don’t have to pay anything for this, Jesus paid the price for us, all that we have to do is accept it and believe. Because, your life doesn’t end here, we all have a soul which will live on with an immortal body. We will live somewhere, whether it is in Paradise with God or in torment with Satan, and we will be there for eternity. Billions of years from now, what decision will you be glad that you made here and now? The only decision which will matter at that time will be whether you decide to give your heart and life to Jesus and believe that He did all that was required for you to be saved….or to decide that you don’t need Him, which will condemn you to hell. Which will it be?

Can racism be fixed?


It is a topic on many people’s mind for some reason, especially in America, but why is it so important? What is bad about racism? Why do we still have it, even after more than forty years of “the dream”!? What can we do about getting rid of racism?

For starters, we could just program our children to not notice the color of people’s skin. It is done in schools all of the time, the “programming” of our kids. But what about the adults, the ones that have lived through the sixties and seventies ad nauseam, where will it end? Those of us who saw the riots in Los Angeles, the shootings in Chicago, etc. cannot just forget. Then there are the family stories of lynchings and the slavery that was endured by great-great grandparents. Yes, all of this must be taken into account but what can be done about the racism of today?

Can we fix it? It cannot be apologized away. There isn’t enough gold or silver or any amount of groveling which will pay the price to a people who were taken from their home land, sold into slavery by their own people or who were conquered and then sold. Nothing that can be said or done in reparation for over four hundred years of slavery and bigotry and hatred!

I am a Caucasian male, born in the same year as our President. Yes, I have seen the terror in people’s eyes, the fear and anger during the late sixties when I was just starting school at about the same time that Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered and a few months later Bobby Kennedy was shot while campaigning! The thing is that none of my family, as far back as I can trace, has ever owned a slave. Yet, “crackers”, white people like me, are blamed for every slight, every injustice that has ever happened in the past one hundred years or more.

Why? Because of racism. Not our racism, but the racism that exists in our culture. I don’t blame African-Americans for this, it is not their fault. It is not my fault that racism exists in the South or in America as a whole. I believe that Satan himself has used racism to great effect in America and has used it to stir up so much hatred and enmity between people who don’t know each other, they just know that skin color and culture are different between us. God created mankind, He did not create certain races of people to do certain things and others to do other things in this world. God created one race that had many different shades of skin color because of the climate that they settled in, not because one is better or worse than any other!

God is the only person Who can bring about the end of racism and bigotry and when Jesus comes back and rules the world as King, it will happen! This is not an “if” or a “possible” outcome, it will happen because Jesus said so! At the end of the Tribulation, when the one-thousand year reign of Christ begins, there will be no more bigotry and racism and those who try to keep it going will answer to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords! God removed His people from slavery after four hundred and thirty years, He did not endorse it. Those who were in slavery in Israel were to be released on the seventh anniversary of their slavery, it was not to be a life-long servitude unless the slave loved the family enough to become a bond-servant and it was the slave’s choice not the masters.

We cannot do away with racism by our own choices. Humanity doesn’t have the moral and ethical capacity to get rid of it or any other bigoted ways of treating people, not on our own strength at least. The love of God through Jesus can open our eyes and our hearts so that we no longer act on our cultural and familial learned behavior toward others, but if it has been taught from an early age it is still there. Only the change wrought by Jesus in your life and mine can cause it to be any different, so the choice is clear…choose Christ as your Savior and follow Him. Serve Him as your Master and Lord because He is the only Master to whom service is due!

The Love of God in your life!


Do you believe that God loves you? Have you felt it in your life this week or this year? Has someone from a Christian church ever showed the love of God to you or to someone that you know? Is there a church nearby that teaches from the Bible as God’s Word in truth and in love? All of these questions are things that shouldn’t be needed in our society, the commandment which was given by Jesus was that we should “love our neighbor as ourselves” along with loving God! The problem with this idea is that you can’t love God or anyone else until you decide to love yourself!

I am not speaking of selfish love, believing that everything and everyone should love you and revolve around you, but about caring about yourself and your soul in the way that Christ does. You also need to care about others too, especially those who may be less fortunate than you are. Those who are homeless or without a job for one reason or another (not just because they don’t want to work) or even someone who is elderly need to feel the love of God through us. Something that you can do or your church can do would be a great demonstration of God’s love. It doesn’t have to be much, just a meal that you take to someone or even helping them to get their groceries by taking them to the store.

In this world that we live in, little things mean a lot to someone who is in need. The need may not be financial, they just may need to have someone to visit them a couple of times a week. Many elderly people rarely see friends or family unless it is on a holiday or at church. Some have trouble driving and have a hard time getting someone to help them get to the doctor or the grocery store. These are just ideas, and they are small things that we can do but they mean a lot. So, how can you feel the love of God in your life?

If you are not a Christian, then you truly need to know the love of God. So, I ask you have you given your life to Christ? Do you believe in God and His Son, Jesus? There are many people in the world today that don’t claim to have a belief in Jesus or in religion in general. How can I show you the love of Christ? I know that He loved those of us in this world before we were born because He said so in His Word and He doesn’t lie.

The love of God is eternal for His Creation, all of it which includes each one of you. Satan cannot love anyone except himself, he doesn’t reward anyone with anything except the same punishment that he will receive for eternity. God cannot be different and He doesn’t change, we are the ones who change, we are the ones who move in the relationship and it is usually away from the One that we should cling to! The problems in our world today are the result of rebellion.

Rebellion against God, rebellion against the laws of God, rebellion against the wisdom of God, these are the reasons for the problems in our world today. If we spent our lives trying to be like Jonah, then sooner or later you will find that escape from God and running away from Him does not work. Why? Because God knows where you are, even if you don’t! He can see you regardless of the darkness that you try to hide in, especially if He has plans for you to accomplish! Like Jonah, He will make certain that sooner or later you will accomplish His purpose in your life and for Him!

I can do ALL things through Christ!


 

Do you realize that God wants you to accomplish a lot in your life? I am not talking about your own things like all of the everyday stuff that weigh us down, I am talking about the ministry that God has given you! Did you know that you have a ministry? If you are a child of God, then you do!

I am not saying that all of us are supposed to have an international ministry, but we are supposed to take our beliefs with us wherever we go. To work, to school, at home, to the grocery store, to the bank, yes we are supposed to walk with Christ and let Him walk with us wherever we go! If you would be ashamed to have Him with you then don’t go there! As a child of God, He is with you all of the time, no matter what you happen to be doing or where you happen to be!

Why can’t I be alone sometime?

You can’t leave God out of your life once you have taken Him into it! You may walk away from Him, but He is always there with you. He doesn’t get in the way, or tell you what to do or not to do but if you have given your heart to Jesus, then He is present in every situation and circumstance that you are, day in and day out.

As Jesus said, “I will be with you always, even unto the end of the age”; there is no greater comfort than this because we are never alone, in our most desperate times or our most joyous days!

Even those of you who may not have given your heart to Jesus or asked Him into your life, He is still watching over you. God knows how many hairs are on your head and He knows when even a sparrow falls to the ground, so of course He knows what you are doing and where you are! You are not alone whether you have accepted Jesus into your life or not.

Then why do I feel alone sometimes?

We feel this way not only because we are social people and when we are alone we feel it. But sometimes we feel alone even when we aren’t alone which truly troubles some people. Do you have friends nearby? Are you able to meet with them? Do they have the time to meet with you? These are the questions that come into your mind when you are feeling depressed and lonely.

God understands because He knows how it feels to be lonely, because He experienced it through Jesus’ life and He will be with you through your time of lonely feelings and other problems which come in our lives. God loves each of us and will help us in all areas of our lives.

If I am not alone, why do I feel so depressed at times?

God is there with you at all times because He is in all places and present in every situation. If you have given your heart to Him, then you will feel Him near you in times of joy, pain, heartache, fear, doubt and yes even when you are depressed. These feelings are not placed on you by God … we are hit with these every day by Satan because he hates God and those who belong to Him. Just as Job was beset by some really bad circumstances in his day, we are too. We may not lose everything, but the spirits of doubt and fear and depression can make us feel as if we have lost it all or may be about to.

God loves each of us and we have an Advocate who defends us before God when Satan accuses us before Him. He is there no matter what the circumstance and He will be there when we arrive at the gates of Heaven. Nothing is impossible with God and there is nothing that He cannot accomplish for you or through you. Give your life and your heart to Him, it is the best decision that you will ever make in your life.

What shall we do then?


Should we believe the testimony of man as many seem to do in the world today or should we cling to our salvation through Jesus?

There are many today that are leading people in the wrong direction, some of them supposedly doing this from their pulpit in the church. What will become of them and their followers? If they will pray and humble their hearts toward the God that is spoken of in the bible, then they can and will be saved from their transgressions. Yet, many people today place their faith in the messenger rather than the message. This was a fine thing to do when Jesus was the messenger before He ascended back into Heaven, but today the messengers are just as flawed and sinful and the one bringing the message (yes, I am including myself in this ).

We are all flawed, sinful human beings and none of us who stand on this earth are any better than anyone else, but there are some who think that they are and they are the ones who are leading others astray. They are subtle, like the one that they are serving and not the One that they think they are serving. Many deceivers are present in this world today, but they have learned well. The message that they bring is wrapped in words that are beguiling, some of them from centuries past, some of them from recent times but their meaning is that we can do it ourselves and we don’t need God’s help.

We cannot do it without Him! Can you command a storm or rain on parched ground? Can you tell the sun to come up an hour later today? We are the created and not the Creator, only He can do those things if it pleases Him to do so! It would bring glory to Him and would make us see that He is in control and not us, but there are many today who would scoff at signs like these.

Our God, the only God, is in control even when things seem to be going wrong. We only have to place our faith and our trust in Him because He will bring about good things from what we see as bad. Our times and our time-table don’t line up with His unless we are surrendered to Him and know Him by His Word. When we walk with Him daily, then our wants and our desires will be the same as His, although we will still be attacked by Satan and his demons in very subtle ways.

Some of those will be our own feelings like depression or feelings of not being in control, which we are not, or even emotions which overwhelm us to the point of hopelessness. All of these come from the one being who is trying to derail your faith and your belief in God and His Son. This has always been the goal ever since Eve decided to follow her own desires rather than listening to Adam and God.

Before anyone gets upset or thinks that I am blaming Eve for our problems, I want to make it clear that she had encountered a master of lies, Satan himself. Adam couldn’t have withstood him either and he didn’t so it wasn’t the woman’s fault! They both knew what God had commanded, yet they chose to follow their own desires. God knew that this was coming before they did so it wasn’t a surprise but it still hurt His feelings just the same.

If we really knew Him and the awesome power that is being held back because of His love for us and the grace that has been given to us through Jesus, we would be humbled beyond measure. Considering His power to create or destroy with a word, how could you tell Him that you don’t believe in Him? What pitiful arrogance we have to confront the Creator of everything and then tell Him that we don’t think that He is real so we won’t believe in Him!!

These words and deeds are being done all over the world today. In different ways and different words but the message toward God is the same. We should be on our knees begging Him to forgive us and to take us as His sons, pitiful though we are, and make us as His servants just so we can have a place at His table if nothing else!

The time is coming when mankind will bow to Him. When that time is, no one knows but it is coming and soon. The prophecies of His Word are clear enough for all to understand and we are in what is called the “birth pangs” prior to that time. We will know when that time has come, but for many it will be too late. Read God’s Word, study it carefully, pray over it so that you will understand what you read and then get your heart ready for Him, ask Him into your life because He is the only cure for what is ailing our world and each of our lives.