Category: Time is short

So many choices….


There are truly a number of choices for us to choose from relating to religion and our belief systems, whether they point to God, the Creator and the Godhead which is focused on in the Bible or not. In today’s society, it seems that almost any belief which focuses on something or someone outside of the God of Judaism or Christianity, is perfectly acceptable. Why? Because, there is no compulsion or consequence to your actions when there is no absolute Truth to compare to or live by. Most of the other religions of the world have differing ways of reward and punishment regardless of the entity that they follow, but even then most of them don’t have a credible group of witnesses to back them up, as the Scriptures do from the historical record.

Then, there are those who choose to not believe in any supreme being at all. Choosing therefore to be their own “supreme being”, their own law unto themselves. This could be considered a form of idolatry, but if you don’t believe in God or Allah, then believing in yourself is considered just fine in today’s society. I am not bashing those who use belief in yourself as a way to get people to feel better about themselves, but when you are the one who supposedly controls your own destiny then you have a problem. Not with me or my own beliefs, but you will one day find that it was really God all along and that He does exist whether you like it or not.

Just as light and heat, gravity, stars and planets exist so does God and Satan, not believing in them doesn’t change that. Just as a comedian once said something like this “you can confess all the way down that gravity doesn’t exist, it won’t change the outcome.” This may not be a direct quote as I can’t remember the exact words, but the gist of it is the same.

Life on Earth is tough and it is not going to get any easier whether you believe in God or Allah or have no belief system at all. The troubles of this life are easier to bear when you have a belief in God, because you can have hope that one day He will make all things new just as He says in the Bible. Your life on a daily basis can be easier to bear with the stresses that we all have because of your faith in God. If you think that your life is fine without Him, that is your choice and He doesn’t begrudge you for it.

We are not forced into belief, it is our choice to come to faith in God when we are convicted that our life is in need of Jesus. If you never feel that conviction from Him, then all that I can say is “I’m sorry”.

Some have said that Christians are blind and they follow blindly, but consider that faith is having a hope in something which is not seen yet it has been promised by One Who cannot break His promises. James said it best by this:

Dead Faith (James 2:14–17)

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

When you have been saved by faith in Jesus Christ, that is an action because you have faith in Him. Therefore, you will do things in your life which reflect that faith so that others might see it. It doesn’t bring you glory but it does glorify God because it was Him Who called you to faith and you answered. Please, open your heart and mind to the possibility that God’s Word is True. Look at it as the Israelites did while they were captive in Egypt, they were told that one would come who would bring them out of bondage. They didn’t know who or when, but they had faith that God would keep His promise and He always does.

 

What is wrong with this world?


Exodus 33:19,20:
“And He said, I will make all of my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 And He said, Thou cannot see My face: for no man shall see my face and live.”

God is Holy, Righteous and Steadfast. He doesn’t change neither does He sleep, and yet people in this world think that He doesn’t see what is going on around us. He does and He knows who is responsible for it, Satan. Because Satan hates us with an utmost hatred that cannot be fathomed by man. We are here enjoying whatever we have in life, not because of the graciousness of Satan, but by the grace and the love flowing from Almighty God!

If God’s presence were not here, with each of us, everyday, then Satan would unleash his hatred upon the Earth and the inhabitants of the Earth. Jesus said that “if those days were not shortened, no one would survive”. This is the first part of the Tribulation times which are coming to us soon, Satan will be loosed and all of the Earth, not just humanity, will groan under his hatred. No one will be saved from it except for those who are God’s children. I am not speaking of the Jewish people, I am speaking of the Christians who may still be here at this time.

God loves all of us, even those who don’t know Him, but He will not tolerate the sinful lives that people live today. Living together, lying, stealing, murderers, those who practice homosexuality, idolaters, and those who exploit and use children for sex and other crimes. It is the sin that God hates, not the sinner.

Repent and ask Him to cleanse you and bring you into the family of God. Believe in Jesus and be saved because the time is coming when it will be hard and almost impossible to distinguish between the Anti-Christ and the real One, because of the spirit of deception which will be released into the world. Yes, Satan is powerful BUT he is a created being like you or I am, God is in control!

The world which we see every day is being attacked, spiritually, by Satan and his demons. They cause disease and death all around us and incite hatred among religious people and different religions. All of the conflicts which are going on in the world have his hatred of us as the cause, in one way or another. The reason for this is that Satan hates everything that God loves. The people here on Earth but specifically the nation of Israel and the Christian church.

This is why he masqueraded as an angel of light to bring false religions to this world, from Mormonism to Islam. God loves each of us, but when we follow a god of this world, which is a demon or Satan himself, then we are on the wrong side. Unless you repent of this and accept Jesus as your Savior, then you will suffer the same fate as Satan.

Satan’s plan


The church is being deceived by Satan and his fallen angels and was so long ago and they are still at it today. Oh, for some it is a very minor deception, mostly of pride and arrogance which has been nurtured by working in the minds of clerics and priests as well as in bishops and preachers. The deception is so subtle until it is hard to spot, until the damage is done but it creeps in like rust on a steel bridge. A little weakening here and there, a bit of dodging around the scriptures in ways that seem “right” but changes their meaning just a bit. This has been his way all along, just as he did in Eden when he asked Eve about what God said. “You will not surely die! You will be like God knowing good and evil. Twisting words a bit, appealing to humanity’s pride, because pride has been the root of mankind’s sin that gives rise to all kinds of things like rebellion and vanity just as it did when the rebellion happened in Heaven.

Satan and his fallen angels will do whatever is possible against the church and its members in order to take as many with them into hell as they can. They are the instruments of disease, death, persecution and temptation in our world, especially against the church and those who claim to know Jesus. They also empower some church leaders to gain so much wealth that the message becomes twisted and weak and in the end, the body of Christ becomes weak and pitiful, alive but just barely.

In many ways, this is exactly what the world sees in the church today, regardless of the denomination or the leader who is taking his flock on a very broad road to hell with the assistance of Satan himself. As long as he can injure or take down the effectiveness of the church and the message, then he and his fallen angels will do just that, regardless of how much damage it does. He hates man with a passion which goes beyond human understanding and he hates the church even more!

The church has seen much deceit and division with people caught in lies and extortion and with the “leaders” of the congregations getting into all sorts of trouble. Some of them caught in adulterous situations and some getting very wealthy from their “partners in the ministry” helping to spread the Gospel of Christ and yet they own mansions and cars and jets. This is not the church that Jesus intended it to be!

Christians are supposed to be patterning their lives after Jesus, seeking Him and His Wisdom in everything that they do, yet there are some who do demonstrate against authority, against the law and against our government.Why is this being done? Because, if Satan can make the world look at the church, the body of Christ, as intolerant and hateful towards the freedoms that the world enjoys without the church then soon the world will turn against the church altogether.

One of the biggest problems with mankind and one that Satan uses is that we have an independent fallen nature which gives us the delusion of being in control of our lives and the outcome of our lives, whether spiritual or physical. We think that we are capable of reaching for Heaven independent of God and that is the biggest lie that Satan has told and nearly the whole world believes it! True believing Christians who depend on God and seek Him in their lives do not, but it seems that those are few these days and likely in a couple of generations will disappear from the Earth which is exactly what Satan wants!

Since God created mankind to worship Him and know Him, Satan is striking at God by destroying or hurting us in any way that he can. Through disease, poverty, war, famine, hatred of our religion and the One that we follow, Satan has struck at the heart of God by striking at the church, those of us who believe in Jesus and His message. If he can do enough damage that Christianity were outlawed and church services were banned, unless they were worshipping him or one of the “religions” that he approves of, then part of his mission here is working.

It is not finished yet, but he knows that his time is growing short.Then, he will turn on God’s people, the Jews just because they are God’s chosen people. He has deceived them into being so religious about their religion that they missed the Christ when He came and many still can’t see Him even today because they are blinded to Him. Pray that our world and those in it who have been blinded by the pride of life and their own fantasies will come to realize that they are not in control

Sickness, disease, and not knowing Christ


What do these three have in common? Well, for one thing they are all nearly the same thing. A sickness, whether it is a cold or the flu, is also a disease. But, there are diseases which are not so benign in their workings and their outcomes, such as certain cancers and air-borne viruses like the Hanta virus and Ebola virus (although this one is not considered to be air-borne). These are true diseases which cause death if not treated very aggressively and of course there are others which cause a number of conditions which are life threatening and we could go on and on with this.

The point that I am trying to make is that sickness and disease are physical attackers and they do attack the physical body. Living a life on your own, without Christ is a spiritual “disease” because we were created in God’s image to have a relationship with Him and when that relationship is missing, it is like a piece of us is missing! We always feel as if there is something missing and it is, because we have a place which the Spirit is supposed to inhabit within us and when that part of us is not whole, then we aren’t whole.

When we are sick in one way or another, we don’t feel right because there is something that isn’t right. It is the same way that I felt before I truly came to know Jesus as my Savior, something just wasn’t quite right in my life and I couldn’t put my finger on it exactly. When the command of God was ignored in the Garden, and Adam and Eve made a shocking mistake, that rebellious spirit has stayed with mankind all down through history. It doesn’t matter if you are a Pope or the first baseman at Wrigley field, we all have this part of us which isn’t quite right until we hear the voice of God, that little tug on our hearts which tells us to get up in a service and make it right.

If you have ever felt that, then you know what I mean. Yes, we are spiritual and we have a spirit living within us, but until we accept Jesus as our Savior there is still a part…a small piece which is missing or at least not complete. We can’t make this complete and we don’t have the power to just “come to Christ” when we feel like its time, God has to call you to “prick your heart” as some have said.

It is not just a decision that we can decide on like putting your shirt on or your shoes. The Spirit speaks to your spirit and when they are in agreement, then you feel it strongly enough to either ask Jesus into your life or you refuse Him. This is when you are truly walking on thin ice so to speak, because God may only call you once before you are left to your own life. This is where many people think that they have it together enough and they don’t need God in their life and they couldn’t be more wrong, but they will keep trying on their own until they can’t or until they come to the end of their life one day, in a car wreck or something that they have no control over at all…then what?

At that point, you will meet the God that you turned away from, except this time He is seeing you as you are and not with the blood of Jesus covering your sins. He will be your judge and show you where you went wrong and when you heard or read about His grace and His provision for you and you said that you didn’t have time for it. You said that you didn’t want to live that way, you wanted to live your way. You rebelled against the God Who created you and Who loved you and wanted the best for you, but you didn’t want Him. At this point, there isn’t anywhere you can go except into hell at the White Throne judgement, you will be punished until then but it won’t be nearly as bad as after the final judgement.

Live your life with Jesus in it and with Him every day because with Him, life will be eternal and in Heaven with Him, not in hell with all of the rebels and the demons and Satan himself. Because that is who hell was created for, demons, principalities and powers of darkness and Satan…not for humans although there will be many of them there too. Choose Life.

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!

Expectations, what are they today?


Many people seem to have fantastic expectations of their children and their lives today. In many ways, we seem to try to live our lives or some part of our lives through our kids and their accomplishments, don’t we? You see it portrayed in movies and on television and on the Internet and social media, our lives and our children’s lives are open to all of the world in one sense or another. Depending upon the security that you have in place, and unless you are knowledgeable about such things, many of us don’t have much security at all.

I don’t know how many emails that I have received about a poll which was taken at random, that showed that thousands of people still use “password” for their password or “0123456” even. These are ridiculously easy for a child to crack, let alone someone who really is a true hacker! The security that I am speaking of is in reference to the “stuff” that you store in the cloud or on Facebook’s servers. How easy would it be for someone to crack your password and get into your family photos and other things which should be kept private?

We have expectations of security and life, along with what we expect or want from our children. To put it a bit more politically correct, “what we want our children to become is just to make us look and feel better”; maybe not so politically correct, but a sight more succinct maybe? We expect or hope that our children will do better with their lives and their careers than we have been able to do, but do we give them the esteem and the knowledge of applying themselves toward that goal or do we just coddle and spoil them until they graduate into the real world and hope that they get it right?

Many times it seems that is exactly what we are doing to the next generation. We “baby” them and give them stuff that they didn’t have to earn until they graduate from high school or college and then we expect them to hit the ground running toward a goal which they have no idea how to accomplish at all! We never tried to get them to earn their way in life or through school or with chores to do at home! They played games and watched TV and movies on DVD, when they weren’t whining about all of the two pages of homework that they had to do. Yes, some kids actually have far more than two pages but so did we when we were growing up!

In the public school system, there is now something called “common core” which is the biggest joke of all on our kids. No one can be left behind while taking this curriculum because not even the teacher understands it, so how can our kids know or learn it? We are expected to raise our children to be good people with character, but how can they have character when many of us don’t even have it? Do you know any of the Ten Commandments? Do you know where they are found? This country was founded on principles which came from the Word of God and all of the Ivy League schools were founded, at first, to be seminary schools which trained preachers and missionaries.

What happened to our country? What happened to the values and the beliefs of those who run this nation and those of us who live in it? We have allowed science and political correctness to invade our churches and our homes. Many people are mourning the loss of values and purpose in our country, but it is our fault that it has slipped away. We allowed it to happen because we as Christians did not speak up and try to keep our country as a Christian nation. Now, we are paying the price although the true price hasn’t been set yet.

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.