Be slow to get angry

These words should be mounted in BIG letters in Congress and on the walls of every school. Life cannot be about anger and raised voices. I should know. I have a problem with my anger. Not all of the time but…it happens more than it should. Ever since I became a pastor at a small church, God has changed that part of me so that it doesn’t show up nearly as often. My wife has never heard me raise my voice, only my son has heard that part and I’m ashamed to admit it.

I suppose I’m like my Dad in that respect. I remember his raised voice from many years ago. Thankfully he wasn’t violent and he didn’t hit me or my Mom. God gives each of us a spirit but until we surrender our lives to Him, our human nature gets to “play” more than our spirit. Sometimes that is not a good situation nor a good outcome in many instances. Seek to know Jesus as your Savior and let Him change your spirit and your nature so that you will be more like Him rather than being the sinful person that your nature tries to mold you into. God know who you really are and only He can move you into the direction to be the child that He knows you can be.

Sing of God’s mercy

So many days I have felt this way and it’s hard to explain why other than to say that its because of Jesus and the salvation that He gives us. I can’t imagine living day to day without Him. I know that I did before I accepted Him as my Savior, but I don’t remember how I did it without being depressed all of the time.

God loves us. He doesn’t love our sinful ways that we live in before we feel the conviction to give our life to Jesus. I do know that during my high school years I was depressed much of the time. That’s probably why I drank so much, but I’m not going down that rabbit hole. I finally got out of that situation and became a better person to myself, but it took a while.

Seek to know Jesus as your Savior. Read the books of John and Romans and pray that He will call you to be His.

How do you see Genesis?

The first book of Moses. The beginning of the Bible. The beginning of everything. All of these are true! Historically and physically and as the very beginning of Creation, that is how I view the book of Genesis. There is no discontinuity or falsehood in His Word, from the beginning to the end. Because if any part of it is false then that makes all of it false.

Genesis is the beginning and the story which was written was given to Moses during those forty days which he spent on the mountain with God. How do I know this? Because that is the only way that he could’ve been told of all the things which happened prior to his birth. The Creation story, the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, the Flood and Noah, the Tower of Babel, the call of Abram and then the miraculous birth of Isaac to a man and a woman far beyond the age of childbearing.

The Bible is the history of the world and of the Jewish people but it is also the story of God’s love for mankind and the lengths that He would go to in order to bring salvation to mankind too. His patience and mercy toward us are so great and powerful until we cannot understand His reasons nor His love for us. The rest of the Bible shows us that He is patient and loving toward us in ways which we cannot understand or even fathom with our limited minds compared to His!

We are His creation, made in His Image and given a special place in this universe which nobody else can claim. God loves each of us and He gives us a chance to live our lives for Him because His Son gave His life in order to bring us salvation. What we do with our lives after we accept Him as our Savior and believe in Him for our salvation is largely up to us. God shows us the path to salvation through His Son, it is our choice to follow that path every day and show that path to others so that they can find it too.

That is our job, our purpose on this Earth. Not living to make as much money as we can or to have as much stuff as we can get, but to be as useful to God while we are still here! That is our true calling and purpose as Christians and followers of Jesus.

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