Tag: Bible

Will it matter that I lived?


I am not asking this question just for me but for  every person who reads this. It is a question which begs to be answered. Will it really matter that I lived? I don’t know the answer to that question. Have I done or said anything that is profound enough or thought-provoking enough that it will be noticed when I am no longer posting? Some may say that they will notice, but there are many more who don’t know that I am here even now!

My family will notice, of course, but will the words and the wisdom (if you can call it that) be noticed enough that the words that I write will be missed? Honestly I can tell you that I really don’t care and that is the truth. If you have noticed and read some of the things that I have posted, great! I pray that some of what I have said here has made a difference in your life.

NO! I am not dying nor have I been diagnosed with some fatal illness. I read something recently which asked this question and I became curious, so I thought why not put it out there and see if someone might notice or care to comment on this question. Just as an experiment if you will.

Before I go and finish this missive I want to make sure that you know this: God LOVES you with a love that is above your emotional feelings for your children or your spouse. This is why He sent His Son to pay the penalty for our sins. The only requirement for your salvation is that you believe in Jesus and His sacrifice for you. Ask Him to change your heart and your life into the one that He knows that you can be. Join a church that teaches from the REAL Bible, not a paraphrase or watered-down version of it! Learn as much as you can learn about Who God really is because He is not the Man upstairs nor is He a genie that grants your wishes! He is the Creator of all the stars, the galaxies, our planet, the Sun and every atom that exists in the entire universe AND He cares about you!Inspiration

There was a celebration today!


A friend of mine died this past Saturday and we celebrated his life today, February 22. He was a devoted Christian and went on mission trips to tell others about Jesus. He also was very opinionated and set in his ways, but we loved him. He was also selfless and would do anything for you if he could. The best part though was that he died exactly the way he wanted to, reading a book and then he went to sleep.

When he woke up, he was in the Presence of God with his family and friends who had gone before him.

Life has a way of throwing you a curve like that sometimes. My wife and I just went to see him in the hospital last week and he seemed to be doing really well, although I knew he was ready to be with Jesus.

I envy him in a way…because he doesn’t have to wear glasses anymore or take pills for his diabetes and for his arthritis. None of the health problems that he had here went with him. He has a new body and it is better in every way than the one he had here. God renews us when we die so that the body that we leave here and all of its problems and corruption stays here.

We don’t really understand death but it is part of life. Yes, doctors see death as a cessation of the body’s systems. Biologically, death fits that description of all body functions shutting down. The problem with our country and the world that we live in is that there are “cancers” growing in all areas of society which are targeting the Life giving Word and trying to silence it in one way or another.Many of these groups of “cells” are in an extreme minority of less than one percent of the population, though some may be as high as three percent.

But, the effect on society that they have is deadly to the well-being of the whole. Like a poison from a certain viper which can kill you with just a drop of its poison or just the touch of a poison-arrow frog’s skin. The point that I am trying to make is that, even in the time that Paul was going on his journeys telling people of the Christ’s saving grace, there were groups which opposed him in every town that he went to. The started riots and stirred up the people so that he was nearly killed more than once.

In our time, the news tells us of many threats to Christians from groups overseas, but there are threats here at home too. Legal threats coming in the form of laws to put buffers on what can be taught in our churches or to our children. The spirit of anti-christian groups and behavior is growing and it is gaining strength. We should be praying and seeking Jesus in church and in the Bible so that we can stand and give a testimony for the defense of our faith. The King is coming back and this time it will be as a judge and a Lion of Judah!

Preoccupied with what exactly?


It seems that in our daily lives, regardless of our religious faith or lack thereof, we are preoccupied with all sorts of things. Some of it is relevant to our lives, some of it is not but most of it seems to be of very little value in the scheme of our lives and those around us. We, and I say this openly, worry more about our twitter feeds and our Facebook friends than we do the homeless man who sleeps under a piece of cardboard to stay warm. We chase after our phones far more than we seem to chase after our spouses or our children. We worry more about our status on social media pages that we “belong to” more than we worry about our relationship with Jesus Christ! Technology has become an addiction for many people. From games and game systems to phones and tablets which many of us didn’t even have fifteen years ago because they weren’t available or were too expensive at the time.

Now, they are so cheap that Amazon is selling a five pack of Kindle Fire tablets for 250 dollars! Everyone in your family can have one so that nobody will pay any attention to each other when we all have our heads buried in our tablets! Most will be used for games, although as the saying went thirty years ago for Playboy “I just read the articles (books).” The problem with all of this preoccupation with games and electronic books and distractions is that we aren’t paying any attention to EACH OTHER!! And we aren’t paying any attention to God or His message because in many churches, they are using tablets and apps to spread the message as well! It is good that the message is getting out to more people this way, but many will just ignore the alerts from the church app just like they do any other alert.

We need to be talking TO each other more, not AT each other which is what happens when technology gets in the way. What can be done about this? Unfortunately, not much. The generation which came along around the turn of the 21st century called the “digital”generation has never lived without technology of some kind and they have always had access to the Internet. If something like an Electromagnetic pulse bomb or a nuclear explosion were to happen and cut off our technology for weeks or months or more, many people would go through such a withdrawal that it would be like a nation of drug addicts all going cold-turkey at once!

I know this sounds like a rant against technology, and I am using technology to write this but I do have a point to make. That point is this: we need to get our collective selves BACK into God’s Word, the Bible! A digital version will be better than no Bible at all, but a written one would be better because it wouldn’t need to be charged up to read and it wouldn’t be affected by a nuclear electromagnetic pulse which might send us back at least one hundred years technologically speaking. Our world and every person in it needs to get to know God, not Allah or any other pretender! The God of the Bible and specifically His Son, Jesus, because without Him you are doomed to an eternity of being out of the presence of God which will be hell.

God loves each person who reads this and He does care about every little thing in your life, but He doesn’t like the lifestyles that some of us live every day. If you have not given your heart and life to Him, then ask Him to help you with the decision…He will. Remember John 3:16,17: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

You are special!


11226182_931043076949751_7809076474956911366_n God loves you and He created this world and each of us in it to be a blessing to Him and to each other. Do I believe this? Yes, I do. Why do I believe this? Because He says so in every book of the Bible. The entire Bible is God’s letter of love to us and an instruction book so that we know how to live in this life and prepare for the next life!

Some people, even professing Christians, don’t believe that the Bible is a document of infallible words and promises. I do believe it and I will tell you why. Because simply if there is an error or a man-made lie in any part of it, that invalidates all of it. Jesus said that “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” Matthew 24:35 If the words written by the disciples will not pass away then it is inspired by the Spirit of God and that inspiration proves that God cannot lie! If He did, then He isn’t God! Also, if the New Testament is valid and it validates the Old Testament because when Jesus came that was the only Scripture available. God’s Word is true, Jesus was the Living Word, so there is no part of Scripture from the first line in Genesis to the last line of Revelation which isn’t true, period.

we obey

He loved us, so He obeyed the Father and went to the cross to pay for humanity’s sins. It is just that simple! The Creator became a human so that He could live a sinless life to pay for our sins. Is that enough to make you think that maybe I should be grateful and ask His forgiveness for those things which I have done? Consider that God, the Son and the Holy Spirit all were present and with each other before they created the universe and it was brought into being by the Word of God until they decided to make mankind in their image. Then, God formed man from the mud or clay and breathed the breath of Life into him and he became a living person, with a soul and the Spirit of God in himself!

Each of us has this same privilege and honor because we were known by God before we were born! He knew each person on Earth before they became a person and He knew their personality and how their life would be. We are created in His image uniquely because no other person on Earth is exactly like you or me. Even twins or triplets are different, although they may look similar to each other. Give Jesus a chance to show you how your life is supposed to be and what you can do with His strength and with Him working in your life. It is far more than you could accomplish alone I can promise you that!

Racetrack living


There are days which seem to fly by as if we live on or in a car on a racetrack, yet we can’t seem to get past the observation that God sees your life and mine from the starting line to the finish line. We can’t see it because our life looks to us like the view from a car on a track. All that we can see is the view around us, memories behind us and a little of what lies ahead of us, and that last part is blurred to an extent.

Some people think or at least seem to, that God is just sitting up in Heaven looking down on His subjects like a King without a care about us or any part of our lives. Our experience of God is limited by what we find in the Bible and what we see and hear in our lives, which today is very limited by political correctness. Yes, God can see all of our lives from His vantage point but from His point of view He can also see the beginning of time. He can feel all of the betrayal and frustration and pain that you and I and every human has ever felt. He sits outside of time, but He is also part of our lives even if we haven’t asked Him to be. He is present in your past and in your future.

We do live like our lives are on a racetrack, but I am reminded of the race tracks that you get as a child. You are in the position of God because you can see the starting line but you can also see the curves and the straight ways. You can see any debris that is possibly there which will cause an accident. You can fix it by removing it or you can allow it to happen and then help with getting the car(life) back on track again. God is in control of all and since He is God, He can choose to get involved in your life and mine a little bit or He can use your life as an example to someone else.

God can see your life and the life of everyone at any point and He is there at any of those points in your life. It is your job to seek Him out and follow Him though. God has left us a Book which gives us some rules to live by and plenty of wisdom to go with it, but just as you had to do in school…you have to learn from it. Not memorize it so much as to get it into your being, into your heart so that you won’t have to remember it when needed. It will just be there, just as He is.

Yes, God does see the end from the beginning and everything in between but it is our choice to come to Him during our “race” of life for advice and counsel so that our life will be useful and an example to others. He is perfect and good, we are not, but He is able to give us the knowledge and ability in this life to be servants and leaders for His Kingdom and as we practice doing those things we will gain the ability to be more in His Kingdom to come.

We have to learn about the “drive” in life so we can complete the course and the only way to do that is to read God’s Book, learn from His wisdom and apply it to our lives every day. Little by little, we can get through the turmoil and hardships which come our way as we go through the trials and the traffic of life, but it is so much easier to do so with God as your driver and coach rather than leaving Him in the “pit crew” after services.

A new day, a new year!


Sunrise-5 Do you know that God begins each day with a beautiful, glorious sunrise so that we can see His majesty? Oh, these beautiful sunrises may not happen where you are, but somewhere there is a painting that only God can create. We can see them in pictures on the Internet, or maybe on the news if the are breathtaking enough. God is in control of the universe and our world, yet many people don’t recognize this fact. God loves you and me and every person on this planet, whether they know Him or love Him or not.

We are all beginning a new year and the violence and news is already bearing that out. It seems that our world just can’t go one 24 hour period without some form of hatred and violence toward a person or group of people. Every day bears this out and it seems that nobody can figure out the problem or the solution. The Solution is Jesus and the problem is mostly from those who hate Him or those who serve Him. I know, there are crimes committed which don’t have anything to do with religion, but when you look at the news it sure doesn’t seem that way.

Life is imitating history every day because Christians have been hated and anyone who reads or serves God has been targeted in some way in the past two millennia. Even and especially if you are Jewish and Christian it all comes back to the Bible. It seems that few people can understand or even tolerate the absolute Truth found in its pages even when they know it is right! Our country and many of its Presidents in the past have acknowledged that “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”–George Washington “.

The world or our country needs God and the Bible and the wisdom contained in them. We, each of us, need the wisdom of God and the salvation that Jesus offers to us. It is something which we all need to understand and seek out for ourselves to make the rest of our lives more useful. Make this year one that you live for God and it will be the best of your life.

Begin…


This is the day that we need to begin not tomorrow because you don’t know what it will bring or even if you will be here tomorrow. Begin something whether it is your dream for your life, or it may be stepping out to finish a degree that you wanted to finish. Life is a beginning, a new day with its sunrise is a beginning and if you are alive then you should begin!

Just as the proverb says that “a trip of one thousand miles begins with one step”, we need to begin. When God called Abram to go away from his country to a country that he knew not…he began with a step in that direction. When the Israelites were freed from slavery, they would never have gotten to the wilderness, let alone their promised land, without taking the first step.

In your life, every day, your day begins when you wake up. But…nothing gets done in the day until you begin it! You have to get up from the bed, put your feet on the floor and take a step, then another and another until you get to your destination. God knows His plans for you and they are plans to prosper you, but your prosperity doesn’t come to you without stepping out on faith and doing something about it!

We all have to begin to do something every day, regardless of the situation because in this life things don’t get done without a beginning! You can’t eat without picking up the fork, you have to begin your meal with an action. Like picking up the plate and the fork and putting the food on it and then thanking God for what we have to eat. Even then, if you don’t begin to eat with that fork, that plateful of food won’t get into your mouth without you beginning to eat it.

The thing about beginnings, regardless of the type of beginnings they are, is that some kind of action is required. In a relationship with your wife or husband it has a beginning, just as life has a beginning. When we decide to live our lives for Jesus or rather WITH Jesus, that life has a beginning too. So where do you and your family or spouse begin? That depends upon where you want to end your journey. Any trip or journey whether in life or as a vacation has to have a starting point…a place to begin and an ending point. So consider where your journey should end or at least where you would LIKE for it to end.

Regardless of your beliefs, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim or any of the other religions, there is always a place where your eternity also begins. For all of us, eternity begins when this life ends regardless of your beliefs. Some of you who don’t believe in an eternity will find that contrary to your lack of belief, there really is a God and you will meet Him. When your eternity begins, where will you spend it? If you don’t believe that there is one, then you will be surprised and not so happy about your eternity. If you are a Christian, then I need to ask this question:

Have you followed Jesus every day since you asked Him into your life?

Why do I make it that personal? Because a relationship, whether it is with Jesus or your family, is personal. To be in that relationship totally, you have to be present every day not just once or twice per week or once a month! How would your spouse feel if you treated her or him that way? Your relationship wouldn’t last very long would it? If it isn’t a daily walk with Jesus, then you might need to check with your pastor to see if you are saved! Sitting in a pew, reading a daily Bible verse, giving a tithe now and then, these are all good things but they are the motions that you can do that show others that you attend church…that’s all. Your relationship only shows when you are in it for real! Don’t be like the Pharisees were, so religious they couldn’t have a relationship with their Messiah.

One year over…


Many years have come and gone and this one is no different. All sorts of people in the world doing things like shooting each other or someone who they don’t agree with. Wars breaking out or getting worse because of beliefs or differences in beliefs or culture. The human race, regardless of the color of your skin, is killing itself one person at a time. Although some days, many more are killed than just one.

Why can’t we get along with each other? Is it our cultures or our skin color that sets us at odds so much that we can’t stand for the “others” to live? This is nothing new exactly because it has been going on for millennia and it will continue until the return of Jesus. In many ways, even His name causes much of the strife and problems in our world today. As long as you are speaking of God, there is no problem but when you bring Jesus into the conversation then things get heated.

Why does He cause such reactions? Well, in the days before His crucifixion, it was His teachings and the way that He taught that was the real problem. His authority and the teaching that He was doing was undermining the control that the High Priests had on the people. Then there was the, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except by Me” statement! Who did He think that He was,420268_10150681777049769_182249954768_8767283_149600359_n.jpgGod?!

Yes, this past year has been a bad one in more ways than one for many people who have lost loved ones. Some of them were lost due to war, some were due to car wrecks, some were killed by gun shots fired by people who didn’t need to have a gun in their hands. Some were killed because they waved a BB gun around that looked like the real deal.

This past year has had some senseless deaths occur in it, but they could’ve been prevented. Our problem is not the guns or the fake guns and it is not the attitudes or opinions of those in government, it is that we have forgotten how to be a society that takes responsibility for its actions, regardless of how shocking they may be. We have also pushed our principles and the Book which taught our grandparents and their parents how to act out of the education system.

It is time to put prayer and the Bible back where it belongs so that the next generation won’t completely forget that God is in control, no matter how bad things get or who may be in charge here. He will bring about a revival and heal the problems in our land if we will just seek Him out and repent of our sinful ways.

The Bible is still a Book which has more wisdom in it than all of the books that are in the library and we need to be using it, studying it and reading it. If we don’t then we can only blame ourselves for what will come next.

Death…and Life!


I am not sure how many people look at Jesus’ life and death and resurrection in that order, but I do. I have to, I am a pastor after all. Yes, life comes after death! It is not an “if” situation it is a when. When you die you will live somewhere forever, the where is up to your decision in this life. Which decision you may ask? The one about giving your heart to Jesus and asking Him to come into your life! It is not a decision which will ruin your life. Your life will change for sure, but it will be a more sure and hopeful life. Sure because of the promise of God, if you accept Jesus as your Savior you will be saved from an eternity of torment. Eternity is a very long time, so I would really think it over if I were in your place.

I was in your place once. I had never given my heart to Jesus, I just thought that I had. I had gone through all of the motions of going to church and Sunday school and Bible school. I had even gone down front and joined the church and even got baptized. The only thing that really happened during all of this was..that I got wet with my clothes on in front of some people. That is it! Nothing changed in my heart and I went through this more than once. Until I felt the Holy Spirit calling me and I answered Him honestly and truly, nothing changed. When I did answer His call on my life, I knew it!

Some people have said that they can name the day or date that they gave their life to Christ. I never have worked that way, never even tried to remember it but it really did happen. It has been about ten years or so now, but the relationship has grown so much closer and warmer than I could have ever imagined. It truly is like being in love because you are loved so much more deeply than you can be by anyone in the world!

Jesus loves each of us far more than we can understand and I know I have said that before, but it is true! Seek Jesus out in the Bible or at a church where they teach from God’s Word. Learn about Him if you don’t know Him yet and ask Him to come into your life. Read and study the Bible, not because it is a good book to read but because it is a collection of God’s Wisdom and His love letters penned through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to all of us, not just the Jewish people.

In His Service until He comes or I go home.

How much more?


What has to happen in our country or in the world to wake people up? How much more will have to be taken away in the form of losing freedoms or rights? How much more will we willingly give up to the government or to our own view of life, freedom, and happiness? Why are we willing to make ourselves into slaves of the government like Israel and the Egyptians did when famine took over their lands? Are we really more like sheep than we thought?

The answers to these questions are answers which we really don’t know. The media, the news outlets, the governments of the world are all clueless in answering these questions because they simply don’t know the answer and they don’t know where to look for it. Is the answer to all of this in God’s Word? Yes, most of these questions could be answered by people following the wisdom contained in the Bible. I mean REALLY following it, daily, in our jobs and at home 24/7!

Would we be willing to do that? The short answer is unfortunately NO! Christian faith has taken a huge hit in terms of people willing to follow it over the years. I am not speaking of those who claim to be Christians, I am speaking of those who really are committed and live their lives in God’s presence with prayer, meditation on His Word DAILY! Not just once per week and certainly not just on holidays! When you try to nail down those who are TRULY committed to Jesus, the number of Christians who fall into that number drops dramatically. Most polls show that out of the world’s population there is approximately 25% that claims Christianity as their faith, but if they are truthful and look at those who committed to following Him daily, I believe that number would be closer to ten percent.

True, this is just my own opinion and I don’t have any facts or polls to back this up with so don’t jump on me because of this. I have only been a pastor for a little more than four years but it seems that the number of Christians who would still claim it even in the face of death threats is likely less than the ten percent, but this was prophesied over two thousand years ago so it shouldn’t be surprising. It is just disheartening and depressing, but God knew and knows who will be His and who will turn from Him. So, how many more will turn away? How much more will we lose to technology or to the attractions in the world?

The real answer is: Only God knows for sure!

We have given up our family time together, we rarely meet with our friends to talk and go over our lives together, the world is crashing in on every aspect of personal life, like waves on the seashore and like the sands of that seashore, we seem to be powerless to stop it. The sad part of it is that we have done this to ourselves! We have allowed it to happen and the more it encroaches on our lives it seems that we are willing to just allow it to happen even more.

Please, turn to the Bible and to faith in Jesus! Getting closer to Him and the wisdom in God’s Word is the only hope that we truly have!