Tag: Bible

You are a good work…


“Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
Philippians 1:6

Being loved by the Creator is a wonderful feeling, if you know what I mean. If you don’t, then you likely think that I am delusional. God is our Creator, belief in this is possible because of faith and today our world is condemning people who have faith, especially if it is faith in Jesus! He is still in control, whether you believe it or not and your lack of belief doesn’t change this!

God loves you. Radical, huh? The Creator loves you because you are part of His Creation and He knows your life from the time the first cells came together to form you in the womb. He knows when and to whom you will be married, if ever, He knows what you are capable of doing for His Kingdom even if you don’t! You are created in His image! We are made specifically to be priests and prophets for Him, in our workplace and in our homes! This doesn’t mean that you have to preach on the street corner, it just means that you are supposed to let others SEE Jesus in your everyday life!

Tell your children about Jesus, if you haven’t already. Tell your family about Jesus, if you know that they don’t know Him (this is the hardest witnessing that you will need to do). Why? Because they know you! They knew you before you became a Christian and the type of person that you have been, so they need to see the person that you have become! The work that God has begun in your life when you came to Him, may have started years ago. You may have walked away for some reason and you have been away from church for years, but He hasn’t stopped. He doesn’t let go. There is still a voice, the Voice of the Spirit within you that has not been completely quieted. Listen to Him, trust in Him, learn more about Him and follow Him because by doing that you can make the demons surrounding your home flee!

The time is nearly here that we truly NEED men and women of God to rise up and be counted in our homes, in our churches, in our states and in our nation because God has been reviled in the news media and in many countries and it is getting worse. This is just the beginning of troubles for the church of Jesus, the body of believers in the world that claim Him as their Savior. Stand firm in your faith, read and study God’s Word, pray about what you read and think on it (meditate) because the time that we are in now is very close to the trouble times. I don’t know when the treaty with Israel will be signed or when the ruler of the world will be brought out into the open, but I don’t believe that it is far off.

Yes, very possibly in our lifetime, it will happen and it will happen because God said so in His Word! Give our God the credit for being our Creator and our Redeemer because that is Who He is!

The significance of the Word


You don’t just read a cookbook, you fix and eat the meal. It is the same way with the Bible, God’s Word, if you don’t assimilate it, no matter how much you appreciate it, what good is it? And with the Bible, it means that you are to take it into your mind, to thoroughly comprehend it, to use it as nourishment for your mind and heart and your eternal soul!

Just as with a cookbook, the words and the recipes don’t help you much by just reading them. Reading the recipe of a fabulous meal or dish is not very satisfying, you have to do something with the information that you have in front of you. It is the same with the Bible. Read it, of course, study it and think on what you have read…definitely, then you have to put it into practice. Just as the recipe won’t do you any good if you don’t put your hands to work and put it together and cook it, God’s Word won’t help you in your daily life unless you act on it and use it!

Our lives are complex and we meet people in all sorts of situations every day. In many of our situations, we don’t interact with too many of those that we meet very much, especially not today. We text, we tweet, we post on social media, occasionally we will call someone, but we rarely speak to each other. It is even more rare that we sit down and have an actual conversation about our lives and the things which make our lives meaningful!

Why have we moved away from the interaction that was once a daily activity just as walking or breathing? Too much stuff has gotten in the way I believe. Too much technology is interfering with our lives. Especially when it comes to family members and our friends, we turn to our phones and our computers more often than we do to our pastor or our next door neighbour.

God’s Word is alive and it has been with us for over two millennia, yet it is not a book which is out of date. It is fresh and new to all who read it. The wisdom which it contains is relevant to today in the twenty-first century just as it was when it was written. It seems that many people think that coming to church on Sunday or having a Bible in their house does the trick and makes their lives better. Coming to church can do that and the fellowship which we have there does help us, but don’t leave the teaching that you receive on the pew.

The Bible, like a cookbook, won’t do you any good at all unless you open it, read it and apply it to your life. Allowing it to collect dust in your home doesn’t help your spiritual life because you aren’t taking in any spiritual nourishment to help you to grow in your walk with God. He sent the Word to us through His prophets and scribes so that we could learn of His love for us and so that we can learn of His wisdom.

Don’t just read it like a history book or an interesting book but as the actual Word of God. It is Truth, it is also a Life-giving book and a book of truth and wisdom, not of mankind’s wisdom but from God Himself! Apply its wisdom and words to your life so that others will benefit from your walk with Jesus. After all, He is the Living Word made flesh which dwelt among men. Take Him with you in your heart and in your everyday life, because without Him nothing has any meaning or substance in all of Creation.

We are in dire need


StrengthI placed this picture here because we all need to pray this prayer every day! Yes, we are in dire need of prayers and the strength that comes from Him every day! Why do I say this? Because it is the truth. We, as humans, are weak. We cannot be strong enough to get through the struggle which comes our way every day. Not the little things like getting up and going to work or to get groceries or even just washing the dishes or the clothes. I am talking of the temptations which Satan throws into our minds and our way each and every day. You experience these every day, we all do, even Jesus was tempted but He didn’t give in to it so it didn’t become a sin in His life.

God gives us the strength, IF we ask for it and then depend upon Him for that strength to get through a tempting time or just one temptation today or tomorrow. Depending upon God and His Word and His Wisdom is the smartest thing that you can do. Reading His Word every morning, or every day gives you the strength and wisdom to make it through all of your problems.

I have heard that many people consider going to church on Sunday to be their time with God. That is just the beginning! How would you feel if your family only visited you once every week for about an hour? Not much like a family huh? Pray to God every morning and evening, read His Word morning and evening in order to get to know Him. How can you expect a Father to know you very well if He never sees or hears from you? God knows you better than you or your parents do, but He still wants a relationship with you every day.

God’s love has been flowing to us, all of us, since the beginning of Creation. He knew each of us then, even before He created Adam. We are special and we are loved infinitely more than we can imagine on our own. So, how can we get to know our Creator? By reading His Word and learning of His ways and His love and patience for us. He will give you the strength and the ability to make it past all of the temptations that Satan will toss your way.

We really are in a spiritual war between Satan and God. Satan hates God’s creation with a hatred that we can’t understand and will do anything that it takes to destroy your life or your ministry or both if he has to. Get closer to God through His Word and prayer. Seek Him every day in Scripture and don’t forget to ask for His protection for you and your family because Satan will get to you through them if he can’t get to you.

Addendum: I have received a comment that this post is too short and doesn’t include enough information for a “novice” Christian to follow, I respectfully disagree. While it is true that this is one of my shorter posts, the information about seeking God is the same as it is for everyone. It is true that my particular instructions are brief and low on specifics, but the Bible is not.

Learning about your role in spiritual warfare and how to combat it starts in the book of Romans and then continues through much of the rest of the New Testament. There is also a book or two in the Old Testament that is useful, such as Joshua and Daniel. Though, the entire Bible is best for learning about your responsibilities in Christ and as a Christian.

A daunting task if you are a new Christian, and one which I had some trouble sticking to when I first came into faith in Christ. Today, you have an app for that in the Bible app for your phone or tablet. With it, you can fine a reading plan which will help keep you on track to read the Bible all the way through in a year which will give you plenty of information, if you will pray through it as you go. The best advice I can give after that is….do it again. Each time, praying that God would show you something different and He will. I have read it through about six or seven times, I think, and each time I found something that had more meaning or wisdom than I noticed the time before.

I hope this helps somewhat. It is still a bit early here, so please forgive any terseness that may have crept into my writing.

Your time and my time…


We sometimes look at a day or an hour and wonder where the time has gone. It seemed to go by so fast at times and then some days, even some hours go by so slow. As your teachers and your parents have said, it is all in your perception of it. So, why does it seem that our time is so short, especially when there are so many things that we would like to do?

Yes, we have children to take care of and jobs to go to, but those things only make the time seem to go by faster. I agree that being at a job seems to slow time to a crawl sometimes, but doesn’t that make you want some time off to be with your family?

Time is part of our existence from the moment that we are born. It is also part of the natural order of things that God created in our universe. We are subject to the so-called “march of time” as we perceive it, God is not. He can see all of your life and everything else from the beginning to end, any time that He wants to. He knows what you are doing now and tomorrow and even next week, so all you need to do is follow His lead in your life.

What can we do with our time? Many things, but the most important is to allow God to lead you through your life so that others can see Him through you and the things which you do every day. It seems that there are so many people who consider their lives to be important only to them and nobody else. Your life and everything that you do is important to God.

The way that you talk is important to Him. Your actions each day are important to Him. The words that you so to others and how you say them are important to Him. Why? Because, if you are a child of His and you are if you are a Christian, everything that you do is to glorify God and your life is supposed to reflect His so that others can see Him through you!

When you are in such a hurry that you endanger your life and the lives of your children just to get home a minute or so earlier, it says something about you. When you don’t have the patience to listen to someone who needs you to listen, that says something about you too. Patience is a virtue that comes from a relationship with God and if your walk with Him hasn’t produced patience in your life then you need to walk a bit closer to Him every day.

Don’t ask God to give you patience because it isn’t something that is handed out, but something that is learned. You won’t like the lesson, trust me! I made that mistake and I am just coming out of the class after a few years of lessons! Wisdom is also learned through patient study of God’s Word and they go hand in hand. Seek God’s Wisdom and His Kingdom through His Word and all of these will be added to you and your life.

Regarding God


Yesterday, I reblogged a post about an African church and it tells how they praise God in their worship. It very likely doesn’t do them justice, but it does tell some of what they do. In our churches today, in America in some places around the world, we tend toward restraint and dignified worship. Why do we do this? So we aren’t perceived as “those crazy Christians” maybe?

David worshipped God with dancing and singing, so much so that it embarrassed his wife. Why don’t we worship God with all of our being and our strength? Maybe we don’t want to look ridiculous to others? What difference does it make?

If every person in the church was clapping and singing and dancing in the aisles, what difference would it make? To others, who were doing the same thing, it wouldn’t matter. Someone who had never seen this kind of worship, would either run away or join in on the fun! Would that be so bad? The one that ran away might think that all of us are crazy, but God wouldn’t.

Worship can be as dignified or as rambunctious and care free as it needs to be. Why would you want to go into God’s presence with a face that looked as if you had a lemon in your mouth? Jesus laughed I am sure of it and we should be happily praising God regardless of our situation in life.

Just as Jesus told His disciples: “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5″I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 6″If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.… (John 15:4-6) We are to do the same. Abiding doesn’t mean just sitting there like a lump on a log. A branch grows and produces fruit, and so should we and we ought to be happy and joyous in the process!

God is our Creator and our Judge when that time comes, but when you have accepted Jesus as your Savior then He is your Father too. He doesn’t judge you anymore because you are covered by Jesus’ blood and your sins are forgotten. You may falter and fall occasionally, but you are still forgiven. His sacrifice was a one-time gift to us all and the only thing which we have to do is to accept the gift from God as it is, by faith. There is nothing that we can add to it and we can’t tarnish it by not doing anything after we get it, but you will. A grateful heart will do something for God.

You may think that what you do is small, but God can use even the smallest gesture or word to plant a seed in someone’s life or maybe to open someone’s eyes to the Truth. You may not think that what you said or did will amount to anything, but God can use it in ways that you might never imagine. This blog can make an impact in someone’s life and I pray that it will.

Fantastic stories and outright lies


To many people, that is exactly what the Bible is, a book of fantastic stories and outright lies made up by a bunch of old men. That is what the book of Genesis sounds like to some, with people living to be over nine hundred years old and the whole population of the world supposedly coming from a single couple? Then you have a world-wide flood, with a man who is five hundred years old when he begins building a boat that God told him to build in the desert because a flood is coming? At a time when, the book tells us, that it had never rained before?

Sounds crazy doesn’t it?

But, you know God can take nothing and make it into something so those life spans and everything that He told Moses to write down don’t sound so crazy when you consider that God is behind it all, right?

Oh, that’s right, you don’t believe in God or any “supreme being”! All of this just clumped together on its own and somehow all of the chemicals and molecules put themselves together to form DNA and then all of life just showed up on our little ball of mud and rock, right??

You have more faith in puzzles accidentally putting themselves together than I do in a man walking on water!

The “evolution” of the cosmos and of the Earth and of life on the Earth is the most fantastic pile of nonsense that I have ever heard. Yes, I believe that God did all that He said in the Bible! He is God after all.

If you wish to keep believing in evolution and not believing in God or Jesus, that is your choice and I am not going to refute it here. I don’t have enough proof for His Creation, other than my faith, any more than you can prove that we evolved from apes. Just because an organism has two arms and two legs will give them the same general DNA as any other mammal on Earth. Neither can be proven nor disproven, at least to the satisfaction of those who hold one belief or the other.

Yes, this post will likely get the ire of those in atheist and evolutionist camps all stirred up. That is the point. Whether you believe my argument one way or the other doesn’t matter. What matters is that you may read it. The Bible, that is. To many people it is confusing and a load of crap, which is your opinion and you have a right to that opinion.

But, to me it is the Word of God, given to Moses on the mountain when they met over three thousand years ago. Moses was told by God how the world was created and how mankind was created and all of the history up to that point. The amazing part of those first few books of the Bible is that they point to a Seed, the Messiah, Jesus, Who would be born much later and He would be the perfect, sinless Lamb of God that would sacrifice His Life so that we might be able to be forgiven. Each book, no matter who wrote it from Moses on down, has a reference to Jesus in some way. Some of the prophetic books like Isaiah and Psalms even tell where He would be born and how He would die.

The most wonderful part is that He rose again on the third day and six weeks later, went to be with the Father until He comes again. His return has been waited for by many for the past two millennia and the amazing part is that everything is in place for His return. It won’t be another thousand years, it will likely be in our life-time. Study your Bible, borrow one and seek Him and prove Him through Scripture and in history.

Romans 8, Psalms 22, and the book of Revelation will give you more proof than you need. Psalm 22 was written over one thousand years before crucifixion was used, yet it describes it very accurately. Consider the truth found in Scripture, ask God to show you the truth of what you are reading, whether you want to believe it or not, He will hear you and show you what you didn’t know was there. He doesn’t want anyone to go to hell, but your choice of believing or not will send you there, not Him.

Why?


If God’s presence has really left our country, why? Well, over the last fifty years we have continually pushed Him away from our children, from our educational institutions, from the public square, from being present at football games and other sports through prayer, even out of political and other bodies of legislative actions where His Presence is sorely needed today.

So, what would you expect Him to do? Granted, His feelings and actions are much different from ours but if your congregation or your spouse were doing this wouldn’t you leave too? I would. We are going to reap exactly what we have sown and I don’t think that this country is going to recover from it. There have been many signs and warnings such as the attack on 9/11, the financial crisis seven years later and now we are seven years past that point. What will happen this time? I don’t know and I am not going to speculate, but the moons that are happening on the Sabbaths this year and the two full solar eclipses could be telling us to wake up and repent of our ways.

God loves each of us, whether we are saved or not because He loved us all before we felt the conviction to repent. We are being given a chance to change and repent of our ways, and come back to Him.

Read the Bible, especially Romans and Revelation, because we need Him now far more than we have ever needed Him before. Please listen to the words from the Old Testament:

“Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

This is referring to all who call on God, not just the Jewish people. In Romans 9:25 it says: “Concerning the Gentiles, God says in the prophecy of Hosea, “Those who were not my people, I will now call my people. And I will love those whom I did not love before.”

Seek His counsel through the Bible and pray that it isn’t too late for our nation and our world.

United we stand


There are so many divisions in the body of Christ today, until I am sure that Satan is truly amused by it all. We have many denominations, some of which don’t or won’t talk to each other. Then there are divisions between black and white congregations. Many people call this racist and segregationist but the problem is that we are not different races! If you truly believe the Bible, then look to our original parents, Adam and Eve. They were both likely of a dark complexion, not one or the other, and yet many or all of the “races” came from them.

The body of Christ cannot be and should not be divided during this period. Why? Because we are nearing the end of the age, the body of Christ shouldn’t be divided. We need to be standing together in the unity of the Holy Spirit, not pointing out our differences and our doctrines which don’t line up exactly.

Our life as children of God needs to be in cooperation with each other and with Him. Our beliefs as Christians shouldn’t so far enough apart as to separate us this much. But, just as the political parties which can’t get along or agree about much of anything, we seem to have the same problem. One church believes that the Lord’s supper should be done at least once every month, another might say that once or twice a year is good enough.

Traditions and man-made rules and regulations are the kind of burdens which Jesus spoke against in His Earthly ministry. As long as we are communing with God through prayer and study of His Word and celebrating our freedom in Christ by having fellowship with other Christians, rules…especially man’s rules need not apply!

A written copy of a church’s “discipline” or creed doesn’t carry the same weight as God’s Word, yet some treat them as if they do. How can we call ourselves Christians, when we treat those in the church like cattle and we don’t even show the love of God to those outside the church doors! Today, there seem to be many “houses of worship” which don’t worship much more than their own self-image!

Get back to true worship of God and His Son. Come back to your first love and if you never really belonged to Him or He to you, then humble yourself and stop being so self-centered! The only place that kind of thinking will get you is on a very slippery slope to hell! If you have never heard of that place in a sermon, then you certainly need to read God’s Word, because you don’t want to spend an eternity there!

We, as Christians, need to be united because there are so many people against us these days. Even the DHS has evangelical churches on their watch list. Don’t believe it? Look it up! I have seen and heard this in the news. Maybe not on the “major networks” since they only report things that they are told to report, but on Fox and on Glenn Beck’s network they do. Yes, this labels me as a radical Christian, but I don’t cut people’s heads off, I am trying to save their souls by showing them the true Savior, Jesus Christ!

If that is a crime, then I am guilty of it and will go to my death with it if need be! My eternity is secure and I pray that yours is too.

Are you a follower, a leader, or a Christian?


In many ways we are called to be all three, especially if we claim to be Christians. Today, we are supposed to be a people who follow Jesus and His example, not the “politically correct” way but His Way of Life! If you are a follower of Him, will you be one when the persecution comes to America, and it will come sooner than you think! Will you stay true to your faith in Jesus and your claim to Him when someone is threatening your life or your family’s security?

We need to be that strong in our faith, we are supposed to be that strong so that we can stand in our faith and for our communities and our churches. We are also called to be examples and leaders of our churches and our families faith. If we aren’t doing that then what is the next generation going to learn? Who are they going to learn it from?

God gave that responsibility to parents. To raise their children in the knowledge and reverence of Him, not to be afraid of Him as if God were going to strike you with a bolt of lightning for doing something wrong. God allows us to make mistakes, but we aren’t supposed to live in those mistakes. We are supposed to learn from them, repent of the sinful ways that we had and move into a life of service to Him and not to ourselves.

Christians are supposed to be fundamentally bound to the Bible, God’s Word. It really isn’t supposed to be an option because if you choose to not believe one part of it, you are invalidating all of it! We have to be consistent in our faith in God and in the Word of God because if we aren’t going to believe all of God’s Word, then why be a Christian at all?

The belief in the Word of God comes with the faith that you have in Him and His Son. If that isn’t there, then you need to check with the Bible and see if you really do believe in what you say that you believe. This is exactly why there are so many people who don’t want to believe in God and who don’t go to church. They see all of these “so-called Christians” that go to church and then don’t live their lives by what they are claiming to believe on a daily basis.

This is exactly why so many people choose not to come to churches. They see many of those who claim Christ on Sunday, but who walk a different way during the week. The walk of a Christian is not an optional thing. It is just like walking on a thin line which we are called to do, you are either on it or not. Yes, we fall from our walk and step off of the line, but we should try to get back on it as soon as possible. Don’t decide that once you fall off that you can’t get back up! You don’t learn to ride a bike or a horse that way and your walk with Jesus is no different!

When you choose to be a Christian, regardless of how long ago it was, you are in a committed relationship. One which is dependent upon you to keep it going. Jesus has already done everything that He needed to do, it is up to you to seek Him out daily in His Word. Pray for your day to be the one that He would want. Keep your mind focused upon Him during the day, as often as you can, because the more you keep Him on your mind then the less chances Satan will have to cause problems in your day.

Make sure that, if you are a Christian, you are walking with Jesus and not dragging Him up when someone asks you about Him and then pushing Him away so that you can do what you want to do. Prayer is good, if it is done for the right reason and God hears those prayers when your heart is in them too. If you are just saying something like “God bless you”, then it is just an automatic thing and really doesn’t mean much. Consider what you are thinking because God knows what you are thinking too. Nothing is hidden from Him no matter where you might be.

Satan’s hatred


For those of you who claim to be atheists, you can stop reading now. If you don’t believe in God then you shouldn’t have to worry about Satan, right?

The rest of you, believers and non-believers, listen to this: Satan HATES YOU! With the utmost, vilest hatred that is known but it is likely that we could never understand the depths of his hatred. Why are we as humans, mankind, hated so by the Accuser of the Saints, Lucifer, the Devil himself? First and foremost is because God loves us, and anyone that God loves, Satan hates since he has chosen to be as much an opposer and opposite of God in all things as he possibly can be.

He cannot create in the same way that God can by speaking something into existence out of nothing, he can incite death and destruction through us by influencing our minds and our thoughts. He has become truly expert at this as well as causing us to dismiss his existence as a tale told to scare children and nothing more. All of the religions of the world were created in the minds of men by him and the fallen angels that came to Earth with him long ago.

The diseases and wars and all of the things which are happening to people, young and old, are part of his doing. As long as he and the demons who serve him are able, they will be thorns in the side of church members and pastors until Jesus comes again. They will cause dissension and other cracks to appear in churches and between the members of those churches in order to weaken the message of Jesus that may be taught there.

This has been going on for centuries and Satan has become very adept at all forms of deceit which mankind will listen to. He will appeal to your vanity and pride through success that he brings your way in order to lure you in his direction and away from serving God. It won’t be as dramatic as the contract signed in blood like some movies have portrayed, but you will be following him or his legion if you are not following God.

Why am I bringing this up on my site? To show that Satan is real and that it is he and his demons who are influencing our world leaders and many of our people today. You can choose to believe that he is doing this or not, I am not trying to prove it to anyone. I am just bringing it up because it is happening, in the background and unless you are a Christian who is following Jesus every day then you are vulnerable to their influence.

Even Christians, if they are not following Jesus and reading God’s Word daily and praying, can be influenced by Satan and his demons. Make sure of your faith, strengthen your faith through God’s Word and pray about what you are reading. Make sure that your life is in God’s hands because life is short and Satan’s time is growing shorter.