Tag: Christ

The heat of the day and the battle!


We face dark times ahead, not only because of the situation the world is in right now but the day-to-day situations which we face in our personal, daily lives. Every soldier knows that the heat of battle is the most dangerous but also the times when it gets really quiet is one in which you especially have to be on your guard. It is the same in our lives, regardless of the life that you live, whether you are a follower of Christ or not and no matter what type of job that you may work at, there is an element of danger in every sphere and every vocation today.

Driving to work, you are only a few feet from the cars in front or behind you or if you are on a two-lane road the cars meeting you are only two feet from you when they pass you. Anything can happen in a moments notice or without a moments notice on the road, on the job or in your life. One job that I have been thinking about lately is one that I worked at for many years and that was as an emergency medical technician. I worked at this for about ten years first at an ambulance service and then on a rescue unit for a fire department.

These are jobs which are needed but as the news has shown lately, even when you are trying to help someone you can be hit by another vehicle and possibly lose your life too. At a fire department, you may be at a fire, trying to find someone trapped or trying to get into the building to put the fire out so you can see if there is someone in the house. Many things can go wrong while in these situations and it is only by the grace and mercy of God that many of us come out to “fight another day”.

Although, many of my comrades would tell you that they have it covered, no problem, the fact is that the roof can cave in or a gas line can blow or a piece of furniture may fall and trap you, and then if your buddy is not nearby and you are getting low on air, what can you do? My best advice in a situation like this is to never get far from your buddy, just like in scuba diving. You may need him and his strength, you may need his life-giving air until help arrives. There are many different situations and problems which can crop up in one call that you take, that may be the last one you see!

The times that we live in are fragile and the time that we have with our family and friends is fleeting. You will never have those times again, once today is gone, the opportunities and the words that needed to be said are gone and will never present themselves again. Soldiers know this, police know this, firefighters know this, but in our own bravado and our pride we ignore the signs. We all do this, no matter what vocation we may have.

Life is fleeting even if you think you will live to be one hundred, especially compared to eternity. So, what will your answer be when God asks you “What did you do with my Son?” He knows the answer before you do, so think about it now while you have the time to take some action to correct the prideful ways that you have held on to most of your lives.

Yesterday is gone and is in your past, tomorrow isn’t here yet and none of us are guaranteed to wake tomorrow, now, today is what we have, each of us, and if we don’t think about Jesus and our relationship to Him and with Him today, then when? Life gets in the way, situations and our jobs take up our time and our thoughts. Our family can demand much of our attention on a daily basis, but what will happen when your life is over? It can happen in an instant, so while you have today, right now, listen to the small voice in your heart and give Him the attention that He deserves so that He can give you the Life that you deserve. Think about it.

Do you see a racial problem in our world today?


I had thought at one point that once we had an African – American President that Martin Luther King‘s dream would be realized. I am sorry to say that it has not happened. It actually seems to have become worse, from both sides. Blame is being thrown between people who don’t even know each other and yet it is always, or seems to be, the other guy’s fault.

Why are we so divided this way, by hate and anger over generations of abuse true enough but the understanding of the depth of hatred and bitterness escapes me. It is like the bitterness in the Middle East that has been going on for centuries, it is so deep until no amount of “peace negotiations” will ever work. It also seems that that is exactly what is happening in America.

We are allowing our racist pasts, on both sides, to cloud our judgment and our sense of morality. Where in the Scriptures does it say that we are to hate each other because of our skin color? It is not there, because I have read them many times and in no way or in any book from the Old Testament or the New is hatred for any reason encouraged!

We, as a nation not just certain groups of people, need to get back to God‘s Word and repent before things get completely out of control. Jesus is coming back and whether it is in ten years or in fifty it will happen. Yes, things are going to get worse economically before He returns but if we cling to Him and to following Him we will be the ones who triumph in the end.

God loves all of humanity, not just certain “races” of people. The Israelites were His chosen people, but with their rejection of Jesus they shunted their status aside. Not permanently, but God sent to us Gentiles the message and the blessings that they would’ve had in order to make them jealous enough to want Him back!

Jesus called the religious leaders in His day hypocrites because of their attitude toward the people that they were supposed to be leading. Hypocrisy is what we have shown to the world because we claim to be a Christian nation and yet we kill innocent children, unborn babies as a normal thing! Why is that happening? What purpose does killing an unborn child serve? We are going to be held accountable for this by God, so we should be considering this.

Many people in America as well as all over the world, don’t want to have much to do with Christians or church or God either. They want their own god, their own way of doing things, but He will hold you accountable, each of us! How can this be fixed in the religious climate that we live in today? Only by Christians doing what they are supposed to do by telling others about Christ and His love for them. Although, this will infuriate some people it will help in the end. Read God’s Word, pray about the problems at home and abroad, pray about your own problems since we all have them, God hears your prayers and will answer them in His own way and time.
The biggest problem that we have as people, not groups of people separated by race or ethnicity or culture, is that we expect everyone to think as we do. Regardless of where they grew up or how they were raised in their culture, people everywhere seem to expect others to know how they live, how their culture sees things or does things. Then we get offended when others don’t understand our unique position or our unique place in the world as a whole!

Why would or could you expect someone who has been living in Indonesia to understand the problems or the culture in Nigeria? Why would anyone expect an American, whose family has lived here for over two hundred years, to understand a Middle-Eastern culture, regardless of the religion involved? We cannot do it personally or individually or even as a country! Perception is the one part of life that everyone has, just as each of us has an opinion about everything, but our perception is clouded by our culture and the norms that we each grew up with.

It is the same with racial divides in our world today. Perception and our cultural norms that we each have, causes and compounds this divide and adds to our racial problems even further because we expect each other to understand how the other feels when it is impossible! If your skin is black or brown and you grew up in sub-Saharan Africa your perception of the world is going to be totally different from someone who looks like you but grew up in Chicago. Conversely, someone who is Caucasian and grew up in Atlanta won’t have anything much in common with a person who grew up in Russia other than their skin color.

The racial divide in our world is not getting any smaller, it is still there and in some places and people it is getting larger and deeper. The only way to come together as humanity and not as racial groups is to accept the One who can cross those divides and change our hearts so that we see each other as Christians and not as we do in our limited human ways. Give Jesus a chance to make a sweeping change in your life, to open your eyes to the humanity that is around you and not the racial differences and cultural differences. Because until we can, there will always be strife, anger, bitterness, hatred and loneliness in our world and Satan will make each of these worse.

He will use his ways and his powers to make all of these so bad that we would think of nothing more than killing each other just to feel better, or even killing ourselves so that the pain and loneliness would go away. The pain and loneliness that we feel are there because of him and because of the divides that we feel toward each other, and if he can make it worse he will. As long as he can use our emotions and our own racial or cultural divisions against us, he will. If it will keep us from giving our lives to Christ, even better.

The only “fix” for these problems is a relationship with Jesus which continues to grow until He comes back, because He will! We are not promised tomorrow, only today and while we have the day we need to be seeking Jesus and His Kingdom, because nothing else really matters because the “stuff” that you have here will not travel in either direction. It will be left or sold or destroyed in some way after your death, it is temporary, just like your life here. Life with Jesus is eternal, life in hell is eternal too but your “stuff” nor your position in life will not matter one bit in the life after this one. Think about it.

Can you live without Jesus?


Unfortunately, the answer is yes, anyone can live here on earth without Jesus in their lives or in their heart, but can it truly be living? Can you really be alive without Him? I once thought so and I thought that I was enjoying myself at the time, but I was only fooling my self.

We were not meant to live without a relationship with Jesus or God Himself! Originally, mankind was created to have a daily encounter with God in all aspects of his life here on earth. We are supposed to have that close relationship with Him every day, many times during the day. I know, there are many people who will say that only preachers and others who serve in places of worship and as worship leaders are supposed to have that kind of relationship with Jesus.

But, that is not how it was in the beginning. In Eden, God told Adam that he was to have dominion over all of the animals and the birds and He also spoke with him every evening. Isn’t it strange that the Creator would want to walk and talk with His creation? God didn’t think so at the time.

Until he sinned, Adam was pure and righteous and could come before God about anything and ask anything of Him. The earth yielded its bounty to him willingly with no effort on Adam’s part before he made his mistake and thought that he knew better than God. When he chose to go against the command that God had given him, he stepped out of his comfortable life and into the one that he and generations to come would have to endure.

God knew that this would happen and He had made provisions for it, so it wasn’t a surprise to Him but it made mankind’s life much harder. Which was supposed to cause us to seek Him, to want Him to be in our lives. Of course, Satan had his plans for mankind as well and it didn’t include getting to know God.

I could recount the whole creation/pre-flood saga but the point is that since Satan was cast to earth after his rebellion he is provisionally the ruler of this world. This is the reason for the bad things which happen everywhere, although God is in control of how far Satan can go with his plans and won’t allow him to really cause as much trouble as he would like to.

In reality, religion itself is the creation of Satan. He devised all of the gods which people have been worshiping for thousands of years. He or some of his fallen angels very likely appeared to man at some point in their angelic forms or their demonic forms and that is where many of the pagan gods and myths came from.

He has always been able to stir up our emotions because he knows where to tweak our unconscious minds and hit our most vulnerable parts, the parts of us that we may not even know about having. Even after we come to Christ, Satan still hits us in those areas and will cause us to stumble and fall if we don’t lean on and depend on Jesus every day for our strength.

Our life is in Jesus and the life that we have here is better when we are His. Our troubles don’t go away when we become Christians, but they are far easier for us to deal with when we have His strength in us to help us with those troubles.

What do you see here?


A picture is worth 1000 words. This safe has been through a lot. Image credit: “safe” – © 2007 Paul Keller – made available under Attribution 2.0 Generic

It has been through a tremendous fire with a lot of heat which is what did all of the damage to it. The fire was particularly hot but the safe was not breached, it seems that it was capable of still being locked even though the outside was scorched and then discarded. I see an analogy of our country and the state of religion in it.

Christians, whether black or white, have taken the heat from people who follow Islam and from people who don’t follow any religion at all. We have not been broken, we have not stopped being Christians but there are some who are discarding their belief in Jesus or their religion. Why is this happening?

Is it because of the state of our country and its economy? Is it because of the state of relations between the so-called “races” of people in our country? Now, before anyone gets all bent out of shape, the reason that I have races in quotes is because God did not make us this way! God created mankind! We are all the same race, whether your skin is white or black, yellow or brown or any shade between those. Our main difference is cultural. There are cultural differences between most everyone on earth regardless of where you may live.

We are brought up by our parents and grand-parents into a culture, regardless of where you live. You may be brought up in a community in Chicago or Detroit or New York, but your culture will be in line with those that you are around.

Christian’s, regardless of race, should follow Jesus’ example. He didn’t pay attention to the cultural norms of his people, He spoke to women and to Samaritans which other Jews actively avoided. He healed lepers, he touched them which no one in His culture would do. We are to be His hands, His eyes, His feet in our time because others need to know Him. How will they know about Him if we don’t take Him with us through our actions or our words?

How can we possibly fulfill the commission that Jesus gave us to take the gospel to every nation and tribe if we don’t do it? If our cultural differences keep us apart and separate us into “us” and “them”, how can we show each other the love of Christ?

At the beginning of this post there is a picture of a burned safe which had been discarded. It did what it was supposed to do because it protected the contents to the best of its ability from the fire. That is what Christians are supposed to be doing too…protecting others from the fire of hell by telling them about the love and forgiveness of God.

Then, telling them about what Jesus did for each of us regardless of our skin color or our race or our culture. He did it for all of us and if you need to know what “it” is I am going to tell you: He took the punishment and the torture of being apart from God as well as the punishment of the cross for our sins!

God loves each of us, and it doesn’t matter which culture we claim or what skin color we have but in order for us to be considered a child of God and forgiven, we have to accept Jesus’ sacrifice and believe that it was for us because it was! The way that the world has everyone thinking is about groups of people and we need to look at each other as individuals. Each of us is unique and different but we are all the same in God’s eyes!

The contents of that safe may have burned up, but it did its job as well as it could. It may not have been designed to take as much heat as it looks like it was exposed to, but we are. Our character is molded by our culture and that character is what we should be showing the world. If your character and your ability is modeled after Christ, then they will see Him and that is the best that we can do as individuals because we were created to be mankind and have a relationship with each other and with God.

Being a religious person doesn’t make any difference?


I saw this on the news today and I wonder just what people think will make a difference in our society? Religion itself has gotten a bad reputation in the past few years because of the problems which have cropped up in churches in many places. But you know you can be religious about many different things. You can be religious about the way you cook your food or how you put your clothes on a certain way or even about going to the golf course or fishing. People can make a religious experience out of most anything, but what about your faith?

Do you have faith in the sun coming up in the morning? You really don’t have to, because you know it will. What about the moon rising later in the day or after the sun goes down? Faith doesn’t really come into play there either because you know that these things will happen.

Religion and faith together can be an explosive combination, especially when you are so caught up in emotional issues and a religion which stirs these to a point where many people get uncontrollably caught up in what their teachers teach them. I am trying to be as politically correct as possible here so I really won’t offend anyone. The point is that our individual faith, regardless of which “religion” it happens to be in, is our own.

But, what will you do with that religion or lack of faith when you are confronted after your death by God Himself who is the final judge of our lives? What can you say to Him about your religion which will make a difference? If you never accepted Jesus and the sacrifice which He made to reconcile us to God, there isn’t much that you can say. God knows your heart and every word which has come from your mouth. If you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, then He will be beside you as your life is judged, if not you will stand alone.

What then? Would you want to be standing in front of the Creator of the universe with nothing except your deeds and your personal “righteousness” which is as Isaiah 64: 6 says:

“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags;
and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

Unless we have put on the righteousness of Christ, God sees us as we are and we cannot enter into Heaven in that way. What many people today do is to create their own version of “God”, one that is acceptable to them and doesn’t judge them for their personal faults but this is doing nothing except delaying the inevitable. We will all be judged by God, the One True God, whether we are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus or not. If we did things in this life while belonging to Him, we will be rewarded if not then those things will be judged on their merit if any, except without Christ those merits will mean nothing.

How can our lives really mean anything or have any meaning at all without Christ? To each of us, our lives do mean something, but when you look at eternity once your life here ends, without Jesus eternity is not something that anyone would want to experience.

I know that there are many who think that life ends completely when we die, but we were created as eternal beings and part of us does live on. Without Jesus, it will not be an enjoyable eternity but with Him we will not be without anything good . You can choose whether to believe and accept Him as your Savior or not, many don’t wish to believe in Him at all. Satan knows that He is and believes that He is but he won’t worship Him and that is his downfall, don’t let it be yours.

Have you walked away?


I have worked with and talked to many people who have told me that they walked away from a church because of something. Many people won’t tell what the “something” was that cause the problem, but I doubt that it was God Himself. After my divorce years ago, I heard a sermon that was essentially attacking people who were in my place and it hurt. I thought that in church and by those who attend church, we were supposed to be supported and prayed for when we  experienced pain like that which comes in a divorce. I was proven wrong, so I did not go back for a long time.

This is how churches and congregations as well as individuals become broken and torn or pulled apart. There are hurt feelings and anger and later frustration, then the anger becomes deep and turns into something which won’t go away easily and it hinders our relationship with God.

Many people think that they will be able to worship Him just fine from home or at work or wherever they may be on Sunday morning and it is true that you can do this but what usually happens? We get started cooking breakfast and watching the morning show on Sunday morning, then the phone rings and we go to the mall. What happened?  Life, family, television, shopping, fishing, hunting, kids can all get in the way of learning about your Savior.

There are many excuses that get used when people don’t want to come to church or maybe get back into church. If there ever was a part of your life that was involved in church then you have heard the message of Christ‘s sacrifice for your salvation. Have you accepted it into your life and your heart?

If you did accept Him as your Savior and then something or someone at your home church caused you to leave then there needs to be some forgiveness. It is something that we, as humans have a hard time doing but with Jesus in your life it is possible. Following His example we are supposed to be forgiving to those who have wronged us, no matter what the slight is or was.

We can’t do it with our own strength, but through Him we can. Just as Jesus told Peter, we are supposed to forgive seven times seventy or four hundred and ninety times. It is what our Lord commanded us to do, and yet we are not able to do it on our own.

We have to decide to revive our relationship with Jesus, regardless of the hurt we received from a church-member or a pastor in time past. Even if the one who may have hurt your feelings is a family member, your relationship with Jesus is more important than this. If you have left the church or your relationship with Jesus by not attending church you are only hurting yourself.

When we are in a right relationship with Jesus and following Him daily, we should celebrate and worship with other saints at a church. Regardless of the denomination, worship is the key because of the sacrifice of our Lord and because He is worthy of our praise!

The Living Word, our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ and the Messiah came to be the way that we have to get into heaven, all that we need to do is to ask Him into our hearts or re-establish the relationship that has been on hold. If you have put Jesus on hold, He is still waiting. He never hung up, He has never nor will He leave you.

What is the truth?


Is the truth found in our everyday lives? Can each of us have our own version of what is true or not? If we did, then everyone would be fighting over which truth was or is the real one! How can we know which truth is the right one? Is it the one that we are taught as children by our parents or is the truth that we are taught in school or college the correct one? What about if we make up our own truth, wouldn’t that be the one for us? If so, then which truth is the one for my next door neighbor or the people who live in the next country?

People have been arguing over the truth or a lie for centuries without either side knowing which one is correct. So, how can we be sure about the validity of the truth? The only real, way is to ask the author and finisher of Truth, Jesus! How can we know what the truth is if we don’t read God‘s Word on it because His Word is truth!

The Word of God is the truth regardless of what truth you may be looking for. So how can we know that it is the truth? Simple, if God’s Word is not the truth, then we have absolutely no hope!Nothing in the mind of man can save us from the judgement to come if we have not accepted Jesus as our Savior!

There is no religion which was conceived by man which will get you into Heaven because we are sinful creatures! We are not able to save ourselves from destruction and judgement and we cannot be sinless on our own merits. Jesus came to pay the price for us because He is the only One who could and He did! He obeyed the Father‘s will and submitted Himself to the hands of man to be put to death on the cross! The only thing that we can do is to trust in Him and believe in Him and the work that He did for us, then submit our life to Him so that we can tell others!

The Truth is that God loved us before we were born and sent His perfect Son to be the sacrifice which would satisfy all of the requirements of the Law that we cannot! Jesus did this for all of mankind, whether we each accept it as a gift of grace from God or not is our choice! It is not forced upon us, we are not required to act on this knowledge but it is for our own good that we do so! It is provided for us, without cost or obligation, but we need to realize that it is for our own salvation and for the glory of God! It is our responsibility to give our lives as living sacrifices to God daily because it is the least that we can do in light of what He did for us.

The truth is that God does not need us, but He wants us to know that He loves us and has provided all of the provision, the sacrifice needed for us to have the righteousness of Christ imputed to us through our acceptance of Him! God created each of us with knowledge of Him and the moral goodness that is needed for us to live in our societies, whether we have lived that way or not is our own choice and the product of our upbringing. Even those who have never had a sermon preached to them know that there is something more than what they have, and they search for it. They try to find it in many things or in drugs or alcohol or even sex but none of these satisfies their craving because the only way to fill that empty space is with Jesus!

 

Our Amazing God!


I have written about this before, but it bears repeating. That our God, the Creator of the universe is amazing! All of the life that is on our planet, not just humanity, but all of the living organisms from single celled life, to the blue whales which traverse the oceans and every tree and blade of grass was created by Him with a word, how amazing is that!

Can any other “god” claim to have done this? No, they cannot because they didn’t and cannot do what our God can do. Have you considered the wonders of our world and the universe that we live in? This did not happen by chance, nor did it happen by accident, it came together because God wanted it to!

He sent His Son to earth as the final sacrifice for our sins and if you believe in Him and the grace that is given to you through Jesus, then you are part of His family and joint heirs with Christ in Heaven! Isn’t that humbling? Isn’t it a powerful expression of love from God to each of us? Yes, it is on both counts because if God didn’t love each of us He wouldn’t have done the things that He has done for us.

He would not have sent His Son and He wouldn’t give us this place that we call home, if He didn’t love us beyond any love that we can comprehend. If God is drawing you to Himself, please don’t walk away from Him, reach out and ask Him into your life and your heart. You will know if He is drawing you to Him and when you recognize it, please don’t ignore Him. Your life before accepting Him is nothing compared to what it can be after accepting Him. Serving Him through your job and the life that you live before your family is an awesome responsibility, because they need to know Him too and if they only see Him through you then that is needed, you are needed by Him to be that witness.

There is so much darkness in our world today that many people can’t see or even tell that there is a light and that light is the love of God and His Son! John wrote in his gospel that:

16. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:16,17)

The world doesn’t know Him because it and those who are in it don’t want to know Him. They are like the ones in Jesus’ time that refused His message, and refused to believe in Him. In the book of Matthew is this verse “For many are called but only a few are chosen” Matthew 22:14

Those who are chose are the ones who will answer the call of God on their spirit, because some will and some won’t. If you think you can live your life without God, you are right, you can…but your life will be limited to this world. Once your life is over here, you will face God Himself and when you do He will ask you what you chose to do with Jesus even though He knows the answer. If you have not accepted Jesus as your Savior, then He will send you into a place of punishment forever because of your decision!

Please don’t let that be you! Give your life to Jesus, ask Him to come into your life, read a Bible and learn Who He is and how He much He loves you. Learn about Him, find out what He can do for you and what He can do through you. Your life will change into one of significance not only in this life but into eternity. Pray about it and ask Him to show you His wisdom for your life, because He will.

 

Are you worthy of Him?


What makes me worthy? I have been a drunkard, maybe not an alcoholic, but I drank nearly every Friday night and some days even while I was at school. I tried drugs in my youth for more than a few times and I did inhale, it wasn’t fun at first, but after a while I enjoyed the feeling.

I enjoyed the high feeling that they gave me but I did not enjoy the depression that came afterward. I have used prescription pain medication to make me “feel good”, though thankfully I didn’t become addicted to it. I have looked at pornography and fantasized about things that I wouldn’t admit to today, but I do admit that I did it.

You may be wondering why I am telling you, my friends, about this, why would I show my failures and my warts to those that I am supposed to be bringing the gospel to? The reason that I am doing this is simple…it is to show that no matter how low you have been, how much you have done, how sinful you may think that you are, God loves you anyway!

God can use you and your story, warts and all, as a way to bring someone to Christ and if your story or mine can bring at least one person into a relationship with Christ, then it is worth it to tell your story. Because it also shows the grace that God extends to each of us, regardless of how we were before we came to know Christ.

Of course, it is not a story that I would like to go into the gory details over but
suffice it to say that nobody wants to know those details. Regardless of that, my question for you is: “What do you think you have you done in your life that is keeping you from asking Jesus into your life?” God knows the depravity of
humanity, He knows what evil or good we are capable of and yet, He loves us
anyway. Is it any wonder that Christ can use each of us?

Can you understand that God can use each of us with our problems, our past
failures, our humanity showing in places that we don’t want it to? Is it possible
that with our failures, small or great though they may be, Jesus can still use us
for His purposes? He used Peter even though Peter failed Him on the very night that He was arrested and taken to be tried! Jesus used Saul, who became the apostle Paul, even after he had murdered Steven and likely others before Jesus confronted him on the road to Damascus.

God loves each of us enough that He sent His Son to die for our sins, to pay the
penalty for our sins. That may not sound like much, but if you consider that
Christ took the sins of all of humanity, not just the ones living when He was
here but those that came before and those of us born since He went to His
throne in Heaven! He also died for those that have not yet been born.

So, are you worthy? Do you think that you deserve to receive God’s grace and
His love? If you have accepted Jesus as your savior and into your heart, then you do; but, if you have heard the message in church for many years, if you have read your Bible and even taught Sunday school but are unsure of your relationship to Him then you need to get on your knees and pray. Ask Him to show you what you need, ask Him to forgive you and to come into your heart and to give you the peace which comes with His presence.

Here are some scriptures which enforce the idea of whether we are in need of
being worthy or not:
1 Corinthians 6:11:  And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are
sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

Romans 5:8:  But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Philippians 4:8- Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things [are] honest, whatsoever things [are] just, whatsoever things [are] pure,
whatsoever things [are] lovely, whatsoever things [are] of good report; if [there
be] any virtue, and if [there be] any praise, think on these things.

Matthew 10:37- He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of
me: and he that loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

1 Timothy 6:3-5- If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome
words, [even] the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is
according to godliness;

Galatians 2:20- I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

We have been given the most gracious and wonderful gift…the gift of salvation
through Jesus Christ! All that we have to do is believe in Him and ask Him into our hearts, repenting of our sinful ways and turning from our prior life to follow Him in obedience and humility until He returns. Some may say that is fine for you, preacher, you are supposed to follow Him but I can only ask Him into my heart. I can’t be expected to follow Him daily!

Why not? His disciples did and countless others have over the past two thousand years. Many have given their lives because they would not renounce Jesus, they would not reject Him and follow the rest of the “church” of the day.

A belief that can cause so many to give their lives in order to spread the news to others is one that cannot be stopped. Even some of the Pharisees said that if it was of men, it would die with them, but if it was of God then there would be no stopping the message. Our Lord’s message has been through many terrible times during the past two thousand years. People have been burned at the stake, forced to freeze to death, seen their families killed in many gruesome ways and yet the message and their belief never faltered.

Our God is an awesome, powerful Creator who can take jars of clay like us, break us and then mold us into exactly what He wishes for us to become. Then He will give us the words…the message that others need to hear, no matter where they may be, so that someone will find out about Jesus and come to a saving knowledge of Him. It is not an easy message, it is not one that is to be taken lightly but it is a message that can save your immortal soul from hell.

If you have never given your life to Jesus and earnestly followed Him, praying all the while to be given a chance to tell someone, even just one person, about what Jesus has released you from, then I urge you to do that now! Jesus stands at the door of your heart, waiting to be asked to come in. He will not push His way in nor will be force anything upon you, but He will change you if you ask Him to and that change will glow and be visible to all around you because it will no longer be just you, but Christ living in you that they will see.

Do you see the love of Christ at your church?


In our world and our culture, the love that we are commanded to show to one another seems to be in short supply…even in church. So what are we to do? Well, the first thing that you can do is make sure that your heart is right with God! If you don’t have Jesus in your heart, then the love of God won’t be there either and if it isn’t there then it won’t show up in church or anywhere else. People will wonder about your walk with Christ, whether it is genuine or not, if the Spirit of Christ doesn’t shine through.

This is something which can’t be faked. You can act like a Christian, you can attend church for decades and teach Sunday school, you can even be a pastor and still not be saved if you know the words and what is expected of you! In other words, you can walk and talk it and still not have it because you are just going through the motions and that is all! Many people in our country are doing just that because if there really were over ninety percent of Americans that were real Christians, then every church in the country would be full to overflowing every Sunday!

I am not trying to upset anyone with this, although I may get a few feathers ruffled, but some people do need to wake up! We need a revival in our country, a revival and an exodus back to God, back to morality and knowing the One who helped to make this country into what it has been for over two hundred years! If we don’t put Him back in charge of many areas of our collective lives in this country, we are going to reap the penalty for our refusal and for turning our backs on Him and for pushing Him out of schools and each person’s lives as much as we have.

God loves each one of us with a love that nobody can come close to understanding, except maybe a mother. The love that most mothers feel for their children is the only bond that imitates God’s love for us. I am also emphatically not calling a mother’s love imitation! It just happens to be the only bond that comes close to that which God has for us and would like to share with each of us. Just as when you talk to your mom, God wants to talk to you, but we need to learn to listen. Get away from the computer and the cell phone, leave the e-mail out of it because He doesn’t do e-mail. You have to be able to hear His voice and His voice is one that is quiet, so you have to be, as the Word of God says, “in a quiet place” away from the distractions of life so that you can hear from Him. Personally, I used to talk to Him and try to listen while I was driving to and from work. If you are alone in the car, turn the radio off and tell Him that you are listening…talk to Him just like you do to any other friend that you have, He will hear you.

His love will show through you and others in your church when you are connected to it. When you are listening to Him, you will find out things that your Bible doesn’t have in it..you will come to understand scripture better when you pray about it. God reveals His wisdom to you when you come to Him. Many people today seem to deny the existence of God, they don’t want Him to hold them accountable for their actions but He does and He will, like it or not. Life is given to each of us by Him, daily to live, to love, to serve, to witness to others. What we do with our life is our choice, but our choice has a price. If you choose to follow Jesus and live through Him, other people’s lives will be impacted by your choices and yours will too. If you choose to live your life selfishly, doing only what you want to do, how you want to do it, you will affect some lives too but at the end of this life what will you have to show for it? Some people have big homes, fancy cars, money to burn and fame and all the “fair-weather friends” to go with all of this, but you can’t take any of that with you when you die! When you are gone, so will your so-called friends be, they will be off looking for someone else who has the money or toys that they like, but where will you be?

Many people say that when they die, they will just be dead period. Jesus said that this life is not the end, it is just the beginning. We are created with an eternal soul and that soul will live on, according to what your life was here and through your life on earth. This is the training ground for eternity, so what are you training for? A life of love, compassion, hope, and knowing that you have all of that secured through the sacrifice that Jesus made for you? Or will your eternity be filled with regret and pain, knowing that you could’ve made the right choice which would change your eternity…but you didn’t. You only get to change your mind while you are here in this life, once you pass to the other life the choice has been made.