Tag: Christianity

Promises and Blessings


And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19
Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, Exodus 23:25

Life sometimes throws us a curve, usually one that we don’t see coming until it hits us square in the eyes. I know, some of you may have thought I would say something else, but it’s the truth. God’s promises are new every morning and they are meant to be for us as well as the Jewish people. Some of us can claim them and some of us never will claim them. It also seems to happen at the worst possible times, but I suppose that is when God wants us to depend upon Him and lean on Him more than we depend upon money or people.

Your life and mine are part of God’s creation and His Kingdom, particularly if we are Christians because we have given our hearts to Christ. We are supposed to be following in His footsteps on a daily basis, not a weekly or every few months or just when we feel like it. Studying the Bible and learning from God’s wisdom about circumstances in our lives, whether we have faced them yet or not, is the best way to learn about Him. Reading through God’s Word at least once every year is not as hard as it sounds and yet many Christians only read what is called out in church on Sunday and maybe on Wednesday night services.

How can you claim God’s blessings and His promises to you and for your life if you don’t know about them in the first place? You won’t know about them if you have never read the Bible, yet that action is severely lacking in churches today. Why is that? Very likely, it is because the Truth of the Bible cannot be ignored and you can’t disprove it. Many people say that it is just a book of stories written down by old men long ago and it doesn’t mean anything. Without faith in God and His Son, Jesus, that may be true, but if you look at the prophecies that have come true from the Bible how can you claim this?

The land of Israel was given back to the Jews in 1948, many Jews have returned to their homeland after nearly two thousand years in exile and their language has been revived as well. All of these are foretold in Scripture and very little is left to happen according to the prophecies in God’s Word before the time of Tribulation will be upon the world. Nobody knows the day or the hour of this time which is coming except God, but I don’t believe that this generation that is alive today will die before it begins to happen.

That could be within the next few years or it may be a decade or more away, but we are living on the edge, the cusp of it right now. The players are moving into position and the time is coming soon. Be prepared. Be watching and be ready!

Huddle up!


In the game of football much of the game’s outcome depends upon what is said and done during the huddle. Of course, the talent that each player brings to the team counts a lot as well, but if each player listens to the plan and follows it, the plays will go as well as they can, depending on how the other team interprets your formation and your strategy.

In life, we have a much harder problem because our enemy can see into our minds just as well as God can. Satan and his cohorts can get into your mind and manipulate you in ways that appeal only to you and your desires. This is why we are instructed to put on the “full armor of God” so that we can be more successful in our life while following Christ. The full armor of God is shown to us in these scriptures:

Ephesians 6:11-18 King James Version

11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;

15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;

16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

These pieces of armor are only good if you place your life inside of them each day. Neglecting to do any of this can cause you to stumble, which we all do, but make sure that you get up and pray asking God to strengthen you and give you the wisdom and courage to follow Him every day. God emptied Himself into human flesh in order to make a way for us to become His children. He gave His life on the cross so that we would not have to go through the punishment and pain associated with a life that rejects Jesus as Savior.

Some people see God as being outside of the universe and outside of time and He is, but He is also present here. Some may say that with all of the evil in the world, where is God? Think of it this way: without an ultimate, pure, and Holy God there would be no option for evil. In some ways, the idea of a balance is right except when you look at an Asian Yin/Yang symbol there is good and evil on both sides. That is not how the world is nor is it how God designed it to be, there is good and evil…period.

The picture below shows what I am talking about. There is only one or the other, they don’t mix and there isn’t a little of one on either side. We are given a choice and many choose one side or the other, you can’t stand on the middle line and claim both. Yet, many people try to actually live on that line until they find that theScreen shot 2012-07-23 at 10.49.14 AMy can’t live there. You have to choose one or the other, you can’t wobble over here one day and then change sides and to back to the other.

God loves us that is why we have a choice in life simply because you can’t force someone to do something, like love you. Trying to make someone do something which they don’t want to do would be similar to giving a cat a bath or putting water back into a bottle while it is being poured out. Unless the cat has been trained to allow you to give them a bath, you will be needing medical attention before the bath is over!

We are God’s creation, made in His Image or as it is said in Genesis, “let us make man in Our image” since God is a Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are the only part of creation which God actually used His hands to mold and shape the clay from which He fashioned mankind. Some may wish to ask “when will evil be taken out of this world”, the only answer that I have for that comes from the book of Revelation. At the end of the millennium of Christ’s reign on Earth, there will be one last battle and Satan’s forces will be crushed. Then the White Throne judgement will occur and all of those who sided with Satan and did not seek Jesus in their lives will be cast into the lake of fire for eternity. That will be the end of evil as we know it.

Seek Jesus out in the Bible and learn of Him, ask Him into your life and ask for His forgiveness, then follow Him until He comes again or until the end of your life. Yes, there will be trouble and trials, even with Him in your life, but the reward in Heaven will be so much sweeter!

What are we to do?


As human beings, we are to live and grow in our lives and with wisdom and using the knowledge that we gain in life we are to conduct ourselves as moral people. Can we do this on our own initiative and strength? To a point, yes we can but no further. Our strength and wisdom will only carry us as far as the next person with wisdom, which may be beyond ours, or rather they perceive their wisdom to be beyond ours. Then we have to submit to theirs and learn from them as much as possible. This is humanistic learning and wisdom, which gains us nothing. Yes, sometimes, we will learn from others wisdom but many times their knowledge and wisdom is repackaged from another source.

The best source of wisdom is the Bible because it is the Truth of God and His Wisdom, brought to us through the Holy Spirit and written down by disciples and prophets, poets and kings. All of the wisdom or knowledge that I have placed here has come from Him and from the Bible. I can’t come up with all of this on my own, yet I have had many comments which say otherwise. Life is different for all of us. For some it is hard to get through one day to the next, for others it seems to be the easiest walk in the park you ever strolled through. Learning about life is a hard lesson at times, because it isn’t something that you get out of a book, with the exception being the Bible.

God showed the people of Israel how to live and gave them the instructions, if they would follow them. But, they didn’t. They had lived among idol worship in Egypt for over four centuries and wandering in the desert for forty years didn’t get that out of them. When they came into their land of promise, they said that they would follow Him and do as He commanded. Sometimes they did, but many times they did not and they paid for it with slavery and being exiled from their homes and their land. God had told them that they would be blessed and would be a blessing to all IF they would obey Him and follow Him in all of their ways. They didn’t listen.

Even today, we have been blessed by having the whole Bible to read and learn from and many people still scoff at it and say that it isn’t true. Yet, many of the prophecies in it have all come true. The only ones left are the resurrection of the dead in Christ and the Rapture of the Church and the Tribulation foretold in the book of Revelation. Read from His Word, prayerfully and with an open mind. Ask God to show you what He wants you to see in His Word, again with an open mind toward Him. Read the book of Romans and all of the New Testament before you go into the Old Testament, because it helps to read the fulfillment of one which explains the other, or at least helps to explain it.

I look forward to seeing you in His Kingdom!

Each person matters


It doesn’t matter whether you are rich or poor, homeless or live in a mansion or a penthouse, all of us matter in our lives to Someone. The person that we matter to may be our spouse or friends, co-workers or partners, we may even matter to some office or position that we hold but the most important Person that we matter to is God. Yes, I said that each of us matters to God! He cares even if we didn’t get an answer to the prayer that we prayed last night or last week. He has cared about you since before the Earth was created because He has known you and known about you since then.

You are important to Him because He created you for a purpose that only you can fulfill, a job that only you can do and nobody else. Do we realize this in our lifetime? Sometimes we do if we are paying attention to His voice. If not, then we will trip along through life, ignoring that little voice that part of our conscience or whatever you want to call it…until we truly NEED Him! Then we will call out to Him loudly and insistently. Will He listen to these prayers? Yes, and He may use the outcome of them to touch your heart again, just to get your attention.

You do matter to God. Believe it or not, He has always had an interest in this little speck of dust and all of us who are made of its substance. He has been able to see you and your family from far back in time before you were born and yet He has always had a purpose and a place for you. All that you need to do is believe in Him and follow His lead, live your life for Him so that others can see Him through you. Why you may ask? Because He paid a price for our atonement, for our sins and frankly it is the least each of us could do!

The world today, particularly outside the Christian faith, thinks that we as Christians should just shut up and go away. One day, God will call all of us to Heaven and then you will see the kind of world that you have without us and His influence in it. He will still be in control, but it will be a world under judgement at that time and not one that will be hospitable to anyone. Seek Him out while there is time, while there is life in you to do so because when your life is over here, eternity begins whether you like it or believe in it or not!

For God so loved…


The beginning of the passage from John 3:16 is a beautiful and gracious statement, “For God so loved the world”. Because He did and He does love all of us regardless of the country that we live in or what religion that we cling to in our daily lives. Whether you are a religious person or not, there is something that you use in your life to guide you and direct your life. It may be your own personal feelings or abilities or it could be a religion that you aspire to be a true follower of. But…God still loves you even if you are not a Christian and haven’t accepted Jesus as your Savior.

That is the very reason that Jesus came to live as one of us, blamelessly and sinless in His life so that He could die on the cross and make atonement for all of us. This was His purpose while He walked and preached to those who would listen and really hear His message. He loved us first so that we could come to Him humbly and broken, knowing that our sin and our version of “righteousness” would not avail us any honor or acceptance in God’s sight.

Look at a pure white canvas or sheet of paper. It is as pure as we can make it, yet allow just one spot of dirt or ink, even one as small as a period like this (.) and it isn’t pure anymore. True, we can and do overlook a spot like this everyday but when we are exposed to the Holiness of God, we won’t be able to cover our sins because only the blood of Jesus can do that.

The next part of that verse is “that He gave His only begotten Son”. This is something that we cannot understand! Could you give your only son as a sacrifice so that one other person could live? I don’t think anyone could do that, even for a close friend! God gave His Son so that ALL of us would have a possible way of forgiveness for ALL of our sins, big and small, if we would put our faith in Jesus and in His atonement for us!

Believe! The next part of this verse, “that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”; belief in Him and His sacrifice is the requirement for eternity, is that too much to ask?

The eternity that I am speaking of here is an eternity in Heaven, with God and His angels and His Son! Many people seem to think that if you die without God or Jesus in your life, then you are just dead, period. Not so! Jesus spoke of hell and there is a place of torment for those who have rejected the grace and mercy which is offered to all! The reason that I mentioned this is that you are the person responsible for your eternity due to your own decisions in this life. God does not sentence you to hell or an eternity of torment, your decisions are responsible for that.

Love does and doesn’t


There isn’t much more to say about this subject that God’s Word doesn’t already say! Have a wonderful day!wpid-wp-1443214045844

How much….?


This is part of nearly everyone’s vocabulary in some form. How much does that cost? How much more will you take? How much more do we/I need to do? Some people don’t know this phrase much in their lives but they are wealthy enough to be able to avoid using it. So, how much do you use it? Have you heard it very much in your life? Questions that some want to be answered and some of them don’t care about the answer at all, to any of those questions.

One question that needs to be answered in your life and in the conscience of the whole world is: How much more will it take before ________?

You can fill that blank space with so many things like “the end of the world” or “people wake up” or even “Jesus comes back” and I am sure that there are others which would fit quite nicely. The Bible has many prophecies about this time in history and at the time that they were given, the images were so horrific the prophets who received them couldn’t describe fully what they were seeing. They had no reference for missiles or tanks or planes or helicopters, so their descriptions seem to be full of all sorts of beasts and fantastic things.

Life today is hard enough to make sense of without trying to figure out God’s Word and its meaning, which is why we were told to ask Him for wisdom so that we can understand the words and meanings of prophecies in the book of Revelation. When some of these visions were given to Daniel, he was told to seal the book until the end and many people have wondered why. It is because most of the things which God showed him couldn’t be understood until now. Other explanations such as the words in Zechariah about “the skin melting from their body and their eyes melting, before the body hits the ground” are vivid depictions of the results of a nuclear attack and its effect on a human body.

How much more graphic could the Bible be in its description of it? We wouldn’t want to know nor could we understand God’s reason for these things. The fallen angels or demons who fell from Heaven with Satan are confusing people all over the world with out of context scripture being taught as if it were true. Some of it is true, but when you teach some of the truth you aren’t teaching the whole Truth of scripture which is how other doctrines are brought into being. Then, new “religions” spring up with these so-called “new truths”. How much more are we going to be deceived by this tactic and these mixed up words?

Until you read God’s Word and commit it to memory and get it into your heart. That is how long the deception will continue. Many people today are moving out of “organized religion”, into churches that teach a lie for the truth because it makes them feel good or at least feel better about themselves. Condemnation is a bad word in these churches because that implies that the people are bad or that they do bad things. I have read the Bible many times, but I am not the type of person who memorizes chapter and verse. At times, I would like to quote it that way, but the Spirit brings scripture to your mind when you need it so that is the memorizing that I depend upon.

WE ARE ALL SINNERS! At some point in your life you have told a lie, you have taken something which wasn’t yours, you have wanted (coveted) something which someone else has, etc. The only One Who has lived without sin, sits at the right hand of God the Father. He is coming back to get His Bride, the Church, one day. How much more will God put up with from us and our rebellious world system? As much as He can until the last person who will accept Jesus as Savior has done so. Our everyday lives will be worse than we thought they would be, if we belong to Jesus. If you are part of the world and don’t want to hear about Jesus then your life may be in pretty good shape…for a while. Which is why many people don’t turn their lives over to Jesus. It is also why Jesus said that “it is harder for a rich man to enter Heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle”, because they feel that they don’t need God or Jesus or forgiveness for anything.

I pray that all of you reading this will pick up a Bible today or tomorrow if you can. Read as much as you can with an open mind and heart, especially the books of the New Testament. Seek God’s wisdom for your life here and for eternity because you do have an eternity ahead of you and it is up to you how and where it will be spent!

 

Be watching….


Be attentive and watching because you know not when the Master comes. (paraphrase of Matthew 24:32)

Many things are happening right now and we must not be deceived by those in power or those perceived to have power by others or the media. Keep your eyes on the sky and in the Word of God. Daniel 9 shows many things are coming which will show us the times that we are living in.

There are also many who don’t want to hear anything about religion in general regardless of the eternal effects that learning about Jesus will have on their life. Even if it is true that religion should stay out of the public arena, which I don’t agree with, God does have a hand in this world and on each of its citizens. Like it or not, you will appear before Him one day even if you don’t believe in Him! It seems that many people in the news are taking the view that if they don’t believe in God or the religion which shows them Who He is then He doesn’t exist! How ridiculous is that?

That is like someone saying that they don’t believe the sun is a star or that it won’t rise this morning, if God chose for us not to have the sun to rise today it wouldn’t but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Life is hard enough to get through without Jesus in your life, but it is so much better when He is because you can lean on Him when you need it the most. God does love each of us and whether you believe in Him or not doesn’t change that. Today, it seems that so many people are searching for something, Someone to believe in above themselves mainly because we can’t do or be the person that we need to be without something…Someone to help us! Some look for and chase after money or prestige or even drugs to be that “something” that helps them to get through the day and for some it may work for a while, but it isn’t permanent and it doesn’t fill that space that we all have.

Jesus came so that He could  identify with us and our problems and fears and He came to be the One sacrifice which would take care of the debt that we owe because of our sins, no matter what they might be. We look at sins as small or large like lying to someone is usually considered small and killing a person is a pretty big one, God looks at sin as sin. So, we all need Him. Every church is full of hypocrites because, even if we are saved and practice our Christianity every day we are still sinners saved by His grace and mercy. If we weren’t convicted by the Spirit to change our lives in the first place then we may have gone down the aisle on our own because we felt emotional, not because we wanted or needed to get saved. If that is the case, then it may not be genuine but only God knows your heart and He is the one who will judge you when you stand before Him one day.

God’s viewpoint


The title sounds a bit grandiose doesn’t it? How could I possibly know anything about His viewpoint? Well, if you read the Bible which was inspired by His Holy Spirit you can find His viewpoint on many different subjects. Life, love, hate, anger, fear, jealousy, foolishness, adultery, the list could go on and on. He gives His view on these things in a format that is similar to an instruction manual. Some of the books rattle on about how the priests are supposed to carry out their work, but somebody had to tell them!

God views each of us as a child, His child. Those who are following Jesus are adopted into His family because they have washed their sins away by accepting the atonement and His grace. It is a gift which we can’t do anything to purchase or add to because we have nothing to purchase it with on our own! God gives it to us freely, all we have to do is realize that we are sinners and that it is His grace and the blood of Jesus which will save us from an eternity in hell.

Many people will think that, “God wouldn’t send you to hell for your mistakes if He loves you so much.” He doesn’t send you there, it is a consequence of your decision NOT to accept Jesus as your Savior which sends you there. It pains God to see us refuse a free gift which provides us with an eternal home that otherwise we couldn’t have. The love of God is deeper than we can imagine just as the hatred of Satan for us is far deeper than we could imagine.

God sees us when we make all of our decisions, good or bad, and He sees the results of them before we do. That is why we should always consult Him in all things, seeking His guidance and direction first before we make a mistake. If you could step outside of time and see all of the mistakes that you have made and where you could’ve made a difference in your life or someone else’s but didn’t, you would understand how God sees all of us. The difference between us being able to see those mistakes and God seeing them is that, if you are a Christian, He can work out your bad mistakes so that you will make a better choice the next time. Sometimes, He will take you down a path that will bring you to a better place or choice than you had hoped for.

Think about all of the lines and paths that God can see each of us walking, good or bad, and how He can guide you and me without being intrusive so that our decisions still turn out for our good and His glory! Read the Bible because it gives us wisdom to live by, advice in our time of need, and hope for a better tomorrow with Jesus as our Savior.

 

Sad remembrance


Our country was still reeling from the impact and the horror that had happened only a few hours before at this particular time fourteen years ago. Most of us were in shock. Not wanting to believe what our eyes were seeing and hearing on television or radio that morning, yet it had happened.

America had been attacked on her own soil, in the very heart of one of the most populated and celebrated cities, New York City. Yes, it was a sneak attack, an unprovoked attack from our point of view. Why? was the question that everyone wanted an answer to, but that answer even today is elusive. Theories abound but no real solid answers have been given or found in the years since.

How can we get past this point? There is no specific nation to look toward as the instigator of this, the reason…if there is one is based in religion, just one religion. Islam.

The word itself in Arabic means literally “submission to God”. A fairly benign statement that many believers both Muslim and non-Muslim can agree on. Christians, Jews and Muslims can relate to this as being the path to Life eternal.”What does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Romans 4:3

In all three of those religions, belief and submission are almost synonymous, and yet each treats the other very differently. Religion has caused all sorts of pain and suffering in the past as it does today. Yet, we should be looking to the Author and Finisher of our faith for the Truth and that is Jesus. He brought the Truth of God to us because, as John puts it: “The Word was God and became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His Glory.” John 1:14

We are remembering the act of terror, aggression and war that was committed fourteen years ago today, but we have not turned to the One Who can give us peace in our souls and love toward those who intend to do us harm. Oh, for a few days and weeks we did go to churches and worship places and implored with God to show us why this had to happen. Most people didn’t recognize the answer that we got which was “to get your attention”!

It had to be done so that we would, as a nation, turn to God and repent of our sinful ways. But, we didn’t do that. We took it as a slap in the face and with anger we rose up as a nation, almost as they did in 1941, and we struck at those who had struck us. The problem then, as now, was that was similar to swatting at an ant in an ant hill. It only spread the problem out and made then even more determined, which their Koran tells them to bide their time and strike harder the next time.

We cannot look at this from a religious point of view or a national point of view, it just is part of our world and the time that we are living in. The next strike will be worse.