Tag: Christianity

Feeding your faith and starving your fear!


This is needed in our world today because there is much fear in the world and it seems that our faith in God is dying. Why is that? Maybe because of the wars and all sorts of other troubles going on around us. These things can make us lose heart and lose sight of our Savior. Why not try reading the Bible? Not just as a book of Jewish history or so-called “fairy tales” as some people refer to it but as a Book of Wisdom and one which God inspired his prophets to write! Fear keeps us from living our lives to the fullest and it keeps us from knowing our purpose in life as well.

How does fear have such a powerful hold in our lives? Because we haven’t embraced our life, regardless of how hectic you life is or how miserable it may be. Life is what it is and there is no getting around that, but we do have Someone to give us hope and that is our Savior, Jesus the Messiah! He is always there and available to us to give us strength and hope every day. You can deny it if you wish or even try to argue about this but God is available to you all of the time. Learn this Truth through His Word and find His peace in your life. It isn’t hard to understand, but you have to read and study the Bible to get the wisdom out of it. Just as you do in school when studying for a test, cramming doesn’t work and glancing at it occasionally doesn’t do you any good either.

The Bible is a book full of wisdom which changes because of your needs. That is why it is referred to as the Living Word of God. You can read one scripture verse this month and next month it will have a different meaning for you through faith and believing in the Creator. Without faith in God and His Word, the Bible is just a book with words in it and nothing more. That is why many people have told me that they have read it many times and they get nothing from it. The reason is a lack of faith in what you are reading. If you don’t believe it or won’t believe it, then no book in the world will make sense to you whether it is the Bible or biology 101!

God loves each of us and we should believe in Him, yet we want to believe that every living cell, whether in a bacteria or a whale, came from a pond of amino acids and a few proteins which got struck by a bolt of lightning billions of years ago. Really?!! The amount of faith that it would take to believe that would enable a person to walk on water or point to a mountain and it would fly into the ocean!

Fear of the unknown, and the future is certainly that, is what keeps us up at night and that is the very type of fear that God says we shouldn’t have. Why? Because, the future is something that only He knows about. There is nothing that you or I can do to affect it because the future is out of our reach. Tomorrow is not here yet, today is, so let’s make sure that we take care of the time that we have in front of us. The only “tomorrow” that we can have an impact on is that which comes after our death and that only by accepting Jesus as our Savior. If you choose not to accept Him, then your future is also affected, but you won’t enjoy the eternity that you get if that is your choice.

Life as we know it


On Earth life is everywhere! Scientists have found life in the most inhospitable places such as volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean where sunlight doesn’t reach. Temperatures there in the pressurized waters can reach above the boiling point, yet there are bacteria, and crustaceans and other life which get their nourishment from the chemicals coming from these vents. They have also found bacteria and other organisms living in the ice of Antarctica at depths of thousands of feet.

Scientists are finding new species in the oceans and in jungles, on islands that are isolated and in some areas where we live in cities. These species have adapted to life in those areas where they are found, not evolved as some tend to push into our consciousness.

Evolution is a theory in biology postulating that the various types of plants, animals, and other living things on Earth have their origin in other pre-existing types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations.

Just in the past ten years there have been over 1000 new species found in the Amazon region so the proof of God’s genius and His creative power is in the scientific record not in a theory. Adaptation drives these changes because of where they live and what they have to live on, not evolution. Yes, I know that I am going to be targeted by those who believe that evolution is a proven fact and I am not going to debate the issue because there are too many professors who push it as such.

If Christians believed as strongly in their beliefs about God and Jesus as some of the proponents of evolution, there would’ve been a revival in this country a long time ago and it would have been of such proportions that we wouldn’t be having the problems that we have had in the past three or four decades! Unfortunately, that kind of faith doesn’t seem to exist in the church now nor did it during the fifties and sixties!

God has allowed our faith to shrink because of the time that we live in and the place that we occupy in His time and prophecy. He is in control even if it seems that everything is out of control, but His hand is guiding the world toward a time when people will seek Him or be judged by Him depending upon their decision and not His. Your decision toward God and His Son is the one decision that will have an effect on your eternity and where you will spend it. That is the only decision which really counts because this life is short like a puff of smoke, while your eternity is…well eternal!

Where do we go from here?


In the past few years there have been many books and movies about life after death and where we go afterward. It is a touchy subject because some people think that we don’t go anywhere and some think that we do and sometimes it can cause a heated exchange online and in person. Do you ever wonder about this? I used to but since becoming a Christian, I don’t worry about it any more but I do think about what the rest of the world may be looking forward to. Are you looking forward to eternity or do you even think there is an eternity waiting for you?

Some people even think that they will be having a party in hell with Satan, but according to God’s Word there will be no party. In fact, Satan HATES you and me! Specifically because we are made in the image of God but also because God placed us above him and above angels. We will judge angels one day, if we have accepted Jesus as our Savior and believe in our hearts that He died for us and our sins! Satan is not a god, although he wanted to be above God. He is not omnipotent nor omniscient, but he was a powerful angel at one time and he continues to use the power that he was created with.

Where do we go in our beliefs from where we are? Many claim not to have a religious belief in any being, whether God or Satan, supreme being of any kind. Why? If there is one which some people claim to believe in and follow then there must be the other. Evil and hatred can’t exist without love, they are two sides of an eternal coin, just as light and dark or heat and cold.

God loves us, all of us and has since the beginning of Creation. Satan has been in opposition to God and His plans, whatever they were, ever since the rebellion which got him thrown out of Heaven. Satan is opposing God right now through wars, murders, diseases, and all sorts of acts which mankind is inflicting upon each other through his influence over them. He targets those of us who are serving God by tempting us and causing problems in our lives, some of which God allows to test us and our faith to make us stronger. I know that and am comfortable with it because God will see me through it all.

What about your future? Your eternal future? Not just tomorrow or next month, but after your life on Earth is finished, have you even considered it? If you haven’t, you should because it is by God’s grace that we have our being, our lives, even our next breath. If you were to stand in front of God before the dawn tomorrow, would you be able to give Him an answer to “What did you do with my Son?” Could you truthfully say that you accepted Him as your Savior? Would your Christianity hold up in a court of law today? Is there enough evidence in your life to prove to a judge on Earth that you are a Christian? Because, if there isn’t enough evidence beyond “he was a good man or a good father”, then how will God receive you?

It is something that all of us need to examine in our lives because eternity is a very LONG time and you enter it as soon as you draw your last breath in this life. Whether that is today or ten years from now or even fifty years from now, your eternity will begin that quick. Make sure that you know and are at peace with your choice because you will be stuck with that choice, and it will be because of your choice not because God sent you there.

What are you waiting for?


Many people seem to want to wait until their last breath to make a decision about their eternity. Some, even at this point, don’t believe in eternity or God yet when they are faced with an incurable disease or a child that is sick they begin to pray. For what, mercy? To whom? If you don’t believe that He exists why should He answer your prayers? God really does love each of us more than we can imagine, and thankfully He doesn’t react the way we would if we were ignored or shoved away like our country and almost every person living here is doing today! If He was as cold and cruel as some think that He is, this world would’ve been remade thousands of times since the time of Noah! But, He made a promise then and in the other prophetic books of His Word He says that the world will be tested by fire the next time. Many people have speculated that He means a nuclear war, but God doesn’t need nuclear weapons to destroy with fire. He could cause a comet of a size that would cause a fire storm to ravage the planet to hit in a desert area or in a rain forest. He could cause ALL of the volcanoes in the world to erupt at once, even the ancient ones like the one in Yellowstone which would take out most of the United States.

It is true that, if you truly believe that He doesn’t exist, scientists would say all of this was happening due to “global warming/cooling” depending upon which direction you want to go. Consider, just for once, that God is the Creator and that He does exist. Also consider that with Him being the Creator that nothing is outside of His power to create since He created all of the known universe. Our planet is a very insignificant speck of dirt in comparison, BUT He decided to make us special. He created man in His image, regardless of color of skin or hair or ethnic origin. Then, after Satan corrupted our ancestors to go against God’s commands, we were influenced by him to worship things, both animal and inanimate as well as the sun and the moon and the stars. Mankind did all of this by Satan’s influence on our minds, because of our fallen nature we came under his influence to such a point that God regretted making man at all. If God didn’t exist and doesn’t care about us or this world, why would He care what we do here or how we behave? If Satan exists then God exists because Satan was known as Lucifer the Covering Cherub, one of the most powerful angels in Heaven and God created him that way.

But, Satan became proud of his strength and of the power that God had given him and he coveted the place of God. He wanted to be God, and he got one-third of the angels in Heaven to follow him in a rebellion to usurp the throne of God. He should’ve known that his rebellion wouldn’t work, but he was blinded by pride and his own ego, thinking himself above the Creator that created him. At times we think this way too, but we can learn from our mistakes if we will listen to our hearts and to the Spirit of God within us.

We are loved by God because of His image in us but also because He took special care to create us the way we are, not to be servants or slaves but to be His children. Any parent can understand the closeness and the feelings that their relationship with their child gives them, how much more would God feel for those living here? That is why bad things happen to people today….Satan hates us because of who we are in God’s plan and what we represent…a relationship that he could never have with the Creator, even if he had not rebelled!

It is for this reason that the world suffers so much. It isn’t because God can’t control Satan, He doesn’t allow him to have completely free reign of his anger and hatred or we wouldn’t exist! God holds him in check enough that there will be more people who will turn to God for His help and for salvation. Just as God used other nations to judge Israel in times past, He is doing that today not only with Israel but with the world at large. He is trying to bring as many people into the Kingdom as He knows who will respond to Him.

Losing our sanity!


Political correctness has gone so far in our country that it is getting ridiculous! We are getting rid of symbols and statues of the Ten Commandments, which many of our nation’s laws are based upon, and keeping a symbol of Satan in Oklahoma. They are considering taking down monuments all over the South and getting rid of all references to the Civil War, just because some nut sat behind a Confederate flag before he killed some people. I suppose we will have to clear off Mt. Rushmore soon since those aren’t PC enough either. Maybe we should bulldoze the monuments in Washington, DC since many of them were built with slave labor and while we are at it, get rid of the White House since it was built with slave labor.

Yes, I am venting a bit today. The past few weeks since the shooting in South Carolina have been crazy in some ways and encouraging in others. The love of God was shown to the boy who committed the crime because of the forgiveness that the families offered to him. There was no violence or looting because of it, but the fallout has been against anything which has to do with the Civil War. There were African-American soldiers fighting in that war too, I haven’t heard anything about that. Some of the slave holders were African-American, you never hear about that on the news either. I invite you to check the real history of slavery in the South, not the redacted version being taught in schools.

You know, God did not condone slavery in any form. Most of the Biblical writings which have anything to do with it say that any slave should be freed in the seventh year and not kept beyond that point unless they want it that way. God loves us, white, black, yellow, or red skinned because it is just a pigmentation in our skin that makes us different. Our cultures make us very different from each other, but inside we are the image of God, our DNA is nearly identical, our blood is no different other than the blood type that each of us has. There is no blood for whites and blood for “others”, God made us special in that regard. If you have blood that is A+ then we can share or give each other blood if needed. Your body won’t know the difference and mine won’t either.

The time that we are living in is so close to the end of the age until things are really getting crazy and it isn’t going to get much better in the coming years. It doesn’t matter who gets elected to office next year, the problems will still be there. God is in control regardless of who is sitting in the Oval office or whether they are believers or not. He will work things out to conform to His plans in His time. We need to be learning about Him, trusting in Him and expecting Him on any given day because it could happen soon.

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 Sinner’s Prayer


sinnersprayerI can’t add much to this, except that I pray that those of you who have had questions about following Christ will earnestly pray this prayer and mean it in your hearts. Our world is not going to get better until He comes again!

Freedom of choice


It is what God gave to all of us who have it, angels and mankind, and we must use it for the right reasons. Not to choose to be evil or sinful or a killer, but to make a choice to be a follower of Christ! It is by God’s grace that we have our being in this world and to reject His gift of life and the atonement of His Son’s death on the cross is the truly unforgivable sin.

Why many people choose to do this and think that they can live their lives without Him in a world full of sin and death and corruption is something that I will never understand. Yes, I was a sinner once and I still consider myself a sinner saved by His grace. I remember going out and partying and getting drunk as a teenager, I also remember that the results of that behavior usually weren’t very enjoyable the next day either.

Even after I thought that I had become a Christian, I still fell in with the wrong crowd and went down the wrong path for a long time. It wasn’t until I became a father that I realized that if I wanted my son to grow up to know Jesus, then I was going to have to be a true follower of Jesus so that he could see me doing it. I began to seek Him out in the Bible and learn of Him more and when I did that I finally “got it” and realized that the voice which had been there all along, was His.

I had ignored it for a long time, but I remembered it being there telling me things weren’t right. I had just thought that it was my own conscience or my own thoughts, I didn’t recognize it as the Spirit speaking to me until I got to know Him better. We have the freedom to choose, even after we become Christians, but we should choose to follow Christ every day. That is the part about “pick up your cross and follow me” that Jesus was talking about.

If this were true in his time….


“In many churches Christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak that if it were poison it would not hurt anyone, and if it were medicine it would not cure anyone.”  A.W. Tozer (April 21, 1897 – May 12, 1963)

During his lifetime, Rev.Tozer saw a many things, two world wars, famine, the Great Depression and at the end of his life a human satellite was placed in orbit around the Earth. That is a lot to take in during a lifetime, but I wonder what he would think of us now. There has been so much that has happened since his death until the culture that was present then has nothing in common with the one that is present here, today.

Since 1963 there have been so many events which have happened in America until it would take hours if not days to catalog all of them. So much has happened in our culture since that time until I believe that he would think there are no churches left in America anymore. We have watered down the message of Jesus Christ so much that what is preached today, even though it comes from the Bible, very few people pay any attention to it at all.

It seems that our sermons have about as much meaning as a politician’s promises, which is to say that they mean nothing at all. How could we have come to this place? Because of legislation and something called “political correctness”. We aren’t allowed to say certain things anymore and if we do say them, we are preaching “hate” toward anyone or any other religion that is not Christianity.

How can our country have come this far away from God and the beliefs of our forefathers? Even history itself is coming under fire today by the very teachers who are supposed to be teaching it so that our children don’t repeat those mistakes made over a century ago! Why is this happening?

Because God has ordained this time as the one in which we will be tested, I believe. The news stories that you see and hear about, the new laws which are striking at the heart of families, the wars and the terrorists who are killing people because of their faith in Jesus Christ! If you have ever read the books of Daniel and Revelation, then many of the beginnings of sorrows that are foretold there are seen on the news almost every day. In Matthew 24, Jesus said that there would be a time when people would call good evil and evil good. He also spoke of a time when people would think they were doing God’s work if they killed believers.

If, as Mr. Tozer put it, “Christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak that if it were poison it would not hurt anyone”, and this happened in his time…how much more has it been watered down since then? If we are to tell others about Christ, then we should be acting LIKE Christ. We should be going where He would’ve gone and doing as much as we can to make change happen in people’s lives.

Talk is cheap, sermons are given every Sunday morning and night, but if those words and the wisdom from which they come from such as the Bible are not put into practice…practically speaking, then our religion, our Christianity is just words and very little more. If we as pastors and Christians in general, the body of Christ, don’t put feet to our beliefs just as the disciples did then our message is nothing more than HOT AIR!

Good advice


good adviceThis little bit of advice showed up on my Facebook page today and I wanted to share it. Not only with you but with the world. It is true that many people follow their hearts in times of stress and trouble, if they have the courage to do so. Although, many of us don’t have the courage to do it and we end up with regrets later in life. We all have regrets of course, but some more than others.

Why didn’t I stay in school? Why didn’t I go to college? Why didn’t I stay in the military and retire from it? There are many others besides these, but the point is we make decisions sometimes based on incomplete knowledge and fear. We are afraid of where it might take us or what we may have to do if we follow one path over another. It is a fear that we have all of our lives and it seems to cause all sorts of problems and heartache, at least for those of us who take the safe or easy path rather than the one that our heart is telling us is the right one.

Advice is only good when it gives you something which will make your life better. A job or a promotion is only good when it helps you more than hurting your health and your family life. We all see things clearer when we look back on our lives and realize that if we had followed our hearts, we might actually be in a worse condition now and not the one that we thought the decision would bring. The only time that following your heart will truly bring you to a place of happiness and peace is when you follow that longing for Him. Your heart before Christ is missing something or rather Someone and it feels empty and hollow. Many of us have tried different ways to fill that space with something, but it never satisfied our longing until we found Jesus.

He is the missing piece of your life and your heart, so as long as you are following Him then your life means more because you can give Him away to others and yet…He is still with you! God loves us all, He may not be pleased with our lifestyle or with the things that we have done but that doesn’t mean that His love for you and me is any less. God doesn’t change and His love for you…for all of us is no less today than it was before the creation of the world. The very best advice that I can give anyone is to seek Him in His Word and in prayer. To learn more about Him, read the Bible because that is His Wisdom and His instructions for how we should be living according to it.

Many people have said that the Old Testament is irrelevant today because Christ made a new covenant with us in His blood. That is true because He fulfilled all of the prophecies about Himself when He came and lived and died and then rose again. Even though the New Testament reveals the Old and fulfils much of what is spoken of in it, you need to read both to get a complete picture.

Advice like life is what you take from it and use, if you don’t then it is useless. Wisdom from God’s Word is the same, if you aren’t willing to use it and learn from it, then it will be like an empty container of water to a thirsty man.

It’s your decision, so make it a good one


This question or rather this statement was made by Jesus two thousand years ago, He said: “What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet lose his soul.” Our world is on the verge of doing just that, losing our collective souls because of our tendency to reject the Truth. Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to be forgiven of your sins and to gain access to Heaven itself!

Just as in John 3:16-17 it states: 16“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17“For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him

Yet, many people today reject this teaching, this prophecy, and some even reject the entirety of the Bible itself. That is, of course, your choice even if it is a bad choice. We are allowed to choose our own way and our own destiny, but what good will it do you if you come to the end of your life and find that God does exist and you didn’t believe in Him?

It may not seem to be important now, while you still live, but just a few seconds after your death it really won’t matter. This life is the only chance that you get to make that decision and once it is done, you will face your judgment by God. That is how it is told all through the Bible, when a man dies he faces the judgment of God. What you did throughout your life, good or bad, is taken as evidence and shown to you. It is your decision about Jesus and His atonement for your sins that will cast you into hell or not.

If you have accepted Him as your Savior, then your sins are covered and you are assured of eternity in Heaven. If you rejected Him as your Savior, then your soul will live on into eternity but it will be in hell, separated from God, forever. There is no gray area, no waiting for someone to pray you out of. The Bible is clear on this, and there are only two sides just as with a coin, heads or tails, right or left, black or white.

God loves all of us, no matter what color you are or where you are from, but the choice that we make about Jesus Christ will determine the direction of your life for eternity, Heaven or hell. Many people say that “My God would not send anyone to hell”, God doesn’t but He won’t force you to choose one way over the other. So, it is your choice which condemns you to an eternity in hell, not God. It is your decision only and you have your entire life to make up your mind about it.

But, when your life is over then your choice for going to Heaven or hell and your ability to choose which direction you will go is over. There was an old commercial that said something like this: You only go around once in life, so grab all the gusto you can! This was a commercial about a beer that you should buy, but the message is true. You only have one life in this body, when you die your soul and your spiritual body will stand in front of God to be judged for your life and what you did with it. Did you grab all of the gusto or were you scared? By gusto, I am speaking of Jesus because if you took hold of Him in this life, eternity is assured for you in Heaven! If you were scared of asking Him into your life or you just didn’t want to accept Him, that is okay but your eternity will be much different. Satan’s lies that many people believe say that God wouldn’t send you to hell for not accepting His Son. Maybe you’ve also heard this one: You will have plenty of time, don’t worry about that until you get old.

What about the drive home today? What if you don’t make it home? Your time may be up this afternoon and when you stand to be judged all that you can say is “I thought I had more time”. You will be welcomed into hell but it won’t be a loving welcome.

Seek Jesus in His Word, the Bible and pray that you can come to know Him before you life here is over. God loves you and wants to bring you to Himself, but if you keep pushing Him away then one day He will give you over to your life the way you want it to be and He won’t bother you anymore.

Think about it.