Tag: Christianity

What is going on now?


Many people are confused, scared and worried about what is going on around the world and in our own country, and they should be! Our officials seem to have lost their minds about what needs to be done about our economy and about our nation as a whole. They want to pass a so-called “balanced budget” which we haven’t had in years, but they won’t let go of an insurance tax that no person in America can actually afford! Why are we being pushed to the brink of economic disaster? Because those in charge don’t care about the people that they were elected to represent! That is why!

I know that my site is supposed to be about learning about our Lord and how to serve Him, but sometimes it is hard to keep from preaching about something that it seems that many in the media are ignoring completely! Yet, God is in control, whether those in Washington, DC want to believe that He is interested in our country or not. He knows which direction our country is heading in and where it will end up. Time is catching up with us and with the world in general and how much longer we have before the time of testing, only God knows.

There are many things happening all over the world right now, every day, and yet God is in control. Many people think that He is not because of all the evil, sick stuff happening everywhere but that is due to Satan and his demons which influence all of the evil that men do. Mankind is evil without God, their thoughts are evil and against God’s law from the time they are born until they feel the call of God on their hearts. If they listen to it and follow Him, God will create a new heart in them so that they will know and follow Him and learn from Him how to be a Christian.

You don’t have to do anything to be saved and become a Christian, in fact it is free. There is no amount of “works” that you can do or have to do in order to receive the grace that God provides for us through Christ because nothing that we do counts in eternity until after we accept the gift of grace from Christ! Your life in eternity begins with your acceptance of Jesus into your life, then everything that you do in His name counts in eternity. A glass of water given, teaching someone about Jesus, giving food to someone who is hungry, if all of these are done in the name of Jesus and because you are a Christian, then you have done it to Jesus Himself.

Charity in this life, done as a follower of Christ, has eternal rewards and maybe eternal consequences. The charity that you do for someone may have an impact in their life and may cause them to become a follower of Christ and it could go on from there. Eventually some small thing that you did for someone may affect many people that you don’t know, but because of something that you did the effect rippled out away from you to include more people than you could’ve known. If we, as Christians, act as we are supposed to do after we come to know Jesus then the world will be a different place, even if it is only one person at a time.

The “ripple” effect can eventually effect many hundreds or even thousands of people. Yes, there is a lot of evil in the world and a lot of bad people to go with it but if we can inspire one person each, then there will be more light in the world than there is darkness eventually. People need to know that there is good in the world, that there are good people, Christian people in the world who show the love of Jesus to those around them. What is going on now can be changed into something good going on now and in the future, if we will be the witnesses and the disciples that Jesus had at the beginning and the ones that His Word commands us to be today!

New age, what does it really mean?


Many people think that “new age” is a reference to our placement in time, like the twenty-first century, but the name has been in use for many more years than in just the past decade. For a complete list of what and when this began see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Age.

For many people in the world, the new age movement began to be popular in the 1960’s, which is why it is associated with all of the crazy stuff that went on during that time. Even many gurus latched onto it with their beliefs and teachings about meditation and an all-inclusive religion. One that doesn’t claim superiority  or even claim that it is right or the only way, like mono-theistic religions do.

New age tries to develop a harmony between science and religion so that you can sort of, have your evolution and creation at the same time. What a concept!?

Really?

All of the religions in the world that are apart from the three mono-theistic religions of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, have some component of work that has to be performed by man in order for him to reach a level of being above his place in the universe. An attainment that can only be reached by doing things in a correct way or prescribed manner during a person’s lifetime. Where does this work-based belief get you? Tired, frustrated, anxious, scared, wondering if you did enough or did it right, is that how you want to reach the end of your life? Full of worry and scared that what you have done or haven’t done in this life may not have been good enough?

I know the arguments of people who claim to be atheists or agnostics, I have read some of their books. The crux of the matter is this: what do you believe? If you don’t believe in anything after death, then you don’t have anything to fear, do you? You’re just dead and that’s it, so what’s the difference? OK, but what if you are wrong?

If your belief is Scientology, will the Thetan‘s carry you to a place and change you into a god? Will Allah take you into his bosom and give you eternal life? There are many other religions in the world which claim to bring you into a state of oneness with the universe, but will you know it or does your essence just merge with the cosmos forever and you fade away like a puff of smoke?

I don’t know what happens after we die, but I do know what is promised in God’s Word. Jesus said that we would have eternal life if we only believed in His sacrifice and that it paid the penalty for our sins. Is that such a crazy idea? Its not any worse or crazier than some others I don’t believe.

The New Age thinkers don’t know any more about what happens after death than any of the rest of us and they won’t until they die. The problem is that we can’t come back and tell anyone Who we ran into or what we found out on the day that we crossed over life’s threshold into eternity. It really is a mystery that cannot be solved by anyone who is still alive. I know that there are some who have had near death experiences and came back to tell what they have seen, and some of them I believe are credible and as truthful as they can be.

The truth is that we can’t really know until we die and it seems that many people just don’t care what happens after their body dies. Many people think that all of our existence stops when our body dies but according to Jesus, our soul continues on and we will have a glorified body to go with it. So, if this life is just the beginning, don’t you want the eternal part of your life to be more than you ever hoped or dreamed about?

Yes, I do believe that Jesus is the only way to Heaven because He said so. That is all that I need because of my faith in Him. It is true that there are many other religions out there but do they claim to be the pathway to heaven? Most of them don’t actually, they claim other types of existence such as reincarnation or they don’t claim any eternal existence at all. I think I would rather believe the One Who says, “Today, you will be with Me in paradise!”

Is hell real?


(To those who may read this be warned, this is the dream that I experienced during a sickness that I had about a year ago. The scenes which I have portrayed in this story were scenes which I was allowed to see, but which frightened me at the time. I have just now been able to put this down in writing so be patient and kind in your comments, but take heed to the warning given.)

I stood looking over the edge of the world as I knew it, I noticed a place that had not been there before. No light illuminated any part of it, although I could see it and see down into its depths. I suppose God was allowing me to see this, whether it was in a dream or a nightmare (more likely), I am not sure but it was frighteningly terrifying to my soul …. to me.

The reason that I say it terrified my soul is because I felt a fear deep down inside, in a place that I didn’t know was there. I couldn’t feel the heat physically but by the look of the place I knew that it was hot, much hotter than any place on earth. There was fire, but it seemed not to be the kind of fire which had light. I know this sounds crazy but this is my nightmare, so it was crazy and I knew that it was a place that I did not want to go. Nor did I want anyone that I know, whether they are a friend or not, to go there either.

There were places which seemed to throb with wave-like motion sort of like an ocean of liquid pitch or tar and yet it was more than that, because it seemed to be the hottest part of this place. Yet, it did not produce flames. I could hear screams of agonizing proportions, as if someone was being cooked, boiled alive in this lake but they would not die or could not die. The screams came at different intervals so I guess it was due to the wave-like action of the lake of fire, since this is the best description that I can give it.

Outside the lake, on the shores of it, there were caves that were just as hot as the lake but they were relatively dry because the oily lake did not reach them. There seemed to be people, damned souls, who were bound inside those caves so that they could not escape. These were those who had not accepted Jesus as their savior in life, but who had attended church or some religious meeting at some point in their lives. Intellectually, they knew of Jesus and what He could do for them, but they never accepted Him. Some had been deacons, some were even former pastors. They had used their position in the church to gain power and money and for some, prestige, but they had missed the real point of their own ministry, the focus of what their real ministry is about and that is Jesus.

The information on these souls was given to me by the Holy Spirit and He told me that after I had learned all that I could about what I had seen, He would give me the words to go with it.

The descriptions that I have or can remember of this place had been blocked from my mind until tonight. They were so horrific in their magnitude of pain and suffering along with the certainty of this place being part of hell, if not the very place itself. I am very glad that I didn’t experience this place directly or I might have gone completely mad. The fear that these nightmares brought into my being at night was of a type that I have never felt before. I have been a firefighter and have seen some horrific things but nothing that I had ever seen compared to this.

The imagery that I have used in this portrayal, this story, is the best that I can give because, like John, I saw things, images, which no human eye was meant to see. Hell was not, is not made for us, we were created to reign with Christ, not be punished in hell. It was created as a place of punishment for Satan and those who rebelled against God with him, but if you rebel against God then you are part of Satan’s kingdom. I know this sounds crazy, the images and the fear and terror that they brought out, but this was a nightmarish vision which I experienced and I believe it was for a purpose. Not to write a book and make money off of it, but to use it to tell others about the place that we have been saved from.

It may seem that I am making it up as I go along, but I experienced these nightmarish dreams last year while I was sick and they terrified me so much that I would wake myself, shaking from fright! I have never been that scared before and it is just now that I am able to remember the details by the Spirit’s prompting. The point of this sermon, talk, whatever you want to call it, is to bring into your reality and mine, as much as possible the terror of hell, and also the eternity of it so that no one would want or desire to go there.

Even though we think of glorified bodies that we receive in heaven, in order to endure an eternity of punishment in hell we or at least the people who will go to hell also receive immortal bodies. The difference is that they will endure pain, suffering, and heat that would be enough to kill a mortal body, but they will endure it like the immortal demons and Satan, for eternity. The reason for this punishment is because of one simple decision: the people that I saw decided not to follow Jesus and believe in His atoning blood that was shed for you and for them or they just never got around to it before their time was up.

I know that some will say that I am trying to scare people into believing and following Jesus, and you would be right! I would rather scare you out of going to hell and into a relationship with Jesus, Who many people don’t believe in at all, than to see you go into hell and know that there was a possibility that you could be saved from that eternal place.

If you decide to follow Him and learn from the Living Word while studying the Word, then you will not go to this place. However, if you put it off or just decide that being a Christian is just too much for you in this life, because you want to do your thing and not be held accountable for it, then you are deciding to be on the side with Satan. Hell was prepared for Satan and his demons and those who won’t follow Jesus, who decide that they want their fun rather than finding out about the fun of being a child of the King!

The time is now to make up your mind, so which will it be? An eternity in a place where the heat of the day doesn’t beat down on you and you are living and working with those who decided to love and follow Jesus or an eternity in a place where there isn’t much light at all. Where the heat is not from the sunshine, but from hell itself, where the heat and the burning never end for eternity, because there will be no parties in hell, there will be no place where you can “chill” in hell, there isn’t any water there at all, only heat and plenty of it.

New-age thinking


We are beginning a new month and it is one that is fraught with ties to a pagan past. Witches, goblins, ghouls, ghosts, vampires, the list could go on and on but you get the meaning. This month is a time for seeking ties to the past, our pagan past but is it? True enough, the so-called ancient religions existed before Christianity, but did their gods really exist or were they just figments of people’s imaginations?

Some might say that it could have been in their imagination or partly due to some herbal tea that they used to get more in touch with the spirit world. Whatever the case may be, it is also possible that Satan and his demons also had a part in most if not all of them. They could stir up deception and lies among the people and get them to believe anything they wanted them to believe as long as they could keep them away from a belief in God, which was their goal.

Pagan religions and new age thinking, whether they are referring to religions or non-belief in any god, are mostly the same. They are trying to put a man-made twist on something which doesn’t need it. Many of those who claim no belief in a god of any kind and also don’t claim any religious affiliation are just trying to justify themselves. They don’t want to be responsible to anyone but themselves, regardless of their actions.

Many of these people have a moral center because they were taught right from wrong at an early age but they don’t know why it is right or wrong. It just feels that way so its OK with them. Pagans, Wicca followers, atheists,  and druids as well as other eastern religions claim to revere nature and the natural beauty around them. Their belief is, like evolutionists, that everything just is and always has been and in times long past it may have been in a different form. It and we have evolved into what is seen today but I contend that if we, as evolution says, evolved from apes, then why are there still apes around?

Religion and the followers of any religion can be religious about their beliefs and the rituals associated with that belief but what do they believe in? The purpose of this site is to point you toward the One who created all of the beauty that is around us every day. None of this came about by evolution or by accident and whether you believe it or not is not going to change it. I know that many people might disagree with me about this but ask yourself this: What if I am right?

Just as not believing in the Sun or the moon or gravity won’t make them go away, non-belief in God or Jesus doesn’t get rid of them either. Denying that gravity exists before you jump from a building or an airplane won’t make the landing any softer, it is still going to kill you. Then when you are standing in front of God, Who many say doesn’t exist, it will be a huge wake up call for you, but by then it is too late.

What will you do? The life that you have here and now is the only chance that you get to make that choice about what you believe and Who you believe in, so what will you decide? Will you choose to go through life seemingly unaware of God or will you truly take notice of the order and beauty around you and realize that this could not have come about by accidental means?

Mathematics and physics and all “hard”science agree on the outcomes of their formulas and theorems and the fact that those outcomes don’t change. But, neither does God. He created those laws and the universe around them, they are His creation too. Just because He is not visible to us now does not take away from Who He is. The wind is not visible but its effect is felt and seen every day. The light from the sun is visible because the sun is visible as well as the heat that comes from it.

Christian beliefs are not some tale made up to frighten people or to give people a crutch to hold to in times of trouble. Our faith is not just based on rules which bind us to a belief, but it is in One Who is coming again. Jesus is the Son of God and will return soon and just as the sun rises it is a sure thing. We do not know a specific day or hour, but He will come again.

The time is growing short and yet I cannot tell you that it will happen in five or ten or even twenty years. I don’t need to know the time, my time may be next week and yours may be tomorrow. We are not guaranteed a number of days, but when you wake in the morning you will have at least part of another day to live. If it turns out that you have the whole day, then you have. But, what about tomorrow? Are you sure about tomorrow and the outcome of your meeting with God? Have you scheduled a meeting with Him? Will you?

Think about it.

What do you want from me, Jesus?


I feel that there are many who may have asked this question over the years and decades and even through the centuries. The answer surprises many people because they think that Jesus wants more than we can give. For many, their beliefs of what He wants causes them to back away from Him because they cannot imagine themselves giving Him anything, even when they know that He is the only One that can meet their needs.

How can we get around our own beliefs and cultural bias toward serving Jesus? What can we do that will make us be useful to Him? Is there anything that we can do that will answer these questions or even, can the answers be found? There is a simple, for many people too simple, answer to these questions and it is …. No!

Yes, we can get around the cultural bias, but the answer to the other questions referring to “what can we do” is nothing. We can do nothing on our own to help Jesus. We cannot assist Him in our redemption and salvation because only He could do what needed to be done and He has. His death on the cross that day in 33 AD, accomplished everything that was necessary for every person on earth to be able to come to know Him and to have access to God.

His sacrifice, His life that He lived in total obedience to His Father without sin, was what was required so that the gulf between us and God could be spanned by Him. So that we would have access to God the Father and forgiveness through Jesus as long as we believe in what He did on the cross and in Who He is.

Belief and acceptance as well as being able to follow in His steps to bring the message of the Gospel to others through our life and our witness. We don’t have to go on mission trips, you just have to represent Him through your life, your character by allowing Him to shine through your life into the lives of others, this is what Jesus wants from us. Obedience to the command that He gave to His disciples to take the gospel to everyone who will hear.

Obedience is our job in God’s kingdom. Faith and belief in Jesus and the work that He accomplished on the cross is our requirement, our part that we need to do because it is the only thing that we can do ourselves. He has already accomplished everything that was necessary for our salvation by His death, burial and resurrection because He was the only One that could do what needed to be done.

Mankind is not able to redeem himself in the eyes of a Holy and righteous God and Creator. We are His creation, the only ones who enjoy the ability to commune with God and have fellowship with Him. The angels worship Him but they don’t have the privileges which God gave to us and they long to know of it. No matter how many amino acids that are found in ice or how many theories that are put forth trying to explain our existence as some cosmic accident, there is no scientific proof of it at all. God is the only one who created this universe and each one of us!

We are the work of His hands and everything else was spoken into existence because He wanted it that way. The perfection and specific way that everything works and moves is by His design, not some accident. God loves you, each of you, and there is no denial of that if you are able to read this. Even our eyes are marvels to science because they can find no evolutionary trigger that would cause an animal to “evolve” cells which do what our eyes can do. God did it and that settles it!

Do you know much about Christianity?


As a religion it has taken a bad rap from the other religions and from many people all over the world. So, what do you know about the religion of Christianity? Those who claim to be Christians are supposed to be following Christ and in His footsteps be His reflection to the world at large. In essence, we are supposed to be “little Christ’s”, but are we?

How many really live up to that high standard of conduct? Can we do it with our own strength? No, we cannot do it with our own strength. Very few have done this in the past two thousand years, although there have been some. Many use their “take” on this religion in the pulpit or on television to make lots of money off of many people that they don’t know and in the process many have paid the price for their arrogance.

The church, with all of its denominations and divisions, has paid the price of false teachers and doctrines over the past two thousand years. Granted, there have not been many but over those years but the ones who existed in the dark ages did a lot of damage to the church. Many of those who have bee active in the past century have also done a good deal of harm to the church and the way that Christianity is perceived in the world today. Some of them may have believed that their interpretations and their teachings were correct, and yet they were found to be false later.

The church does have hypocrites in it, in the pews and in the pulpits, but by being Christians and leaning on the strength of Christ we can be the people, the church which Jesus always intended for us to be. In the time period that we are living, we should be doing more to tell people about Christ and about Jesus, one person yet two different people according to history. Christ is the Jewish Messiah and many are still waiting for Him to return. Jesus is the Christ that many have rejected and He is sitting at the right hand of God. This is the message that we are to be sharing with the world, even though many don’t want to receive it or even believe its truth.

Many people seem to reject that the Holy Scriptures are true, those which came to the Jewish people through Moses and the Prophets and the New Testament which came by Jesus’ disciples. Yet, all of the books of the Scriptures point in one direction, to one Person and to our salvation through belief in Jesus. All that we have to do is be obedient to them and the wisdom contained in them as well as to realize that we all need salvation through Jesus, because He is the only way, the only perfect sacrifice that was given in order for us to be saved and sanctified. We cannot do this on our own! There is no amount of “works” that a human being can do to be perfect in the light of God because we are not and cannot be holy without Jesus! Any teaching which says otherwise is lying and is false!

No one can be perfect and fulfill and obey every law perfectly, not missing even the smallest detail of the law regardless of Whose law it may be. Whether it is a man-made law or one that comes from God, we cannot claim to be able to perfectly conform to any law because in thought or deed we will break a part of the law and when we do, we have broken the law regardless of offense. Which is why Moses was given the law to begin with. It was for the purpose of showing that humanity cannot attain perfection in obedience to the law because we cannot be and are not perfect. The only One that was able to keep from sinning against the law was Jesus.

He is our example and our Messiah. He was the perfect Lamb of God and is our Savior, sent to redeem the entirety of humanity from eternity past up until He comes again. Give your life and your heart to Jesus and even though your troubles won’t vanish, the strength to make it through them will come from Him! Even though you have to decide each day to die to your own selfish ways and live for Jesus and allow Him to live and show through your life to others, it will get better and you will be stronger for it. Think about it.

Stand tall and depend on Jesus


We need His power and strength in the time that our world is in today. We also need Him every day regardless of the circumstances or who we think that we are. How can we possibly think that we can get through our lives without leaning on and depending on Jesus? I know that we are supposed to be individuals and independent, but God made us to have fellowship with Him on a daily basis!

Pray-for-strength

He wants us to lean on Him, to depend on Him when the times in our lives get to be more stressful than we can manage. Instead of drugs or alcohol, we need to depend on God for our strength because He can give us what we need when we need it. Anything or anyone besides Him is just a cop out or counterfeit and we need the real God Who can perform miracles in our lives daily!

 

Have you asked Jesus into your life? Would you ask Him into your life so that your daily existence is more than just existence? Your life will have a meaning and a purpose because of the One who gives life to all who ask for it.

 

We face many troubling times ahead from the economy to stress at work and at home, with bills and expenses that we never thought we would have or would be so unmanageable. Many in the world today are dealing with personal issues which they never thought that they would have to handle before retirement. Now, some wonder is it possible to be able to enjoy life at all? Do we really have to work until we just work ourselves into our graves? Today it seems so.

Life may be easier in some ways than it was fifty or more years ago, with technology helping us do more in less time. The problem with having technology and all of the convenience that it brings with it is that we are never away from the connectedness of the world! We are always in touch with anyone, either by e-mail or instant messages or posts on Twitter or Facebook or any number of social networking sites out there.

The fact is that we need to be connected to the One who brought all of this about. We need that connection, daily with Jesus. His signals never fade and you are never out of range with Him. You can always get in touch with God and Jesus at any time and anywhere. Regardless of how far away you may think that you are, He is beside you. He is always waiting with open arms to take your burdens and problems and give you the comfort and the strength to make it through the day, every day.

Don’t turn away from Jesus, but turn to Him especially when things don’t seem to be going your way! Because He really is the One that loves you more than you even love yourself! He gave His life for you so that you could be forgiven and be with Him in Heaven instead of being in hell with Satan and his fallen angels.

Think about it and pray about it, ask Jesus into your life. He knows where you are no matter what or where you may be in your relationship to Him.

Do you serve or do you want to be served?


In the society that we live in, we expect to be served regardless of where we go. In the mall or a store, at a restaurant or a fast food place we all have a microwave mentality today which means that we expect everything to be given to us NOW!

It is something which has been brewing in our culture ever since the first fast food joint showed up, but I am not blaming it on them. It is just a fact that since food became easy and cheap to get, the ability to cook at home has been mostly lost. Look around in a supermarket today and you will see many boxes of quick meals which can be made in less than thirty minutes.

Of course, you could just buy a packaged dinner, zap it in the microwave oven and in less than ten minutes be eating a “meal”. Except that it has been so processed and packaged it very likely has little, if any, real nutritional value,  but it is quick and it tastes good.

We tend to go about our religious experience the same way. We want instant satisfaction from the preacher who can’t say anything bad so he won’t hurt our feelings to our religious experience with our Saviour. So, what can we do to change these things? Since it has been ingrained in our culture for so long, we may not be able to clear out the things which have been learned soon enough.

Some people may wonder what I mean by “soon enough”, well it means that we need to repent of our disregard for God and His laws. It also means that we need to sit down long enough to read some passages from the Scriptures and to pray over them so that He can show us what is meant by them. Don’t close your mind to the possibility that He exists, because if you are being closed to the option that He is real then you are missing the point.

What point is that? The very reason and purpose for life itself, to give glory to God for being here! I know that there are many people who don’t or won’t believe in Him, but think of it this way: what if you are wrong about His existence? What if there really is a place of punishment after you die?

Not believing in things during this life won’t cause them to not be there when you die and find out that there really is life after death. At which point it will be too late to change your mind, it will be what it is and you can only take what you have ordained for yourself.

Your life and mine are important to God or He wouldn’t have wasted nearly four thousand years trying to get people to listen. Since the time of Moses, there have been many prophets that were sent into the nation of Israel trying to bring them back to God. Many were killed, most were just ignored or stoned until they left but the point of this is that God is interested in us! He would not have done the things which He has done if He was not. He doesn’t sit up in Heaven waiting for things to get better, He knows the end from the beginning because of where He is and Who He is.

We are all privileged because, not only does He care for each person but He has cared from the beginning. It doesn’t matter if you are from Israel or Turkey or China, God knows you and He knows when you will accept Him as Savior or if you won’t. Like looking down on a parade from the top of a building, He can see your life and mine from the first breath that we take until the last. Whether we choose to allow Him into that life is our choice, no other religion or faith allows you this.

Many people are going to disagree with me on this, at least on principle, but the point is that we have a choice…life or death. Which will it be? Many people, and don’t comment saying how I know it is “many”, there are thousands or millions who don’t agree with anything a Christian says just because they are Christians!

Many don’t agree because they don’t want to be responsible for their lives. They don’t want to be held accountable for their actions and if you have children you have seen this from an early age. Even before you think that a child can lie, they will do it in order to get out of trouble or to stay out of trouble. It is ingrained in our DNA, we are sinners from birth. One lie is still a lie, even if the one who is lying is only two or three years old.

I began this with references to food because of the way that our culture has become so dependent on things like food being available as soon as possible. We have also transferred that dependence over to almost everything in our lives, from our jobs to our religion and everything in between. Instant gratification, instant answers like we get from the Internet, we want everything now and we are not content with waiting.

God has waited and is waiting for you to make your decision, either for Him or against Him so which will it be? If you are joining God’s family, then welcome home! If you have decided to wait, then I want to ask you a question: When are you going to die? It is a simple question but it is not one that we can answer. You may die tonight or tomorrow or this afternoon, I may not be alive tomorrow either so when will you make that decision? When you are standing in front of God and He shows you the things that you have done and said in your life, how many times have you heard the good news of Jesus and the facts of salvation and either ignored them or just blew it off? What will you tell Him? At this point, it will be too late. You have already made your choice.

The UN-pardonable sin is not some heinous crime, it is turning away from God’s gift of grace and not accepting it as it is. That is the only sin which will get you thrown into hell, the others which you have committed convict you of a life without Jesus. 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 believe?


On any given day there are many news stories about people who believe many different things about religion. Some may not believe in any sort of god, man-made or otherwise. Some believe in only a man-made religion which is so focused on its “prophet” that they will kill you if you say anything bad about it at all. Some people believe in a religion which focuses on re-incarnation or coming back after death until you get it right. Boy, would that get old!

I don’t have the time nor the room to speak about all of the hundreds of religions in our world, but there is one that many people don’t like and some that do and it is Christianity. Some people hate it and the people who practice it just because and for no other reason than it has Jesus as its Messiah. Some hate it because He is a Jew and was raised that way so they won’t have anything to do with “that religion”.

Aren’t we supposed to be living in the twenty-first century? All of these racist ideas and bigoted ideas are supposed to be behind us aren’t they? I know that some of the references that I used in the first paragraph sound racist too, but that is not how they were meant. I am just pointing out that many, if not most, of the religions in our world are or were created by men. Some would even argue that Christianity was too but at least it does have a book which points to its Savior from beginning to end even if it started with Moses‘ books.

Jesus is even in the news today because they are reporting that they have supposedly found a piece of the cross that He was crucified on. Great news if it is but how are they going to prove it? Blood, tissue and DNA doesn’t survive that long (even if it did come from the Son of God)!

We are coming into a time in world history that, whether you believe it or not, is part of prophecy and is foretold to be the worst time in the history of the world. I don’t know when this time will come about but according to what has already happened, it won’t likely be long in coming. It is prophesied to be a time that according to:

Matthew 24:21-22: 21. For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.

The Truth of God‘s Word speaks it as plainly as it can be said so will you examine your belief, your life against it and decide? We can and have come up with so many religions in the past two thousand years and many just in the past two hundred and yet only one holds the hope of eternity. I know it sounds narrow-minded, but if you had two paths that looked like you would survive a cataclysm and yet only one were solid enough to travel on, which would you choose? Especially if the safe one were narrow but solid and the other was wide but slippery, which would you choose?