Tag: Christianity

What do you see here?


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your life and mine is but a whisper


If we look at the time of our existence, the time that we have to make a difference, it truly is but a whisper. Like smoke or your breath in winter, there but a moment and then gone. I know that many look at this and say: “What about those who live to be 8 or 9 decades old or more?”

Is that a really long time in comparison to one thousand years or more? It is not and we were created by God with an immortal soul, one that will never die. So, when you compare our lifetime with an eternity that doesn’t have an ending, it doesn’t matter if we lived for five hundred years it is still like a puff of smoke.

What will you do with the little time that you have? Will you use it selfishly, doing what you want, playing around like a child most of your life and then wondering why you feel so empty? Many people try to fill that empty space with all sorts of fun things like drinking alcohol or using drugs to make them “feel better” but what do those things do for you? Make you feel worse in the end. I know because I have been there. I did those things, even though at the time I supposedly knew Jesus. I wanted to see what the fuss was about.

I didn’t like the way that I felt afterward because I usually felt worse than I had before. Our life and what we do with it is supposed to mean something, we are here to do the work that God has placed us here for. But the only way that we will ever learn that purpose is to submit our life and our hearts to Jesus. I know, submission is not something which we like to do. But, consider this: Jesus came from Heaven to be clothed in humanity in order to be the perfect sacrifice that would pay the penalty for everyone’s sin (from the beginning to the end of the age).

He did this for each one of us and He would’ve done it even if there was only one person to be saved! That kind of love is the kind that we don’t understand and cannot understand with our limited perspective.

God loves each of us enough that He sent a part of Himself to take the punishment for us because there was no other way to do it. He knew this from the beginning, but He allowed us to try our way first and He still allows us the choice, even though it grieves His heart when we don’t choose to ask Jesus into our lives.

Our purpose which we were created for is to glorify God and His mercy and to tell others about Him. The talent that each of us has in our chosen profession, whatever that may be, is secondary to this. The short time that we have to accomplish our life and our purpose is the only time that we will have prior to eternity. Life doesn’t end when your body dies, because your soul lives on.

God is in control of all things and works toward the completion of His purpose whether we can see it or not. The so-called “ruler” of this world, Satan, thinks that he can win but a created being cannot overpower the Creator! Satan hates us because God intended to give us dominion over the earth and all of creation which God placed here. He also hates us because of the favor that God bestowed on us even though we are made of clay. The favor that we received is our soul, the breath of God which made us the way we are and what we are to be!

Nothing can separate us from God’s love except us. We can choose to walk away from it, not believe in it or deny Him altogether…but He still loves us! It is our pride that causes most of our problems today because it is the principle sin! It was pride that was used against us when Satan tempted Eve and Adam and we have been falling into it ever since. Comments are welcome, but advertisements will be deleted.

Being a religious person doesn’t make any difference?


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is the truth?


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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Our cluttered, busy lives


Have you noticed that your life and the lives of many people are so cluttered with stuff to do and things which need to be done that there is no time to do them all? All of these electronic devices and gadgets which were supposed to make our work life and our daily lives more relaxing and easier to manage have actually done the opposite! Those of us who have cell phones and the coverage to use them, are constantly connected to e-mail, Facebook, Twitter or some other service that pings us all of the time. We are never disconnected unless we get to an area that doesn’t have coverage and even then…we panic! Until we are connected again, then we feel that life can go on. Why?

Why do we have to be connected all of the time? Our data, our lives should not revolve around a device or a service that is not much more than a way to keep up with everything and everyone that we have added as a friend! Your life was not designed to be this way, your brain was not created to do this! Even though the use of these devices (I have one too) has caused many to seemingly attach them to their ears and never put them down, we are supposed to be following and speaking to God in this way as well! In Deuteronomy 6:7 it says: “Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Of course it is referring to the Ten Commandments, but the point of this is that we are to think about, meditate on God’s Word during our day, using its wisdom as a guidebook for our life. Many of us have replaced it with our cell phones. Granted, there are “apps for that” which will allow you to read God’s Word on your phone, but do we do that?

Being connected to the world through our phones is fine, but we need to stay connected to God as well. If you are not saved or have just brushed off religion or Christianity all together as a bunch of nonsense, I pity you. Many of you will be thinking at this point that you don’t want my pity, but the reason for it is simple. If you don’t accept Jesus as your Savior, then your eternal destination will not be an enjoyable experience at all. Each of us has a choice and it is simple, which is why many people think that it is too simple! That choice is between doing what we feel like doing or giving our heart and our life to Jesus and submitting ourselves to His will and not our own.

The consequences of not giving your life and your heart to Him, in this life, are few. You will be able to live and go on with your life without Him, but the comfort and strength that you would’ve had access to won’t be there. There will always be an empty space in your soul and in your heart where He should be, and you will feel it. Trying to fill it with something else or someone else won’t work until you realize Who needs to be there and ask Him to come in.

Being connected to the world all of the time is fine, but being connected to Jesus is much better! It is better for you, it is better for your friends and family, and it is better for eternity! Think about it.

The Love Revolution – Sermon of the Week


I am a pastor of a small church and I really liked this post. So much so that I re-blogged it here. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did. 🙂

What is the difference between religion and Christianity?


There are thousands of religions in the world, but there is only one Christianity. Religion from a Christian perspective and viewpoint depends upon the doctrine that you hold to, whether it is Mormon, Baptist, Methodist, Protestant, Episcopal, or Catholic or any number of other doctrines in the world. Religion can be anything that you might want to worship and there are enough religions in the world to prove that, and yet other than Christianity none of them have a living Savior! Their founders are dead or imagined, made up in the minds of men, and yet each of those religions may have thousands or millions of followers, some may have billions of followers. The point that I am making is this…has anyone thought about which way, which path or road should you be following?

I am not trying to cause any more divisions between churches or denominations. What I am trying to point out is that true Christians are in all denominations, Christian denominations. There are also many who believe that they are Christians when their heart and their life doesn’t show it.

Here is a graphic which shows how much the world’s beliefs have changed in the past one hundred years or so: christianity-graphic-01

In 1910, America had 27.1 percent of the world’s Christians while Europe had over sixty-five percent. In 2010, the percentage in America has grown as well as other parts of the world, while the Christian population of Europe has shrunk to 25.9 percent. In the same amount of time, other religions have taken hold in many parts of the world which were Christian at one time. This graphic is seen more clearly if you open it in a new tab of your browser. The point that I am making is that our world is changing rapidly, especially when you consider cultures and their religions. Many things have happened in our world to cause this such as airline travel and other technological advances. The point is that there are more people claiming to be Christians but there are also more people who claim to adhere to other religions or even no religion at all.

What can be done about this situation? If you can evangelize those who have not chosen a religion or a belief, great. But many people who have chosen or may not have chosen, don’t want to be bothered by us or the religion that we represent at all! They don’t want to hear it and have closed their minds and hearts to anything that might point them in the direction of salvation.

It wouldn’t matter if you were the greatest evangelist in the world for some people, they have their minds made up and nobody is going to change their view except God Himself! If God has determined that they are going to be used by Him for some purpose, then He will get their attention eventually.What about those who are modern day Pharisees? They see themselves as Christians and don’t believe that they need salvation but are not followers of Jesus. I am not trying to be a judge of their faith, but if the fruit is not visible in their lives, then what are they?

Usually their reasons go something like this: “I have always been a member of this church, since my youth. I have served as a teacher in Sunday school and on various committees in the church as well as giving my tithes on a regular basis. How dare you question my faith!” Well, as a comical story I heard once went, “I could live in a garage all of my life but I still wouldn’t have four wheels and an engine!” You do not become something or absorb a faith and live it just because you have been exposed to it for many years! The messages that you have heard over the years may have been good, but they did not penetrate the soil of your heart and take root there!

We are accountable to God for the light that we have heard and read and lived by whether we have taken it into our heart and our life or not.Because of this there will be many who will be astonished on that day when Christ says, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” Don’t let that day be the day that you hear those words, give your heart to Jesus while there is life in your body so that you can serve Him until He calls you home! Then you will hear something like: “Welcome home, good and faithful servant!”

Are you accountable for you?


There are so many opinions on accountability in the news and social media today until I was wondering if we as a nation and as individuals are accountable for our actions? Does anyone really take responsibility for the things that they say or do, whether on line or in person? I would say that many people don’t or wouldn’t take responsibility for their words or actions if someone brought it to their attention. Many people would get upset and voice that “You are judging me!” or “It’s none of your business so leave me alone!”; isn’t it possible that we are all like that in one way or another?

Will we take responsibility for our own lives? Sometimes we will, if we get caught or if what we have said or done has caused enough heartache and anguish that we feel the weight of responsibility on us. But, what if we don’t? What if it doesn’t bother us? If you call yourself a Christian and think that you belong to Jesus, then you might want to check again! Because, if you have said something or have done something that you wouldn’t do while Jesus was standing next to you, then you may need to fall to your knees and ask Him to come into your life for the first time! See, thinking that you are a Christian, believing that you are a Christian doesn’t make you a Christian!

You may have grown up in the church, regardless of the denomination, by going with your parents whenever they went but going to church, reading your scriptures, singing hymns, getting baptized in one form or another doesn’t make you a Christian!

The only thing that can change your life is Jesus and belief in His atonement for your sins! Asking Him into your heart will begin that transformation, but to complete it you need to walk with Him by learning about Him through God‘s Word. You need to get to know Him by learning about Him and Who He is, just as people who are fans of certain athletes get to “know” their favorites! Now, I am not saying that you should be a fan of Jesus, what I am saying is that you need to be a follower of Jesus! He is the only way to Heaven and all of these other so-called “paths” to heaven are just trails which will eventually lead you to hell! They all combine into a road which is wide and crowded because there are so many people who have been fooled into thinking that their little “religion” is the only way, and yet they will find that their “way” is the wrong one! But by the time that they do, it may be too late to change their mind or their life!

Christianity is called a “religion of blood” and it is called a “religion of intolerance”, but what about those religions which are so rigid that any doubt or straying from the faith might get you killed? Sounds sort of intolerant to me, but that is not Christianity. People don’t like the fact that our religion has as its hero, a man who gave His life for everyone and He did it by being crucified on a cross. That is the blood and the symbol that most people reject, along with Jesus.

We have a responsibility to those that oppose us, to tell them about Him and to let them see His love through our actions and our words. If they can’t see Him by seeing us saying or doing something that would be impossible for us to do otherwise, then we may need to check our own life out. Can you be gracious to someone who hates you? Do you respond in kind when someone cuts you off on the interstate? If you have a bumper-sticker identifying you as a Christian, then you had better think about it before you get on the highway…better yet, pray and seek His council every time you get behind the wheel! People watch those of us who claim to have something that they want, whether they recognize it or not.

It is our responsibility to let them know about the only One who can help and heal their lives and their illnesses because He told us to. What we have freely received, through Jesus, we must freely give away to those who are in need of it! Can we call ourselves followers of Him and not do that? I think not! Your life, if you have given your heart to Jesus, was changed because someone gave away what they had received from Him. The least that you can do is to give Him or the news of His love to someone else, regardless of who they may be or what they seem to be! Before you do, turn your scrutiny upon yourself and make sure that your life belongs to Jesus. If it already does belong to Him, that’s great! If you are not sure, fix it!! You can’t fix it, but He can!!

 

The one who sees me


This is a great post and couldn’t have been said any better. Just as in the days of Hagar, the Lord sees all of us and cares for all of us. He is with us through all of the times of our lives, good or bad, thick or thin whether that is regarding health, money, relationships or whatever. God never leaves us nor forsakes us. Great message!

GodGirl's avatarIt's a God thing...

“The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”
The angel of the Lord also said to her:
“You are now pregnant
and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,
for the Lord has heard of your misery.
He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.”
She…

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What has happened to our country?


In the past twelve years what has actually happened to our country? I don’t even recognize much of the United States anymore, at least the United States that I grew up in! We are in the process of creating a country that is exactly the kind that most people fled from to come to in the past two hundred years. I know about the slave ships that brought people here against their will and I truly do apologize for all of the past mistakes, sins, that our forefathers perpetrated but there is a limit to what we should be doing to our country. The damage that has been done is such that it cannot be undone by one President, it cannot be undone in the next century by any number of elected officials especially those who are corrupt like the ones in office now!

I realize that my blog is supposed to be about Christ and I do believe that the reason for this happening is due to the fact that God and prayer were taken out of schools and our educational system. Morality has been eroded away to the point that many people support the idea that we each have our own truth and our own morality. According to who?! If you don’t have your morality and truth anchored in the Word of God, then the individual person can make up exactly what they consider to be truth and morality for themselves! This will create a system of anarchy with no law and no responsibility for anything! Do you think that you can live in a country like that? Would you want to bring up a child in a country like that? I wouldn’t!

Our country needs a revival of faith in God, in morality, in each of our lives and if we don’t do this or decide that we don’t need it, then we will suffer the consequences. What that will be, I don’t know, but it will very likely be unpleasant. Please, think about this, pray about it, bring it up in your church if you attend one! If we allow our country to go down this path that it has already started on, then we will see what those consequences will be and I doubt that anyone will be having a good time.