Tag: Christianity

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.

 

Is non-belief (atheism) new?


Not really. It is something which has come of “age” recently in America and by recently I mean within the last forty years or so. It was not a popular viewpoint prior to the ’50’s, but I am sure that, like today, there were a few people that held that viewpoint. Many tried to have religion abolished during the so-called “monkey trials” in the early twentieth century, when the courts had to decide whether to teach creation or evolution to children.

Recently, they have erected a monument of sorts to atheism right alongside a monument of the Ten Commandments. In an attempt to make their point that, I suppose, we don’t need Christianity or religion.

The following quotation from Madalyn Murray O’Hair is carved into the side panel of the granite monument:

“An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that deed must be done instead of prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.”

When an atheist says, “I believe,” it’s an admission that atheism is a religion. When they (atheists) admit that they believe in something, it proves that it is becoming a religion, at least to them. Of course, I just repeated the statement which came with this quote from the website below:

Read more: http://godfatherpolitics.com/11193/why-i-support-the-new-atheist-monument/#ixzz2W1pDw8zC

I, on the other hand, do NOT support this monument because it gives the atheist worldview legitimacy which is something that it doesn’t need. I know we are supposed to allow all viewpoints to be seen and heard because of the first amendment, but this movement doesn’t want to allow Christians to have that freedom anywhere! In schools in particular but also in the military and in our government as well, so are we supposed to just get out of the way and let them have their say. I will agree to getting out of their way, but my constitutional right to speak up empowers me to say what I want as well.

God, the Creator, gives us each our measure of grace to be on this planet and in the places where we are in order to do His will. Whether we choose to follow Him and do that is up to us, we are not forced to follow Him even if we have heard scripture being read or a prayer being said in school or in a public arena. Why should we have to cower whenever someone cries out that they don’t want to hear about Christ, but atheists never say a word about Islam or any other religion. It seems to center only on Christianity. Why is that? Have Christians gone around killing people because their message is not getting out to the world? Have Christians used suicide bombers to make a point about anything in relation to Jesus? None of this has happened because our religion is one that is tolerant of others. We don’t force anyone to convert to Christianity, so why are we treated as if we do?

I think it has to do with the facts of history and those of Truth. When the Truth is revealed to someone logically without coercion then they make up their own minds about what they believe and usually when that Truth is brought to them through the Bible, they realize that their belief…whatever it was, was leading them in the wrong direction. God’s Word is truth whether you want to believe it or not. The reason that I believe it is because, not only because I a Christian and a pastor, Satan believes it too! The enemy of all who believe in God knows that it is true and he agrees with atheists that nobody should be forced to listen to prayers or to hear the message of Jesus preached.

The problem with that belief is that it is one that leads to hell. Satan knows this but he is not going to help you. He only wants to get as many people to go down that road as possible, because those that do won’t belong to Jesus. Romans 6:23 says: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

When you make a decision to come to Jesus and stop believing the lie that is sold on television and by other media outlets, that we are our own saviors, you will be on the path to Life. The road to destruction is wide and there are many who find it, don’t get on that road! Make sure that you are on the road to eternity, an eternity which is not full of pain and anguish because of decisions which were guided by the world. Don’t let anyone tell you that when you die, you just go away. God put an eternal soul inside each of us and when your earthly body dies, your soul goes to be in eternity. The eternity that you will go to is determined by your choices here, between your self and the world or whether you chose Jesus as your savior. Those are the only two choices that really matter because they affect your eternal destination. So, which one will you choose?

Bashing Christian beliefs


When you hear about people doing this in the news and on the web what does it make you think of? It makes me think of children who can’t have their way who are throwing a tantrum!

“I don’t want to believe in God and they are forcing it in my face!”; “Christians are so dumb, they think that the universe was brought about by a god with his voice”; “The bible is not true, it is just a book of made up fairy tales and myths”; “Not one of the stories in it are true”.

OK, yes, I have heard these statements on television news shows and on web-casts as well as on twitter, face book and other sites. The point is that these so-called “arguments” are just that, arguments for the sake of arguing. Not one of the people who call themselves atheists has ever given it a second thought. How can a book which has been around for over two thousand years (I know that the English translation came about in 1611). The writings which went into it were written before that point in time.

Religions and the books which support them have been around for centuries, but the prophecies contained in the Torah were mostly fulfilled when Jesus came. The only ones left to be fulfilled are the ones relating to the end of the age, the Tribulation or whatever you want to call it. The places and people spoken of in its pages existed and have been proven by archeology, so saying that it is a book of fables is wrong.

You can’t get rid of something that you don’t like by not believing in it. Satan is laughing at you because even he knows that the scripture that you deny is true and he will likely point that out to you when you come to visit, even though it will be a long, long visit.

Penn Jillette has stated in the past that if it were true, Christians should be begging people to listen in order to keep them from ending up in hell. If you do not change your mind about what the Word of God is and the message that it contains, you will find out one day, but it will likely be too late for anyone to convince you.

Burning our book won’t anger us, it is just paper. Throwing all of them in the trash won’t change anything either. The Word of God is true and until the world wakes up and realizes that fact, there is very little we can do except tell you about it and the message that it contains. Whether you choose to believe in it or not is your own choice. It cannot be forced down into your being, God doesn’t work that way.

I challenge anyone who doesn’t believe in God and His Word to read it with an open mind, not a closed one. Sincerely ask God before you begin to read the book of John to reveal Himself to you if He is real, if He is not you haven’t lost anything and yet you won’t gain anything either. If He is real and He does open your eyes and your heart, don’t shut them tight and act like a little child saying, “I will not believe, I will not believe!”

The only thing that you will lose by believing in Him and the grace that has been given to you is that your eternity won’t be so uncomfortable!

Negativity everywhere


Besides the news channels and websites, there is so much negative in and on the web. I thought that this collaborative network was supposed to be open and free of this kind of rubbish! Everywhere you look on the web these days, someone is saying something about someone’s religion or their beliefs or their nationality and most of it is not positive at all.

In keeping with the message of my blog, there were a lot of negative vibes around when Jesus was teaching  and all the way back to the beginning too. During the time that Moses was leading the Israelites  out of Egypt, there were many complainers and whiners, all sorts of negative comments flying about. How could he deal with it? Moses took all of the negative comments to God and prayed about it! Why can’t we do the same today? The reason that we don’t is because we have pushed God as far away from us as we possibly can.

Even the church has watered down His message so that it is more tolerant and easy to handle for those who want their own version to live by. That is not the way to get people saved! If we don’t show them and tell them what is in God’s word, without diluting it, how will they know? I know there will be many people who do not agree with me on this and I may get some nasty comments from this, but the point is this: If no one tells you that you are going to fall, what will happen? You will fall!

If I could see that there was a very thin sheet of ice or something that you were walking on and I didn’t warn you about it, I would be guilty of your death wouldn’t I? The same principle applies to life and the religion that we have a choice to follow. There are multiple paths that are in the world right now and many of them look and sound great. Many of them don’t require you to do anything. No changes in your life at all in most of these religions although some have dietary restrictions as well as restrictions on what you may drink and how many times you should pray. Others, only require that you be as good as you can be and ask that you be a morally upright person. The problem with these religions is that they all require you to do something to be accepted.

The truth is that none of us, not one person on earth is good enough to be perfect in our performance regardless of what we are attempting to do or be! We cannot adhere to the Law of Moses perfectly without breaking even one of the laws. No one is perfect enough to adhere to all of the requirements of any religion, it is humanly impossible!

That is why Christianity is the only religion which allows for our imperfection and provides us with righteousness through the sinless Son of God who died in our place and took the punishment for us all. So that all we have to do is..believe in Him and ask Him to come into our heart and our lives! When we do that, we are changed into “a new creation; the old has passed away and behold, we are made new”.

The negative part of your life at that point is over and you have a positive life from that point on. I am not saying that your life will be perfect and without problems from that point on. Satan may make your life harder because you may bring many people to Christ in your life and he knows it, so he will try to make you fall and stumble, but Christ will be with you to strengthen you and get you through those trials. Because of that, you will be stronger in your faith and able to be what God intended for you to be!

God loves you, each and every one, and He knows exactly what you can do and what you will do when you are His child. Your future is in His hand because He knows the end and the beginning, and all of the points in between. Give Jesus a chance in your life and make your life His from this point on!