Tag: Christianity

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!

What do you do when you can’t do anymore?


Do you give up? I have heard that many people do just that and its a shame. What about looking for something that you can do? When we get to a place where we don’t think we can do or say anymore about something, what do we do then? The thing that I do is..turn to God and ask Him to show me what to do! In today’s society, there are many people who don’t do that simply because they don’t believe in God, but what else is there to believe in? Man-made religions and beliefs did not create the universe. Religion doesn’t have a risen Savior that is present to be called upon.

The thing that makes Christianity different from religions that are all over the world is that our Savior died in order to bring us into a relationship with Him! Many other religions require you to “do something” in order to be worthy of a relationship with their “god”, while the God of the Hebrews is the only God! And He doesn’t require you to work your way into heaven because you can’t! We cannot do anything on our own that makes us good enough to be allowed into heaven. The only requirement that we have is to believe that Jesus died for us and took the punishment meant for us, accept it and then do the best we can, with Him as our guide, to go out and spread the news to others!

Whether the world accepts Him or not is not our problem, all that we have to do is tell them about Him! He will speak to their hearts and minds so that they will be convicted of their sins and turn to Him or they won’t, but they cannot be forced into it. The talents that God gives to each of us, whether we are Christians or not, were given to bring Him glory. Though, most of the time we use those talents for our glory and our personal gain, especially if it is a talent like singing or acting. The bottom line is that we are selfish.

We, all of us, think that we are the most important person in our world and to some extent that is true. But, being that self-centered does nothing to give us a positive image of ourselves unless we are being praised or we happen to be good enough that we get praise for our performances.

And yet, if we are not good enough we begin to believe that we aren’t good enough for anything or anyone. We get into a real pity party and get depressed and turn to many other ways to make us feel better, even if only for a little while. People turn to drugs, alcohol, sex, reality television, money, etc.; the list could go on and on forever. Even our jobs and our house or how much money we make or the kind of car that we drive can turn into or be used as a status symbol, which many people use them just that way.

But, what does that accomplish? Does your job help you in any way spiritually? Can your car solve problems at home, or can money fix your relationship with your children or with your spouse? We tend toward idolizing people and things in our society and we don’t realize that we have actually turned them into idols. These “things” cannot do anything for us. They cannot help, but they do get in the way of our perception and keep us blinded to the One who can help.

Jesus, by the love that the Father had for us, was sent to be the sacrifice that would take the punishment for us all, and He did! He paid the price of everyone’s sins so that we wouldn’t have to pay the price for our rebellion. All that we have to do is to believe in Him and His sacrifice and that we are His when we do. We cannot help Him to save us, because there is nothing that we can do that would be good enough. The only thing that sends you to hell is believing the lie that Satan puts in front of you, the one that says “I can do it on my own, I don’t need you!” The other lie that many people believe is that there is no hell or punishment for those who reject Jesus or even that there is no Satan who causes us to believe more in our own self than we do in the One who created us!

The grace of God is extended to each of us every day when we are able to get up and greet another day, yet many people don’t acknowledge it as such. They take each day for granted because they believe that they are guaranteed their time on earth, but we are not! We have the time that God gives us and that may end tonight, we may never see another sun rise on earth. But, when your eyes close in death you will rise to an eternal life afterward. Your enjoyment of that eternity hinges on your decision to accept Jesus as your Savior and ask forgiveness through Him or not. Your immortal body will be able to withstand the terrors and the punishment in hell and you will feel it forever or you will be rewarded with a life in heaven that is free from pain and suffering. The choice is yours to make, but it must be made before you die!

 

Our world is (mostly) lost


There are many who, I imagine, would agree with that statement and many who would disagree as well. But, from a salvation point of view, it is true. Many people, billions of them in fact, are lost. They are looking for something, yet they don’t know what it is, and they are looking in the wrong places. The look to things or people or religions that offer no real hope. Nothing proven to be a future hope, just feelings of belonging to something that is temporary. Life itself, the one that we all live on this planet, is temporary. It may seem to be an arduous task to live it, however you may do so and wherever you may live and yet the time that we have is but an instant.

Eternity lies before us, all of us, regardless of the place we may go to after our physical death. We should choose whether we will serve our own lusts and desires in this life or will we give our life to Christ and do the work that He has for us to do. Many people think that living for and through Him is boring and not fun and that couldn’t be more wrong. Once the Creator has taken up residence in your heart, He is with you regardless of what you are doing or where you may be. He sees and knows the things that you do before you belong to Him and it grieves His heart to see you going through so much heartache without Him.

To be useful to Christ doesn’t take going on a mission trip or being a pastor. Just doing little things for people who haven’t know Him, but they know that you do, will have a BIG impact. Even if you don’t do those things every day, just once a week will get them to thinking. When we act like Jesus toward others, that is when they see Jesus in us, and many times they will want what they see.

I learned this morning that a wonderful man of God went to his reward and went to his eternal home yesterday. He was over one hundred years old but I know that he won’t look it when I see him in eternity. I didn’t know him personally in this life, but I will in the next one. His name is George Beverly Shea and I don’t consider him to be dead at all. Just as Jesus spoke of Moses and others as being alive and not dead, I consider all those who have gone to their reward as being alive forevermore.

Regardless of what you may have learned in college, this life doesn’t end when your eyes close in death. That is only the death of the physical body. Eternity is for all of us, the place where you spend that eternity is up to you!

What will you do with the time that you have? The decision must be made while you are here because there are no “do-overs”, we don’t get to come back and fix things and do better next time. The dress rehearsal is the life that you are living and you only get one.

 

How does society shape your beliefs?


In the western part of the world, consumption of material things, selfishness, greed all play a part in our society. Whether we like to admit it or not. Many people look at their religion in the same way. They want it to be their personal religion, not a religion that everyone follows but something that is uniquely theirs. The problem with this is that when you “choose” your religion it is like a pair of jeans or a shirt in your closet, it is yours alone. No one else has to believe in what you believe and that is fine because that is the way you wanted it anyway. There are many religions that have sprung up in the past one hundred years like this. The preferred religion of Hollywood, Scientology, was created in the past eighty years and yet claims to follow beings who are trillions of years old. It also claims many of the same things which are exclusive to Christianity and yet it says that one day you can be like a god. Really?

No person on earth has ever been a god except one…Jesus. He is the only prophet, Priest and King who can claim this title because He is the only person to have been resurrected and Who now sits next to His Father, ruling the universe and watching over everything until the time for His second coming is fulfilled.

I know that there are many who don’t want to hear this and I understand that it upsets your personal life and belief in the “god” of your choosing, but listen to this argument and if you don’t take it to heart then I have done what I set out to do, tell you about the One who can show you the way to eternity.

Jesus, the Son of God, came to earth as a baby and grew up as any other child does. The only exception to His life is that He was always in contact with His Father. They likely had many discussions about His mission and His purpose on earth, although we don’t know of it. The only parts that we can be privy to are in God‘s Word. Some of those narratives are more detailed than others but suffice to say, His mission began when His cousin baptized Him.

From that point on, He went all over and around Judea or Israel, teaching, healing those who were ill, telling the religious leaders that they had missed many things in the prophets because they did not or would not recognize Who it was that was speaking to them.

His followers, the twelve disciples who were the closest to Him, also took up the message after His resurrection. He told them to take the message of salvation to Jerusalem and to all of the world and that is what they did. Even the Pharisee called Paul who was trying to get rid of the sect that they called “the Way” became Jesus’ disciple who would take the gospel to the Jews and the gentiles. It was he who wrote nearly half of the New Testament.

The world would be a very different place without Jesus and the Bible as well as Christianity. Many of the laws and moral teachings that we take for granted came from the Bible. Our world has been irrevocably changed because of its influence so it cannot be ignored or pushed aside. Think about it, read it, check the facts contained in it, then let your heart decide!

What can we say to Atheists?


There are many things which are not right in our world. Many people die each day of starvation, disease, war, gunshots. anger, heart attacks, etc., the list goes on and on. The question in many people’s minds is this: “Why does God allow all of this suffering?”; “Why doesn’t He step in and fix everything that is wrong with the world?”.

There are many answers to these questions, most of which atheists and many other people really don’t want to accept. God allows this suffering because it is part of the human condition. We live in a world that “fell from grace” when Adam sinned in the Garden and the suffering is part of that fallen world. To answer the second question is very simple and easy: He will fix everything when He returns.

These answers are unacceptable to most in our world because they believe that God shouldn’t allow suffering. But, the suffering that we go through is only a shadow of what will be if we are unwilling to accept Jesus into our lives and hearts. The suffering that you will experience by being out of God’s presence for an eternity will be many magnitudes above the suffering that you or I would experience here on earth.

The suffering that Jesus experienced on the cross when His Father turned away from Him is exactly what we will experience, because we will know the presence and the love of God before being cast into hell. Knowing the love that He has for us, for even a brief time, will be painful to be separated from it.

During the crucifixion that Christ suffered to pay the penalty for each of us, Jesus did feel that separation and loss. Many people will say that He only felt it for a few hours so how could that have meant anything? The Son of God had never before been separated physically or spiritually from His Father. They had always been together from before time began until that moment on the cross, so an hour or even a minute’s time of separation would have been painful for both the Father and the Son. Yet, it had to be done because He was the only sacrifice pure enough to take care of the penalty for the sins of mankind.

The world that we live in is in a fallen state due to the actions of Adam and Eve. That fallen state and the “ruler” of this world, Satan, is the reason for the suffering and the other problems that happen everywhere. Of course, people add to the suffering because of our nature. The Bible says that our thoughts are continually toward evil and left to ourselves we will do what our nature and our thoughts dictate.

Trusting in God and accepting the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins, asking Him to forgive us and make each of us more like Him is the only way for us to break out of the sinful mold that we are born into. The mini-series that many watched during March has started a wave of people looking for answers and they are found in the Bible, not in stuff that we consume or in man-made religions which have no real answers to life in general.

Study and read the Bible, question the things that you find in it, learn about the One who can make you whole. Because without Him, we can do nothing that has a lasting value. The things that we do here in this life are only temporary, the service that we can do with His strength and through Him is eternal. Think about it.