Lives matter!

There have been many protests concerning certain lives matter, whether they are Black, African-American, or even White. Come on, God created Life! Your life, my life, and every person who has ever lived on this world, all of our lives matter to Him! The color of your skin or your ethnic origin is irrelevant to God. Slave or freeman, Muslim or Protestant or any religion in the spectrum, God loves you! So, yes, life matters to God…every life!

We, humanity, have put limits and regulations and stipulations on which lives matter and which ones do not matter, at least to us. Why should we compare and claim that my life or your life matters more than any other? A baby being aborted at a clinic could possibly be the person who finds a cure for cancer, but if they aren’t born and allowed to grow toward that potential we will never know. Someone being killed in Turkey or Iran or Syria might also be important to the peace cause in the future, but we will never know for sure.

Lives matter every day, not just today but every day in our country. So many are hurting this morning because of the actions of one person or a few people who are targeting people for the color of their skin. It is heart-wrenching to see this happening in our country when racism should have become a thing of the past. Yet, every time it seems that we have a handle on it, someone from one ethnic group or another will blow a hole in it and begin the process all over again.

I don’t write this in the sense that I am some perfect Christian because there was only One perfect man ever on Earth and He is Jesus. My ideas are that we should get along, but in the society that we have today, in America and around the world, it is not possible. Humanity hasn’t evolved to the point of getting past old hatred and wounds from decades past. We just don’t seem to be able to let it go. Every time healing begins, someone pulls the bandage off and starts it over again. This needs to stop but without prayer and cooperation between those with different tones of skin color, it won’t get a foothold or gain any traction.

God loves us and we were told by our Savior to love one another, but it seems that we haven’t truly figured out what that means yet. We don’t understand the meaning of the word because we have watered it down and changed the meaning of the word “love” so much until it really doesn’t convey the same emotion that Jesus was telling us to express toward each other.

Seek out the Lord in your life and follow Him. Why do I say this? Because if you follow the Author of Life, you will be more alive than you ever have been. You will also learn to be more loving and if you love others as Jesus loves you, then you will not be like those who are causing all of the division and hatred in our world today. Jesus came to bring eternal life to all of us, all we have to do is accept it by faith and ask His forgiveness. Being a Christian is not something which can be forced upon someone, just like you cannot force someone to love you, but if you have felt that you need Him at all, then all you have to do is ask Him to come in and cleanse your heart and to accept you as His child.

Happy Birthday, America!

I know this is supposed to be a site where you learn more about God and your salvation but the birthday of America wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for people of faith.

Our land has been around for 240 years, or at least that is how long it has been since our Declaration of Independence was put forth. Life around our land would be very different if it weren’t for the influence of Christian leaders and the beliefs of those who started our land on its way to becoming the greatest nation in the world. It is true that some people don’t think that of her anymore, even some people who live here and are benefiting from her generosity.

America has been a light for people to turn to when they need to find their way and it has been a place of refuge for many people as well. It is true that in the past some really terrible and horrible mistakes have been made regarding the treatment of Indians and Africans who were brought here to be slaves. These things shouldn’t have happened, but they did and the worst part is that we either have swept what happened under a rug and out of the history books or we just ignore what happened altogether.

The biggest problem that we have today is that just when we think that we may have crossed the line toward better relations between the “races”, something happens that is done by one person with an off-kilter way of looking at life and here we go again.

Then you see the old hatred and bitterness come boiling up and we are at the same point in our nation as we were when there were race riots and clashes with the police on television every night. It tends to confuse the kids who have grown up without it and many of them wonder “Why?”

Why do we have to rewind an old tape that was worn out years ago?

Yes, there were many atrocities committed during those times and before then, but can’t we stop dragging the past into the present? Make a new day and a new way of getting along with one another! Stop looking at their skin color or their music and just listen to each other for once. Begin to TALK to one another, not texting but talking! Put the phones down and sit down and talk! Turn the TV off and talk to your kids or grand kids about the past but also about the future…their future!

Don’t repaint their future with the brush that you used when you were their age! Help them find a better one, one that is positive about what may happen in the future and not drag the negative parts of history in to cover up the progress that has been made!

America can be great again, if we as Americans will stand up and take our country back and MAKE it better! Shuffling money around from the rich to the poor won’t do anything but cause more problems. Fixing the things which are wrong is going to take more than a new President or a new set of laws or regulations. It is going to take Americans getting together and working toward fixing the problems one at a time!

Seeking Jesus?

Why did I place that as a question? Because, many people don’t realize that they are actually seeking Jesus. We look for all sorts of things and people and even careers or money to fulfill our lives and make us feel complete and yet none of those can do it. Sometimes each one can fill in for a little while…but not for long.

We tend to look for things which will make our lives feel better in some way and most of us don’t realize that the part of our heart or our being which needs filling only needs Jesus. He is the only Person..the only real person who can fill that area in our life! We feel an emptiness at some point in our life and yet we don’t know what or who should be there…until we find out about Jesus.

Some of us find that we truly need Him early in our life, and some of us don’t realize that we need Him until many years later. Sometimes it may be at a time when we are in need of Him in more ways than for salvation. We need a healing or we may be nearing death from cancer or if we are on death row in prison, we may seek Him because we are afraid of going to Hell.

There are many reasons why people seek Jesus, but the one which brings you to Him is your realization that you are a sinner and that you need Him. Not only that but we are not guaranteed tomorrow morning or even tonight, so what would you say to God if you were to meet Him this afternoon? In reality, you couldn’t say much because He will show you when and how many times you have heard the gospel preached and you didn’t respond. All of your life will testify against you, every word and deed and action that you ever did will be brought forth, and there will be no excuse because you won’t have one.

Standing before God the Creator of all things, you will not be able to mount a defense of your life because He already knows you and all that you did or said during all the days of your life. You cannot hide from Him and you cannot reason with Him because your performance in this life gets you nothing! Only the acceptance of Jesus as your Savior will bring you into the gates of Heaven.

Before your life ends, please ask yourself this question: “Where do I want to spend eternity?” No matter how long your life is here, eternity is a lot longer so make sure before your last breath.

Almost home

Have you ever wished that you were home? I don’t mean your Earthly home exactly, although that is a wonderful place to be most of the time. I mean your Heavenly home, the one that Jesus went to prepare for each person who claims Him as their Lord and Savior!

The longer that each of us live here on Earth, if we are Christians, the closer we are to getting there. Your journey of this life begins the day that you were conceived and ends on the day you die. God knows both dates and He will bring you into His home, your eternal home right after your soul exits from your body.

Now, I know there are some who don’t believe this and they will disagree with me. That’s OK, because one day they will meet Him too. Whether they know Him as Savior or not, they will meet Him although they may not enjoy the meeting if they didn’t accept Him as their Savior.

Almost home

Through the brambles and the weeds, the long road winds. Twisting, turning, and ever climbing yet upward and forward it goes. Life it is that we live here, sweet and sour though it may be. Sweeter still when ever we find the end of the path and cross over to be…with our Creator and our Lord into Eternity.

pathtoCF Sometimes it seems that we take our life for granted, where it starts and where it ends and all of the stuff that happens between those points are just part of it. But, do you ever consider the path that leads to Eternity? If you are a Christian or have any idea about an afterlife, then the thought has likely crossed your mind a few times. Seek our Jesus and a Bible teaching church or study group, learn about Him and His ways because He is the only way into Eternity and He does have a place for you there. He said so.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe in Me as well. 2 In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so,would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am.” John 14:2,3

End or beginning?

Humanity tends to look at life as that time which we have here on Earth and that it mostly ends when your life ends. Some believe in reincarnation, some believe that when you die that’s it and there is nothing more…but for a Christian this is just a rehearsal for our eternal life, the life that we will have with Jesus. The one that never ends and that we will be with Him and our Christian brothers and sisters forever. Does life end with your last breath? This physical life on Earth does, but if your heart belongs to Jesus then your spirit goes on to everlasting life in God’s home, Heaven.

I can’t tell you anything about that wonderful place beyond death, except the things which I have read or the descriptions found in the Bible. Even those descriptions pale because human sight and comprehension just aren’t enough to tell others about that which lies beyond this life. It would be like trying to describe a color, any color, to a blind person who has never seen or experienced seeing a color such as a purple sunset or a clear blue sky. Words just don’t describe and can’t describe that which your eye sees! Like the boy who was in the movie “Heaven is for real!”, when he tried to describe someone or something that he saw it was just more…more real, more colors, more than he could describe with words.

Heaven is more than our imaginations can imagine accurately at least because there are colors and textures and gold which is so pure that it is clear like glass. We don’t have a reference for anything like that in our minds. Eternity is more than we can believe or imagine, but we will be there IF we belong to Jesus! For the first weeks or months we will likely be discovering far more than we could’ve thought or imagined that our life in eternity might be like. After we realize that we have been there longer than we thought, time won’t mean anything anymore!

Seek Him out, learn about Him, give your life to Him and ask Him to come into yours because this time on Earth is just a training period for the real thing!

Understanding is necessary!

This is something which is missing in our society today. Why do I say this? Because there is so much intolerance in our country, especially for Christian viewpoints! That is why I said that there needs to be more understanding in the media and in our culture too. Yes, there are intolerant Christians, but just like those who kill people with guns, they don’t represent the Church or the majority of Christians in this country!

We, as a people and a nation, need to stop this persistent categorizing people who you don’t understand by the actions of a few! It’s like deciding that all dogs are bad just because one breed, like the Pit Bull terrier, has a few who aren’t raised correctly. Many times in our society people are judged by the actions of a few people and it is applied to a large group, such as those with dark skin color or those who work in a particular profession. We are told not to judge people by our parents and by God, yet we do it all the time. I heard many times in school “don’t judge a book by its cover”, but today it seems that we as a nation have forgotten those words too. What happened?

Understanding is defined as: the ability to understand something; comprehension; sympathetically aware of other people’s feelings; tolerant and forgiving; having insight or good judgment.

It seems that our society and the much of the world in general has forgotten the meanings of this word, whether sympathetically and forgiving or just simple understanding. Have we gone so far away from our teachings about God and His laws that this word is unknown or disregarded by everyone in society today? It seems that way because every story on the news should have something to do with this, but most stories are about intolerance and hatred toward those who don’t believe the way you do or who look different from you (racism).

I have addressed racism before but I am going to bring this up again: We have different cultures, beliefs, and religions but we ALL belong to the HUMAN RACE! Skin color may be different and the shape of our eyes may be a bit different in some parts of the world, but Biblically speaking we are descended from Adam and Eve who both were likely dark-skinned and not Caucasian. Yes, we all differ in our cultures and our preference for people who look like us or those who are similar in beliefs. These beliefs and cultural differences can be seen from one part of a city or state to another, but if you are a Christian your beliefs a similar enough that there shouldn’t be a division. Specifically one that may cause you to be so different that you can’t stand each other!

The apostle John said that “If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” 1 John 4:20

Seek God in His Word. Learn of Him and His provision of grace and love toward all of us. Pray that He will come into your heart and change you to be a new creature in Christ. This is what is necessary for salvation. If there are any questions or prayer requests please leave them in the comments. Thank you and I pray that all who read this will come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord.