Tag: God loves you

Faith in God’s Word


I have written a post about the word “believe” in the Bible before and it seems to be the post which gets the most attention, at least on some days. The different ways to express it or use your belief in God amounted to quite a few. Not as many as I had originally thought, but a good number.

Lately, I have wondered about the word faith in the Bible and I found out something which I didn’t expect at all. Do you know or realize that the Bible itself doesn’t make much sense at all unless you have faith in Him? Trust and faith are synonyms and unless you trust what God says…unless you have learned to have faith in God through His Spirit’s actions in your life…His Word will not make much sense to you at all! I remember when I wasn’t saved. Back then I tried to read the Bible and it didn’t mean much to me. I couldn’t understand it at all.

Can’t you have faith without God being a part of it? Not saving faith. You can’t understand Him or His Word until His Spirit touches your life and your heart and changes it and brings you to a point of knowing that you need Him as your Savior! Can you live your life here on Earth without Him? Yes, you can, but when this life is over you will stand before Him and give an account of your life and the reason why you never sought Jesus as your Savior!

There is a part of your life which is under conviction by God’s Spirit. This happens to you and to me and everyone else at some point in your life. It may happen when you are young or maybe when you get to college or it may not happen until you are in middle age, but at some point, your heart will feel it and you will notice it. What you do when you feel this conviction in your heart is the deciding factor for your eternity! Did you get that? This one decision will have an eternal effect on your Life after this one and if you don’t follow His Spirit’s call then you will regret it for eternity.

The word “faith” doesn’t appear too many times in the Old Testament but in the New Testament, it appears approximately 250 times. Depending on which version of the Bible you have, it may appear more times or a little less. Sometimes it is written as “trust” rather than “faith” but it means the same thing. Trust in the Lord and lean not on your own understanding.

Have faith in God. Seek out Jesus as your Savior because there is no other way to Heaven except through faith in Him. Learn from God’s Word what is required of you for this life so that you can be useful in the Kingdom of God after this life is over! Don’t try to get to Heaven on your own merits or by your accomplishments because it cannot be done. The only way to get there is through faith in Jesus Christ and by no other name or Person will you get there.

What is your calling?


Have you considered what your calling in your walk with Jesus really is? Many people it seems have never thought about this in the least. Some don’t seem to have ever considered it a calling at all to be a Christian and therefore use their salvation in service to our King! Why I have often wondered, are they claiming to be Christians and yet never seek to be a servant of His?

John Newton, the writer of that great hymn “Amazing Grace”, said this just before his death: “it is a great thing to die; and when flesh and heart fail, to have God for the strength of our heart and our portion forever;….”

At another time prior to his death, he said these words: “Hereafter I hope, when I shut my eyes on the things of time, I shall open them in a better world. What a thing it is to live under the shadow of the wings of the Almighty! I am going the way of all flesh. If it were not so, how could I dare to stand before Him?”

I just finished reading Mr. Newton’s autobiography and he was a libertine as he put it during his younger years. But, he came to his senses during his marriage to his sweetheart. God used him in a special and powerful way to touch more lives after his life than during it because of the song which he wrote mostly about his early life and his salvation. Many of us can see our own lives within that song, in each verse, and in our own walk with the Lord or even by our attempts to run from HIm.

In the book of Jonah, you can see just how futile running away really is. In Genesis, Adam and Eve try to hide from the Presence of God but it is futile. God knows where each person is, He knows the number of hairs on our heads and He knows when a sparrow falls from the sky…so there is no possibility of getting away from Him.

So, think on this…God loves you in a more deep and entirely spiritual way than we can understand in this life. He has provided the Way for you to come to Him in forgiveness and stain-free from the sin which we all have in this life. That way is through Jesus and by belief in Him and the atonement which He paid for with His death and resurrection on the cross. There is no other pathway to eternity in Heaven except by Him, so make sure of your salvation before you draw your last breath.

Good shepherd

Laws cannot save you!


This is the message which Jesus brought with His teachings. The Law of Moses and all of the commandments are great but they only let you know what is a sin and that you cannot hope to fulfill the Law perfectly on your own! The only Person to ever accomplish that was the Son of God, Jesus the Christ (Yeshua the Messiah)! We, as humans, can’t keep the Law perfectly because of our sinful nature and that is why He came.

Paul wrote that he didn’t know what sin was until he read the laws of Moses and then he knew that he was a sinner and he needed Yeshua as his Savior. But he didn’t acknowledge Jesus as his Savior until Jesus confronted him on the road to Damascus but he knew that he couldn’t keep the Law perfectly in his own strength. The laws of Moses do not bring salvation but they do let us know that we are sinners and that we cannot keep them with our own power.

Trying to be good enough to be accepted into Heaven doesn’t work because our righteousness is not and cannot be good enough to bring us into salvation without faith in Jesus.

Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. Galatians 3:21

True righteousness could not come by the law because it only let each of us know that we couldn’t keep it completely, which convicted us of our sinfulness and our sinful natures. It proved that we needed a Savior and that was Jesus (Yeshua) Who came and gave His life and shed His blood to pay the price for ALL of our sins! Not just those born since He came but also those who were waiting for the Promise to come from the beginning.

God knew that mankind wasn’t able to resist the temptations thrown at them by Satan and therefore a Savior was needed and necessary. Otherwise, the relationship which God created us for would be lost forever and so would all of us be. Your eternity and mine are contained in the blood of Christ and if you haven’t accepted Him as your Savior then I would suggest that you consider Him as soon as possible. We are not guaranteed tomorrow or even the rest of tonight so I would make sure of my salvation before going to sleep.

God loves you and has made the pathway easy to find in His Word and by accepting Jesus as your Savior but the choice is up to you when you are convicted of your sins. Will you give your life to Him and turn away from your sinful ways or will you take the chance that this is a joke and the Bible is just a fable? The choice is yours but…after your last breath you will stand before God and the question will be why did you refuse the offer of salvation?

WhereAreYouGoing

You are special


When God called Jeremiah He told him this: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5 NASB

OnlyJesuscansaveYouIn truth and by His admission we are all known by God in this way. He has a plan and a purpose for each of us but it is up to us to fulfill that plan and purpose in His Kingdom. Why do I place the responsibility on each of us? Because God doesn’t bring us into this world as automatons! We have a choice! His call may touch us in our twenties but, like me, you may not actually answer that call until almost thirty years later!

Oh, you may get saved and ask Jesus into your life before you answer the call on your life but you still have a choice of doing what God wants you to do with your salvation and your life in Christ. Could Saul have chosen not to be the apostle to go to the Gentile nations around Israel? Actually, I don’t think that he could have said no to Jesus because of the way Jesus spoke to him directly. But…we can choose and many people do choose not to be what God wants them to be.

It is kinda sad though because Jesus gave all of His Life for our salvation so you would think that we could at least be thankful enough to give our lives to Him in return! But many people who do give their heart to Jesus do it and then go back to their way of living and that is wrong! It is hard to reconcile the changed heart which Jesus gives us when we truly accept Him as our Savior and then watch someone go from studying their Bible back to living in the world which they were supposed to leave behind.

Some people claim to have done just that but when you ask them if they are you saved, they will tell you they are. Even if they are living with someone or drinking and smoking and even using cuss words, they will tell you that Jesus is their Savior. It is at times like this that I just pray for them and usually I ask God to watch over them because only He knows the condition of their heart and soul. I do not.

We are not to try to judge a person’s salvation because we can’t. That is something that only God knows for sure. If their name is in the Book of Life then that is wonderful, regardless of what their life may be to everyone around them. We may be surprised one day to find many in Heaven who we didn’t think would make the cut and we will be just as surprised at those who will be told: “Depart from me for I never knew you.”

I pray that I am included in the few who will be welcomed into Heaven and hopefully those in my church family and my immediate family will be too. Please, make that choice today if you have not. My words here are not of my own choosing but come from my Spirit and I pray that you are saved and sanctified by Jesus because there are no second chances in this decision. If it isn’t done before your life ends then it is too late.

Consider your life


Have you ever really sat down and thought about what has happened in your life? I know that most young people may not think about their lives much, but as the years add up you owe it to yourself to do so. Why do I say this? Because you don’t know when your time may be up that’s why.

We can be good people, morally and spiritually at least in our own estimation. But, will that be enough? Will that be good enough to get you into Heaven? According to God’s Word, no it won’t be enough. Why? Because morality and righteousness on our own terms are not enough and it’s not good enough.

God made a way for us to be acceptable and forgiven through faith and belief in Jesus and what He did on the cross almost two thousand years ago. Which does not require anything of us including works of any kind or money, just accept it through faith and believe in Jesus and the forgiveness which was paid for in His blood.

PathwaysAs the Bible says there is a wide road and a narrow road, some are traveling by one or the other. Many of those on the wide road attend church but they haven’t given their hearts to Jesus. They are just going through the motions of being “Christians” in their own minds but not in their hearts. I pray that most of those will wake up to their mistake before it is too late.

God extends His love toward all which He proved with Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. The debt of sin has been paid but if you don’t heed God’s call on your life and accept it then your eternity will be much different than what you think it may be. Make sure of your salvation before your time on Earth is up because we never know when that time might be. If you have felt the prodding of the Holy Spirit in your life, seek Jesus out in Scripture and repent today. Tomorrow is not guaranteed for any of us even if we have made plans. God may have different plans for us.

Seek salvation through repentance and giving your heart to Jesus while you can. When your life is over here there are no second chances.

“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God…..” because He is a gracious God and a merciful One and will forgive you for your sins if you will repent and seek Jesus in your life.

RomanRoad2Salvation

Make sure of your salvation before it is too late. Amen

How much more?


How much more will we have to live through in this world? Wars, pestilence, murder, abortions, gangs, and violence of all kinds, perversion of all sorts on TV and on the Internet and it seems to be getting worse! When will the Lord put an end to all of this?

There is an answer to that question. When He returns to rule the Earth with a rod of iron, that is when all of this will end. Until that day comes, people will have to live with it or through it until He comes. His return will happen AFTER the seven years of the Tribulation which will bring hell to Earth and many millions will die during that time.

Not a very good future to look forward to is it?

heaven-or-hell-eternal-destinyIf you are a Christian in your heart and you are taken up when the dead in Christ rise prior to this time, then you don’t have anything to fear. If you are not a Christian or if you have been “playing” church and going through the motions but never gave your heart to Jesus then you will have to endure as far as you can through the Tribulation.

God provided a way to come to Him through Jesus and be accepted into Heaven but if you haven’t given your heart to Him and have just pretended to be a Christian or maybe you think you gave your heart to Him, yet you live just like everyone else then your future may be in jeopardy. This is a hard truth to hear, but it must be said because when the church, those believers who have truly been following Jesus, is taken up with the dead in Christ…life is going to be much harder on the world and living in the world will be more dangerous than it is now!

I am not writing this to say that those who are Christians are better than everyone else, but we are forgiven and made into a new creation by giving our hearts to Jesus. Playing church and acting like a Christian on Sundays because you’ve been a member of a church for many years doesn’t change anything. Unless you have truly been convicted by the Holy Spirit and have given your life to Jesus and changed your ways from what you did before knowing Him, then your life is still a part of this world.

VineandBranchesIf you are still a part of this world, then you are not destined for Heaven. Take the time to examine your life and your heart. Are you doing things which you would do if Jesus were with you? If He came to your home tonight, right now, would He find your lifestyle acceptable or would He need to tell you a parable to get your attention? How much of your life would Jesus approve of?

All of us, even preachers, have something in our life or in our home which would probably not meet with Jesus’ approval entirely because none of us are perfect in any way. We can’t keep the Ten Commandments without breaking at least one every day, therefore we have broken them all at some point. I pray that each of us will seek to walk with and follow Him until He comes to take us home. Amen

What is the Truth?


For many people in our world today it seems that the “truth” is relative to your situation, whatever that may be. Relative truth is a truth which changes with your area whether it is your business or your residence or the country where you live. But, why is the truth so flexible today? Is it because people don’t want it to be a certain truth? Or maybe it is because each person wants their truth to be one way and they don’t care what your truth is?

The truth of the matter is that Truth is from God and only if you believe in Him will you accept the Truth from His Word!

Our world today seems bent toward NOT accepting His Truth because it is an absolute and they don’t like the absolute part of it. God loved us enough to send Jesus to pay our sin debt in full so that we could learn about His Truth and His love for us through Him. Yet today, we don’t want to learn that Truth and we try as hard as we can to push it away from our schools and our homes.

Many people want to know why is there so much violence and hate in the world today and it is because we have pushed God and His Wisdom out of our education system and out of our homes as well. Many churches today even preach a more “acceptable” gospel, one which makes everyone feel good about themselves rather than preaching His love and His grace to all who will hear it.

Jesus didn’t pull his punches verbally when He spoke to the priests in the Temple and we shouldn’t water down His gospel when we preach it to those who are listening either. God loves you but He will not accept your sinful life into Heaven. Which is why Jesus and John the Baptist said that we should “repent of our sins and be baptized”. Baptism isn’t required to be saved, but it does symbolize the death of our old life buried with Jesus and resurrected to walk in a new Life with Him!

Your old life is what you were convicted of when the Holy Spirit touched your heart and let you know that you were sinful and you needed to be saved through the blood of Jesus. Place your old life, whatever it was, on the cross and leave it there to die. Then ask Jesus into your heart for your creation into a new Creature in Jesus! From that day on, walk with Him, read His Word and pray about what you read so your mind will be renewed along with your Spirit!

Jesus said “seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened” because no person is turned away if they are sincere in their search for salvation. God wants all to come to know Him, but there are few who will make that commitment to Him. Walking every day in the newness of Life which Jesus gives to us is not an easy walk or task. It takes discipline and commitment to walk as He did and learn from Him each day. Which is the reason that it is a pathway or a stairway to Heaven when following Jesus. The way that many people find is the one which they feel comfortable walking and it is not leading them to Heaven, even though Satan makes them think so.WhereAreYouGoing

Jesus is my shield


His Word is a sharp sword and a defense against Satan. As long as I belong to Him, my salvation is sure and my hope for eternity is sure. God loves each of us, whether we believe in Him or not. So, when hard times come and trouble is all around you it is time to trust in the Lord and lean on Him for strength because He will uphold you with His mighty and righteous arm.

God created the entire universe to amaze us about His power and glory and yet we don’t revere Him and give Him the awe and glory that He deserves. God named the stars and placed them in their places so that we can see that He is THE Creator of all things!

Psalm 18:1-6

1 {To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, the servant of the LORD, who spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul: And he said,} I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. 2 The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. 3 I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies. 4 The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. 5 The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me. 6 In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.

God is our shield and our fortress, He is our Commander and our Savior, He is not the “man upstairs” or “a higher power” as some think of Him! In their minds, they may be thinking of God when they say those things, but they are not giving Him the respect and honor that He deserves when those words are spoken. God is the I AM and the Alpha and Omega and He is all-powerful! It is time that we started preaching Him in that way and not as a weak and ineffective deity which will punish you when you do wrong!

themissingpieceGod loves each of us, which is why Jesus came to give His life and His blood as a ransom for ALL of humanity! The price was paid for everyone, even though there are many who will not accept His offer of forgiveness and repent of their sinful lives. Forgiveness is there for everyone, like a bank account full of money but it is only going to do something in your life if you use it for His good and His purposes!

Does God care about you or your children? Of course, He does! He created this entire universe to cause us to look up in awe and wonder and see what a mighty and awesome God He is! We aren’t supposed to worship those stars or check our “horoscopes” just to see if we should go outside today! Read your Bible and pray to the One Who hung those stars in their places, Who calls each star by name and makes sure that they are doing their part in His creation!

THAT IS THE GOD WHOM I SERVE AND WORSHIP! Make sure that He is your God and fortress and Savior too!

What happens in between?


God knew when you would be born and He already knows when you will die but what will you do with the life between those two? We don’t know when we will die and I am thankful for that, but what will you do with your time on this Earth?

Jesus told His disciples to go and tell the entire world about the gospel and to bring salvation to many, shouldn’t we do the same? This is exactly what our life is for. We are to live our lives in such a way that other people will hear Jesus speak in our words or see Him in our actions during our lifetime. Is that asking too much? I don’t think so!

He came from Heaven and gave His life to pay a debt that He didn’t owe for people who might not want to know Him! But, He did it anyway. God is amazing in His love for us even when we don’t care about His love or maybe don’t acknowledge Him as God at all.

In between our birth and the day we die there are many things going on. We learn how to talk and walk and how to tie our shoes. We go to school and learn many things that we should and some things that we shouldn’t learn at all. We get a job and maybe get married and have a family and hopefully, we take them to church to learn about our Savior. But…what if we don’t know Jesus as our Savior? What do you teach your children then?

In some families, they teach them how to cheat and lie and steal, but the lying part we know from the time we are toddlers. They also teach them that their only way to make it in this world is to work hard or steal from others or maybe be ruthless in their business dealings regardless of the cost. Living life as an unbeliever is sometimes, not so easy but occasionally Satan will reward you with money and power but then what? Money and power don’t bring happiness in this world.

Most people who have had lots of money have found that the only happiness comes from giving their money away to good causes or charities. But, they are still empty if they don’t know Jesus. Without the Author of Life in your heart, life itself has very little meaning regardless of your wealth.

Jesus came that we might have Life and have it abundantly, meaning that we will be in eternity with Him not that we will have more money than we need here. Consider this: you will be living in a heavenly Jerusalem with streets paved with gold so pure that it looks like glass! That is the life abundant which God has planned for those who believe and have asked Jesus into their hearts for their salvation. Don’t turn away from His call on your life.

The Way, the Truth, and the Life

5 “Lord,” said Thomas, “we do not know where You are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 7 If you had known Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.”

God’s Hand


God’s Hand has moved since the very beginning of His Word and recorded history. It was His hand which flung the stars into the heavens and it was His hands which placed the Moon and all of the planets in their orbits along with the Sun itself. It was by the hands of God that the first man was created and formed from the clay and dirt in Eden and by God’s breath, the man became a living soul. It was God’s hands which took a rib from Adam’s side to form a helper for him, perfectly suited for her task.

In the Word of God, His hands have moved nations and kings, people and circumstances, so that His will for our salvation and for the world’s salvation would come about the way that He knew that it should. Does He move in our lives today in small ways and in big ways to bring about that which He knows we should do for His glory and for our good?

I believe that He does exactly that! We may not perceive it before we feel the need to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus, but many times each of us could’ve been killed and we weren’t. I believe that it was at those times when His hand or maybe an angel that He sent intervened in our circumstances and kept us on the path toward His usefulness for us.

God used the circumstances of Joseph to save the nation of Egypt and his family too which grew into the nation of Israel while in captivity. If all of the things which happened to Joseph had not happened the way they did, things would’ve been much different. But God orchestrated all of the things, good and bad as we read of them, in order to place him in the position of authority to save his family from starvation. God still does these…adjustments today in our lives each day. Whether we see them or not. A car veers off before we are in a wreck, or an old tire doesn’t blow out on us even when we are driving too fast. All of these “little miracles” which we don’t see or even know about are happening all around us. We may find out about them when we get to heaven.

Why do I write about this today? Because of all the small miracles which do happen and we don’t know about them, God is using them to bring His will to bear in our lives and in the world around us. Would we call them miracles if we knew about them? Probably not because many of them are just small adjustments in our commute to work or in how we swallow our food one night or some other things which, to us would be insignificant but they affect our lives in ways which we cannot know.

Yes, God’s hand is still moving in our universe today and in our immediate lives too. Not just in Christian lives but in every person’s life on Earth. Some are moved in a way which we might see one day as an act of evil and even though God didn’t cause the evil which they did, He allowed it to happen because something else good would come from it. There are many things in our daily lives which we see and don’t perceive as His hand in our lives and we might not recognize them as such but those small decisions which we think were ours, were actually God’s way of moving us in the direction that He wanted us to go.

I pray that your life will be full of some small decisions or adjustments in your routine of work and life so that God can and will use your life to bring others to a saving knowledge of Jesus.