Tag: God

And now, the news….


Today, most people don’t care what you or I think about anything. But, it seems that they are most interested in things which don’t matter at all in the great scheme of things. You can tweet or post about almost anything from what you are wearing today to something that you heard on the news or even something at home or school. Sometimes, you might even get enough people’s attention to make that tweet go viral! What is going on?

Mostly, I think it is too much information. We are bombarded with so much from our radios, our phones, our tablets and our computers. Then, when you get home you have to deal with all of the news and sports and commercials on the TV. Don’t you wish that we could just turn it all off for a few days or weeks? I sure do! Many people today would be totally lost if their electronics suddenly shut down or lost their connections. No more information, no cell-phone calls, no tweets, no posts on Facebook or videos on Youtube….what are we going to do?

We have lost our ability to get by without information constantly available. Just twenty-five years ago there were no real cell phones and the Internet was just for bulletin boards and email, not the huge amounts of data that is on it now. Going way back to the seventies when I was in school and you had the newspaper, dial phones which were land-lines and the news on the TV, that’s it. Other than listening to the radio or reading books or magazines there wasn’t much for entertainment unless you could get outside and ride your bike with your friends. That’s right, there also were no video games!

To many of the new generation, that particular time in history would be classified as the stone age. But, we survived and made it through high school too even without common core, thankfully!

Oh, yeah, the reason for all of this history lesson in how people are overloaded with information today…we are coming to the end of the church age folks! News flash! This has been in the Bible for many years. “But you, Daniel, keep this prophecy a secret; seal up the book until the time of the end, when many will rush here and there, and knowledge will increase.” Daniel 12:4 Why do I refer to a prophecy from over 2500 years ago? Because that is exactly what is happening today. Also, the book of Revelation explains the age that we are in as coming to an end and when knowledge increasing.
So, what does it mean by “the end of the age”? We are on the edge of time, the time when prophecy is coming to fruition and we should be watching for its Author coming in the clouds. The world is changing so rapidly until we are covered with information constantly, but the problem today is that most of the information is irrelevant to history or prophecy. It is causing people to pay attention to things that are not important and they won’t see what really is important. Like giving your life and your heart to Jesus and searching or seeking to know Him even better than you ever have before.

Why would you do that? Well, He died for your sins so that you wouldn’t have to pay the penalty for them. Is that really important? If you don’t want to go to Heave, maybe not. But, if you would like to enjoy eternity and live in it forever in a home that was built by God, then it is the most important decision you may ever make. Seek Him out in the Bible. Read it, study it and pray about it. You might just meet your Savior and His Father and get to know them better. If you do, you will be on your way to eternity and it will be one that you will never be bored in ever again.

The power of Love


This word has been used so much since the sixties until it seems that few people know or even care what it really is.

Love is a powerful word, one which can begin a relationship which will last a lifetime. It is also one that is used so flippantly today that much of its meaning has been lost. There are many kinds of love. One is meant for friendship, one is meant for erotic love, one is a type that has no boundaries at all and that is agape love. It is the kind that exists between parents and children who are loved by them. It is also the kind of love that is between God and all of mankind. There are no limits to it and nothing can stop it. Time nor space has no meaning to this kind of love and it is referenced in 1 Corinthians 13 as the highest form of the gifts which we are given by God Himself!

Today, love seems to be missing from our lives in its truest form. Many people really seem to mean that they “like” something or someone, but they use the word love. Its power is from God and yet we misuse it just as we misuse His name. Love puts up with many things and helps us through some of the toughest times in our lives. When you really love someone you want the best for them, sometimes to the detriment of your finances but that is how you feel and how you would like to treat them! It takes time and maturity in your love to know how much and what to do for those that you feel so deeply about.

Love that has grown deeper with time doesn’t fade and it doesn’t go away, ever. It is a smouldering emotion that is always there, but it never fizzles out or dies. True and genuine love cannot be expressed by someone who you just met a few weeks ago. Erotic love burns HOT like a flame which has gas thrown on it, but unless the lust can keep it hot over a period of time it will flame out and grow cold and heartless. This is the kind of love which will make you hate someone and divorce them or worse.

Seek out the Source of Love in God’s Word and you will know the Power of Love and if you really want to feel His Love, ask Him to reveal it to you and you can truly know of His Love forever!

Where does your strength come from?


To many people in this world today their strength comes from themselves and their own actions. It comes from their ability and their job or from their family and the strength that they gain from them. But, what happens when one of those is not able to strengthen you or keep you going? What do you turn to then?

Where do you look for strength and compassion when just one of those pillars cracks, when something goes wrong in your life? The people that we depend upon and the strength that we depend upon in life usually are just as weak as you are, spiritually and physically! We are weak, some of us are physically strong but without spiritual strength and our dependence upon Jesus for our strength in Him you will not be able to stand.

Not only to be able to stand up in the morning, which is not the strength that I am referring to, but the spiritual strength to stand against the sins which can drag us down. Standing against Satan and his demons and the temptations which are placed in our way every day, that is what spiritual strength is for! You can’t get it from a job, your family, your bank account, your friends, none of these worldly things can provide for you spiritually!

Yes, they can give you advice, but is it Biblical advice? Did they get it from God or their own mind or their own experience? What good will that do you? Your own advice and experience has not really helped, so why would you listen to them? God knows you and He knows what today had in it and what tomorrow has coming. He will be with you through all of these problems and pain and He will give you the strength to get through today and tomorrow and the next day.

Life is always one day at a time, one minute or hour at a time. Days don’t go by any faster for you than they do for me. The problems that we see each day, the pain that we feel each day are ours, but we don’t have to handle it alone because God is always available and He is with us no matter what or where we may be.

Seek God through His Scriptures, especially in the Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. These three books have more wisdom in them than all of the “self-help” books combined. Learn of God’s ways, not just the way that He guided the Israelites but also the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. He loves us, all of us, so much that He sent His Only Son to die on a Roman cross for the atonement of ALL of humanity’s sins, not just a few but all of them.

He will strengthen you in all of your problems and give you the wisdom to get through them. He will do this, not because He has to but because He wants to help you with your life. The lost keys, the misplaced bills, the bad grades or the forgotten birthday. He will get you through them all and give you wisdom in all that you do, IF you will trust in Him and follow His teachings for your life every day.

Drama and life


It seems that today with the Internet and all of the social media outlets that we have, there is more drama than ever about things which are happening all of the time. I know, years ago this was all gossip on the phones. The problem with today’s version is that this stuff never really goes away! Births and deaths, accidents and graduations, heart attacks and strokes, family reunions and funerals, they will ALL be there until the Internet and Facebook are gone! Even then, some trace of this will be available to future generations to read and wonder about.

Dramatic situations and life seem to go hand in hand today, but they really shouldn’t. Yes, life goes on no matter what is happening around us and we can make it dramatic or dramatizing if we want it that way. But…why? I know that tragedy strikes and yes, that can be dramatic and traumatic at the same time but God will see you through it! If you haven’t given your life to Him, then you really should. If you need to know why you should do so, then you haven’t gotten there yet.

God doesn’t want us to go through life alone without Him, yet we merrily do so thinking that we can do it all on our own with no help at all. Many times, we are right…as long as everything is going smoothly. Get one of those phone calls from the doctor or a pink slip from your job, and things could change in a hurry! If you have a teen in the house and you get a call from the hospital or the police or sheriff and your life may change forever.

God is there with you through these times, and all that you need to do is call on Him. His Strength is available to you through the Holy Spirit and His Grace is always available, just ask Him for it! There is no shame or disgrace in admitting that you need Him because we all do!

Granted, He doesn’t shower us with gold or silver when we ask for it but that is because He knows what is best for us at any given time. His Grace and mercy and His Peace is always available through His Word, the Bible. We don’t have to pay much for it, we don’t need psychologists or self-help books to find the wisdom for life’s problems because it is all found within the pages of the Bible.

Seek Him first for your needs, your peace, your health, your life and He will provide all of those and more because He loves you! Any who have lost children or spouses to an illness or death, seek Him out and pray for His peace and comfort and He will gladly provide it. Though it won’t rid you of your grief and the pain that you feel, it will make it more bearable because He loves you!

Think about it.

Family life, is it?


I don’t know how to be a good father.

Is there a way?

Have you wondered about this too?

What, really, should we do?

Can it be done, today!

I feel inadequate to the task,

I don’t know what to do.

I watch my child sleep,

See the rise and fall of his chest, and

Yet I don’t yet have a clue.

I love my child because

God gave him to me.

A gift, a person to show the way

but how can I when I don’t know it?

The only thing that I know

for sure is that Jesus is the way.

I follow Him and I’ve shown my child

The One Who can affect His life the most.

It is the only real knowledge that I can give

that matters. The knowledge from his studies

won’t matter, the games which he plays

won’t matter, his friends won’t matter.

My life doesn’t matter unless

I can make sure that at least he

knows the Truth and has given his

heart to Jesus.

I pray that He lives in

my son’s heart. I can’t discern

his heart, but God can.

God knows whether my child belongs

to Him. I pray that I have done

at least enough to see that

him grow into Life

eternal.

The message of Jesus


Have you ever HEARD the message of Jesus?

Jesus said for us to believe in Him (and the atonement provided by His death and resurrection), and we will have eternal life. Repent of your former sinful life and allow the Holy Spirit to transform you into a likeness of Him. Are these things possible? Yes, if you have faith like a little child. One who trusts their father completely and without reservation. That is the kind of faith that it takes to live or rather to begin to live this life in Jesus Christ.

Are all Christians like this and do they have this kind of faith? The real and truthful answer is “NO”. All Christians or at least those who claim to be Christians, don’t have faith which would measure up to this standard. Many of them believe that they do and that they are true Christians, but when persecutions come or real trouble comes into their lives, the true person will show through. Hardship, pain, disease, financial loss, or loss of a family member will bring the real person out so that all will see. Sometimes, that is why we are allowed to go through trouble and trials.

In order to bring out the beautiful person that God knows is in there and the one that He needs for you to be for the duration of your life, sometimes He allows those trials. They can come in the form of a disease or the loss of a loved one. Sometimes the trial comes through the loss of a job or something which disables you. However it comes, treat it as Paul did and “count it all joy”. Look at the trial as a test in and of your faith then seek out God and His Wisdom through His Word. Pray deeply and fervently every day if need be so that you can get through this time. He will give you the strength and the wisdom to do so, and He will provide the comfort during your suffering too.

There are many people today, young people, who are turning away from God and religion which is their choice. It is the wrong choice but it is the one that God allows us to make. If He has something for you to do, then He will bring you back eventually if you will listen to His voice in your life. Our God, the One Who created everything and did all of the miracles in the Old Testament and the New, is an AWESOME God! Don’t turn away from Him, if you have given your life and your heart to Him then seek Him out in His Word!

God loves each of us and wants the best for us. Many cannot see this right now, because God doesn’t reward us the way the world wants to see rewards. Everyone sees reward as money, fame, a house, fancy cars, etc. but God doesn’t always reward us this way. Our reward, in many ways, waits for us in Heaven not here on Earth so we can’t use it or touch it until we die in this life and are born into eternity. Many people don’t look at this as a reward so much as a “bait and switch” game. Satan will do that, but God doesn’t.

“Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all of these things will be added (given) unto you.” Matthew 6:33

Today is the day!


It seems that most everyone treats tomorrow or even next year as if we are guaranteed to get there…well sorry to burst your bubble but we’re not! Your life and mine can be much more than it is, but we truly have to live life in God’s hands, every day. Your strength can’t get you through all of the troubles of this life, but God can take you through it all and then some! I am not speaking about using God as a crutch or even suggesting that Christians are weak because we are not. The martyrs of hundreds of years ago could not and should not be considered weak because they endured torture and mutilation for their faith in Christ and would not give up that faith even in the face of death!

Why did they do this? Not because of some fantasy reward for their death, but because He died for them and they had placed their faith in Him! A legion of Roman soldiers froze to death, naked on a lake because they would not recant their faith in Him. John’s disciple, Polycarp, was burned at the stake because he would not burn incense to the Roman emperor. I pray that we will be faithful enough to follow these saints if that time should come.

I believe that we should give our lives to Jesus and seek Him and His strength to carry us through the trials that we have in this life. Why do I believe in Him? Because the Bible is true, every word of it! He came to give us life, not just life here but life in eternity! He loves us enough to give us the grace through Jesus to have eternal life, if we will believe in Him and trust Him. This is not some fantasy nor is it a fairy tale. The prophecies which God spoke about through His prophets have all come true except for the ones in the book of Revelation. Those are reserved for the world to see during the time of tribulation and testing.

When that day comes, and it will come, many will wonder why they didn’t believe in Jesus or God while they could. Many will want to begin to believe in Him at that point. It won’t be too late, but it will take a lot of faith and determination to do it with the persecution that comes on the world during that time. Our lives and the purpose that we have in this life are determined by God for us. We just need to seek Him out to find that true purpose. Please don’t put this off! God loves each of us and will answer your prayer of repentance and come into your life, if you will only ask Him.

Life…where do we go when its over?


It is a good question, if you believe that there is more than this life. If you don’t then…it is a moot point as far as you are concerned. To go a step further, wouldn’t you like to know if there is something more? I mean, our lives are fairly short anyway and some people lose their lives before getting a chance to do much with it. Yes, there is an afterlife…an eternity which we will all be partaking of regardless of your belief, good or bad.

Eternity is spoken of in all cultures and religions to some extent, it is our choice to believe in it or not. Whether it exists or not is really not up to us. The reality will be after we die and we stand in front of God Himself. This is not the time for begging or pleading for mercy or forgiveness, that should have been done during your lifetime. After death is too late. I am sure that many people wonder about why they can’t believe after their life is over, the answer is simple: you have the evidence that God exists all around you every day of your life, believe it or not.

God loves you, but unlike the fictional “Allah”, He doesn’t require you to believe in Him nor does He force you to believe. God gives you all of the evidence that you need to believe in Him and pointing a gun at someone or threatening them with a sword only brings out the fear of death at the hands of ignorant men. I am not afraid of death because I know in Whom I have believed and after I die, whether by a gun or sword or by natural causes, I will be in His Presence. I have given my life to Him, so I don’t have a fear of death. He will take me home when that time comes, no matter how it happens.

Can you say that? If you have any doubts, then you need to seek Him out. Cars, planes, buses and trains have problems all of the time so going to work or on vacation is not an excuse for putting it off. “I don’t have time” is not an excuse either, because if you don’t have time now, what will happen to you if you die today? Do you know? Are you certain that your eternity is secure in Him?

I am sure that I will get some accusations of trying to scare people into believing something that they don’t want to believe, that is fine. I am not ashamed of it because if you don’t realize that you need Jesus before you die, then my job has no meaning or purpose. I have failed in the calling that God called me to do, which is to tell others about Him and try to bring them to knowledge of that need. If you will not seek God out, I can’t force you, but at least I have tried to tell you.

Now, the choice is yours.

Darkness and Light


Darkness tried to invade our county this past weekend. It took out two shining lights, ones that it thought would dim our lights. It didn’t take into account the faith and love that these two lights had behind them nor how many friends that they shared in common all over the state. The amount of prayer and support their families got from the school, from their teams, and from the 4H groups that they were involved with brightened the sky with the prayers that were sent up to God. Then, He sent down legions of angels to comfort and strengthen those friends, family, and classmates. So, in trying to dim the light that is in our county, it only made it brighter. Faith and Love are powerful especially when you combine them with prayer.

I am still praying for all the people…friends involved in this tragedy, but God knew about it all along. They are now with Him and are enjoying the benefits of Heaven and that their bodies can never die. They both are praying for their families well-being and they are also asking for the Lord to give their loved ones the strength and comfort that they will need during this time.

Although some may not believe it, I believe that we can see our family from Heaven. Especially when our lives end so suddenly, because God wants us to be comforted and to lend comfort to those we left behind. We are fragile creatures, physically and emotionally, but God knows what we need and when we need it and He will provide it, especially now during this time of mourning and healing.

Our community should come together and will do so during this rough time for the families of these girls. They are clothed in their gowns of righteousness, which would make the most expensive wedding gowns look like rags. Why are they that beautiful you ask? Because, these two young ladies are part of the church, the Bride of Christ, and they are supposed to be adorned that way!

Shimmering gowns of love and light, which more closely resemble a dress made from gold and silver and colors of the rainbow that we can’t even imagine in our minds. No fashion house on Earth could come up with a gown which comes close to the beauty that they are clothed in now and we will see them one day.

The love of God expressed toward us in light, His Light, is more beautiful and illuminating than anything that we have. Even our homes in Heaven will radiate with His Love and so will everything else in Heaven. That is why there is no darkness in Heaven, because every blade of grass, the trees, the water which flows from His throne, all of it will shimmer with His Love and His Light.

The darkness which tried to cause our lives to dim over the weekend did not have the effect that it was supposed to have. Because, the love and faith of the families involved in this tragedy grew stronger and it shined more brilliantly than it had before. Not because it wasn’t there before, but because it was needed for other things. Now, it is needed for comfort and strength and as a witness to all around that the Love of God can and does conquer death, hell and the grave!

Seek Him out if you don’t know Him. Read His Word and pray that you will come to a saving knowledge of Him, before a wreck or something else takes your life. Because, standing before Him is too late to realize the mistakes that you have made while living.

Is it time for you?


I am not speaking of the end of your life, I am speaking to your heart and the question is, “Is it time to make a decision about what you believe and Who you believe in?” It can be argued that nobody want to make this decision in today’s world. It seems that there are so many who think that they can take care of their spiritual life without God.

How foolish is that? Are you greater than God? Can you create a pound of gold by thinking about it? Can you keep your hair from turning grey for a couple of hundred years? Are you able to change the weather? No person on this earth can do this! The last person that could was and is Jesus Christ!

Many people think that He didn’t exist and if that is your idea and you don’t believe in Him then you can stop reading right now. Nothing that I say here will make a difference in your life if you won’t step out in faith and believe. Jesus loves you and He is the only way to Heaven and a life with God in eternity. No amount of money or works on Earth, no amount of help to the poor or orphans will get you in the door, because He is the Door.

Jesus told His disciples, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man comes unto the Father except through Me.” God loves you, every person who reads this! He provided the grace for our salvation through Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross. All that you have to do is seek Him, believe that He did this for you and ask Him into your heart and your life. Read the Bible with a prayer in your mind regarding the words which you read, God will provide the meaning and the application to your life while you read His Word!

Our God is an Awesome God and the Only God, all the other “gods” are not real. They are only imaginings of man’s mind. Give your heart to Jesus, He is the Only way for salvation and forgiveness. The priest can’t forgive you, your preacher can’t do it, a book can’t help, a man-made statue can’t do it either. Only Jesus can provide you with a forgiveness of your sins.

Our time comes when we least expect it. Sometimes we are ready for it, other times we are not. Many heartaches and troubles happen in our lives and sometimes those are brought on by Satan to stop us from getting closer to God. Some of them are brought into your life to drive you toward God. Which way will you turn? Who will you turn to? Today is a sad day in my community.

Two young lives, both less than twenty years old, were taken from their families today in a vehicle accident. Too much speed on wet roads will do that. This is something which could’ve been prevented, but it has happened and they are both before Jesus now. Your life doesn’t have a specific time limit, but your date with death will come regardless of the way that it comes. See that you are ready and that your heart is in Jesus’ hands, because your life…your eternal life will begin on that day one way or another.