Tag: God

Celebrating Easter


The idea that a rabbit has anything to do with Jesus’ resurrection came from a pagan ritual. The truth and the reason that we celebrate Easter is the resurrection of Jesus after His crucifixion! It has nothing to do with the spring of the year or eggs or rabbits but it has everything to do with your salvation!

Jesus died to ransom you from the penalty of your sins, regardless of what those sins are! It doesn’t matter if it is a lie that you told your Mom or your boss or your wife/husband, even that is a sin. It may be considered a small sin but in God’s eyes and in His universe this is no different from murder. Sins are just that, sins, regardless of the severity or consequences in our world! To a holy God, our God, sins are all the same regardless of the effect they have in this world.

This is a hard message to hear and to learn but it must be said because there is an eternity at stake and it is yours and mine! Think about what God might feel. He created all of us as His children, to learn about Him, to decide on our own to love Him because of what He does for us on a daily basis. Then, when we decide not to love Him and sin against Him, He feels it like a knife every time. Not just from one of us at a time but from everyone on earth!

We won’t be perfect even after we accept Christ as our Savior but we will have His righteousness to cover those sins that we do commit! We will still sin but we will know it, the Holy Spirit will let us know and we will want to follow Jesus’ footsteps toward the Father. If you haven’t allowed Him to change your heart and your life, please consider this…the fires of hell never go out and after your life on earth is over you will live forever regardless of where you are.

The eternal life that you live will have much more meaning and purpose if you serve Him now so you can serve Him then. If you choose not to allow Him into your life while you have this time on earth, (since we don’t know when our time ends we may not have another chance), your eternity will be very different from what it could have been!

Satan doesn’t care about you or your life other than getting you to choose not to follow Christ, as long as he can accomplish that he feels that he has hurt God more each time one of us chooses our own way instead of God’s way!

Our life…does it matter?


Many people ask this question and wonder if it does matter. The answer is YES! Because you are alive, you matter and your life matters! God doesn’t make mistakes and you wouldn’t be alive on this earth if your life didn’t matter in some way.

He has a purpose for each of us and all that we have to do is find it. Many people think that they will never find their purpose in life and they are right….if they never look for it! Your purpose or reason for being is, in a nutshell, to have a personal relationship with God. Everything else will fall into place after that, but until that part of your life is working like it should nothing will seem to be right. There will always be a feeling of loss or emptiness in your life and you will attempt to fill it with something.

That is why the drug trade and other problems that plague the “human condition” are so plentiful. Many people are looking for something, anything to fill that place that only Jesus can fill. In some of my other writings, if you want to call them that, I have called it a “God-sized hole”, and that is exactly what it is! It is a space that only one thing, one being in the universe can fulfill!

Your life matters to the Creator of the universe,you matter! Your life does have meaning and a purpose and He knows exactly what that is and He has given you the ability to fulfill that purpose. No one else can do that except Jesus and He will when you ask Him to come into your life.

Can you do it on your own? Yes, you can exist and have a life without Jesus but what will you do when you die? Our life doesn’t end when this body is dead. The Bible teaches that from beginning to end. We are supposed to live eternally with God but when you reject His offer of salvation through Jesus that eternal life will be in hell!

I have had many friends who said that they would rather party with Satan than live in Heaven.

I don’t understand that line of thought because there will be no party in hell! There will be no laughter, no fun, no light, no water, only separation from God and darkness and heat, lots of heat! That is why the Bible calls it the second death because without God or Jesus, there is no life!

Do your own research into the Bible. Read the New Testament, especially the book of Romans. There is a way to life and it is only found in Jesus, and then your life will matter, here and in the hereafter.

Our Lord’s model prayer


 

Our Father, which art in Heaven,

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done,

On earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us

Our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the Glory,

Forever.

Amen.

“Our Father”, we acknowledge that God is the Creator and Sustainer of all of us, as well as all of Creation itself. He is the Father of Jesus, our Savior and redeemer. He alone deserves our praise, not some god that man has fashioned from his imagination or from some part of creation itself.

“Which art in Heaven”, with these few words we are telling God that we know where He lives and we realize that He is above all, our thoughts, our ways and our sins. But, we are also acknowledging that we are, in spirit at least, there in our thoughts and in our longings.

 “Hallowed be thy name”; we know that God is holy and we humble ourselves before Him. Because of Who He is, we can do no less. We can’t comprehend God anymore than a bacterium can comprehend us!

“Thy Kingdom come”; here we are telling God that we want His Kingdom to come and we are acknowledging that it is and will be His Kingdom that we want to be a part of it with Him!

“Thy will be done”; we know that God’s will is sovereign and over all. His will is over all of Creation and nothing happens outside of His will. Jesus said that not even a sparrow falls from the sky without the Father noticing it. Because He is in touch with His Creation to that extent, how do you think He feels when we push Him away?

 “On earth as it is in Heaven”; we acknowledge that one day God’s will for us will be done on earth as in Heaven because He said so. The prophecies in God’s Word say that this will happen, therefore it will! There is no debate nor argument for or against this; God said it so it is done!

 “Give us this day our daily bread”; He will sustain us with His power and with our life’s work so that we can live for Him daily. If we choose not to live for Him, we are not forced but if He has a plan for our lives, circumstances will work toward getting us in line with His will eventually. Jonah found this out and we will too if we try to change things!

“Forgive us our debts”; we are to ask for His forgiveness for our sins humbly and willingly because we are guilty of being sinners.

 “As we forgive our debtors”; this is the hard part to digest because it simply means that we are forgiven in the same way that we forgive others. Once you have asked Jesus into your heart and life, you are forgiven but you are to forgive others too. If you can’t forgive others, how can you show that you have been changed into the likeness of Christ?

 “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”; God doesn’t lead us into temptation, Satan does that by enticing us with things which he knows that we will pay attention to. If we are being led by God on a daily basis we will not be led into temptation, but we will be given the strength to resist it!

In delivering us from evil, God will deliver us from the evil influence of Satan and his demons by His strength as long as we are relying on Him and not our own.

 “For Thine is the Kingdom”; we know that the Kingdom to come is the Lord’s and if we belong to Him, we will share in it. How could you not want to share in an eternal Kingdom with God?

“The power and the Glory, Forever”; God has always been, period. He is omnipotent or all-powerful. He is the Creator of everything from the smallest atom to the largest galaxy and everything in between! All of these things that He created show His wonderful majesty and awesome power! Our God, His Son, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are three in One and between them and their influence in our universe everything works, PERIOD!

This is just a small part of what Jesus said while He was here, but what a mighty impact it has had. Many people pray that prayer as their prayer but it is supposed to be a model for us to pray, not a memorized prayer! We don’t have to pray exactly the way this prayer is laid out, but as long as we acknowledge Who is in control and give Him our petitions and problems and have the faith that He will work things together in our lives for our good and for His Glory, we only need to lean on Him in prayerful dependence with faith like a child.

He loves us more than we can comprehend. The only thing that is required from us is to love Him, we don’t have to but don’t you want to! God gives us all that we ever need or that we could want, not out of necessity but out of love for us. He doesn’t supply all the money that we want but He does supply our needs, because He knows each of us far better than we do.

 Give your heart and your life to Him and all things will work together for your life in His will and for the good pleasure of Him who sustains you.

New creation, same old body


How can I be a new creation after Christ has entered my life? Is it possible that I let Him in by mistake? The answers to these questions are: you can’t and you didn’t!

We can’t be a new creation on our own, but by the power of the Holy Spirit who came into your heart when you truly accepted Jesus, you are. It is not something which will be heralded by angels or by some miraculous healing, but it is a transformation of your spirit. You become aligned with one of the Trinity and by His power you are a new creation!

The second question from above is not possible because unless God calls you spiritually and you respond by giving your heart and life to Jesus, you can’t and you won’t be His. You may go to church and be a deacon or a Gideon, you might even become a missionary overseas but you will be doing these things under your own power and not by the power of the Holy Spirit.

That being said, I do not mean that you aren’t a good person, but you can be a “fan” of Jesus and not a follower. By that I mean the same as someone who is a fan of a particular sport. You are a true fan but you don’t play professionally. You know about the sport or the person Jesus, you have heard and read many parts of the Bible, but until you let Him into your life and your heart and truly become a follower like His disciples were, you are just a fan and nothing more.

It is wonderful to be a fan of Jesus, but until you can say truthfully that you love Him and know Him from His word, that is all that you are. You are not a new creation because you don’t have Him in your heart! This is a hard truth that many in the church today have a problem with and many who have been in church and who have left also have a problem with it. Being a member of a church and attendance every time there is a function at the church doesn’t do anything for you spiritually anymore than being in a garage makes you a car!

Until you can ask Jesus into your life and your heart and live that way daily, not just on Sunday, you haven’t changed! Until God calls you to be that new creation and you answer that call by asking Jesus into your heart, you aren’t a new creation!

Oh, but when you do answer His call on your life, everything changes! Your life takes on a new meaning, your relationship with everyone becomes more meaningful, your whole character changes because you are not the same anymore! Your heart and your mind will begin to reflect the attitude and the person of Christ and everyone will know it, even if you don’t say anything about your decision.

God wants all of humanity to come to Him. Whether we choose to do so is our individual choice. It is not forced because love cannot be forced. He won’t make you love Him because that is not love. Choose Life from the Sustainer and the Creator of all life because when you do, you will be a new creation! All of the old habits won’t have the same hold on you, your friends will either like the “new you” or they won’t. Give Jesus a chance in your life and your heart because He is the longing that we have been searching for and didn’t know that He was it!

How does Jesus know me?


God and Jesus both see us, each of us, as beautiful beings. Whether male or female, tall or short, dark skinned or light, they see us as we really are. They do not see us the way our family sees us or as our friends see us. They don’t even see us the way we see ourselves!

They know us more deeply than anyone can know us because they formed us and knew exactly what they wanted us to be. All of the warts and the beauty and forgetfulness and the genius that each of us have, they put it there. It was done for a reason and a purpose, God’s purpose. Each of our traits is something which can be used by God in ways that only He knows and for His purposes.

Your life and mine don’t belong to us individually. We belong to God and it doesn’t matter if you have given your heart to Him or not. If you are going to be part of His plan and His kingdom and a worker for Him, you will eventually. He will see to it. Your life will work out in such a way as to bring you into God’s family and then you can begin to live for Him!

We are truly not designed to live for ourselves; there is a God-shaped place in our being that needs Him. When we haven’t found Him, we try to put other things in that place but none of them fit. So many people search and try many, many different things to fill that place and yet none of them satisfy the longing. The longing that we have for Him, for a real relationship with Him will never go away until we ask Him to come into that place.

Jesus is the answer and He is the One which fits in that place. We can have a true relationship with Him daily, hourly even, if we want it. He doesn’t push himself into our life and He won’t because He wants us to want Him. If we were forced, there would be no love toward Him from us. God and Jesus want the same relationship that they had with Adam before the fall. Daily communion from us to them and back again, forever.

On our own and with the baggage that we carry in our lives, we are not worthy of such an intimate relationship, particularly with the Creator who is Perfect and eternal. The only way that we can be worthy is by asking Jesus into our life and into our hearts so that the space in our being can be filled with the One which it is designed for. Nothing else will fit and nothing else will satisfy. Give Jesus a chance to change your life into the life that He knows you can have!

In our culture today we have so many ways of looking at information. We have the Internet, from our computers and our phones. We have television which comes to us from cable or satellite with news from all over the world. All of this is nearly instantaneous and still we aren’t satisfied with what we have. Our food is cooked in microwave ovens in a few seconds, we go through the drive-through at McDonald’s or Wendy’s or wherever we go. Our culture is based on “instant gratification” and like spoiled children we want it NOW!

 

Can we have a relationship with Jesus right NOW the same way that the disciples had? I believe that we can if we are willing to put our heart into it. Jesus wants to have a relationship with us as intimate as any that we have with our families. When we have sin in our lives, the relationship is damaged, but not irreparable.  Sin creeps into our lives in small things and thoughts and words. Sin is like that, just one puff, just one little drink. Then pretty soon here comes another tentacle, just a thought or just a lustful look. But then here comes another tentacle. Just a little lie, a slight rearrangement of the truth, & out comes another tentacle & soon we are completely entangled and feeling helpless.

But, we are not alone in our fight against sin and Satan. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are always there to guide us and direct our paths and our thoughts. All we have to do is reach out to Him through prayer, acknowledging that we can’t do it alone but with His strength we can get through anything.

Jesus knows the people that He created us to be and He knows the abilities that we have even better than we do. Some people, like me, don’t know what they can do until God calls them. When He calls, He will give you the words and the abilities to accomplish His purpose in your life and in the place where He has planted you.

Five minutes after I die….


Ask yourself, “Five minutes after I die, what will I wish I would have given on behalf of the helpless while I still had the chance?”

Many people may say that this is a foolish question because there is no afterlife, but what if they or you are wrong? What will you say or do after this life is over and the next existence begins? Will you have a real existence after this life?

The answer to all of these questions is “It depends”. It depends on what you did in this life and whom you were following through life. If you took care of yourself and your immediate family, that is good but it is also selfish. Did you give your life to anything greater or any One? Could you have made a real difference in other people’s lives if you had been a Christian? Yes! There are many things which you could do to help others with our own strength, but with Christ living in your heart and working through you, you can do so much more.

Is it possible for us to go through life without Christ? Yes, but why would you want to? Having Him near everyday gives me such peace and the knowledge that I can speak to Him about anything at any time is reassuring. I feel that part of my life that was empty at one time is full now and the One that filled it was Jesus.

It also gives me the assurance that when I die, I will be with Jesus and the rest of my family who are in Heaven already. We will serve the Lord with gladness throughout eternity and that assurance gives me hope because it is a future without end!

Ask Jesus into your heart and ask forgiveness for your life before He came to you. Once you do that, your life will never be the same but it will be better than it was!

 

What we should be doing


praying-hands-258x300In our time alone with God, when we are not alone but with the Creator of everything, we should be praying. Our lives are merely His to work out His will on this earth, regardless of how we feel about Him or even if we acknowledge Him at all. If by some chance, you know Him but don’t pray much, He is waiting patiently.

All of the gifts and blessings of this life come from God. Satan has a hand in all of the bad things which happen to people, but only so far as God allows him to go.  God is in control and always has been, so there is no reason to worry about your life or what you will eat because God feeds the birds and He cares enough for you to do the same in your situation.

There is so much more that God can and will do for you and all that you have to do is ask Him into your heart and life. When you have done that, I am not saying that your life will be rosy from that point on, but He will give you the assurance that His love brings and the strength to carry you through.

My life is out of control, HELP!


What happens when you feel this way? Do you panic or call a friend? Do you feel that this is what happens to people when they have nowhere to go or anyone to turn to? I have heard from and talked with many people who think that when this happens, there is nowhere to go or no one to go to.

Our educational system in this country has pushed God out of the classroom so much that children and teenagers may not have any concept of Him at all. If they have never been to church or bible school, they certainly wouldn’t have any concept of Him. As someone who lives in the “Bible-belt” it is hard for me to imagine anyone not knowing about Christ but I know that there are some people who have never heard of Him and His grace toward us.

Our Savior is the Creator of everything, but He is also a friend who loves each of us more dearly than we can imagine! His Word, the Bible, is full of stories of His love toward us and His chosen people, Israel. When you read it from cover to cover, you find that it is not a book of rules about what you can’t do but it is an instruction book. One that suggests ways of doing things with your life that will inspire others to do the same. It is also the living Word of God, so when you read it the message that you get from it will be different each time.

God’s Word will also influence your life in ways that you might never have considered before. Our Lord loves all people because He had a hand in creating each person on the earth. The problems that we experience in this life are felt by God because He knows each person whether they know Him or not. Remember, according to Jesus, “Are not two sparrows sold for a pennyd? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.” Matthew 10:29

Our God cares for this world enough that He watches over the sparrows as well as all other creatures, including us. Even when you think that He is not watching or listening, He is, and even though our world is coming to the end of the church age, He is carefully watching everything.

Our world is under the influence of Satan and as such we experience many deceptions and hardships because of him. Although he is not in control of our world, he just influences things which happen here, God is in control and He allows Satan to do some things as long as those things follow His will.

When life and trouble seems to be too much, look to Jesus. Ask Him to help you overcome the problems which seem to be too big because even though they may be too big for you to handle, they are not too big for God. When you have come to the end of your rope and hope seems to have faded, trust in Jesus. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life as well as our Savior and Friend. He is the Creator of all things and the King of Kings who gave His life to pay the price so that we don’t have to! All you have to do is ask Him into your heart and believe that He is Who He is, then repent and follow Him.

What will you do with Jesus?


After you have asked Him to come into your life, what then? Can you just go back to being the same person you have always been?

If there was true repentance and acceptance of His Lordship over your life, it is not possible for you to return to your old life and habits. Your heart and your Spirit won’t let you and your conscience won’t allow it either.

Can you ignore the prompting of the Spirit and your conscience and return to your old life? Yes, you can and each time you ignore the prompting of the Spirit, it will become easier and easier until you quench the Spirit entirely. Then you will be just another hypocrite who said they got saved and then turned away from it.

Will you feel good about doing so? At first you won’t, but eventually that small voice in your heart will go silent. Like ignoring your wife or your parents, it becomes easier with time until one day you don’t notice it at all.

Satan loves it when a “Christian” returns to their old ways because he has been watching you closely and so have your friends. If this was genuine, true repentance you wouldn’t turn away like Lot’s wife did. Why does this happen? In our society today people look for easy ways to get their way or what they want.

This has been happening ever since humans have been on the planet, so it is nothing new. Society hasn’t changed all that much in the thousands of years that we have been here. The facts speak to us from the pages of the Bible.

When they were in the wilderness and thought that Moses had died while talking to God, they begged Aaron to make them a god like the gods of Egypt. The Israelites wanted a god they could see and touch in the wilderness, even though they had seen the miracles that were wrought by God to bring them out of Egypt.

Then when they were in Canaan, they did not do as God had told them and they intermingled with some of the inhabitants of the land. Eventually, they began worshiping their gods and doing the detestable things that the Canaanites did, like sacrificing their children to a piece of wood or stone.

Our so-called modern society isn’t much different. We work more hours than our fore-fathers did, sacrificing our family life and our relationships with our children in the process in order to have “stuff” like everyone else. Our neighbors buy a new car or truck, so we think we have to have one as good or better. Your child comes home and tells you that Jordan or Sarah has this kind of game or toy, so you go get then one just like it.

Why? Why do we have to do or be like everyone else in the world when our Lord said that we were to be in the world but not of the world? This is not in the Bible word for word, but He meant that we are no longer ruled by sin which is of the world. When we come to Him and give our heart to Him, we are His and to be that which He wants us to be we have to be different. Different in ways that the world can see and therefore want to have. But, it is striving each day that makes us this way because the temptations are there every day. As children we may not see it as much as adults do, but the world, Egypt, whatever you call it is there and the ruler of our sinful world is Satan.

Satan and his fallen angels are real, whether we can see them or not and they rule over this world by tempting us and causing us to fall from the grace which we have been granted through Jesus. Some might ask, “Will I lose my salvation because of this?”. Losing your salvation is not possible in a real sense, except when you walk away from it yourself. Your witness to others will be affected because they might see that your life changed and then when you walk away from it for some reason they question if you were saved to begin with.

A person who has truly given their life and heart to Christ cannot just walk away from it because you have been changed from the inside out. If that change never really took place, if you never truly gave your heart to Him who sacrificed everything, then you never belonged to Him in the first place. Churches are full of people who think that they are Christians because they are in church and have belonged to it for a long time. They tithe, they volunteer for projects and help in the church, some may be deacons or even lay ministers. You can do most or all of these things in the church under your own strength and still not be a true Christian!

The ones you know that are easily identified as Christians, may not have Christ at all. True Christians, those who have Him in their life and in their heart, are humble and are usually behind the scenes. Not all of them are this way, but many are. Their life reflects the humility of Christ and His way of serving. Many so-called “upstanding pillars” are more like the priest who told God how great he was and that he was glad that he was not like the sinner who was in the temple with him.

As Jesus’ story illustrated, the person who went away justified was the sinner because he acknowledged that he was a sinner and asked forgiveness for it.

The priest only magnified himself in the eyes of those who may have heart him, not in the eyes of God. Pride was the sin he was guilty of that day and he didn’t even acknowledge his sinfulness.

God knows your heart, so bare it to Him. Ask Him to show you how to be His, ask Him to help you be the vessel that He knows that you can be. He will give you the strength and the wisdom from His word, the Bible so don’t neglect the reading of it. Even a few minutes each day can make a big impact in your walk with Him and in your service to Him.

God, the Creator of everything, is waiting for you to answer His calling on your life. We are important to Him, He cares for us and wants us to know it and to show it to others by allowing others to see what He has done in our life.

Through modeling and reflecting Jesus’ character by what we do and say everyday, we magnify God to the world. Isn’t that an awesome and humbling responsibility? Think about that as you go through this week.

 

The Apocalypse of 2012?


In reference to the end of the Aztec calendar, maybe but not likely the end of the world as we know it. At least not yet! Nobody knows when the world will come to its end but the alignment of planets with the center of the galaxy won’t bring it about.

The end of the world as foretold in the Bible is also in our future and it is foretold in the Koran as well but trying to cause it to happen will not work. Praying that it will end tomorrow or the day after that won’t work either. It will be when it will be and nothing that we or anyone in the world does will cause it to begin sooner.

God can and does see the end from the beginning so only He knows when the end will come. The book of Revelation tells about many things which will happen at that time but the timing of the 70th week of Daniel is up to God and no one else.

The world and many people around the world are expecting something to happen this year. Something may happen, but we don’t know what or when because only God knows that. If there is a person who comes on television or the Internet and says that the world will end on such and such day, don’t believe them.

The future of our world is in God’s hands but Satan is in control on earth, at least as far as God will allow him to be. We have more to fear from those who hate Israel and Christians than we do from the doom-sayers that are pointing to global warming and the other possible scenarios that some say “may happen” this year.

A revival in this country and in the world itself should be our priority right now. Make sure that your heart belongs to Jesus because in the end, whenever it comes, eternity will depend on that one decision alone! Search the Bible, ask God to show you His wisdom and open your mind and heart to the Truth that is in the scriptures. He will never abandon you or forsake you but you have to be willing to ask Him to come into your life. He will not force you to do anything, it is your decision alone so make the one that will benefit you rather than condemn you.

God doesn’t want anyone to perish apart from Him but if you choose to go through life without making the choice to accept Jesus as your Savior, you will. It doesn’t matter if you were raised in a Christian, church-attending family because association doesn’t mean anything unless your heart has been changed and filled with the Love of Christ. Many people who have filled pews in churches will be in hell because of that one decision that they failed to make because they thought they were religious enough the get into Heaven.

That is the biggest lie ever to come from Satan…the one that says “all I have to do is join the church and I will have my “fire-insurance”!” Religion doesn’t save your soul, regardless of which religion it is. The worst disaster in history won’t hold a candle to the time of Tribulation that is coming. No amount of religion will save anyone from that time, only by accepting Christ as your Lord and Savior will you be able to stand in that day! I don’t know when that time will come, no one does, but it is not far off. Your personal meeting with God could be tomorrow since we are not guaranteed any number of days or years, so don’t put it off any longer. I pray that everyone who reads this will pray and read the Bible in order to at least have an idea what they need to do.