Tag: Heaven

What good are the Ten Commandments?


Today, do we still need the Ten Commandments? Are they relevant to our time and our lives today? Many people don’t think so today. According to most of those who don’t want to know about God and don’t want to believe anything that is contained within the Bible, these laws are null and void. According to them, God’s Word was made up by men so it has no authority. They even postulate that it had no authority at the time it was written and it specifically hasn’t any today!

Why is that? Our laws are based upon the laws given by Moses! We have laws against adultery, murder, perjury (lying under oath), stealing, neglecting your parents in their old age (honor your father and mother). Granted, you won’t go to jail for cheating on your wife or your husband, but if you are found out the divorce will cost you something! Dependent on how forgiving your spouse is, it may or may not cost you your life!

The Ten Commandments were given to begin to show people that they need a Savior, because there is no way that we can keep them perfectly. It just can’t be done, because by breaking even one of them, you have become guilty of all of them. If you have ever stolen anything, no matter how small or inconsequential it might have been, you are a thief. If you lied to your Mom or Dad about it, now you are a liar and a thief. Any one of these sins will keep you from having a relationship with God, but the most important decision of your life has nothing to do with these!

The most important time of your life is to realize that you are a sinner, separated from God and then to realize that you need Jesus in your life! That is the purpose of these Commandments! To make you realize your sin, regardless of your faith! If you have heard them or read them, then your heart will let you know when you break them. That is their purpose, to bring you to the point where you know that you need Jesus.

Your decision, the one which will determine your eternity, is whether you will accept God’s grace to you through Jesus or not. That is what decides your final destination, not a loving God. He didn’t create hell for any of us, it was created to punish the angels and Satan who rebelled against God. We have always had a reservation, an invitation to Heaven, all we have to do is accept Jesus as our personal Savior and when we follow Him, we will be where He is, where our reward is, in Heaven. It is your decision and yours alone that determines your eternity, this is why we were given a choice because God wants us to choose to serve Him!

Even the angels have a choice, they are not required by instinct or design to serve God. We are created with a spirit of choice as well. We can choose to live by the rules of the world and do what we want to do, trying to do it all on our own,to see if we can be good enough, righteous enough to earn our way into heaven. Except, we are flawed because of our sinful nature and we can’t be perfect enough, righteous enough to earn our way. Jesus is the only way into Heaven because He paid the price of a perfect sacrifice for all of mankind and all that we have to do is accept it and believe that He did it for us.

Don’t believe the lie that time is on your side, because that is a deception from Satan himself. He is using that to make you believe that you have plenty of time to make your decision. The problem with that is that none of us are guaranteed tomorrow, we don’t know if we will wake up when the alarm goes off tomorrow or if we will open our eyes to gaze at the judgment seat of God!

Truthfully, I am not trying to frighten you, I am not saying that your life might end tonight. But, kids who were just 19 years old have died in their sleep, people get killed in accidents every day, none of them saw this coming, none of them knew that it was about to happen, but it did. What if, for the sake of your eternal soul, I am right. What will happen to you if you have not asked Jesus into your heart? It will not be God’s fault that you will end up in hell, it will be yours! Because you have heard the message and the way out of hell is faith and acceptance of Jesus as your Savior. There is no other way. Religion won’t save you, your own version of righteousness won’t pay your way into Heaven, none of your wealth on Earth will go with you and it won’t help.

The only way into Heaven is by faith in Jesus.

 

What shall we do then?


Should we believe the testimony of man as many seem to do in the world today or should we cling to our salvation through Jesus?

There are many today that are leading people in the wrong direction, some of them supposedly doing this from their pulpit in the church. What will become of them and their followers? If they will pray and humble their hearts toward the God that is spoken of in the bible, then they can and will be saved from their transgressions. Yet, many people today place their faith in the messenger rather than the message. This was a fine thing to do when Jesus was the messenger before He ascended back into Heaven, but today the messengers are just as flawed and sinful and the one bringing the message (yes, I am including myself in this ).

We are all flawed, sinful human beings and none of us who stand on this earth are any better than anyone else, but there are some who think that they are and they are the ones who are leading others astray. They are subtle, like the one that they are serving and not the One that they think they are serving. Many deceivers are present in this world today, but they have learned well. The message that they bring is wrapped in words that are beguiling, some of them from centuries past, some of them from recent times but their meaning is that we can do it ourselves and we don’t need God’s help.

We cannot do it without Him! Can you command a storm or rain on parched ground? Can you tell the sun to come up an hour later today? We are the created and not the Creator, only He can do those things if it pleases Him to do so! It would bring glory to Him and would make us see that He is in control and not us, but there are many today who would scoff at signs like these.

Our God, the only God, is in control even when things seem to be going wrong. We only have to place our faith and our trust in Him because He will bring about good things from what we see as bad. Our times and our time-table don’t line up with His unless we are surrendered to Him and know Him by His Word. When we walk with Him daily, then our wants and our desires will be the same as His, although we will still be attacked by Satan and his demons in very subtle ways.

Some of those will be our own feelings like depression or feelings of not being in control, which we are not, or even emotions which overwhelm us to the point of hopelessness. All of these come from the one being who is trying to derail your faith and your belief in God and His Son. This has always been the goal ever since Eve decided to follow her own desires rather than listening to Adam and God.

Before anyone gets upset or thinks that I am blaming Eve for our problems, I want to make it clear that she had encountered a master of lies, Satan himself. Adam couldn’t have withstood him either and he didn’t so it wasn’t the woman’s fault! They both knew what God had commanded, yet they chose to follow their own desires. God knew that this was coming before they did so it wasn’t a surprise but it still hurt His feelings just the same.

If we really knew Him and the awesome power that is being held back because of His love for us and the grace that has been given to us through Jesus, we would be humbled beyond measure. Considering His power to create or destroy with a word, how could you tell Him that you don’t believe in Him? What pitiful arrogance we have to confront the Creator of everything and then tell Him that we don’t think that He is real so we won’t believe in Him!!

These words and deeds are being done all over the world today. In different ways and different words but the message toward God is the same. We should be on our knees begging Him to forgive us and to take us as His sons, pitiful though we are, and make us as His servants just so we can have a place at His table if nothing else!

The time is coming when mankind will bow to Him. When that time is, no one knows but it is coming and soon. The prophecies of His Word are clear enough for all to understand and we are in what is called the “birth pangs” prior to that time. We will know when that time has come, but for many it will be too late. Read God’s Word, study it carefully, pray over it so that you will understand what you read and then get your heart ready for Him, ask Him into your life because He is the only cure for what is ailing our world and each of our lives.

Your life and mine is but a whisper


If we look at the time of our existence, the time that we have to make a difference, it truly is but a whisper. Like smoke or your breath in winter, there but a moment and then gone. I know that many look at this and say: “What about those who live to be 8 or 9 decades old or more?”

Is that a really long time in comparison to one thousand years or more? It is not and we were created by God with an immortal soul, one that will never die. So, when you compare our lifetime with an eternity that doesn’t have an ending, it doesn’t matter if we lived for five hundred years it is still like a puff of smoke.

What will you do with the little time that you have? Will you use it selfishly, doing what you want, playing around like a child most of your life and then wondering why you feel so empty? Many people try to fill that empty space with all sorts of fun things like drinking alcohol or using drugs to make them “feel better” but what do those things do for you? Make you feel worse in the end. I know because I have been there. I did those things, even though at the time I supposedly knew Jesus. I wanted to see what the fuss was about.

I didn’t like the way that I felt afterward because I usually felt worse than I had before. Our life and what we do with it is supposed to mean something, we are here to do the work that God has placed us here for. But the only way that we will ever learn that purpose is to submit our life and our hearts to Jesus. I know, submission is not something which we like to do. But, consider this: Jesus came from Heaven to be clothed in humanity in order to be the perfect sacrifice that would pay the penalty for everyone’s sin (from the beginning to the end of the age).

He did this for each one of us and He would’ve done it even if there was only one person to be saved! That kind of love is the kind that we don’t understand and cannot understand with our limited perspective.

God loves each of us enough that He sent a part of Himself to take the punishment for us because there was no other way to do it. He knew this from the beginning, but He allowed us to try our way first and He still allows us the choice, even though it grieves His heart when we don’t choose to ask Jesus into our lives.

Our purpose which we were created for is to glorify God and His mercy and to tell others about Him. The talent that each of us has in our chosen profession, whatever that may be, is secondary to this. The short time that we have to accomplish our life and our purpose is the only time that we will have prior to eternity. Life doesn’t end when your body dies, because your soul lives on.

God is in control of all things and works toward the completion of His purpose whether we can see it or not. The so-called “ruler” of this world, Satan, thinks that he can win but a created being cannot overpower the Creator! Satan hates us because God intended to give us dominion over the earth and all of creation which God placed here. He also hates us because of the favor that God bestowed on us even though we are made of clay. The favor that we received is our soul, the breath of God which made us the way we are and what we are to be!

Nothing can separate us from God’s love except us. We can choose to walk away from it, not believe in it or deny Him altogether…but He still loves us! It is our pride that causes most of our problems today because it is the principle sin! It was pride that was used against us when Satan tempted Eve and Adam and we have been falling into it ever since. Comments are welcome, but advertisements will be deleted.

What is the truth?


Is the truth found in our everyday lives? Can each of us have our own version of what is true or not? If we did, then everyone would be fighting over which truth was or is the real one! How can we know which truth is the right one? Is it the one that we are taught as children by our parents or is the truth that we are taught in school or college the correct one? What about if we make up our own truth, wouldn’t that be the one for us? If so, then which truth is the one for my next door neighbor or the people who live in the next country?

People have been arguing over the truth or a lie for centuries without either side knowing which one is correct. So, how can we be sure about the validity of the truth? The only real, way is to ask the author and finisher of Truth, Jesus! How can we know what the truth is if we don’t read God‘s Word on it because His Word is truth!

The Word of God is the truth regardless of what truth you may be looking for. So how can we know that it is the truth? Simple, if God’s Word is not the truth, then we have absolutely no hope!Nothing in the mind of man can save us from the judgement to come if we have not accepted Jesus as our Savior!

There is no religion which was conceived by man which will get you into Heaven because we are sinful creatures! We are not able to save ourselves from destruction and judgement and we cannot be sinless on our own merits. Jesus came to pay the price for us because He is the only One who could and He did! He obeyed the Father‘s will and submitted Himself to the hands of man to be put to death on the cross! The only thing that we can do is to trust in Him and believe in Him and the work that He did for us, then submit our life to Him so that we can tell others!

The Truth is that God loved us before we were born and sent His perfect Son to be the sacrifice which would satisfy all of the requirements of the Law that we cannot! Jesus did this for all of mankind, whether we each accept it as a gift of grace from God or not is our choice! It is not forced upon us, we are not required to act on this knowledge but it is for our own good that we do so! It is provided for us, without cost or obligation, but we need to realize that it is for our own salvation and for the glory of God! It is our responsibility to give our lives as living sacrifices to God daily because it is the least that we can do in light of what He did for us.

The truth is that God does not need us, but He wants us to know that He loves us and has provided all of the provision, the sacrifice needed for us to have the righteousness of Christ imputed to us through our acceptance of Him! God created each of us with knowledge of Him and the moral goodness that is needed for us to live in our societies, whether we have lived that way or not is our own choice and the product of our upbringing. Even those who have never had a sermon preached to them know that there is something more than what they have, and they search for it. They try to find it in many things or in drugs or alcohol or even sex but none of these satisfies their craving because the only way to fill that empty space is with Jesus!

 

Our Amazing God!


I have written about this before, but it bears repeating. That our God, the Creator of the universe is amazing! All of the life that is on our planet, not just humanity, but all of the living organisms from single celled life, to the blue whales which traverse the oceans and every tree and blade of grass was created by Him with a word, how amazing is that!

Can any other “god” claim to have done this? No, they cannot because they didn’t and cannot do what our God can do. Have you considered the wonders of our world and the universe that we live in? This did not happen by chance, nor did it happen by accident, it came together because God wanted it to!

He sent His Son to earth as the final sacrifice for our sins and if you believe in Him and the grace that is given to you through Jesus, then you are part of His family and joint heirs with Christ in Heaven! Isn’t that humbling? Isn’t it a powerful expression of love from God to each of us? Yes, it is on both counts because if God didn’t love each of us He wouldn’t have done the things that He has done for us.

He would not have sent His Son and He wouldn’t give us this place that we call home, if He didn’t love us beyond any love that we can comprehend. If God is drawing you to Himself, please don’t walk away from Him, reach out and ask Him into your life and your heart. You will know if He is drawing you to Him and when you recognize it, please don’t ignore Him. Your life before accepting Him is nothing compared to what it can be after accepting Him. Serving Him through your job and the life that you live before your family is an awesome responsibility, because they need to know Him too and if they only see Him through you then that is needed, you are needed by Him to be that witness.

There is so much darkness in our world today that many people can’t see or even tell that there is a light and that light is the love of God and His Son! John wrote in his gospel that:

16. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:16,17)

The world doesn’t know Him because it and those who are in it don’t want to know Him. They are like the ones in Jesus’ time that refused His message, and refused to believe in Him. In the book of Matthew is this verse “For many are called but only a few are chosen” Matthew 22:14

Those who are chose are the ones who will answer the call of God on their spirit, because some will and some won’t. If you think you can live your life without God, you are right, you can…but your life will be limited to this world. Once your life is over here, you will face God Himself and when you do He will ask you what you chose to do with Jesus even though He knows the answer. If you have not accepted Jesus as your Savior, then He will send you into a place of punishment forever because of your decision!

Please don’t let that be you! Give your life to Jesus, ask Him to come into your life, read a Bible and learn Who He is and how He much He loves you. Learn about Him, find out what He can do for you and what He can do through you. Your life will change into one of significance not only in this life but into eternity. Pray about it and ask Him to show you His wisdom for your life, because He will.

 

Trying to reach the moon


Trying to reach the moon

Three men were being chased.  Suddenly, they came to a cliff top with the ocean waters far below.  Seeing the moon shining brightly in the night sky, they agreed that if they could jump to the moon, they would be safe.  The first man, a cripple, hobbled as fast as he could and leapt from the cliff.  He jumped less than a metre before he fell screaming to the jagged rocks below.

The other two men agreed that he hadn’t jumped far enough.  So the second man, of average fitness, took a running leap. He flew out five metres before he, too, plummeted to the jagged rocks far below.

The last man, the strongest of the three, decided he should take an extra-long run-up to reach the moon.  So, at great speed he leapt from the cliff.  He soared through the air with outstretched arms in order to reach the moon, but he, too, fell short and plummeted screaming to the jagged rocks below.  He had leapt an impressive eight metres; however, he didn’t realize that the distance to the moon was 221 463 miles.

The distance between our righteousness and God’s righteousness is greater than the distance between the earth and the moon.  It is the distance between imperfection and perfection; the finite and the infinite; the east and the west.  It would be easier for us to jump to the moon than work our way into Heaven.  No matter how moral or how many good deeds we have done, we will always fall short.  If we could earn our own salvation, Christ died needlessly on the cross.  We are only saved through faith in Christ not by our meager good deeds. As Ephesians 2:8-9 states, ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast’. The big question now is do we accept God’s gift or try to get into Heaven by our own merit? (Romans 3:23)

This is a copy of an e-mail that I get from Ian and Sue Coate and it illustrates the problem of us attempting to reach Heaven on our own merit. We can’t do it! It would be like trying to span the distance from the East to the West, it is infinite so it is impossible for us, but it is not impossible for God. He does span the infinite because there is no beginning nor ending to Him. He stretched out the heavens and placed the stars and galaxies in their places so infinity is like walking in a park to God, since He created it! Yes, I did ask permission to use this. Think about the message contained here please! Remember, we are not guaranteed tomorrow so get your heart right with God today while you are here!

Are there any “nots” in your life?


Have you ever wondered whether you are good enough for God? Have you asked Him if you are good enough to get into Heaven? The answers to these questions are simple: yes, you are good enough for God and no, you are not good enough to get into Heaven!

Well, why not? Why am I not worthy to get into Heaven? It is because of our human nature and the fact that we are sinners from the time that we know right from wrong.

Can we change? Yes, but not on our own. Only by accepting Jesus into our lives and allowing Him to change us from our heart outward can there be any lasting change. This kind of change makes a difference not only in our lives but through our lives we are able to touch others because of it.

The change in us will be evident to others and they will want what we have because it gives us hope and peace. A peace that those in the world cannot understand.

Your life can be so much more than it is with Christ in it and yet, many people don’t want Him in their lives. To me, that doesn’t make sense but that is how life with Jesus is. If you have Him you can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want Him. If you don’t know Him, you can’t understand why anyone would want to.

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.

Can we do without Christ?


In my opinion, NO! I know that many would disagree. Many people try to live their lives without Christ and that’s OK but what will you do if the God‘s Word is true?

I have seen discussions about a world without Christ describing or attempting to describe how we would be better off without Him. How could that be possible?

If He had not come into the world there would be no Christian religion, no church unless the Catholic faith could come up with something else to worship, no love for anyone, no freedom. All of these things would be changed and hundreds more if He had not come. There would be no hope in our world, no thought of an eternal life with God in Heaven. Living like that would be unimaginable to me and to many others.

I know from the news media that there are many atheists, agnostics, and other religious or non-religious people who would like to see any reference to God or Jesus eradicated from our world or at least out of sight. How do you think this makes God feel toward us? How would you feel if someone that you love were continually telling you to leave and get out of my life? Don’t bother me anymore unless I need you. What would you do?

Thankfully, God’s patience is deeper than the ocean and wider too. If it were not, our world would already be experiencing judgement from an angry God. Some of you may remember a show called the Hulk on television. When the principle character was being pushed by someone he would usually tell them, “Don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I get angry.”

What about the Creator of the universe? He could wipe out the earth with a thought if He wished, but He won’t because of the promises that He made to the Jewish people. Our world is under the rule of Satan and his followers, whether we believe in him or not. We will be better off when we wake up and see the problems that we have are not caused by God or Allah or any other deity but by Satan himself who is not a god but a created being just like the angels of God.

The problems that we have in our lives are also caused by our own choices, right or wrong, good or bad. When we make choices based on our own thinking rather than asking God to help us, we open our lives, and the lives of those around us, up to the consequences of those choices. God wants to be involved in your life daily, He doesn’t want to control it but if you give your heart to Him you will change and the life that you live will be in line with Him and in His will if you allow it.

We are never forced into a relationship with Him and even when we accept Him as our Savior we have to initiate the daily walk with Him. We are not forced to do it. So to answer the question posed in the title, yes we can live without Christ but it will be an existence it will not be living. If you never ask Him to come into your heart and life, the consequences for eternity will not be fun the way some try to make you believe they will. Eternity is a long, long time so I think I would rather be counted among those living in Heaven with Him than with those in Hell without Him.

Humanity, the ungrateful child


A wealthy man had a son whom he loved very much.  He gave him gifts.  He spent every moment of the day teaching and caring for his son.  But as the boy grew into manhood, he turned away from his father and came to despise him – yet his father continued to support him hoping that he would come around.  He paid his bills, furnished him with a home and wrote to him.  But, instead of being grateful, the son ripped up the letters, ended all contact with him and cursed anyone who dared mention his father’s name in conversation.  However, he never stopped taking his father’s support.

Sadly, this ungrateful son illustrates humanity.  God is our heavenly Father and many of us imitate the son’s attitude.  God spends every moment with us, whether we know it or not:  giving, teaching and caring – yet, many turn away.  In spite of this, God still continues to care for us with the desire that we will come around.  He supplies us with the riches of the universe, things that cannot be measured in wealth (like sunshine, oxygen, gravity, atmosphere, environment and more); He has paid our bills (Christ on the cross) and written to us (the Bible).  We may curse God – but isn’t it ironic that we still expect Him to continue supporting – which, as the perfect Father, He does.

What would happen to us if we woke up one day and the sun had dimmed to one-tenth of its output? Or if the magnetic field which protects us failed and we were exposed to the radiation of the full spectrum, not just the visible light that we have come to know? Would we blame God or would we pray and repent, asking for His protection again? What would we do in that situation?

In the current condition that our world is in, we would look for all sorts of scientific reasons for what was happening. We would also attempt to find ways that we could protect ourselves, but if something like that happened to our world the only one who could do anything about it would be ignored. If any of the situations that are outlined above happened, the only One who could do anything about it would actually be blamed for it.  God is the only one that we should be turning to, not Allah, or Buddha or anything else. God loves us all, far more than we would ever understand. He is outside of time, for He created time. That is why all of time is seen by Him, today, yesterday and tomorrow are all there for Him to see. He knows exactly how long each of us has to live and serve Him, and He knows if or when we will come to know Him personally.

Our Lord created everything and everyone who ever lived or ever will live on this earth. He also created those who were supposed to be born but weren’t for one reason or another and even though He is in control, He doesn’t because He wants us to have the freedom to choose. Whether it is the choice to live for Him or the choice to have a baby or to finish school and become a doctor or whatever you want to be. Our lives would not be what they are if He controlled us to the point of not giving us that choice. He even gave the angels the right to choose to serve Him or not, that is why Satan was cast out of Heaven. He chose to become greater than the Most High, knowing that he could not but that was his choice.

We are, as a people and a planet, blessed to be cared for by the Creator of the universe. Our “frail, blue marble” of a world would not be so perfectly positioned if it were not for His hand. If you consider for a moment that when we breathe and move around in our homes or on the street, there are trillions of chemical reactions and cellular processes which occur all of the time just to move you. If all of these did not work perfectly every day, you-we would die! For instance, in our brains, there are more than one hundred thousand chemical reactions happening every second. So in the time that it took me to write this, over ten million reactions have taken place just during the last few sentences and that is only one of the organs in the body.

The point of this is that we had to have been created by a Creator who loves us and knows what we will do and what we can do. We did not come to be what we are and where we are because of evolution. Random mutations and accidents do not create life as we know it, God does! Bring your heart to Him and offer your life as a sacrifice so that He can use you, you will never regret it, I promise.