Tag: Holy Spirit

Your time and my time…


We sometimes look at a day or an hour and wonder where the time has gone. It seemed to go by so fast at times and then some days, even some hours go by so slow. As your teachers and your parents have said, it is all in your perception of it. So, why does it seem that our time is so short, especially when there are so many things that we would like to do?

Yes, we have children to take care of and jobs to go to, but those things only make the time seem to go by faster. I agree that being at a job seems to slow time to a crawl sometimes, but doesn’t that make you want some time off to be with your family?

Time is part of our existence from the moment that we are born. It is also part of the natural order of things that God created in our universe. We are subject to the so-called “march of time” as we perceive it, God is not. He can see all of your life and everything else from the beginning to end, any time that He wants to. He knows what you are doing now and tomorrow and even next week, so all you need to do is follow His lead in your life.

What can we do with our time? Many things, but the most important is to allow God to lead you through your life so that others can see Him through you and the things which you do every day. It seems that there are so many people who consider their lives to be important only to them and nobody else. Your life and everything that you do is important to God.

The way that you talk is important to Him. Your actions each day are important to Him. The words that you so to others and how you say them are important to Him. Why? Because, if you are a child of His and you are if you are a Christian, everything that you do is to glorify God and your life is supposed to reflect His so that others can see Him through you!

When you are in such a hurry that you endanger your life and the lives of your children just to get home a minute or so earlier, it says something about you. When you don’t have the patience to listen to someone who needs you to listen, that says something about you too. Patience is a virtue that comes from a relationship with God and if your walk with Him hasn’t produced patience in your life then you need to walk a bit closer to Him every day.

Don’t ask God to give you patience because it isn’t something that is handed out, but something that is learned. You won’t like the lesson, trust me! I made that mistake and I am just coming out of the class after a few years of lessons! Wisdom is also learned through patient study of God’s Word and they go hand in hand. Seek God’s Wisdom and His Kingdom through His Word and all of these will be added to you and your life.

Peace in our time?


“Since its inception in the 7th century, Islam has used the sword to advance its territory. It goes on to this day. The goal is to bring the world into submission to Sharia law. This is what motivates all these “terrorist” groups. ISIS is getting a lot of attention, but what is going on with Boko Haram against the people of Nigeria today is just as horrible. This practice of using force to compel conversion is a distinctive to Islam compared to the world’s other major religions.” (borrowed from another site afa.net)

Our world here in America and elsewhere is becoming much more dangerous, especially to Christians. Why? Because we don’t believe the same as other religions. Yet, people in America want tolerance from Christians toward everyone else’s beliefs and their lifestyles, but they can’t stand our beliefs. Talk about a double standard!!

It seems that people can’t comprehend the reason that Christians believe the way that they do, and I don’t understand this at all. The Bible, which is our guidebook and our Holy Book, is available almost everywhere. Most of it is part of Jewish belief as well since their Torah and much of our Old Testament are the same. Even Islam recognizes the Book and the Patriarchs and Jesus, although they don’t give them the same reverence that we do.

Peace in our life-time has been a common theme that many have tried to bring about for many hundreds of years, yet it is something which is either fleeting in its brevity or almost impossible due to cultural and religious differences. Is it possible? Yes, but it cannot be done through force and it will not come at the hands of a man, it will come about when Jesus returns and rules from Jerusalem.

Why do I say it this way? Because it is a fact. God has prophesied it in His Word and therefore that is the way that it will be. There is no argument and there is no other way that it will happen. Many people will fight against it and they will fail in the end. Like it or not, that is the way the future will be.

Christianity is not forced upon you. You will and always have had a choice to follow Jesus or not, but peace on the Earth will only come when He is ruling from Jerusalem. I am not speaking of the Anti-Christ, but the real Messiah, Jesus.

Yes, I know, many who might read this will not agree with me which is fine. I don’t expect nor require anyone to agree. I am just stating something which is prophesied to happen and it is going to happen. Whether you believe that I am delusional or not really doesn’t matter at all, I have been called worse.

God knows the hearts of men, regardless of their religion or their doctrine, and it is He that will judge each of us according to our faith and that which we have done or not done in this life. The things which have been done for His Kingdom will last, anything other than this will be destroyed. Your possessions and your money are all part of this world and it doesn’t matter how much you have of either. When  you die, regardless of the manner of your death, your “stuff” will be here for someone else to sell or enjoy. You will be in eternity and your decisions in this life for or against Jesus will determine where that eternity will be. So make the right choice.

Trust and obey, how can we do that today?


And she named the child Ichabod, saying, “The glory is departed from Israel”: because the ark of God was taken, and because of her father in law and her husband. (Isaiah 4:21)

At the wedding in Cana, Mary the mother of Jesus told the servants, His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”

In the first quote from Isaiah, it was a time of Israel’s departure from worshipping God. They were following all of the stuff that was around them in the promised land. The gods of the different people had enticed them, the people had enticed them and they had fallen out of love with God. Why? Because they had done it before, time and time again. People today ask, “How did the gods entice them?” Satan and his demons were the gods and they would cause things to happen from time to time so that the god seemed real, but the piece of wood or metal was still just as deaf and dumb as it was before. When the ark of God was taken from Israel, the Spirit of God did leave the Temple and the nation itself.

In the second quote above, the mother of Jesus told the servants to make sure that they did what He told them to do. Why? Because of Who He was and Who He is! Today, we have many churches which have formed their own doctrines and their own requirements for worship, but they are man-made! What good is that? Anything done by man or made by man will flop if it is not done for the Glory of God! If what you are doing in your life is only for yourself and nobody else, then it may work for a while but ultimately it will fail. It doesn’t matter if it is a business or your marriage, if you haven’t dedicated it to God and His Kingdom and make sure that you seek His Wisdom for it every day, then there will be trouble at some point. It may start as something small and insignificant but it will get worse.

Give your heart and your life as well as yourself to Jesus. Dedicate your marriage and your business to Him by giving ten percent of your increase to the church and God’s Kingdom. All of these are the beginning of wise living, the most important is giving yourself to Jesus and asking Him to come into your life. Live your life as if He was walking with you because if you have asked Him into your life, He is. Be careful of your business dealings, make sure that they would glorify God no matter what you do. The outward appearance of holiness without the inward man being renewed by Jesus, if like a white-washed tomb. It is pretty, but it isn’t clean. Just as you can clean up a hog and take it to the ring and show it off, but as soon as you let him out of the trailer at home, he will go straight to the mud wallow.

Living your life as Jesus would is the only way to show the world exactly Who it is that we follow. If they can’t see Jesus in your life, then He very likely isn’t in your life or your heart. Remember the clean hog? He is only clean until you let him out, then he goes right back to what he was doing before. Love and the power to change comes with Jesus, if you can’t show others both of those results in your life, then maybe you need the One Who can clean you up inside and out.

To finish the story from the wedding in Cana, Jesus told the servants to fill six water jars (about thirty gallons each) to the brim, then take it to the man in charge of the wedding. He told the groom, “Most people give the best wine at the first, then bring out the cheap wine. You have saved the best wine for last”.

It was because the servants did what Jesus told them to do that the miracle happened. The water was not special. Neither were the pots. What made the difference? First, it was the One who gave the command and second it was the obedience of the servants. Obedience is the thing which God has always looked for in us. From the Garden all the way through the Bible to the end of the age, it is our obedience, faithfully doing the will of God which brings the most blessings into our lives and in the lives of others.

Many people might ask the question, “How do I find the will of God for my life?”. That answer is simple: seek Him out in reading the Bible, prayer for His wisdom in your life, pray that He would reveal His will to you through His Word. Just as Jesus said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all of these things will be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33

The Wisdom of God is contained within the pages of our Bibles, all that you need to do is read it, study it, pray over it and seek Him in it. Then pray about the things which you feel led to do by His Spirit. If He leads you to come to Him in repentance, then do that! It doesn’t matter how many years you have been in church! If you have been a member of a church for five years or fifty, that won’t save you if you haven’t given your heart to Jesus and asked Him to change you into what and who He knows you can be!

Live for Him, allow Him to live and work through you every day, because this is how many people will come to know Him and your example may be the only time that they ever meet Jesus before the end of their life. Make sure that they recognize Him through you.

Is there punishment in eternity?


I have seen people and I have heard some in churches and magazines claiming that there is no hell. God wouldn’t do that! A loving God wouldn’t do that! That is absurd!

OK, so Satan is going to be admitted back into Heaven and forgiven along with all of his compatriots, is this what that means? The Bible, the Word of God, has been speaking of Sheol and hell for a very long time. It was created for the punishment of Satan and his fallen angels.

But, those who oppose God and His teachings and who do not accept Jesus as their Savior are in the same camp, the same place as Satan. They are unwilling to give their lives and their hearts to Jesus, and they don’t believe in God. At least Satan knows that there is a God, he just doesn’t want to serve Him!

God loves all of humanity and everyone has been given a chance to become Christians and to serve God in whatever capacity that they can. You are not required to become a missionary or a preacher or an evangelist. Just be yourself, but reflect Jesus in all that you do!

There is no grey area where good and evil or black and white is concerned, it is a clear division just the same as the difference between those who believe in and serve God and those who refuse to do so. Anyone who believes that they can be a “casual Christian” on Sunday and then go out and do whatever they want until they come back to church or find that they really need God, is just wrong.

Just as you can’t have a kosher hog or even be “a little bit pregnant”, or have a dark sky with the sun shining, you can’t be a “casual Christian”. You either are or you are not!

Hell is a place just as Heaven is a place. It is not a state of mind. Why would the rich man ask Moses to allow Lazarus to dip his finger in the water to cool his tongue if it were a “state of mind”? It is not God who sends those who choose to refuse Jesus’ offer of forgiveness to hell, it is their choice. Believing that you are not going to hell, but then not accepting Jesus and living your life as you please will get you there just as quickly.

Read and pray your way through the Scriptures and ask God to give you the wisdom to learn and know His will in your life and for your life. Ask God to come into your life and repent of your sins so that you can know the peace of God and live it in your daily life.

If you don’t want to read the Bible or give your life to Jesus, then I suggest a different approach: A sure way to prove that there is a hell would be to refuse the offer of Jesus in your life. Live the way that you want to, do whatever makes you happy and when you can’t find happiness or contentment, seek out a place where you can access “assisted suicide” if you can’t stand to live this way anymore. When your eyes open on the other side of death and you are facing God, you will know but it will be too late.

Please, don’t take the advice in the paragraph above. Learn about Jesus and Who He is. Seek Him out, especially if your life has been or is hard in ways that I can’t imagine! He can save your soul and He will be with you from this point on, no matter what happens! You are valuable and important to God because you are His creation and He considers you His child whether you have yet to give your life to Him or not. You can do things for this world and for God’s Kingdom that nobody else can do! Consider this when the world is piling in on you and things just seem to be too much, God loves you!

 

How much more?


How much more is the world going to have to endure? How much more killing in the name of a dead prophet? How many more children will be murdered in the United States because they aren’t wanted? The count is over fifty million now! How will you explain to God that you killed them because you just didn’t want that child because it was inconvenient at this time?

The atrocities that we hear about on the news from the Middle East don’t even compare to our own, because we made it legal. There is a double standard in this world today that is so messed up. It is impossible to keep up with all of the things which happen and many of those we don’t hear about on our “news programs”, we get them from Facebook or somewhere else on the Internet. The lives that we have today, at least according to the pundits of the time, were supposed to be like those of the cartoon family, the Jetson’s. Very little work, money to do whatever you needed to do, technology to take care of all of your needs. By this time, we were supposed to be living the life.

It doesn’t look that way to me today. Our weeks now are taken up with updates on Facebook, tweets on Twitter, texts on our smart phones, blogs where we tell everyone our shopping habits and post our pictures of vacation spots that we would like to go to, but don’t have the money. Then, there are the folks who actually work for a living. Many of them are working sixty and seventy hours and barely have time to shut their eyes in sleep before they have to do it again.

Yes, I do keep this blog going. But I don’t post anything except the messages which I feel led to post by the Lord. I don’t care if you believe me or not, that is not my concern. My concern is that you believe in Jesus, Who died for your sins so that you can have life in Heaven. I know, I sound harsh tonight, but the point is that there are so many who discount the Bible and the Son of God. Why? If it weren’t for their love and grace toward you and me, we wouldn’t be here at all!

God loves each one of you, far more deeply than any of us truly deserve. Yet, He gave His Son on the cross to pay the penalty for all of the sins of humanity from Adam into the future until He comes again and even further than that. All that we need to do, if we want to repent of our sinful ways, is to come to Jesus in repentance and ask to be forgiven. Ask Jesus into your heart and then determine that you are going to live under His teachings from the Bible for the rest of your days. Read it, study it, pray about what you have read so that you can understand it and then tell others about your life with Him. Even if you only tell one person and they come to Jesus, all of Heaven rejoices at that!

All of this terrible stuff that we are going through right now is because of Satan and his demons. They are not in hell, they are here causing all of this. The wars, the diseases, the killings, the murders, all of the terrible, evil things that men are doing to each other is being done because of the influence of satanic powers and demons who inflame our human tendencies to a point where we don’t even act like humans anymore. All of this was foretold in the Bible and that it will get worse before the end comes. Seek out Jesus, pray that He will save you so that you can be a light in someone’s life if only for a while.

God loves you. Look to Jesus for your Salvation. Seek Him while you can.

Celebrate Life, celebrate God!


You hear singers and people on news programs saying things like “We celebrate life itself!”, usually with much enthusiasm. Yet, we kill unborn children by the hundreds every day! There are murders, planned and spur of the moment, that seem to happen almost every hour of every day. So, why don’t more people actually celebrate Life!?

Is it such a hard concept that we say it and it sounds good but it isn’t something that we can actually do? It is just a mantra that we use to sound important or special in our own eyes and the eyes of those around us, right? In a manner of speaking, yes and no. I know, confusing.

My point…if you really intend to celebrate Life, then act like it and get out there and enjoy life! Do spontaneous things, stuff that you haven’t done but have wanted to do such as things which might be on your “bucket list” maybe? Yes, Jessica, there are people who truly need to get out and DO these things! Not just because they need to get up, like me, but because life is too short to dream about them and just say “I’ll do it later”. There may not be a “later”, for many of us there won’t be.

Now, I am not trying to get into “doom and gloom” here, I am just saying that winter for this year is nearly over and spring is getting closer. For many of us, it doesn’t seem that way but it will soon enough. My point on this page and this post, is to point to God Himself, the Author of Life! When we celebrate Life, we should be celebrating God’s purpose in Life and we should be celebrating Him as well! Don’t get into this “new age” thinking that God is not part of the 21st century, He is part of ALL of them! He is now, He was then and He will be God no matter what century that you might be thinking of!

In spite of evolution and its proponents, God is the Author of Life and everything that goes along with the creation of Life, and the maintaining of Life. Yours and mine and everyone else’s on this planet including the animals, fish, mammals, and birds. So, why is everyone so hell-bent on taking Him out of Life? Our everyday living even! It seems that the laws which have been adopted lately have been putting more pressure on just one group of people, Christians. Specifically, to keep us from expressing or following our mandate of how we live and what we are supposed to be doing with our lives.

The Bible clearly says that: “Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations,b baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28: 18-20

This is the command and the commission that we, as Christians, have been given. We have not been told to kill or behead people if they won’t convert to our way of thinking and worshipping, but to love them as Christ did and to tell them of the gospel. Though, it seems that we are leprous in many people’s eyes, they don’t want anything to do with us or our religion yet they will gladly accept almost any other religion without complaint. Why is that? What is so attractive about all other religions that makes Christianity seem as if we are trying to give you a sandwich made of mouldy bread and maggot-infested meat?

Celebrate the Author of Life and the Finisher of Life itself, God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. Between them all, the Earth and all that is in it were formed, created, and established in six days. The day of God’s “rest” has not ended, yet He is still creating, He is still giving Life to all of His Creation. He offers eternity to you if you will believe in Him and in Jesus’ work on the cross and the atonement for all of your sins and mine. This is your choice…it is not forced upon you nor will it ever be. Choose Life in Him and in His Son because the alternative is an eternity of the same punishment that Satan will get one day. Celebrate Life from God’s point of view…the grander scale of the entire universe, big and small, on Earth and in the far-flung galaxies! He knows you better than you do, so give Him the chance to infuse your life with His Life and the possibilities are endless!

What do you need from God?


There are many things which we need and He provides them all, even when we don’t ask for them. We need air to breathe and our health which enables us to get up every morning. Water and food are the next things on our list of needs and God has provided those for us through our ability to pay for them. Clothes and shelter are another couple of things which I would describe as needs, since we don’t want to walk around without clothes in the winter especially! Shelter is nice because we can stay warm and dry when it is cold and wet outside. These are the basic needs which everyone has that God has provided for us, even when we haven’t asked for them.

What about our life itself, didn’t God provide us with that too? God has provided for us to be alive every day that we live and He has provided a way for us to have eternal life too. In truth, we all will have an eternity since we have an immortal soul. The difference is our place of residence. Jesus said that “I am going to the Father to prepare a place for you, so that where I am you may be also.”. The dwelling place is in Heaven, which is beyond our comprehension to understand the beauty and majesty of yet.

Since God loves each of us enough to do this, why won’t many of us accept it on faith and believe in Jesus’ sacrifice for us so that we can have it one day? Looking at the Bible, God’s Word, from our stand-point, we see a book of rules and regulations and a book of historical stories which may or may not be true. Many people today see it as just that, a book written by a bunch of old men which has no real truth to it and is a work of fiction. Really?

One day soon, our world will be shaken with the Truth coming back like He said that He would. Then many who don’t want to believe will have their world turned up-side down because of their un-belief. Why do I say this? Because a book with over forty authors which spanned over two thousand years of history could not possibly point to the birth of a Messiah from beginning to end, if it was an imaginative fable written by people who made these stories up!

After His resurrection, His disciples went all over the world that they could reach and were all killed for the message that they brought except one who died of old age. During the last two thousand years there have been many thousands of people persecuted and killed in horrific ways for their belief in Jesus and this Book, the Word of God! I doubt that they would’ve died the way that many did if this had been a fantasy or a lie.

What do we really need from God? Forgiveness, which we already have through Jesus, if we will believe and accept it. Our world and many of our churches need forgiveness for perverting the gospel into something which is twisted out of Scripture and doesn’t look like any of the Wisdom contained within the Bible. Yet, today many so-called “preachers” and “evangelists” are teaching a form of godliness which is not represented in the Word of God. This was prophesied by Jesus when John wrote the book of Revelation.

It is a book of the Bible which many are afraid of and they don’t want to read it but it is relevant to our time.

Living with Love


Consider that God is Love and His Love for us is perfect. Could you live with His Love and experience it every day? Many people seem to think that this is impossible. That we, being flawed human beings, can’t live this way. We can’t possibly experience that kind of real Love daily. Why not? If you have asked Jesus into your life and you have really given yourself to Him, why can’t you feel His love flowing back to you?

You can by worshipping Him every day through prayer and reading and studying God’s Word. Experiencing His Love through His Spirit and the interaction between your spirit and His. I have felt this before and at times it almost overwhelmed me when I was studying my Bible.

I know, many of you will see these as being impossible to do. It takes too much time or it’s too hard to keep your eyes focused on Jesus that much. You know, He loves you anyway but you should show some love back in His direction too. Yes, you can accept Jesus and then decide to sit down and do nothing. You still have the blessing of being a child of God and you can be selfish with your salvation and keep it all to yourself.

But, WHY would you do that? His disciples didn’t and wouldn’t keep quiet even after being flogged and imprisoned and we shouldn’t be either. It is true that many of us can’t go on missions overseas, but with the Internet we can let people know about Him from our homes, no matter where we live. Our blessed existence is in His hands and His power if we have given our lives to Him and we are watched over every day by His angels who strengthen and encourage us according to His will for us.

Don’t laugh, angels exist just as Satan exists and his demons. These are not figments of someone’s imagination. Remember the Bible says that we struggle against “powers and principalities and demons”, that is the spiritual realm that we have to deal with as Christians. Diseases and all sorts of trouble are brought into people’s lives by these beings. Our life in Christ is to be in opposition to these forces of Satan by way of prayer and praise. In expressing our praise to Him we are expressing our love for Him, but we are also strengthening the Spirit so that it can oppose Satan’s forces in the spiritual realms.

Jesus loved us enough to die for us and I think that the least we could do will be to express that love in our prayer and our praise to Him when we read His Word and meditate on it.

United we stand


There are so many divisions in the body of Christ today, until I am sure that Satan is truly amused by it all. We have many denominations, some of which don’t or won’t talk to each other. Then there are divisions between black and white congregations. Many people call this racist and segregationist but the problem is that we are not different races! If you truly believe the Bible, then look to our original parents, Adam and Eve. They were both likely of a dark complexion, not one or the other, and yet many or all of the “races” came from them.

The body of Christ cannot be and should not be divided during this period. Why? Because we are nearing the end of the age, the body of Christ shouldn’t be divided. We need to be standing together in the unity of the Holy Spirit, not pointing out our differences and our doctrines which don’t line up exactly.

Our life as children of God needs to be in cooperation with each other and with Him. Our beliefs as Christians shouldn’t so far enough apart as to separate us this much. But, just as the political parties which can’t get along or agree about much of anything, we seem to have the same problem. One church believes that the Lord’s supper should be done at least once every month, another might say that once or twice a year is good enough.

Traditions and man-made rules and regulations are the kind of burdens which Jesus spoke against in His Earthly ministry. As long as we are communing with God through prayer and study of His Word and celebrating our freedom in Christ by having fellowship with other Christians, rules…especially man’s rules need not apply!

A written copy of a church’s “discipline” or creed doesn’t carry the same weight as God’s Word, yet some treat them as if they do. How can we call ourselves Christians, when we treat those in the church like cattle and we don’t even show the love of God to those outside the church doors! Today, there seem to be many “houses of worship” which don’t worship much more than their own self-image!

Get back to true worship of God and His Son. Come back to your first love and if you never really belonged to Him or He to you, then humble yourself and stop being so self-centered! The only place that kind of thinking will get you is on a very slippery slope to hell! If you have never heard of that place in a sermon, then you certainly need to read God’s Word, because you don’t want to spend an eternity there!

We, as Christians, need to be united because there are so many people against us these days. Even the DHS has evangelical churches on their watch list. Don’t believe it? Look it up! I have seen and heard this in the news. Maybe not on the “major networks” since they only report things that they are told to report, but on Fox and on Glenn Beck’s network they do. Yes, this labels me as a radical Christian, but I don’t cut people’s heads off, I am trying to save their souls by showing them the true Savior, Jesus Christ!

If that is a crime, then I am guilty of it and will go to my death with it if need be! My eternity is secure and I pray that yours is too.

Eternity and God


He is the Creator and He gives life to all things, so why is it so hard for people to believe in Him? I know, they want to believe that science and reason is capable to “making sense” of all things. In some instances it can explain chemical processes and reactions as well as mathematical formulas and their outcomes, but all of those things were brought into being by God too! The laws of our universe were created by Him and everything here follows those laws.

Eternity is another dimension, another state of being outside of time and space. One which we can’t touch or feel or understand until we are there. We can’t sample it and we don’t have a way to access it except through our belief in Jesus and His atonement for our sins or not. Our souls will inhabit eternity whether we believe in Jesus or not because they were created immortal, but the destination or the end point of our eternal journey is dependent upon our belief in Jesus or our rejection of Him.

It doesn’t matter how many people you may have killed in your lifetime or if you killed anyone. You may have just told a few lies and otherwise you may have been as good as any saint that went to church. But…if you haven’t accepted Jesus as your Savior before you die, then you will come to the Judgement seat of God and be condemned to an eternity of punishment because of your decision.

God doesn’t want you to spend eternity in hell, but it is your choice to believe or not. That is the thread which your eternity hangs by…your belief and acceptance of Jesus as your Savior or not. Which will it be for you?