Tag: Holy Spirit

Living Joyfully!


For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. (‭Colossians‬ ‭2‬:‭9-10‬ NKJV)

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭2-4‬ NIV)

These two scriptures encourage us to live with joy in the knowledge that Christ has forgiven our sins and if we have accepted Him as our Savior, then we are truly complete in Him! But, what do you do on the days that things aren’t going so well? Those times when you get a bad report from your doctor or a pink slip from work, what about those days? Are we still supposed to be joyful in those situations?

Not exactly joyful in the way many people think of it, but in the knowledge that Jesus is in our hearts and that we have His strength to get through them. God is in control of all things on the Earth, He knows what is happening and when and for His children He has prepared a way to make it through the storms of life, those times when things are not going very well. Yes, God allows trials in our lives and trouble too, but He provides the strength and the way through those times if we will lean on Him, trust Him, seek Him in all things.

Smooth sailing in life is good, but it doesn’t prepare you for the times when things get rough. If you ask for patience, you will surely find this out, which is something that I advise you not to do. Because it will take patience to get through the trials that come with learning patience, which is the reason that you never ask God for it unless you are truly prepared for the consequences. You may forget that you even asked Him for it by the time the trials come, but if you seek Him about their reason then He will let you know. I made that mistake once, and I won’t do it again.

Joyfully living in Jesus is knowing that He loves you and cares for every part of your life. He even cares where you may have lost your keys or the ten dollars that you can’t find or any number of “little” things that we wouldn’t normally pray about, but He wants to help you in all of the life that you live. If you will let Him. As Christians or someone who may be looking for that something that they feel is missing in their life but haven’t found it yet, your life and every part of it is important to God. He loves you enough that He sent His Son to die on a cross for your sins. Jesus chose to die in our place so that we could have eternal life, He wasn’t forced into this decision but He willingly accepted God’s will in this so that we would be the beneficiaries of His Grace.

Knowing this, how could you not want to praise Him joyfully and thank Him for this blessing of eternity and forgiveness? It is a debt that we can’t repay and we don’t deserve it, but God freely gave it to us through the sacrifice of Jesus so that we would be able to come into His presence in the holiness of Jesus. Our own “righteousness” is as rags, found in the garbage that have been there for a LONG time. God is Holy and we cannot stand in His presence without the covering of the blood of Jesus in our hearts which gives us the righteousness of the Son.

We, as Christians, serve a living Savior that is in Heaven at God’s right hand. He is interceding for us when Satan accuses us of wrong, or points out where we have stumbled along the way. Jesus’ blood covers everyone’s sins, but you don’t get to enjoy the benefits of it until you are called by the Spirit and you answer that call by asking Him into your heart. God knows exactly who will answer and who will not, but the offer is still open to all who will make that decision to follow Jesus daily.

A birth certificate


A little girl was supposed to take her birth certificate to school. Her mother had solemnly warned her not to lose it because of its tremendous importance, but lose it she did. Later she was sitting on the steps of the school, crying. The janitor asked her what was wrong. She replied, “I lost my excuse for being born.”

We also have a “birth certificate” in Heaven too! When you accepted Jesus as your Savior, your name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. You were born into Heaven spiritually at that moment and it can’t be lost, just as you can’t be lost. As long as you are following Christ, seeking to do His will and not following in the lusts of your previous life, then you are His and always will be. I don’t believe that anyone who has truly accepted Jesus into their heart can turn away from Him and go back to the life that you had before. Your Spirit would convict you of the first sinful word that you said, and you wouldn’t feel right in it.

No, the people who may have “slid back” into their old ways very likely didn’t have salvation through Jesus in the first place. They felt an emotion during the service, they may have shed a tear or two, they might have felt a warm, tingly feeling during the service, but that is not salvation! When your Spirit agrees with and is in sync with God’s Spirit, your heart, your character is forever changed and you are no longer the same person that you were before. You are as it says in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come”.

You don’t ever have to worry about losing your Heavenly birth certificate because it is sealed in the blood of Christ, just as you are when you accept Him as your Savior. There is no other way of saying or believing it, that is it.

He died for us, each of us, and when we feel the Spirit calling to us and we respond and as Jesus into our hearts and our lives, the change is eternally permanent. Have you given your life to Him and asked Him to share your life? It is a relationship after all, one that continues one day at a time. The Spirit teaches you through God’s Word and through prayer and fellowship that you have with Him daily. It has to be treated as a relationship because you wouldn’t just visit a significant person in your life just once every week or once a month would you?

Think about it. Pray about it, visit the Prayer House and submit your prayer request if you need to. I would be honoured to pray for you and with you for whatever the need might be.

God is great!


God loves each of us. It is His will for you to be great at whatever you are doing, regardless of what you do or who you are. Isn’t that a great way to look at life! Why am I in such a great mood? Because, Thanksgiving was yesterday, but God is absolutely in control and is the most gracious God and He is in control of all, not just my life or yours if you are a Christian, but He is in control of every nation and all of the world!

Yes, there are some terrible things happening in the world, but those are not caused by God but by Satan, who is trying to take God’s glory and any person that he can away from God! Whether it is through war, or death or disease, Satan will do it just to poke his finger in God’s eye so to speak.

The difference with God is that God doesn’t give up on us, because He knows where you are and He knows where you are going!

He will be there in the darkness and the hurt and the painful days. He will be with you when you are on top of the world, and nothing seems to be going wrong. God is there, wherever you are no matter what the situation.

God loves you and will be with you regardless! How do I know? Because, when I was sick a couple of years ago, He was with me. In the night with fever and the dark dreams that were keeping me from seeing Him, He was there. He was beside me when a tornado went over my house while I had fever and couldn’t get up if I had to.

He was with every person that I have prayed with during my time of being a pastor, as I still am. He has been with my nephew after a really bad accident on a four-wheeler, and He is still healing him. Life is precious to God, no matter what the life is. He notices a sparrow when it dies, He knows when a baby is aborted and when one is born. Regardless of the life, He cares for them all. If you will give your life to Him, then you will care for them too. He loved each of us whether we were born yet, or whether we had accepted Jesus yet or not. He cares about all of the life, the creation that He created for us to be stewards of and to give glory to Him.

Psalm 148
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens!
Praise him from the skies!
Praise him, all his angels!
Praise him, all the armies of heaven!
Praise him, sun and moon!
Praise him, all you twinkling stars!
Praise him, skies above!
Praise him, vapors high above the clouds!
Let every created thing give praise to the Lord, for he issued his command, and they came into being. He set them in place forever and ever. His decree will never be revoked.
Praise the Lord from the earth, you creatures of the ocean depths, fire and hail, snow and clouds,a wind and weather that obey him, mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all livestock, small scurrying animals and birds, kings of the earth and all people, rulers and judges of the earth, young men and young women, old men and children. Let them all praise the name of the Lord. For his name is very great; his glory towers over the earth and heaven!
He has made his people strong, honoring his faithful ones—the people of Israel who are close to him.
Praise the Lord!

Amen! Come Lord Jesus!

How many times?


There are riots in the streets over a decision by some legal entity in our society, yet those riots will not change the outcome. The killing of people and burning of businesses and cars only makes the so-called “racial” issue more loaded, more explosive. During a time when the only real racist people are those who lived through it in the sixties and seventies!

Most of the young people in college now and those who may be a little beyond college age, don’t really recognize race as a problem or even a factor in their friendships or relationships. Why should our country keep on digging up the bones of a dead issue? Let it stay buried and move on, please! How do you think that God would act in this instance?

Not with violence or hatred, those are human emotions. Jesus got angry in the Temple, but that is because they had turned the outer court of the Temple into a marketplace and that was not what it was intended to be. Anger, hatred toward your fellow-man, is considered as murder in God’s eyes because the feelings which come out when you act and feel this way toward someone are very violent and just by thinking of the act in your mind you have committed it in your heart, whether you did so physically or not.

Our country and its people need to get back into church, soon, because we NEED God in our hearts and in this nation desperately! We have been pushing Him out of our lives for long enough and it is time that we got on our knees and begged for His forgiveness! Ask Him to come into your heart and cleanse your life and bring you back into a relationship with Him!

We can’t keep this kind of tension in our country because soon it could escalate into a real conflict between races and cultures, essentially another civil war of unrest and hatred and I don’t think that our nation could survive that at all. It would rip this nation apart and America would no longer be a nation, although I can’t imagine what is would become and I really don’t want to.

Please, get into a Bible teaching church, read and study God’s Word and ask Him to show you what He wants from your life and mine. We can’t wait for another “great awakening”, we have to wake up NOW! Before it is too late!

Life is tough, be tougher!


People who are survivors live through things that many of us would cringe at, accidents, war injuries, PTSD, cancer and chemotherapy, the list could go on and on.

My nephew is living proof of this and I feel that it is my duty to tell what I know of his story, at least to a certain point at least.

He was hurt in a four-wheeler accident about a month ago. He and two other boys were on the four-wheeler, which is not a good way to ride anyway, but they were being boys! Anyway, to make a very long story a bit shorter, a truck went to pass by them on the road and the driver of the four-wheeler decided that they should come back up on the road and they ended up in front of the truck. All three boys were hurt, but my nephew was hurt the worst, physically. He is still recovering in the hospital and he has only been in a room for about a week, the first three weeks he was in intensive care. He is strong, in his will and in his body, but it is God and many, many prayers that has brought him this far.

God has a plan for him…He has something to do in God’s Kingdom. I don’t know what yet, he doesn’t know what it is yet, but I hope that when he comes through this, he will find that purpose. I am not going to post pictures from his wreck or his recovery here, but I am placing a link to his prayer page on Facebook. If you wish to help in any way please visit this page. His family will need as much help financially as they can get due to the cost of the treatment that he has already had, but he will be going through therapy for the next year or so. Please, pray for him and if you feel that you can or should help contact them through this page.

He needs medical help, but God is in the help that he is getting. The doctors have been impressed with his progress, but I am not sure that they realize Who was doing the healing because it really is God working through them! According to the news that I got on the night that he had the wreck, the paramedics had to bring him back once or twice before they even made it to the hospital by helicopter. Our God is awesome and He is able to do exceedingly above what we think can be done in ANY situation.

I am not writing this to beg for money for my brother-in-law’s family, although the bills have already started coming in. I am writing this to let people outside of Facebook know that God is awesome and He still heals people today! They had to remove part of my nephew’s skull to relieve the pressure on his brain, although there is no brain damage today. As I said earlier, God has been guiding the doctor’s hands and their treatment of this young man, he is only thirteen years old.

Life is tough, and it is fleeting, his life could’ve been over that night if there had not been a helicopter team able to come pick him up. The other boys lives could have been taken, but they weren’t because God intervened in their lives at that time. I know that some won’t see it that way, but it is true! Even the person driving the truck was not at fault, because God had a plan and a purpose for this to happen. We may not know what His plan is yet, but He will bring it about one day.

Live your life for God. Wake up to know Him, read His Word, pray to Him to give you the understanding of His Word, because He is the only One Who is truly in control of this world, and the people living here and their lives, whether they have given their life to Him yet or not. God loved us enough that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for us and to bring salvation to us, all that we have to do is claim it and realize that we can’t do anything to make our lives better, but He can.

All things work together…


Does this verse or beginning of the verse speak to your life or your spirit? Yes, to me it does, because everything works together for the good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose. Kinda limiting isn’t it? “For those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose”, not for everyone, not for those who are not Christians, but for those who are Christians! Things will work out for your good, maybe not immediately but eventually, because God’s timing is different from yours or mine.

We want things to work out right now! Nobody wants to work for something or anything today, they want it given to them regardless of the cost! The problem with this is that people don’t value things which are free! It doesn’t matter if the item cost one thousand dollars or more, if they got it for free then they don’t place any value on it at all! The cheaper something is, then the less value is given to it so people will not value it or take care of it like they will if they truly had to work for it and earn it.

I think that is the very reason that many people don’t place value on their salvation through Jesus. They don’t value it because it has already been paid for and all that they need to do to claim it is to believe it and ask for it and it is theirs! There is no need to do anything to earn it because our works, even done in Jesus’ name, will not earn us a place into Heaven! Our place, our salvation has been paid for through His sacrifice and nothing that we can do can come close to the price that was paid for it!

All that you have to do is claim it by asking Him into your life and your heart, ask for forgiveness of your sins and you will be a different person from that point on. Then, the works that you can do for Jesus will be worth something! Because, they will be done in the power of the Holy Spirit and not through man’s strength and will. God loves us all, but He doesn’t love the lives that we lead until we dedicate our life’s accomplishments to Him.

Time is running short because the “birth pains” are beginning, the ones which Jesus spoke about that would happen before the troubled times, the Tribulation of the world. You can see it in the financial markets, in the news every day, it is building up and one day, soon I believe, it will blow the world’s eyes open so that people can see what is happening. Yet, for some it will be too late. Give your life to Jesus, read and pray over the Bible so that you can be part of His Kingdom because if you aren’t then you are part of Satan’s world and that won’t be a pretty picture or a good future at all.

Listen….


Have you heard from the Word of God lately? Many people don’t want to hear someone preaching from the Word because it is God’s Truth. Some don’t think that it is true or that it is God’s Word, they think that the Bible is just a book of stuff, stories made up by some bunch of old guys which tell a little about historical figures and some of them are good stories but that is it, nothing more. Have you ever really listened to it, really sat down and read it? The Bible is about much more than Jewish history and the kings which ruled Israel, it is a condensed history of the world itself, from the viewpoint of God’s chosen people.

Why did God choose the Jewish people? I don’t know, ask Him? The Word of God is living and alive because when you read it with faith and pray for understanding, it doesn’t matter how many times you read it…you will find something new, even in the same passage or chapter. If you can read it with no faith, just as a book and nothing more and it doesn’t have any effect on your soul or your life, then I feel sorry for you. I pray that a sermon from the Bible will touch your heart, that a verse will open your eyes and prick your soul to want to know the God of the Bible and His Son.

The time that has been foretold in Revelation is coming soon, whether you believe it or not. This generation will see it, will experience it in one way or another. The message that is contained within the Bible is one which points you to Jesus and to His saving of our souls through His sacrifice of Himself on the cross. He did it out of love for us, all of us, not just because He had to but because He wanted to do it. We are all loved by God but our sins are not and that is what Jesus came to save us from, our sinful nature, our rebellious nature, the one that says “Yeah, I know you said that I shouldn’t do this, but I am going to do it anyway.”

If we could just get our “buts” out-of-the-way and out of our life as we go through it, knowing what we should and shouldn’t do “but”….if we could just stop injecting that part of us into the equation of our lives then we would be so much better off. But…that is our nature, it is just us being human, being the people who God made us to be. Except, He didn’t make mankind to be that way, it happened when sin entered into the world that God had made. Yes, there are many truths found in the Bible, in God’s Word if we will read it and learn from it.

Allow yourself to hear the Word at a church, read from God’s Word and pray that God will show you the wisdom that He has for you, don’t close your mind to His Wisdom. He loves you for who you are in Christ, not your sinful lifestyle. If you feel His call on your heart, answer it and tell Him that you need Him in your life because you can’t do it on your own. Seek Him and His Kingdom through the study of the Bible. He will come into your life and change it into what it is supposed to be.

 

Good news for ALL people!


Our God and our Savior loves you all and you have an appointed time with Him! It is not a judgement time, if you just come to believe in Who He is and what He did for you!! This is a simple message but a powerful one, so powerful in fact that after the dream that I had of Him this morning (it is 3:12 a.m.) I had to get up and write this to tell all of you the good news!!!

God truly is NOT dead, He is alive and Jesus is coming soon to claim His Bride for His own. But that news alone is not the GOOD NEWS, it is that if you truly believe in your heart and confess Him before men then you will be saved, that’s it! We are not required to do anything or perform any “tasks” for Him, just believe as a little child that Jesus did what God’s Word, the Bible, says that He did. When you can come to that belief in faith like a child, then you will be changed into a child of God.

I am not saying that you will fly up to Heaven the moment that you are saved, but your soul, your spirit will be counted as a citizen of God’s Kingdom and from that moment on you are not the same! He loves you and wants to bring you into knowledge of Him, a loving knowledge of Himself, like that of a toddler to your Father! That is the kind of relationship that God wants to have with you from the moment that you believe and on into eternity!

Isn’t this AWESOME, the Creator of the universe wants to know you personally, every day. Not just at Christmas services and Easter, but every day. He cares for you like nobody on Earth can, just because He is God! You don’t have to do anything to receive this blessing, except answer the call in your heart, in your soul that you may have felt before, but you didn’t know what it was or even why you felt it. Yes, the emptiness that you have felt is telling you that something is missing, and that something is Jesus! Nothing will fix the feeling, nothing else will work in that spot in your heart. It is a place that only one Person, only one relationship will be the right one and that is the relationship with Jesus that needs to begin today!

Don’t put it off until tomorrow! Now is the appointed time to be saved and to come to know Him for Who He is, He is your Lord and Savior and He has always been waiting for you to come to Him. He doesn’t force you into a relationship, forced servitude is not a loving relationship. You have to be willing to come, you need to learn of Him and about Him, because only in Him and through Him can you be saved from the fate that awaits Satan and his demons.

Why would a loving God do that to you or anyone else? Because, if you have rejected His offer of grace and mercy through the belief in Jesus and His sacrifice, then you are no better and no different from Satan, who wanted to place his throne above God’s throne! You are rebelling against God when you choose to be separated from Him, but it is your choice, God is not the One who condemns you to hell, you are. By rejecting His grace and your salvation through Jesus, you are rejecting God Himself and all that He is offering to you, and by doing that you are no better than any demon or principality or even Satan himself. The “lie” that many people have believed is that they will always have the time to come to know Jesus. But, we are not guaranteed tomorrow. We have been given the grace and the ability to come to Him today and only by accepting that grace, by asking Him to come into your heart and change you into the person that God knows you can be will you be able to stand before Him with all of your sins covered in the righteousness of Jesus.

That’s it…that is all that is required or necessary. Just belief in Jesus and in His sacrifice and asking Him to change you into the person that you should be. Give your life to Him because He is coming…sooner than you think!

Veterans and the faith that they have


I have heard of so-called “fox-hole conversions” and there is likely some truth to them, I mean, come on…wouldn’t you want God on your side in a war!?! Many of the veterans who fought in WWII, Korea, and in Vietnam may not have had much faith in God when they were drafted or when they were in their first battle or fire-fight, but I would bet that before they came home there was at least a bit of faith the size of a mustard seed in them.

I served for a short while during 1980, but I never was deployed as they say so I am not considered a veteran. Then, I had to get out of the military due to a medical emergency discharge, so even the VA denies that I am a veteran because I had yet to serve six full months in the service.

Now, I am not complaining, I enjoyed my time in the service and would’ve gladly went back until I became a father. I had a more important job to do at home then and didn’t want to put my family through that. In fact, I was in the process of getting back in about a month before September 11, ’01, when I clearly heard the voice of God while I was at work. He told me that I needed to cancel my joining up with the Army at that time. No reason given just that I shouldn’t go. Then the confirmation of a reason became clear when those airplanes flew into the towers and changed everything. I am not a coward as some people may think. I was a firefighter for five years and I have gone into burning buildings plenty of times, so that wasn’t it.

I just needed to follow God’s lead in this. Also, just a few days later, my father died and my son turned two so I had other things going on at the time. I do praise and honor Vets because of their bravery and for their service. I have the utmost respect for all of our service men and women. God watches over them each and every day, whether the FFRF wants Him to or not.

The point of this is that God has appointed each of to a time to die and then face His judgement. Whether you have given your heart and life to Jesus or not will be the issue, not your sins unless you have left Jesus out of your life. If His blood is not covering your sins, then they will all be brought to light, every word and deed. Yes, our servicemen and women need God in their lives and watching over their service wherever it may be. Seek Him while you have the time to do so, because time is growing short. Read the last book of the Bible and see if it sounds like the news, that should tell you that we are getting closer to His return every day. For your eternal salvation, please consider asking Jesus into your heart!

Who was your builder?


Psalm 127:1 says this: “Except the Lord build the house, the labor in vain that build it; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

Your body was put together by God for a purpose in this life. It did not happen by chance, nor did it happen without His knowledge. God is our Creator regardless of what the critics say about our world or the universe itself. One day, this will be evident to all but until then I must go on telling people about Christ and His offer of salvation and about our Lord’s will for all to come to repentance in Him. There are many today who reject this teaching, many more who are deceived into thinking that the road or path that they are on will carry them into His presence when they die.

Life has a way, and by life I mean that God has a way of working things out so that His purposes are fulfilled. We are not in control, He is, and we had better realize that before it is too late. There are many people who think that just because they have been to church a few times in their lives that they are “OK with the Man upstairs.” What a load of baloney! First and foremost, calling Him that is insulting to God! Second, going to church once or twice a year or for special occasions is a good thing, but being in church even for a lifetime doesn’t get you into Heaven! Being a preacher won’t even get you in the gates of Heaven if you have not accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior!

You can memorize the Bible from beginning to end, but unless you believe in what it says and in Jesus as your Savior, being able to quote the Bible from memory won’t help you either! Until God’s Spirit calls you and touches your heart, drawing you to Jesus in faith, you won’t turn to Jesus and you can’t just decide to do so unless He has called you!

I have even heard some so-called “pastors” saying that they were going to ride their congregations until they could find a bigger one. Sounds to me like they weren’t called to be pastors, they chose to act as a pastor in order to get money from the church and the prestige of being a “pastor” when they really aren’t one at all! These are the “pastors” which give Christianity a bad reputation and they are actually leading people in the wrong direction too. God will deal with them in due time.

When we are called to be a Christian, each of us knows it because you can feel it in your heart and your soul. The person which God speaks to is the soul living within you and when He calls, your real self knows it. It is not a wrong number and it can’t be faked. You can choose to ignore Him for a time, but eventually you will listen and obey His call. How do I know this? Because I tried to ignore Him for a while. I could feel the call on my life, my heart or soul could tell Who was calling, but I didn’t want to answer yet. He kept calling until one day, I did answer and my life hasn’t been the same since…it has been so much more, well more!

When we have finally come to our spiritual senses and come to Him in repentance then He can use our talents that He gave you for His purposes and for the good of the Body of Christ. Think about it, seek Him out and He will come into your life and change it into the life that you were meant to have!