Tag: Holy Spirit

Shifting Christianity


In an article titled “Trends in Christianity”, the author writes “Today the majority of the world’s Christians live in the southern hemisphere, in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Christianity in these regions tends to be very conservative and traditional.” At one point in our past, America was the evangelizing arm of Christ. Our country and Great Britain took the leading roles in telling the world about Christ. It seems that we have done a good job of it in the past two hundred years since our Christian base has dwindled and those of other countries have bloomed.

There are other disturbing trends in Christianity as well, like the “new age” type of worship service where the old traditional hymns have been replaced with praise songs and choruses that repeat a phrase over and over again. Then, there is the trend of huge mega-churches where few people know the people with whom they are worshipping because of the size of the congregation numbering into the thousands.

We look around us at all of the problems in the world and our own problems and we can’t see any way to fix them. Jesus said, “Why do  you worry about your clothes or what you will eat? The flowers of the field are more beautiful than anything that Solomon in his riches could wear, and the birds of the field never worry about their food because God feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than the grass or the birds?” Granted, I paraphrased that a bit, but you get the idea. We shift from one belief or doctrine from year to year at times, looking for a church or a preacher who won’t step on our toes too hard, when we should be looking at our own beliefs and our own hearts.

Christians and those who claim to be need to examine themselves more closely and try to divine whether we fit in with Jesus’ disciples or not. Are you a doubter like Thomas or a loud and brash person who speaks before thinking, like Peter did? Is your faith little and weak? Mine is, but if you have a grain of faith THAT IS ALL THAT YOU NEED!!! Our God is AWESOME! He placed the stars in their orbits and the galaxies too, so don’t you think your problems are smaller than the universe? A universe which He spoke into being in less than six days!!

He is bigger than your problems and your emotions and your bank account or your mortgage. God loves you enough to take care of it all, if you will give it and yourself to Him. This is the very heart of the problem though, many people think that when they give their hearts to Jesus all of the fun in life will end. That is a lie from Satan! The fun doesn’t stop, it begins. It’s just the type of fun that you have after becoming a Christian changes. It is fun, to me, to make Satan uncomfortable by getting online and telling people about Jesus. I don’t go out and get drunk or high like I did many years ago, but I do enjoy telling people about my Lord and Savior!

God loves us with an overpowered love that we can’t fathom because we can’t imagine anyone as awesome as God! Our imagination just doesn’t go that far because there is nothing in the universe, let alone here on our little planet, that is as powerful or as awe-inspiring as God is. To put it another way, “It would bust your head wide open to try to imagine God, so don’t!”.

Is your life cracked or broken?


 

(This post is my 500th post on this blog! I would’ve never thought that it would grow this big, but God is good and has allowed me to do this. I pray that you are all finding some bit of wisdom and knowledge that He has given me while I have been writing here. This knowledge comes from the Bible and from the wisdom that God has given me. I never would nor could I come up with these ideas or writings without His influence. Thank you for being here with me.)

I know, I have asked this before but it seems that our world and the people in it are more like this than they are whole and happy. We have more shootings and killings over nothing these days than we have ever had in the past fifty years. I know, there were many senseless killings during the time when our country was still divided by race relations but isn’t that what we are seeing today? It seems that there is so many problems with race relations, particularly in the past ten years or so. I thought that we were past this! What happened to the so-called “age of Aquarius” that was supposed to take over when the new millennium began? What became of the racial equality and tolerance that was supposed to be part of our culture when we elected an African-American President?

Our country and the culture that we once enjoyed has become cracked and broken, but there seems to be nobody who has a clue how to fix this mess! Any ideas?

My only idea is that we need to bring God and the Bible back into our cultural world. In the schools, in businesses, in society and especially in our homes! If we don’t repent of our ways, and turn back to God and ask for His forgiveness for all of the atrocities that we have allowed to happen in the past fifty years, then this country and the world itself is headed for a big wake up one day.

I am not going to try to bring this post up to a sermon level, but I do want anyone who reads this to think about what you can do to make this happen. In your church or community or your state even. If we don’t get started, and we should have done this many years ago, then we have gone too far to be able to turn back. Mostly what we can do is to seek God out in His Word and in prayer. We can also try to get others involved in putting the Bible and prayer back into our schools.

Individually, we can pray and seek Him out in the Bible and at church or in home Bible study. God wants to have a relationship with you and me, but He will not force this relationship on us.We have to initiate the contact by seeking Him out and learning more about Him. Occasionally, you will feel a prompting from Him or rather the Holy Spirit and that is Him calling to you. If you have felt it, but have ignored it please seek Him out! He will keep the contact and the prompting going for a while, but at some point He will let you go your own way. Don’t wait until that point. If you can feel even the smallest voice or nudge to come to know Him please do so!

 

God doesn’t like sin, but He loves you


In your life and mine there have been times where we fall, whether we are Christians or not. When you haven’t given your life to Jesus, it doesn’t make much of a ripple in your life when you sin. You don’t really notice it much, unless you have been to church and listened to a sermon or two, but your Father in Heaven does. When you are still lost, your sins are..well, expected. Because you don’t have the power of the Holy Spirit to help you to resist the temptation. The sins which we commit in our lives before Christ are those which are designed to draw you away from God and keep you away from Him if possible. An example of these is found in this passage from the Bible:

sinswhich God hates You see, God hates the sins BUT He loves the sinner. Which is why Jesus spent so much time with tax collectors and publicans and others which the priests deemed as undesirable. It is also why Jesus said that “it is the sick who need a physician”, He was speaking of those who were lost and in need of salvation. The song which is sung in churches, “There is room at the Cross for You”, is one that is meant for all of us who are in need of salvation. There are no steps to reach the cross, the ground is level at the foot of it and all are equal there. It doesn’t matter how much money you have or how much resources you may or may not have, God loves all of humanity because we are His creation. Salvation is offered to everyone, but only if you will reach out and take it and repent of your sins.

If you were offered one billion dollars but there were some requirements before you could have it, would you gladly do them? For instance, if you were a pornographic movie producer and you have made some money at it but you are also into drugs and alcohol and all sorts of occult practices and you were offered the one billion dollars with the catch of going into rehabilitation for all of your sins, repenting of those sins and becoming a true Christian person…would you? Some might, but for many in our world today even the allure of that amount of money would not be enough to draw them away from their lifestyle. Some would try to fake it, but that would fail too because the change which comes when you truly give your life to Christ is a visible one and something which can’t be faked.God

He cares about your life, your impact in someone else’s life and you in particular because you are a part of His Creation. You are not a number or some nameless person to God! If He knows when a sparrow dies and falls to the ground, don’t you think He knows about your pain and suffering too? There is no power in the universe which can come between you and God except yourself. You are the deciding vote whether you will give your life to Jesus and truly become a child of God or if you will just stay lost and on the side of Satan. There truly is no grey area in the spiritual realm, you are either a Christian who is working for God and eternity or you are lounging around in Satan’s camp hoping that your side wins. If you have ever read God’s Word you will know that Satan has lost every time he went against God and he will lose again in the end.

15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua 24:15

The way to Life


This is the most important question of your life. Your joy or your sorrow for all eternity depends upon your answer. The question is: Are you saved? It is not a question of how good you are, nor if you are a church member, but are you saved? Are you sure you will go to Heaven when you die?

God says that in order to go to Heaven, you must be born again. In John 3:7, Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Ye must be born again.”

In the Bible, God gives us the plan of how to be born again which means to be saved. His plan is simple! This is the plan and the way, all that you need to do is believe!

First you must realize you are a sinner. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Because you are a sinner, you are condemned to death. “For the wages [payment] of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). This includes eternal separation from God in Hell.

“ . . . it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

But God loved you and me so much, He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus, to bear your sin and die in your place. “ . . . He hath made Him [Jesus, Who knew no sin] to be sin for us . . . that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Jesus had to shed His blood and die. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Lev. 17:11). “ . . . without shedding of blood is no remission [pardon]” (Hebrews 9:22).

“ . . . God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Although we cannot understand how, God said my sins and your sins were laid upon Jesus and He died in our place. He became our substitute. It is true. God cannot lie.

“God . . . commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). This repentance is a change of mind that agrees with God that one is a sinner, and also agrees with what Jesus did for us on the Cross.

In Acts 16:30-31, the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas: “ . . . ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ And they said, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved . . . .’ ”

Simply believe on Him as the one who bore your sin, died in your place, was buried, and whom God resurrected. His resurrection powerfully assures that the believer can claim everlasting life when Jesus is received as Savior.

“But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name” (John 1:12).

“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13).

Whosoever includes you. Shall be saved means not maybe, nor can, but shall be saved.

Surely, you realize you are a sinner. Right now, wherever you are, lift your heart to God in prayer.

In Luke 18:13, the sinner prayed: “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Just pray: “Oh God, I know I am a sinner. I believe Jesus was my substitute when He died on the Cross. I believe His shed blood, death, burial, and resurrection were for me. I now receive Him as my Savior. I thank You for the forgiveness of my sins, the gift of salvation and everlasting life, because of Your merciful grace. Amen.”

How much does it take?


We ask this many times in our lives, if you aren’t wealthy to the point of not asking the price that is. “How much is that?”, is usually how we look at all sorts of things from cell phone contracts and phones to Internet service and food from the grocery store. Most of us have to look at the price of things and decide if it is worth the price and whether we want to or can pay the price for it. Looking at our economic situation in this country it is easy to see that our government has no problem with skipping over this question, they just print more money and keep going. What a wonderful world they live in!

People don’t have that luxury because if we try to print money we will be put in jail, but they do it legally. I am not going to get off on this tangent today, but the world does exactly what it wishes and nobody seems to be watching or paying attention. We are all too interested in our Facebook friends and their lives or the cute picture of a baby or a kitten to care about what is happening all around us. So-called “reality” shows have taken over the TV and cable industry and people are being paid for ridiculous shows which chronicle their lives in order to cash in on this trend.

What for? Is it educational? Most of it is not, but all of this was foretold in the Bible. Not specifically, but that we who live in the “latter days” will be lovers of self and money, running here and there and we have many people and industries which are taking advantage of our intelligence by genetically modifying our food and all sorts of things. The Bible puts it as “knowledge will increase”, but knowledge without wisdom to guide it is not really smart at all. Living in this time is intoxicating at times because of the advances in medicine and technology, but it is also dangerous.

I don’t mean that we are in danger every day from something like wars, although some people are very much in danger from this, but much of the GMO food that we have been eating for years is very likely responsible for our health conditions. Especially those so-called “new” conditions which doctors seem to have trouble pinning down the cause of, but of course it isn’t the fault of our government approved food. Yes, our knowledge of genetics and technology has increased a lot over the past thirty years or so BUT did we gain the wisdom of how to use and when to use it to benefit the most from it? Are we using this knowledge to help as many people as possible to live healthy lives or have we pushed the envelope in order to make more money?

In the “real” world of business, I believe that we have done the latter. Cancer research has stagnated so that the treatments only treat symptoms and not the cause. Chemical companies, whether they produce medicines or herbicides, have not fully tested the outcome of the ingredients that they push out to consumers because it would cost too much to do that. They would rather do limited testing, get it stamped as being safe under certain conditions but with all sorts of legal jargon warning of possible side effects and then push it out so that they can reap the cash off of it before the lawsuits start coming in.

Wisdom comes from the fear and admonition of God and we have not exercised that kind of wisdom in a long time! We have stepped away from God and the Bible. We have allowed the schools to push out any reading of it or study of it in the sense that we will offend someone or that we might be seen as promoting a “state religion”. Then the schools and teachers wonder why we have such delinquent behavior in our schools and so many in the prison system. Come on! The Ivy League schools like Princeton and Yale and Harvard were begun as theological schools to teach ministers, it was only recently that they became so focused upon “higher learning” within the past 150 years or so.

How much does it take, really, for us to learn that we can’t live our lives in a vacuum or look at life-like it was a test tube? We are and were created to be dependent upon God’s wisdom and knowledge and fellowship with Him in our lives. We are not created to be “self-gods” because we can’t be! Romans 8:28 states this: 28. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.” Paul wrote this to the Corinthian church: 2 Corinthians 5:17: “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”

We are new in Christ because the Spirit renews you from the inside out when you become a Christian. Life without Him can be fun for a moment or a day, but your life here is but a speck compared to eternity. Consider this: if you were to die tonight or even today, where would your eternity be spent? Many people think that they would enjoy hell, but the rich man told Abraham that he was in torment and that he needed just one drop of cool water. How long would you think the so-called “party” will last in torment and heat for an eternity?

If you aren’t sure of your salvation today, then you need to seek Him out and make sure of your decision while you can.

So many who need Him, so little time!


I know, I am trying to scare people into accepting Christ…right? NO! But I am trying to make you realize that regardless of how young you are or how long you may have lived without Jesus, your life does have an expiration date. It is known only to God, but we all have one. Mine may be in the morning or next week, yours…? Why am I starting off like this?

Because in the past few weeks, if you have been following my blog here, two teens in our community were killed in a wreck. Did they know the Lord? Yes! Both of them did and they are enjoying eternity and their life in Heaven right now! I know, the families are still hurting and they will be for a long time, but they do have the assurance that those girls are in their homes with Jesus.

God sent Jesus to provide all of us with salvation, if we will accept it. That is like a rich man who might give you one million dollars, but you have to accept it with some limitations. You can only use it to help people in ways that make a difference, like helping with their medical bills or building someone a better home to live in. You can use it for yourself, but only for things that you NEED. It can’t be used for buying a sports car or a mansion. If you can accept those limitations, then you can have it. If you can’t or won’t, then it will be offered to someone else.

Salvation is the best gift that we can be given. Why is it so good? Because you are being saved from an eternity away from God’s love and in the torment that was reserved for Satan and his demons. Salvation also gives you eternal life, which everyone seems to be chasing on Earth, yet we can’t get it in this life. We all have an eternal soul, but unless it is rejuvenated by Jesus and the Holy Spirit it will spend eternity with Satan and it is not going to be a party!

The Life that we get from the Holy Spirit is a gift from God for our belief in Jesus and His atonement for our sins. We can’t do anything to get it, purchase it or work for it because anything that is done in our own strength during this life is left here when we die. No tickets that we buy, no amount of gold or silver that we own, absolutely nothing that we acquire during this life will go with us when we die. The only part of me or you which goes to the judgement after we die is our soul. If you are a believing Christian when you die, all of your sins are covered by the blood of Jesus. If you are not, then you will be judged according to what you did and the words that you said during this life…ALL of them!

Seek Him while you have the chance and the time to make the commitment to live your days for Him by reading the Bible, prayer and learning about Him. Even if you only have a week left to live from some illness or if you may live for fifty more years, do it while you can. Because if  you were to have an accident on the highway tomorrow and get killed, you will be standing in front of God then and there won’t be a second chance.

Rainbows, Light and Love


In the late sixties it seemed that everyone was into rainbows and “free love” was everywhere. It was all just noise to me that I heard on the radio or on the news, I wasn’t old enough to participate. That doesn’t mean that it didn’t conjure up some imaginative thoughts though. I was about eight or so at the time, didn’t really like girls too much, but there were some that I thought were sorta cute.

Anyway, the rainbows were being used on flags and on the TV, I don’t remember exactly for what but I remember seeing them on there a lot. You have to realize, 1968 has been a while back and parts of my memory don’t work perfectly like they used to. The entire country was caught up in the Viet Nam war and the astronauts going to the moon, as well as a couple of people being shot. To a young mind at the time, it was just news and not very important.

What else was happening? My parents got divorced or were in the process of doing so, I really don’t remember much about it. I think my mind blocked a lot of it out. Dad dropped us off at my grandfather’s house when I was five and I rarely saw him from that point on.

My point in bringing up my childhood? Mainly it is about what you may remember and what you don’t. I can remember going to church with my parents when I was three and going to work with my Dad about the same time, once. But, again, why am I bringing this up for you to read? So that some of you will know that I am just as normal, just as messed up from my past as the rest of us. My life has not been perfect, never was and never really came close to it.

Later, after their divorce, when I became a teen I rebelled a lot. I didn’t get put into jail, but I drank alcohol before I was old enough to do so. I wrecked cars and put myself in the hospital because I was drunk. I smoked marijuana although I didn’t get into anything any worse than that. Now, I am ashamed of my past, but it is a past that doesn’t seem to be out of the ordinary today. Actually, it seems pretty tame compared to what you see and hear on the news.

The Light which I reference in the title is the Light of the World, Jesus Christ. At the time that I was speaking of there was a song out by the name of “Jesus Christ, Superstar” and a play too I believe. The funny thing is, they were actually making fun of Him and of those who believe in Him. I never understood that and still don’t. Jesus is the answer for many of the world’s problems today, individually and collectively but many people don’t see it that way.

God loves you and me. He loved me when I was being rebellious, though He didn’t like what I was doing at the time. He kept me in His love and protection though because He had something for me to do later. He has something for you to do as well. I don’t know what it is and you won’t find out what it is unless you ask Him into your life so that you can work for Him. It doesn’t matter how much longer you have in your life, even if you only have a week or a month, God will use your testimony to touch someone else. He will also welcome you into Heaven when you arrive.

Satan hates us


Have you ever wondered why he hates us? I used to, until I started really studying the Bible. He hates us because we are made in God’s image. He was kicked out of Heaven because he rebelled against God, so anything that God loves, he hates. But, that isn’t the only reason…God created man, Adam, from the earth, from mud and then gave him something that no angel has…an eternal soul! Angels are spiritual beings and therefore are immortal, but they can’t have a relationship with God like we can. Our relationship is on a deeper level and it is one that angels don’t have access to, and that is another reason that we are hated by Satan.

Love is another reason. God loves us, his creation, not just because we are but because we are made in His image. He loves us in a deeper way because of our image of Him inside each of us. God loves all of His creation, the Earth, the animals, humanity, and the angels too, but humanity holds a special place that we can’t understand fully until we are in His presence. When Lucifer rebelled against God’s authority and wanted to place his throne on the mountain of God, it likely broke God’s heart.

Why would it cause God pain? Because, until man was created, Lucifer was the most perfect of His creation in the angelic race of beings! Giving humanity and angels alike the choice or the ability to choose to serve Him, to love Him, was a risky thing to do but it was also the right thing to do. Because service and love cannot be forced or required to be genuine and true, they must be given from one being to another. It also cannot be earned, but given as in a gift of service or the gift of love to one another.

Love is the reason that God does anything that He does. He created us because of love, His love for us, His love of Creation itself. He created the angels for all of these things too, but Satan (Lucifer) wanted more and did not want to serve God. He wanted to be worshipped and that was and is not his place. Satan is not omnipotent nor is he omniscient, God is.

God sent His Son, Jesus (Yeshua), to the Earth to provide a way for all of us to be saved from the punishment for our sins. He did that on Calvary when He chose to give His life for ALL of us, not just a select few. Yes, there will be many who will choose not to know Him because they are stubborn or because they think that they can’t be saved. If you will believe in Jesus and His path for salvation for you, it doesn’t matter what you have done, you will be saved. The prayer of a sinner who is repentant of his sins will always be answered, even if it is on a cross or on his death-bed. It doesn’t matter if you have time to be baptized or not, if you repent of your sins and ask for Jesus to save you then you will be saved.

God’s creation, from the farthest stars and galaxies to the smallest of atoms, groans in anticipation for the day that all will be made right again. One day, it will happen. For some, it will be a great day of reunion with family and friends. For others, it will be a day of judgement and pain. The greatest pain will be that you had a chance to accept Jesus in this life and you chose to throw it away because of stubbornness and pride. Please, reconsider and seek Him out while there is still time to do so.

Celebrations and tears


We all have them at one time or another. We mourn the loss of someone who we love or we celebrate an anniversary or other accomplishment in our lives. Sometimes the tears come during the celebrations, but it is all part of life. How do you live with it or live without the people in your life which have gone on before you? Do you rely on your own strength and that alone or do you lean on friends and family? Many people do exactly that, they lean on others who have gone through the same troubles and heartaches. Is that really how we are supposed to get through our tough times?

The celebrations are easy because they usually involve someone’s accomplishment in some way or another. Maybe you have been married longer than some in your family or friends. Maybe you just graduated from college or even got married recently. Maybe you just had a baby, boy or girl doesn’t matter, it is still a celebratory moment in your life that you won’t forget…EVER!

Time can dim the memories and the pain to an extent, but it never goes away entirely. The loss of a loved one, whether it was your child or your mother or father or one of your grandparents, is a loss to you emotionally, physically and even spiritually. Why spiritually? Because between Christians there is a bond of fellowship, it isn’t one that you can feel emotionally but it is there. When you are absent from this fellowship, your spirit feels it and whether you feel it emotionally or not, God knows how it is affecting you.

The other effects from the loss are more immediate and real because of the pain that is felt and caused by such a loss. Why am I going over this? Because many of you, even though I don’t personally know you, have a loss in your life of some kind. Some are more painful than others, some are like my mother who suffered with pain for years before she died but that did not lessen the pain that I felt at her passing. Even though after so many so-called “mini strokes”, she was still with me for a time she couldn’t enjoy life anymore so her quality of life was far diminished from what it had been. For years I blamed myself because I had asked God to take her and get her out of her pain and suffering, but it wasn’t because of my actions or my prayer that God granted it. It was because He saw that it was time and within a day of my prayer, she was in His arms.

Yes, my pain began at that point and continued for many years especially at Christmas because she died on Christmas day. My point?

First…don’t ever pray that kind of prayer unless you are ready spiritually for the consequences of it.

Second…there will be consequences, good or bad, because of a death in your family whether you prayed that prayer or not.

God loves each of us, no matter what we have done or will do in the future, He just doesn’t like the sinful lives that we lead. Especially when we don’t even recognize that we are sinners or that what we are doing is sinful. Some Christians live this way, thinking that their life is fine with Christ and with God because they claim to be Christians and they go to church once in a while. Many of them think that because they read the Bible a few times a year, not all the way through, that they have their way to Heaven in the bag and they don’t need to worry about it.

Analogy: You go to a college and audit some courses, sitting in class and listening and reading the material maybe even taking notes. You might even audit enough courses to actually have enough credits under your belt to get a degree…will you get one? No, because an audited course doesn’t give you credit for a degree, you are just present listening for your own enjoyment so to speak. What good did that do?

The same amount of good that going to church, reading the Bible, praying and singing will do for you…none!!!

You can go through the motions of this and you might even be “led” to get baptized one day because you think that it is the right thing to do but has your heart changed? Did you give your life to Jesus and allow Him to change you from the inside? If you didn’t do that and your life outside of church doesn’t change so that others can tell that something happened, then it was your decision, your feeling and not the call of the Spirit that you answered. When you die, you will be shown that you did all of these things but if you never actually gave your heart to Jesus, the knowledge that you heard but did not hear spiritually will only convict you.

Think about it.

Do you have everything that you need?


Many in the world’s countries don’t, at least from the world’s viewpoint. You notice that I put in the title “everything that you need“? I did not say anything about stuff that you want!

Wanting things and more things doesn’t give you anything but a storage building that you didn’t need but it is necessary because of the stuff that you wanted. So, now what will you do with it all? Store it in a building? What good does that do you?

What about the garage with status symbols in it that cost you more than your house payment every month? You have to put a hundred dollars worth of gas or diesel in those every week at least to keep them going. You have to replace the tires on them at about two hundred dollars apiece every so often. I know that they are necessary for you to go to work or maybe you use one of them for your job, and that’s fine. They are useful, but some stuff just isn’t and it gets your money and barely any notice after that, at times.

Our needs involve food, shelter, clothing, and health. I am not speaking of having more of any of these than others but just what you truly need. The best is good as long as it doesn’t cost you more than you can afford. Enough food is great for anyone, but more than you need is bad for you. Everyone knows this, but there are many who don’t seem to care because they want more.

Did you also notice that in your needs list, I didn’t have wealth. Why is that? Because in order to have your needs met you don’t need more money, you only need enough to take care of your needs. Wealth is for those who want to do it all and have it all and it is a good thing for some people. But, Jesus said that is would be “harder for a rich man to get into Heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle”. Why is that? Simply because a rich or wealthy person doesn’t feel that they need Jesus, because they have every “thing” that they want and they have money to get what they need if that need arises.

Wealth can’t buy happiness or health though. Yes, you can pay your bills so it makes the stress level go down somewhat, but that isn’t happiness. If your health takes a turn toward the cancer ward or something happens to your child, your money can help you to have the best care that money can buy. But, what if that isn’t enough? What if there is no cure or amount of medication which will take care of the problem? Money’s just paper at that point.

Your needs, your life, your happiness, and your health are all important to God because He created you for a purpose. He cares for you and loves you far more than you even love yourself. I am not saying that all of your needs will automatically be taken care of if you trust in Jesus for your salvation. Your bank account won’t suddenly swell up with cash after you become a Christian (although that wouldn’t be a bad thing as long as you give God the glory for it). But, the love and the peace which comes with knowing Jesus and His Father will make even a diagnosis of incurable cancer bearable because you now have eternity in Heaven to thank Him for His love and grace for you. No amount of money or fame will ever fill that void in your life unless Jesus fills it.