Tag: Jesu

Is the Bible up to date and relevant?


The Word of God is beyond time. It was, is, and always will be true. There is no time, no season, nor a single day during which the words in the Bible are not binding. I know that this will upset some people but it is true. Every word and punctuation mark in the Bible and the Torah is valid and always will be. The Spirit of God permeates the Bible and makes it relevant to our time because it is timeless and the wisdom contained within it is too.

Do we have any reason to ignore the Bible? For our own spiritual well being we really don’t and shouldn’t but many people do. They look at it as an old outdated book that has been around for thousands of years and many scholars have pointed out that the wisdom in it is contained in writings from other cultures as well. I have heard the argument that the Bible is copied from other religious texts and may not be original.

Nothing could be further from the truth. God’s Word is true and was given to the prophets and poets of the Old Testament as a guide to Him. It also points to the Christ long before He came into the world. No other religion has this prophetic quality and accuracy in their writings. God’s word told specifically how long the Babylonian empire would last, how long it would be before the Messiah came into the world and when the crucifixion would take place. All of these prophecies were given through the prophets at least 500 to 1000 years before they occurred.

No other document from any other religion can claim this and the reason is because God gave the words to the people who wrote them down. He is the only One who is outside time and therefore can see the beginning and the end and everything in between.

The Bible illustrates why the world sees its wisdom differently:  (1 Corinthians 2:14) “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”  (KJV)

The world and those who are not part of God’s family, cannot discern the wisdom contained in the Bible, regardless of the translation, because it is the spirit living within which gives the interpretation. The wisdom of God‘s Word is foolish to those who don’t know Him.

When we are saved by accepting Jesus into our hearts, the Spirit resides within us from that point on. It is His job to teach us, instructing us as we read and study to be better equipped as Christians. Because, following Jesus and being a Christian is not a “walk in the park”.

Being a follower of Christ and not just a fan requires more than just accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior like many believe. It takes discipline to become a disciple and you have to realize why you are doing this too. It is not just because you don’t want to go to hell, but because of your thankfulness toward God who loved us even before the world was created.

Hell is for those angels who rebelled against God and were thrown out of Heaven. It was not meant for us and yet when we refuse to accept God’s grace through Jesus, we are as guilty as they are in our rebellion toward Him. Some people may say that they have not rebelled against God, but when you don’t accept a gift given to you freely isn’t that a form of rebellion?

When you refuse a gift from someone, aren’t they offended? If someone refused a gift from you, wouldn’t you be offended? God does not take offense the way we do, but it still counts as rebelling against Him when we refuse the gift of His grace through Jesus. We are, in effect, telling God that we want to get to Heaven our way.

Except, there is no other way to get there. Nothing that we can do is good enough, regardless of the amount of money or time or effort involved, to be equal to the sacrifice which Jesus provided on the cross to pay for all of humanity’s sins.

They have all been paid for, all we have to do is claim the grace that is there for us and eternal life is ours! The only “catch” is that we have to do it while we are alive, here and now. Once we have accepted it, the work in our life begins again because we are born anew as “new creatures in Christ”. The old life that we had is done away with and a new life begins. It will not be easy, but the reward will never end.

There will be time with family that are Christians that you will never have to worry about losing because you will have eternity. As someone once said, “billions and billions of years” will be your reward for accepting Jesus! Time will have no real meaning at all because we will have far more than a lifetime to get to know someone or get to know many people!

This existence or life that we have now is but a “puff of smoke” compared to eternity. Make the best decision that you can make, accept Jesus as your Lord, give Him your life so that He can give you His!

I have been away too long for God to want me


I know many people who have said this and feel this way, but why? There are times in our lives that we move away from God and it is us who move because He doesn’t. He is always by our side in every situation no matter how desperate it seems and regardless of the circumstances.

Jesus said that not one sparrow falls from the sky without the Father’s notice, so how can we think that He doesn’t notice our troubles and trials? He is always there, we just have to acknowledge Him and turn to Him for guidance and direction. If you have never asked God for anything in your life, He still knows you as His creation, and His child because He created each of us and knew us before we were born. He knows exactly what purpose and plan that He has in store for you and will bring it about without your help if He has to.

God loves us, all of us, whether we know it or not. His patience with us is longer and more enduring than we can possibly imagine. I know that many people try to put “human” qualities and traits on Jesus and God and Jesus did live as a man until His resurrection, yet He was fully God too! As it says in the first chapter of John, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1)

His humanity was what He had to take up like we do when we put on a suit and yet He did it for us, because of His love for us. We cannot deny this and one day it will be for all the world to see. In order for us to come back to Him, if we ever knew Him, takes only a repentant spirit and a prayer for forgiveness because of our actions. If you have never known Jesus, it still only takes a prayer of repentance, one that is truly sorry for the life that you have lived. Acknowledge that you want to live for Him and allow Him to live through you and in your heart. That’s it!

I know that is too simple and straightforward for some to believe but it is true! He made it that simple so that a child could understand how to do it, it is us religious “grown-ups” who make it hard by putting religion and its dogma into the equation. That is why Jesus was so upset with the Pharisees of His day. They knew the scriptures, the prophecies that foretold Him and His coming and yet they did not “see and hear with their spiritual eyes and ears”.

Pride and selfishness get in the way just as it did then. They were proud of being descendants of Abraham and Moses. They were looking at what they would lose if common people could come to God without a priest and a sacrifice. Their position of importance among the people meant more to them that the people that they were supposed to be shepherding toward God.

This same pride is at work in the church today. Many preachers and evangelists, especially those with television ministries, allow their pride and the money which comes into their offering boxes to sway them and their message. I am not accusing all of them, but the ones which get into the news the most and draw the most attention, cause the world to look on all who claim Christ as being the same.

Pride is Satan‘s most useful tool to discredit the Church and the followers of Christ. Mainly because it causes the most hurt and makes the mistakes which are made so visible.

Give your life to Christ so that you can undo some of the damage that has been done in your life. You will be able to do this through Jesus’ power, not your own and He will give you the words and the strength to accomplish it. Don’t rely on your own strength because in the end it will fail, but His will not!

What do you mean, “die to self”?


It is a question which has been asked many times since Jesus was here. It is a question which is easy and hard to answer but I will try to shed some light on it here.

Our selfish nature or it could be called our childish nature, is what gets us into so much trouble and we don’t realize it until it is almost too late. Anyone who is a parent has heard a child say “I can do it myself” and it is that “self” that we have to get away from! If we don’t, it will get us into more trouble than we could possibly imagine!

I know that many people feel that this is just some preacher rambling about something that doesn’t mean anything. Well, I am a preacher but I have also been called to get these bits of wisdom that I glean from God‘s Word out to a dying world and in this instance our “self” is usually the bad guy. Satan will help our nature or our “self” to be a real problem, against our better judgement and our Christian nature, but it is us who cause much of our own problems!

As the old cartoon said, “I has met the enemy and he is us!” We are our own worst enemy in many ways, least of all to ourselves and the life that we live. It is our nature, the sin nature that was born in the garden of Eden, that has caused and is still causing heartache and pain and suffering today.

Can we do anything about it?  No, not on our own we can’t! With God in our life and in our hearts we can overcome our self, the old self that is at war with our new creation after Christ comes into your heart. It is a battle that we cannot afford to lose which is why we are admonished to put on the armor of God by studying His Word and taking its wisdom into our life on a daily basis. When we do that, we are able to do exceedingly more for Him and through Him than we could ever do on our own!

Give your heart to Jesus, the only One who loves you regardless of what you have done or will do! He will never leave you nor let you down so give your heart to Him and your life will never be the same, it will be BETTER!

Our life…does it matter?


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How does Jesus know me?


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

Five minutes after I die….


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

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

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

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

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

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

 

My life is out of control, HELP!


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What will you do with Jesus?


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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