Tag: Jesus Christ

Love, where does it come from?


Many people wonder about love and today consider that this word is just…a word. It doesn’t mean anything, it has no depth for many people. It is just a simple, four letter word and nothing more. Where does this sort of thinking come from? Why is it so denigrated and down-played from the meaning that it is given in God’s Word?

Mainly because people don’t see love today as the same as what is talked about in the Bible. We have been using the word, LOVE, as a stand-in for lust for so long until it has lost its real meaning. Nobody sees it being acted upon or toward people in the same way that Jesus told us that we are supposed to do. We are supposed to love each other as we love ourselves, but very few people do this today.

Everyone is out to get what they can get and as much as they can get for themselves. Its like the world is populated by millions if not billions of spoiled brats!

I am not saying that stuff is bad but the constant search for and chasing after more toys is idiotic. Nothing that you gain in this life materially gives you much satisfaction except for a brief moment when you are using it for the first few times. Then, just like most children, it becomes old and it just doesn’t fill the void that you wanted filled. At which point you are off to find something else.

Our search for something to fill that void in our lives is not a pursuit which is limited to young or old, rich or poor or middle class. It is something which we feel when we get to a certain age and realize that there is something that is missing. At which point we begin to search for it and depending upon our resources (money), we look in all sorts of places and seek out fulfilment in more and better things.

We will look at new cars or homes or games or guns, then sometimes we seek out new friends or relationships or even new gadgets like an iPad or tablets or phones and computers. Today, the selection is nearly endless yet we still have trouble finding just the right combination or specific person or thing which will fill that void. We will never find it until we begin searching for the One which can fill that place of empty feeling.

That is Jesus Christ. In life, we only have a small amount of time. It could be twenty years or thirty, it might be sixty or even ninety or one hundred years, but when you compare that time with, say one hundred thousand years, isn’t it tiny? God created us all with an immortal spirit or soul and that part of us continues on when this life ends. Your acceptance of Jesus places you on the path into Heaven with Him and that life will never end.

If you choose to hear or listen to a message about being saved by belief in Jesus and then walk away, deciding that you will live the way you want to live because your idea of God would not do that to someone. Your idea of God would not punish you in hell for not accepting His Son as Savior. It won’t be your idea that judges you! It will be God Himself and it is not His decision which will place you in hell, it is yours!

Even a child can understand the Love of God that was given to all of us through Jesus and His death and resurrection, but if you choose to turn away from the offer of grace which God gives you by that love then it is your choice. It will be your choice which condemns you to hell, not God.

Easter, the meaning of it…


Today, we look at all holidays as their commercial impacts the world and the economy. But, what about the spiritual impact that the event itself really should have on people? Does anyone really look at Easter today and think about Jesus going to the cross for us, dying for us and then being raised up on the third day in order to complete His work here?

The holiday that we celebrate has nothing to do with Jesus at all. Bunnies and eggs had no meaning to the world at large in Jesus’ day except to pagans which celebrated the coming of spring and the rebirth of life after winter. That celebration has nothing at all to do with Jesus, with the exception of the rebirth which points to the resurrection. We need to look at our Lord as the Creator of all things and believe in His work of redemption on the cross by the shedding of His blood for our sins.

The reason for Easter being the holiday that it is, is because of a pagan spring equinox celebration and that it coincides with the time for passover in late March or early April. This was the time that Jesus was crucified so on that weekend is when we celebrate His death and resurrection. Since the Jewish tradition is to follow a lunar calendar of thirty-day months, dates are never the same from year to year.

So, what is the meaning of Easter, really? The celebration of Life through Jesus Christ and His atoning death and resurrection! That is the true reason for this holiday. If it had not been for this event, we wouldn’t have the hope of a resurrection to eternal life with Him! Our Savior is alive and He is coming back and if the events happening around our world today are any indication of “birth pains”, then it won’t be much longer until the whole world sees Him and knows that our faith and our Savior is real!

Regarding God


Yesterday, I reblogged a post about an African church and it tells how they praise God in their worship. It very likely doesn’t do them justice, but it does tell some of what they do. In our churches today, in America in some places around the world, we tend toward restraint and dignified worship. Why do we do this? So we aren’t perceived as “those crazy Christians” maybe?

David worshipped God with dancing and singing, so much so that it embarrassed his wife. Why don’t we worship God with all of our being and our strength? Maybe we don’t want to look ridiculous to others? What difference does it make?

If every person in the church was clapping and singing and dancing in the aisles, what difference would it make? To others, who were doing the same thing, it wouldn’t matter. Someone who had never seen this kind of worship, would either run away or join in on the fun! Would that be so bad? The one that ran away might think that all of us are crazy, but God wouldn’t.

Worship can be as dignified or as rambunctious and care free as it needs to be. Why would you want to go into God’s presence with a face that looked as if you had a lemon in your mouth? Jesus laughed I am sure of it and we should be happily praising God regardless of our situation in life.

Just as Jesus told His disciples: “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5″I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 6″If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.… (John 15:4-6) We are to do the same. Abiding doesn’t mean just sitting there like a lump on a log. A branch grows and produces fruit, and so should we and we ought to be happy and joyous in the process!

God is our Creator and our Judge when that time comes, but when you have accepted Jesus as your Savior then He is your Father too. He doesn’t judge you anymore because you are covered by Jesus’ blood and your sins are forgotten. You may falter and fall occasionally, but you are still forgiven. His sacrifice was a one-time gift to us all and the only thing which we have to do is to accept the gift from God as it is, by faith. There is nothing that we can add to it and we can’t tarnish it by not doing anything after we get it, but you will. A grateful heart will do something for God.

You may think that what you do is small, but God can use even the smallest gesture or word to plant a seed in someone’s life or maybe to open someone’s eyes to the Truth. You may not think that what you said or did will amount to anything, but God can use it in ways that you might never imagine. This blog can make an impact in someone’s life and I pray that it will.

Is there punishment in eternity?


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

How much more?


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Living with Love


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

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

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

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

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

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

United we stand


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eternity and God


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

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

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

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

How do I get to Heaven?


This is a question which many people seem to want the answer to, and today it seems that most think that they can get there on their own. Which is strange because I only know of One way and that is through the grace given to us through Jesus Christ by God Himself. The Bible clearly states that there is no other way except through Him, yet many religions on Earth tell many people a much different story.

Many of them say that there is no Heaven, or that you can do many good deeds for people in your lifetime and you will be granted a place there, so say that you will come back here until you get everything just right and then you will be allowed in. All of them are wrong.

You can, of course, believe what you wish to believe about life after death in this world but when that day comes then the Truth will be known. What will you be able to say when you stand before God and Jesus on that day? If you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, you will bow before Him and thank Him for your salvation. If you have rejected Him during your life here, then you will be shown the things that you have done in your life, things which you would’ve been granted forgiveness for, then you will be shown the times that you had heard a message or felt a call from Him and you ignored it.

It is your actions, your decision in this life which will determine whether you go to Heaven or not, the choice is yours to make and it must be made while you yet live. It is not God’s choice to send you to hell if you choose not to accept Jesus as your Savior, it is yours. God doesn’t want people to be sent there, but if they reject the grace offered through the atonement that was bought with Jesus’ death, then He has no choice. Nothing that we are capable of doing during our life, if we are without Jesus, is good enough to get us into Heaven.

Only through accepting Jesus as your Savior and asking Him to come into your life and change you, to make you what He knows that you can be, is it even possible for you to be forgiven and get into Heaven. You can yell and scream about all of the evolutionary theories and atheistic nonsense that you want, but rejection of the grace offered by God is the only unforgivable sin. It is your choice, which will you choose?

Choices that we make


“My real problem is that I don’t want to live up to the standard that Jesus demands.” This from a university student speaking to Dr. Billy Graham in New Zealand after the 1959 crusade that he held there.

There is the problem which many people in the world today face about turning their lives and their hearts over to Jesus. They think that it is an intellectual problem of living up to the standard of Jesus Christ when in fact, it is belief in Him and faith in Him which changes you from the inside out. Once that happens, you are changed into a person who can follow Him like the disciples did. It is not a question of whether you can live up to it or not, the Holy Spirit will strengthen you and guide you into a life which will be able to serve Him.

It is still your choice whether you will believe in Jesus and follow Him, but once you truly repent and begin to seek Him and learn about Him then your character is changed from the inside. According to 2 Corinthians 5: 17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” and from that point on every action that you do can be in service to God. Praying for those friends of yours who haven’t made the commitment to give their lives to Jesus, attending church services, reading your Bible and studying it so that you can give a defense of what you believe and why. All of this will come to you as second nature after you have accepted Jesus as your Savior.

Living life without Christ is like getting on a boat and not knowing how to swim or flying in an airplane that has problems and may not make it to your destination. We all will die one day and as violent as our world has become, it would be a wise decision to begin to follow Jesus daily. Nobody knows when they may die and our world is so violent and crazy at times, just driving to the store is hazardous. I pray that I will make it to the store and then pray on the way home to get back there too.

Yes, God is with you all of the time, but it doesn’t hurt to pray for safety and mercy in the face of a possible car jacking or having a wreck on the highway. God loves us and watches over all of us, and He does have a plan for your life and mine. Seek Him out with an open mind, don’t close your heart off to the only One Who can give you eternal life. Jesus spoke of an eternity in hell too and it is a fact that after we die, we do have an immortal soul which will inhabit one place or the other, but it is your choice in regards to which destination you will be in for eternity.