Tag: Jesus died for you

Do you see?


At times, we do see the problems around us or at home or at church, but at other times, where we seem to be blind to the happenings and the life which is there…right in front of us. Why can’t we see? Sometimes it is because we are being selfish, other times it is because we choose not to see. But if you are a Christian, why would you choose not to see what is wrong with the world around you?

Elisha prayed so that his servant would see that they were not in as much danger as he thought. In 2 Kings chapter six where this took place, Elisha had preached in Israel what God had told him to, but the king of Syria, Ben-Hadad, warred with Israel. Just prior to this encampment, Elisha had prayed for Naaman who was a leader in Syria’s army who had leprosy. God healed him and when he departed, Elisha’s servant had gone out to receive some of the payment which he had brought to Elisha.

Greed can blind you to many things and that is what happened here. Gehazi was coveting the silver and the garments which Naaman had brought as gifts for his healing. The Lord struck him with leprosy just as the Syrian had when he came for his greed. In many ways, we are like this servant. We desire something in this life which doesn’t have any spiritual benefit to us or for those around us such as wealth or lands or just more stuff. You can hear and see that stuff has become a real problem in America today because of all the self-storage units that are being built every month.

Getting back to our story, even though Gehazi was stricken with leprosy for his greed, it seems that he served his master for many years. No doubt because Elisha prayed for his healing after he learned his lesson about greed. It isn’t mentioned in the Bible, but considering that leprosy was a death sentence on anyone who had it, I believe that he was likely healed later.

The topic is “Do you see?”, so what do we see in this world? Poverty, hunger, wars, famines, loss of life in many ways, actually the list could go on and on from here. My point is this: why do we not see? In America, we have been spoken of in history as a Christian nation because that is how our country came to be. People in England fled their country because of religious persecution so they could worship in freedom and in the way that they chose.

So, why don’t we see the things around us which we could do something about? Do we choose not to see the things which we could help with because of our greed and selfishness? Are we so blind to the suffering around us because we don’t want to see it or just because we walk in this world with spiritual blinders on? In the link above to a part of 2 Kings where Elisha’s servant is anxious about the army surrounding Jerusalem, he cannot see what Elisha can. So, Elisha prays for him to be able to see into the spiritual world and he finds that God’s army was far more formidable than those who surrounded the city.

In our lives today, we can’t see what is happening in our world spiritually. Some would say this is a good thing because we would be scared out of our wits if we could see the spiritual warfare and the beings which are here and all around us on a daily basis. Honestly, I believe that it would open many people’s eyes to the fact of their own frailty and the reason that they need Jesus. But, God has chosen not to allow our sight to be opened in that way for a reason.

Pray that God will show you His will in your life through His Word because the days are drawing closer to that time which is prophesied at the end of the age. We don’t know the day or the hour until that time comes, but God doesn’t lie and the time is swiftly approaching, so don’t hesitate. Call on Jesus for your salvation and seek Him out for your deliverance because He is the only way to be saved from the punishment which comes after you leave this world.

Times and times and half a time


So many meanings, hard to understand, only metaphors and not literal prophecy, these are the interpretations of the book of Revelation or at least the way that many Christians have looked at it and declared it too hard to understand. Why? The fig tree blooming is the nation of Israel coming back into their country after nearly 2,000 years. The time of the gentiles being over in the city of Jerusalem came about after the 1967 war. Now, we are fifty years past that time and the generation is about to see many other prophecies coming true in that land.

What are the people of the world seeing in these things? Not much actually. Nobody is paying any attention to what is coming about, nobody is noticing that prophecy is coming true before them. Why is that? Because few people believe that the Bible is the Word of God and His promises and prophecies always happen at the time that He chooses.

The book of Revelation is not a fantasy and none of the prophecies in the Bible are wishes, they are foretold by God Who lives outside of time as we see it. He can know what day you and I will die, and He also knows when you will read this post or if you will just scoff at the first few lines and leave. God loves each of us and the Bible is His way of telling us that He knows all that is knowable about us and about our world. It is also His way of telling us that He loves us and He doesn’t want us to go down the wrong pathway!

Learn about Jesus and read the Bible, regardless of which version that you read it tells the same story if you open your mind and ask Him to reveal it to you. Your life is special to God and He knows exactly what you can do for His Kingdom, if you will give your heart to Jesus and follow Him the rest of your life. Jesus taught His disciples that the Old covenant only pointed to Himself, His covenant was ratified by His blood that was shed for you and me on the cross. When He rose from the grave three days later, He proved Who He was and when He left after forty days, He said that He would return to take His church with Him.

It is true that you can choose not to believe this and go on living your life without Him, but when you breathe your last breath here and stand in judgement without Jesus as your Savior….what can you say about your life? Were you righteous in all of your ways? Did you manage to live a sinless life as Jesus did? If you told one lie, no matter how big or small you thought it was, then you are a wretched sinner and will pay with your eternal life in hell.

Sounds harsh? Yes, but the only decision which was needed and necessary was the one of belief in Jesus as your Savior and giving your heart to Him, turning from your “old life” and living as well as you can with His Spirit guiding you each day. Learning more about Him through study of His Word. Is living with the Holy Spirit as your guide easy? No! Because you are now an enemy of Satan and he will try to make your life worse, but through Jesus you have defeated him and you have the victory.

Our Savior


Jesusdiedforme

The most wonderful part of this bit of information is the part that is not in the image. He rose again on the third day! Jesus came to Bethlehem as an infant, with His deity poured out into the life of a human babe. His Father was and is God and through the Holy Spirit He was formed in the womb of Mary.

Jesus came to us, not to prove that God can do this thing of bringing a child into the world by a virgin, but to prove His love for ALL of us. Thirty-three years later, He went to the cross after being nearly whipped to death and He hung on the cross for a few hours and then He said, “It is finished”.

Heaven and hell and all of creation felt His passing. It was celebrated by the demons and Satan and it was likely questioned by the angels in Heaven, but God knew the reason and the timing of it all. It had to happen that way. He gave His life for each of us because He loved us and He did it because only He could accomplish what God had wanted to do since the Garden.

Our country and the world needs Jesus in their life because He is the Way to our salvation and eternity. You can believe it or not if you wish, but when you are standing in front of God one day without His righteousness covering your sins…you will wish that you had given your heart to Him. At which point…it will be too late.

Where is God in this?


This is the feeling I get when I watch the news or any coverage of the devastation left behind by these hurricanes this year. Yet, nobody seems to be asking or answering the question. Even in religious programming! I get emails for donations to help, but who is actually helping these people? Those in Puerto Rico have no electricity, no clean water and very little food; people in Florida nursing homes are dying because of lack of electricity and the heat, so where is the help that is supposed to be there?

You and I know that God is there in all of this, yet there is no one telling the news media about His Presence. Samaritan’s Purse is in Texas and in Florida and I imagine they have some people in the Caribbean helping out as much as they can. There are products like water and food that are being delivered as quickly as possible but there are many who are angry because they want everything back the way it was before! They want it right now!!

God is there! His grace and mercy is there, but people don’t recognize it for what it is. We are so accustomed to getting what we want right now! We as a society don’t know how to have patience enough to wait for Him to bring help and food and water or whatever you need! HE is always near, especially to those who believe in Him but He is also there with those who haven’t given their hearts to Him. He is waiting for you to decide that you need Him.

That is why He has given us free choice to use it in our life and our decisions. We have a choice of whether we will believe in Him, and live our lives according to His will as taught in the Bible. He also gives us the choice to NOT believe in Him or in Jesus and just live our lives according to our own desires and our beliefs or lack of belief!

Why does He give us a choice? If we didn’t have a choice, we wouldn’t be human beings! We would be more like robots or automatons and that is not the kind of relationship that God wants with us at all!

Would you want a relationship with someone who doesn’t have a choice? They do what you want, when you want, no questions and they always hear you when you speak. Sounds a lot like slavery or a robot or something doesn’t it?

When you love someone deeply, don’t you want them to love you as well? God wants that relationship with us. That doesn’t mean that He needs our love, but He desires it. Parents know this because they love their children and they feel love from their children when they get old enough to know what love really is. That is the kind of relationship of love that God wants with us!

He is always near to us no matter what situation is happening in our life, when we are believers in Him. If you don’t know Him or believe in Him, he is near but not in the same way until you call on Him to give your life to Him. Then He is immediately there and will be near from that point on if you give your heart to Him.IamtheWay

Too many distractions


.In the past, almost two decades (just shy by ~2 years), we have seen and are still seeing that distractions like texting, game play (virtual and connected through cell towers), console games and computer games are taking our millennial generation. They are not paying much attention to real life! It is true that some of them are paying attention, but it seems that the majority that get our attention on the news as spoiled brats are exactly that!

They are distracted from real life and don’t care to study real history and actual English as a language. Too much emphasis on abbreviations and shortcuts from texting is to blame as well as our education system which allows this. What has happened to discipline and character in education and in our children? In my opinion, it began to erode away when prayer and study of the Bible was taken out of the classroom. When prayer was taken out in 1963, the morals and the character of our teachers and their students began a very long slide downhill and it hasn’t stopped yet.

God has not stopped caring for us even though we have pushed Him as far away as we can. Truly, it is time that we got back to learning why the Pilgrims came to America in the first place. It is also time that we studied the Bible, not just as a historical document but as a standard by which our lives should be patterned. Before anyone shouts out that women were not allowed a voice and slavery was deemed as acceptable, I am not saying that any of that should be brought into view. I am speaking of the moral teachings from God’s Word and the lessons learned from the New Testament and Jesus’ disciples. Those are the more important and useful areas that our education system needs today!

For many years, the Bible was the main textbook used in schools until it was pushed aside in the late 1800’s. Although, it did survive as a classroom text into the mid twentieth century, it was finally taken out of the classroom and largely out of family life except for those who attend church occasionally. We need to get back to learning about and knowing God as our Savior and as our Teacher as well!

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

Our God is forgiving and loving and willing to come to our aid if we will acknowledge that we have sinned by pushing Him away and repent of that terrible sin, then seek Him out as our God and our Savior, learning to follow Him in all that we do. But, today our world on the Internet and social media and in the news despises Him and His Son, Jesus. Any mention of Jesus will almost get you arrested today and I never thought I would live to see that day come.

Our world, not just everywhere else, but here in America is becoming a dangerous place for people who believe in Jesus. Have you noticed that? You can claim to worship a tree or a fish or a little fat man or even just claim that you are your own god, and everyone seems to be fine with that! But…if you claim to pray to the God of the Bible or believe in Jesus the Christ, our Messiah, then you have crossed the line into dangerous territory. Nobody wants to hear that nonsense! How dare you bring up the name of God or Jesus in public!

It is a shame that it hasn’t been brought up many, many times before! For over fifty years we have been pushing God away and out of our schools and out of public life and display and quite frankly if it doesn’t come to an end then the world itself will. God is a patient Creator, this much is very true. He has allowed us to go farther than the world did in Adam’s day and by Noah’s time, which wasn’t very far apart, God had enough. We have been fortunate that He hasn’t had enough far sooner than now. The only real reason which has kept Him from acting on our stupidity and arrogance was His promise to the Jewish people.

He had promised to bring them back into their land and after nearly two millennia He did exactly that! Then they regained control over Jerusalem in 1967, fifty years ago this year. His promises to them are the reason His patience has lasted so long, so yes we are fortunate indeed.

I pray that anyone reading this will seek Him out, not as a learning experience, but humbly and with a contrite heart. Leave your distractions behind, whatever they may be, and follow Jesus because He is the only Savior of mankind. Anything or anyone else is a fake and a liar.

Time will tell


Old and new, wrecked and fixed, upgraded and better than it was.

What do you mean by that?

Long story shortened, it has to do with our car and each of us as well. It wasn’t really old, a 2016 model we bought in ’15, now it looks new again. It was wrecked a few weeks ago, now it is fixed. As far as the “upgraded and better” part, that doesn’t apply to the car exactly. It does, however, apply to more than one thing in our lives I suppose. I am building a new computer, kinda, using someone’s old hard drive so it is going to be upgraded and better than it was.

The other part of that is that when we come to know Jesus and He lives in our hearts, we become upgraded and better than we were before. We have our hearts (our soul really) cleaned up and given a shiny brand-new outside and we are changed from the inside out. Gradually, as we study the Bible to learn more about God and Jesus and what we are expected to do with this new life, we become more like Jesus.

It isn’t an immediate transformation and sometimes old habits and patterns in our lives linger on. Some for longer than we would like. But, eventually, if we are diligent with our Bible study, we will become more like Jesus. Granted, we can’t walk on water or calm a storm like He could, but we will know what grieved His heart about us and others in our world. We will begin, like baby steps, to understand what righteous anger and indignation means. We will also learn to take those problems to God and leave them there.

Some people may say that “living like that is a cop-out”, but it isn’t. It is harder to pray about something which is wrong, whether it is a wrong done to us or our family, and then leave the problem in God’s hands. Because you know just as well as I do that humans want to fix things ourselves. We usually make the problem worse and then we really have some serious praying and soul-searching to do.

No, being transformed into the likeness of Jesus is not an instant or overnight process…it takes time. It is true that His Spirit comes into your heart when you ask Him to come, but the change is usually hampered by our nature. What you did prior to realizing that you needed Jesus in your heart, that part of you still fights with your new Spirit and causes your old habits and desires to cause you to stumble in your walk with Jesus.

This one thing, which many preachers don’t talk about, causes many people to give up and turn back to their old life and their sinful lives, even after giving their life to Jesus. These are the ones which Jesus was speaking about when He told the parable about the thorns and the cares of the world. “Lacking a root, the seed sprung up but quickly withered away“; being a Christian is not an immediate change nor is it complete at the beginning. You and I won’t be complete in our transformation until we stand with Him in heaven, but with study and prayer in God’s Word we can strive to be more like Him while we are still in our bodies.

Seek Him to become an upgraded and better vessel for His Spirit and strive to be more like Him as much as it is possible to do. Seek Him so that your ministry will be better than mine or others so that He can say to you, “Well done, my faithful servant”.

Will the world end this week?


theworldendsI heard that someone has predicted that it will. I would like to know where these people get their information from. The Bible foretells of the end of the world and yes, there are many things happening right now that seem to point in that direction. BUT…until you see the church taken out of the world or see Jesus coming in the clouds with the host of Heaven, I don’t think that our world will end. Especially not when someone says that it will on a certain day. Humanity is not given that information in the Bible or anywhere else.

So what are we supposed to do? First, don’t worry about it. If the world ends, there isn’t anything that we can do to stop it. If the church is taken up to Heaven, that is God’s decision and there is still nothing which will change that.

The most useful outcome of this would be if people really began to read and study their Bibles to find out if there is an end coming because it is, just not this weekend. God has given us, humanity, nearly two thousand years to learn that we need Him and to give our lives to Him. In may opinion He has been very patient with us when we have been doing some things which would provoke any human to just kill everyone!

Thankfully, God is not like us. He loves each of us with our faults and our fears and our tears. He doesn’t care how much money we have or how big our house is, but He does want us to give our lives to Him and to tell others about Jesus! If you are looking for your calling or your purpose in life, that is it as far as God is concerned. Study His Word, learn as much as you can about Him and His Son, pray about your problems, your fears and your joys in this life because He is the One Who supplies all of our needs and our ability to live in this world!

In the news it seems that more people want to cause chaos and destruction in the world. For what reason, I don’t know. Maybe their idea is if the world is on fire, a Savior will come to fix things. Maybe the rest of the population will decide to follow their god or their ideology so that there will be “peace”. Honestly, a peaceful world doesn’t get that way by killing and burning everything in sight! At least, that doesn’t sound like a way to bring about peace  to me!

Seek peace in the Word of God and learn from its wisdom because mankind’s wisdom is foolish to the rest of the world and peace does come through God alone.

On this day……


There are many websites and news sites which are talking about 9/11 and I agree that we shouldn’t forget what happened and why. But, I am not going to go over where I was or what my feelings were at the time. Yes, there was sadness and anger and frustration at all of the agencies who didn’t or wouldn’t share the information which they had. My point for today is that it is a day we should remember and take the memory with us to learn from it.

The truth of the CrossPrior to 2001, this day was very much like any other day. We get up, either go to work or to church or maybe something else (depending upon which day it falls on). My point here is that until we were attacked on this day, it was just like any other day. Now it is a reminder of terror and being attacked by people who hate us. Understanding the hatred is something which we can’t actually do, even today many years later. The news media and other “talking heads” will discuss and memorialize the day, yet we haven’t actually come to an agreement with those who attacked us and we likely never will.

The religious fervor and anger from centuries ago will not go away because the religion of those who attacked us tells them to lie and do anything necessary to placate the infidels in order to kill them later. We are not going to see an end to this until Jesus comes back and puts an end to it forever.

Jesus loves all people but the time of the church age is drawing to a close. God’s patience for our world and its disregard for Israel and for His Son is drawing to an end. Please don’t wait until the Tribulation begins because even though it won’t be too late to give your heart to Jesus, it will be far more dangerous. You have time today…right now, don’t wait, seek Him out to be your Savior before He returns for the church.

The eclipse…


I know that I am not the only person writing about this but it is a big deal. I mean this eclipse can be seen by most of the United States! Maybe not in totality but any portion of our Sun obscured is a big deal. I took a picture with my cell phone and it doesn’t look as good as others but I am going to show it here:

Eclipse by phoneThere will be another eclipse for the Eastern half of the USA in seven years so maybe others will get to see that one too. Our God is Awesome! I hope that you had a chance to get out and see this event today. According to our news media there were more people watching this peacefully than have gathered together in a long time. We need this kind of unity!

Life is all around us every day but sometimes we only see the darkness. Take heart, the darkness only lasts for a little while. In an eclipse or in life, the dark times which do come, only last for a bit and then they are replaced by the Light of God’s love. Sometimes the darkness last for a while longer, but if you lean on Jesus and seek His strength during this time, you will get through it and emerge into the Light.

The darkness of the totality during an eclipse is truly dark as I observed on TV, but it only lasted for a couple of minutes in most places. Then the light began to return. It is the same with our lives today. When the darkness overtakes us, it seems very, very dark for a while but you are not alone. Jesus is always by your side if you believe in Him as your Savior.

God loves each of us so much that He sent His Son to live and die on a cross for us. Paying our sin debt in full so that we don’t have anything to boast of except for Jesus alone! Life is sometimes dark and dreary but the good news is that Jesus is the Light of the World and in Him only are we saved, sanctified and given eternal life! There is no other Savior nor any other way to accomplish this except through Jesus the Christ!

Please be in prayer for all who have not made the decision to give their lives to Jesus because, regardless of your idea of a Savior or whether there even is a God, believe the Bible as God’s Word and it is True! He loves you and there is no one else in this universe that could love you more than He does! Don’t turn away from Him when you feel His call in your life, in your heart because you may not get the chance again.

Summer….


The season of heat and humidity, at least in the deep South, is coming to an end. It hasn’t yet, but hopefully before November the temperature outside will get to a point of being tolerable. Summer is also the warmest or hottest part of the year no matter what hemisphere you live in or the time of year in which it falls. I never really liked summer because of the humidity and the heat but then I tried a little of it in Arizona a few years back. It wasn’t so unbearable as summer in the South, but hot is hot when you get in a car, with or without the humidity!

13419221_838712436261893_9132633303197040096_nYou may be wondering why I am beginning this post about the hottest part of the year? Well….there are many reasons. Life itself being one of them. We go through periods of learning and growth in the spring of our lives, then we get to the summer season where we are busy and doing things so much until we don’t know which direction we are going sometimes. The fall season is sometimes the best, although it is then that many of life’s problems show up in our health and relationships. Winter is when all of the accomplishments of life come together and we remember, hopefully, the best of those before we reach the end.

Why do I bring this up today? Because, a friend of mine has passed on to the next phase of life…eternity. I am not sure about their salvation, although I hope that he did give his life to Jesus before the end. Life is full of changes. Some of them are good, some are not, but we have to live through them regardless. It is in living through them that we learn and grow into the person that we are to be. For some of us it takes a bit longer, and for some the learning begins with an early realization that God is in control of all things.

God is in control and He does His will through us and without us, but His will is done in all things good or bad. and the good and bad are from our viewpoint. Not necessarily from God’s viewpoint because His purposes will be done regardless of our actions or inaction. Spring, summer, fall and winter are only seasons in the year even though we use them to represent our lives as well. Seek Jesus out during your spring so that the rest of your “year” of life will be productive and in accordance with His will.