Tag: Jesus loves you

What do you choose to be like?


A.W. Tozer once said this:

“We can choose to be like the Old Testament Israelites and look upon the pagan world with admiration and even envy, or we can choose to examine Christ and place all our admiration on Him. Either way, that which we admire most reveals who we are and who we want to be.”

Most of us don’t know most of the time what we would choose to follow or admire in today’s world. Many of us seem to follow the most talked about celebrity or sports figure or some other person or whatever that may be catching everyone’s attention today or maybe this week. It doesn’t seem to matter whether they are shallow, egotistical, or even in their right mind!

I know, I’m exaggerating a bit on some of that, but you get the point. We tend to be distracted by tweets and posts on FB and all sorts of other media these days, especially youtube, but real life is not part of these media outlets agenda! Your life is meant to be so much more than media consumption and tweets! This is not the type of life we were meant to have, particularly at the end of the age which we are coming upon.

What you choose to follow or be is your choice of course, but God made us to be more than what we are ready to do for Him. Today, we see and hear all sorts of things which get our attention and cause us to focus our attention on something or someone other than Jesus. When this happens we admire “those people”, whoever they may be or whoever they may be following, for their dedication.

Why can’t we be dedicated to Christ? There are so many who are fanatically following someone or some religion but Jesus is our Savior and He is worthy of our praise and our worship and we should be dedicated to Him! The number of truly dedicated Christians in America is far less than it should be. Many people claim to be His, claim to be Christians, but from the answers they have given on questionnaires they prove themselves to be “head-knowledge” Christians rather than changed heart Christians!

Knowledge of Jesus, even knowledge of God’s Word is great but if you haven’t repented of your sins and asked Him to come into your life and change you from the heart outward, then without a real change in your life, I don’t know if Jesus knows you or not. A repentant heart, one that is truly sorry for the life and the sins that they have been part of, will seek out the only One Who can cleanse it and make it completely new.

All of the stuff which we try to put into our lives and our heart in order to feel right on the inside just doesn’t work because it doesn’t fit! The only person that fits in that part of you is Jesus! No amount of work or money or sex or drugs or anything of this world will do, only Jesus fills that space and when He does then you will feel it and you will know it for sure.

What about today?


 

Today I woke without much pain.

Today, I thanked God for this blessing and for my friends and family.

Today, I will read God’s Word and learn from the Source of Truth.

Today, I feel His Presence all around me.

Today is the day that I will die to self and live for Him.

This is a poem, not designed to impress anyone or cause anyone to think about themselves. It is only for a daily walk with God. The words speak of a daily acknowledgement of God and His Presence in your life and mine. Some days, the first line may read like this: I woke up hurting all over, and I thanked God that I am alive to serve Him one more day.

Decide what your day will be like and how you will live it with Him, because you may only have today to do so.

I am adding to this on the last day of April, just as I wrote this on the first day. Time and age happen to us all, some of us feel it a bit more than we should or rather much earlier than we should. But, that is the way that it goes almost every day. One hour at a time, one minute at a time, life and time move at the same rate no matter who is doing the counting.

So, what is your time like today? Your life? Is it what you thought it would be? For many of us, our thoughts and dreams are far behind us now and very likely will never come to pass. The golden age of dreams for many in America was during the ‘50’s through much of the ‘70’s. Although it was also during those years that many conflicts arose in the culture of America.

Between races and even between men and women and their rights as separate but equal partners in life. The decision of allowing legal abortions also came through the Supreme Court of our land and has been a blight on life ever since. It doesn’t matter what your stance on this decision might be, it falls on the wrong side of life itself. Why do I say this? Because it is wrong to kill another human being, especially when it is a child that isn’t even out of the womb yet and can’t defend itself!

This so-called “right” is defended in the name of giving a woman a choice with her life, such as whether she wants to raise a child or not. If that were the case, then why is the child always referred to as a “clump of cells” and not a child or a baby? Consider what you are doing before causing this life to grow within you the way that God designed it to do!

God does love each of us and He is the Author and finisher of our life and our faith. Our choices in this life also affect our eternity for good or for evil and it is your choice which sends you in one direction or the other. God doesn’t toss you into the lake of fire or “allow” you into Heaven because of your good works in this life or what you did wrong in this life. It is your decision of belief in Jesus and His work, and His atonement for you which decides your eternal destination.

Today make that choice of learning to follow Jesus, learn more about Him, seek Him out in God’s Word and ask Him to come into your life. Because it is only in this life, while we are breathing, that the decision can be made. When your life is over, the decision is sealed and so is your fate and destination.

Loss, life and Love


Everyone goes through all of these in their lifetimes. Some go through them a little earlier or more frequently, sometimes it happens a bit later in life. But…we all have each of them at some point. Regardless of when or how things happen in your life, God is always near your heart and available to comfort your spirit and give strength to your soul. We cannot see Him or feel Him physically, but if you are a child of His you can feel Him spiritually by your side in all things, good or bad.

Why do I bring this up today? Because, all over the world there are people who are hurting because of one reason or another. Whether it is because of the loss of a loved one or because of disease or war or persecution, even in America people experience these. Maybe not to the point or extent that those in other countries do, but we should at least be in prayer for our brothers and sisters everywhere.

God cares for all of the human race regardless of the country or religion which you may subscribe to follow daily. He knows your struggle and would like for you to come to Him in faith. Though many people seek Him by other names, that is not how you get to know and love God. Faith and belief in Him and in Jesus is the only way to come to Him. You can’t call a statue “god”, nor can you pray to Him as another name and think that He hears you.

Jesus said that the only way to the Father is through the Son. No other name or worship is part of that relationship, just faith in God and belief in Jesus. God provided a way to salvation through belief in Jesus and His atonement for us in His death and resurrection. No other religious leader in history has ever come out of the tomb or grave after their death, except for Jesus! There were many witnesses of His resurrection body and His teaching after He came out of the tomb because He taught for another 50 days before ascending to the Father.

Life is in Him and eternity is only one heartbeat away. Make sure that your eternity is with Him!

So little time…


Do you recognize that life itself seems short? If you are past your teenage years, you probably see every year this way. Sometimes when we are young it seems that time just won’t go very fast at all. Particularly when you are in school and you would rather be fishing or playing outside or for today’s young folks, at home playing video games. Time seems to just fly by once you have finished school or have a child and from that point on it never slows down (except in line at Walmart).

Our lifespans seem long, especially when we are under twenty, but 70 years or even 80 is not very long at all. Living beyond that is by God’s grace alone and under His supervision as well. So, what do we do with this amount of time that we are given? What should we do with it? As some country and rock singers say, “Just LIVE it!”; but do we really know how to do this?

Most of us don’t figure out HOW to LIVE until a good portion of it is gone! When we are young, we are going to school and hanging out with friends. As we get to our “adult” years, we are so busy trying to pay bills and keep food on the table that we don’t even think about what “living” means! As our children get older and move on to college or their careers, usually we begin to see things from a slower pace…usually. Then, when retirement hits us in the face, we realize that we have let all of our flowers die and we didn’t even get to smell them.

Now, we are learning about parts of our body, which hurt now, that we never even noticed before. We want to get out and travel and see the world, but our money is spent on pain medication and doctor visits. Life is too short.

That is why we all should be planning for eternity. What is that? Well, it is the other side of Life which we don’t get to see until this body dies. If you are not a Christian, eternity may not mean much to you. Some see the word “afterlife” and think it is a bunch of hogwash, others see it as a party that never ends, and still others see it as a time of reincarnation to fix things which didn’t get done in this life on the first time around.

Jesus called it paradise and my idea of that is much better than starting over or continuing to have fun into eternity. Paradise can mean different things to different people. For some it may be seeing family members that have gone before us or even to be thankful to God for the grace and forgiveness which allows us to experience His true Kingdom.

road2eternityAs human beings, we can’t imagine in our finite minds the wonders of a perfect and eternal place with God as the Ruler and King. Eternity itself is beyond our thinking because even millions of years is beyond us and one million years is just one tick on the clock of eternity. What will our eternity be like? Your eternity and mine may be two different experiences.

If you are a believer in Jesus, then at some point we may meet in eternity. If you don’t believe in God or Jesus and especially or particularly in anything contained in the Bible, then your eternity will be separate from God and all of His Kingdom. The image above shows an idea of eternity from our perspective on Earth, a road which goes into the horizon and we can’t see its end. That is actually a good way of looking at it.

We walk on it every day even though we don’t realize it. Every event in our life is a pause or a stop on this journey. The path is well-worn and wide if you don’t know Jesus as your Savior, but the path to His Paradise is a bit different. It is narrow but just as long, the big difference is that one leads to Heaven and the other leads to a place without God and a place of torment which was never meant for us.

God knows each soul in hell, but they are there by their own choosing. They are in that place because they chose to live their life without Jesus or belief in Him. It is not a place where God sends you because He hates you. God loves you and wants the best for you, but if you choose to follow your own path and your way of living instead of His, then that is where you will be. In your own version of punishment and misery, but not in Heaven.

Don’t waste the time you have to make that choice by being selfish and greedy for yourself. Pray about your salvation and what it could be and then seek Him out, and He will answer you.

Why did you bring me back?


I have read some books from doctors about patients who have asked this question. Patients who had experienced death or as it is called in the media a near death experience. That is not exactly the right name for it, it is death but with a spiritual twist. If God had wanted that person dead then nothing that the doctors or anyone else did for them would matter. God allowed them to return because their story needed to be told, the feelings and experiences which they had in a few minutes or seconds needed to be told.

Many people experience peace and joy and a feeling that everything is fine. Some experience a horrifying and agony-filled few minutes which may change their beliefs after they return for their second chance. The point of this is that the veil which separates this life from the next is very thin spiritually speaking. We can’t see through it, although at times we feel things or see glimpses of someone or some place. We just brush it off as “it’s because I am tired” or “I didn’t really see that, did I?”.

Most of us forget those glimpses through the veil after a day or two, but for those who have crossed through the veil during a heart episode in the hospital or died on the operating room table and are brought back, the experience is too real to forget.

Is there life after death? YES! Jesus said so and He was and is alive now to prove it! He also told His disciples that He would return to take His church to be with Him. The veil which separates our earthly bodies from that eternity is thin and we are surrounded by spiritual beings all of the time. Do I have proof of this? No, I just have faith in God’s Word and it seems that the realm of the spirit was always there, even when Elisha was facing an army in the Old Testament. He asked God to show his disciple that they had more protection than the ones coming against him and he saw them!

The demons were and are everywhere in our world, yet thankfully we can’t see their form and their actions as we go about our daily lives. In Jesus’ day, a whole legion of them had taken over one man and when He told them to get out, they entered into a herd of pigs and the pigs drowned themselves in the lake.

My point is this: don’t discount the words of someone who has come near to death or has been brought back. They have seen something which few people see and live to tell of it. Does life continue after this shell of our bodies dies? Yes, it does. The enjoyment of life with Jesus is there but there is also a place without Him and it is a terrifying place without Jesus.

Our minds can barely imagine a few hundred years forward or back from our point of reference. One thousand years is a long time, but if you begin to think of one million or try to consider it then you can’t take it in. Any amount of time beyond one thousand is just a number to us, our minds can’t process it.

Why would someone who has been brought back to life be angry about having another chance at life? Because, for a believer the other side of the veil is so much more than we can comprehend now! Even a few seconds of life with Jesus away from the pain and mental anguish in this life would make you long to be with Him even more! But, when God sends a person back to this life, it is for a reason…His reason. Others need to know about the spiritual life that waits for them whether it is a life with Jesus or not!

john317Please, read God’s Word prayerfully. Seek Him out and His Son’s Life which is in His Word. Ask Jesus to come into your life and open your eyes so that you can experience His Life for eternity. God doesn’t want you to go to a dark place where He is not, because it is your choice if you refuse to allow Him into your life.

What do you see?


When you look at the world today and the news and all of the terrible things that are happening in it…what do you see? Is it evidence of how corrupt and perverted humanity has become? Is it prophecy coming true on a daily basis or is it just our evil and corrupt world and the people in it who are doing all of these things?

Actually, it is prophecy coming true AND it is the people in the world who haven’t accepted Jesus as their Savior who are fulfilling those prophecies. The evil and corruption and violence in our world are part of those prophecies which are coming true.

Yes, they are coming true every day and it seems with more frequency. The signs from the heavens like the solar eclipse this year and the next one in seven years, both of which will be seen in America. Then another pair of eclipses which will be seen in northern Egypt and Arabia beginning seven years after the two in America and the second seven years later. Both of the pair of eclipses are total and will make an “X” in the countries where they are seen.

The signs are showing up and are increasing. Please, don’t ignore God’s Word and the signs which He is using to bring attention to His Creation and Himself. God loves each of us and has provided atonement for each of us but if we don’t accept it and live according to His Word then it is as if the provision is refused and you are on your own. Just like someone telling you that you have an inheritance that you can claim but they won’t tell you what it is or how much. If you don’t claim it for yourself, then it is given to someone who will claim it.

Salvation through Jesus blood is the same. If you don’t claim it and live according to His Word, then it does you no good at all and it is the same as not having it at all. God knows who has taken His offer of forgiveness and who hasn’t or won’t, whether you believe it or not, He will judge you….not someone on Earth. Your own decision about what to do with Jesus’ gift is the very decision which will condemn you or bring salvation to you. The choice is yours.

In truth, the very person who decides that they will wait until later to get saved, “when I have got my life on track”, is the one person that will end up dead far sooner than they ever thought. They will be standing in front of God and that question will come up: What did you do with your knowledge of Jesus? So…what will be your answer?

Anything besides, He is my Savior, will not be enough and will not get you inside the gates of Heaven. If Jesus doesn’t step forward and claim you as His own, then your eternity will be without God, without His Love being expressed in your eternal home. That is just a taste of what hell will be like. Then, there is the heat and the flame and the pain of separation which will haunt you throughout eternity. God did not send you to hell. Jesus did not condemn you to hell…you did. It was your decision…it is your decision today.

The signs are all around us today that the age is coming to an end. So, what will you do with Jesus? Is He your Savior or will you continue on your own?

Acts of kindness


No matter how small they may be or what they may cost, any act of kindness is a blessing. If the world could experience more real acts of kindness, especially in places where even the smallest act of kindness would mean a lot… it could mean living just one more day for a child and we could change the world!

But…what do we see today? Murder, bombings, shootings, suicide bombings killing twenty or more people, wars, famine, diseases…can we do any act of kindnesses to help with these?

Other than prayer, I am not sure what can be done until Jesus comes back.

You hear about these in the news and on social media about “random acts of kindness”, but why do they have to be random? Do we as people, who were created in the image of God, have to be kind on a random basis? I think we could be kind and caring to each other on a regular basis, if we had the Holy Spirit living in our hearts and we were truly living the way that Jesus told us to be!

I know, it is corny and a pathetic way of being in our world today, but why do we have to hate each other so much? Can’t we show the love of God to others like Jesus did? You know, love isn’t deadly and it won’t cause cancer, as a matter of fact love and laughter makes most healing processes move along faster.

Life comes from God through His love for all of His Creation. Every being on this planet was created with a purpose, many of the more disgusting ones we don’t know their purpose but God knows why He created them. He is still creating because every year science finds some new creature which has never been discovered before. Some of these live in places where we thought that there was no way for life to be, yet it is.

It is likely that the moons of Jupiter and Saturn have some form of life. I don’t know if we would recognize it as life if we saw it. But I feel sure that God didn’t put those moons and planets out there just to look pretty and make us wonder about the universe that we live in.

God’s act of kindness toward us is this: we are still here. He shows His grace toward us every day that we are alive and we have another day to live for Him. If we aren’t, then we should be. When your life is over, do you think that you are good enough or righteous enough to merit stepping through the gates of Heaven? God’s grace toward each of us is His kindness and love allowing us enough time to hear His voice and to understand that each of us NEEDS Jesus in our heart and in our life!

It doesn’t matter if you have had ten years, twenty or fifty or even one hundred years on this Earth. If you have lived here and have heard His Word preached or read the Bible, then you know about His love for you. All He is asking for you to do is to return some of your love to Him by following Him and doing His will in your daily walk with Him. It doesn’t cost you anything, but in return you will have eternity with Him to do even more!

Quiet time with God


Have you ever thought about having real, honest, quiet time alone with you and God and His Word. No distractions, no television or radio, no children or pets or spouses to interrupt your time with the Father and your Creator! Wouldn’t that be wonderful! Jesus made sure that He did this regularly during His ministry.

The Leper’s Prayer
(Leviticus 14:1-32; Matthew 8:1-4; Mark 1:40-45)

12 And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 13 And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him. 14 And he charged him to tell no man: but go, and shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. 15 But so much the more went there a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities. 16 And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed.

Jesus did this not because He had to, but because when He communed with His Father, He would be told what to do and where to go next. He would also, very likely be refreshed through the Spirit and His time with His Father. Just as we can be, if we make this a part of our life every day. Prayer and reading God’s Word can be a refreshing time, especially if it is done on a daily basis and in a solitary place.

God walked with Adam in the garden, Jesus prayed and sought the Father’s guidance during His ministry so if it is important enough for Jesus to do it almost daily, it should be for us as well.

The Word of God


john317At the very first chapter of our Bible, God spoke into the void and into His creation His will, the breath of God filling all of Creation with all kinds of potential life and good and the possibilities of death and evil too. His very voice is the most powerful force in all of nature because He is the Creator of natural laws and nature itself! Because, the energy of every star, every galaxy and any powerful structure contained therein is only there because of God and His Word being spoken into the cosmos!

In the gospel of John, the very first few words tell what is believed about Jesus, the Word made flesh:

John 1:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Jesus was and is the Living Word of God, so it is by Him all things were made and through His power all things, including you and I and every other living being on Earth, live and have their being even now. It is by God’s Grace that we are here to do His work and His will in this life while we yet live. Not the grinding away that we chase after money and fame and family, but living for Him and to spread His Word and wisdom in this cold world that doesn’t know Him.

That is the will of God for all believers and whether you embrace it or not, it is still true. God intended for us to have a relationship with Him and through Him in this life into eternity. We should be receptive of that grace and His gift because it is something which we can’t afford in any way, yet it is given. We are loved by Him enough that He gave Himself, His Son, to pay the debt that we cannot. A debt that He didn’t owe but He knew that it was the only way to balance out the debts owed by all of humanity.

By giving His life, His blood and the suffering which went with it, that debt was paid for all of us. When the Spirit convicts you that you are a sinner in need of Jesus, then you will and you should seek Him out at all costs, even your life. Because He is the Pearl of great price and the lost sheep that was found, He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and He is your Savior and mine, all we have to do to receive His grace and the gift of eternity is to believe in His work and in Him. Like a child believes her father will catch her, we should believe in and trust Him.

Please, take the time to read about Him and learn about Him because He is the ONLY way to be forgiven and to obtain that which cannot be bought…eternal life with God.

Truth in the Word


How much truth do you see in God’s Word? In the gospel? If it isn’t true and there is no Truth in it, then why believe?

The Trinity has existed as three in One…as God for a very long time, long before we or anything else in Creation existed. How can we so arrogantly believe that God sent His Son to die and then abandoned Him there? The Holy Spirit was there, God was there and Jesus was on the cross, so He wasn’t abandoned at the cross exactly…He just felt that He was. His humanity felt that way!

The same way that His human heart and His brain told Him to be afraid and anxious before the scourging and the crucifixion. It was His humanity which made Him feel alone, scared and helpless on the cross, but He wasn’t. Our truth is relative today because as psychologists put it, “your truth is not my truth”. This is a very clever lie from Satan. God loves each of us far more than we could ever know or comprehend, until we are in His Presence of course.

You have the freedom to believe in Him and His Word or not, because it is necessary. Love doesn’t come to anyone unless it is free to be given in return as well as received from the other person. Yes, we are free to refuse His love for us if we choose and to live our lives in complete self-righteousness, thinking that we are good enough without Jesus. That we deserve to be allowed into Heaven on our own merits.

The problem with that kind of thinking is that it is totally WRONG!! Until you give your heart to Jesus and allow Him to come in and fix the problems which you caused and to show you what real love actually is, you will always feel empty and without hope. This is what God wanted to save us from in the first place…ourselves. Because ever since the Fall, we have all been born with a seed of sin in our hearts. Toddlers will lie to you without even knowing what they are doing, so that proves that sin is there.

God loves us anyway!! He created all of us and He knows the desires and needs of our heart even when we weren’t born yet. From the moment you were conceived until your death, God knows what you will do, when you will do it and why. He doesn’t force the decisions on you, but He knows what those decisions are or will be, and until you give your life to Him, He will watch you and be with you regardless until you figure out that you really need Him.

Seek Him out before it gets too far or before your life gets out of control! He is there and always has been, so make sure that you know Him before your life is over and your chance to know Him as Savior is gone for good.