What do you really believe?

It is becoming clear that many people in churches today, regardless of denomination, have no idea what being a committed Christian is. Some think it means going to church when we feel like it. Some seem to think that, just like the rest of the world, if they are good and read the Bible occasionally then God will let them into Heaven. There seems to be quite a few that think that they don’t really have to do anything except to believe that Jesus is the Christ and that will get them into Heaven.

Preachers have told us this for decades, that if you believe in Jesus you will be saved. The apostle, John, says mostly the same thing in his gospel. So, why does it seem that we should desire more of Him than we do? Jesus said that “apart from Me you can do nothing“, truly that phrase has nothing to do with belief. It has to do with our commitment to a daily life with Him.

Reading the Bible, prayer for all of the things that are good and needed in our world, seeking His will for your life in His Word, meditating on His Word after you read it and considering what it means to your life, these are processes which we need to do in our daily walk with Him. This sounds like far too much to do in a day, but it doesn’t need to be. Reading a chapter or two every day and then praying for the meaning of it to be revealed to you doesn’t take long. Thinking about what God reveals to you during the day is your meditation on Him and His Word, but it shouldn’t interfere with your daily life.

Being a dedicated child of God is not as easy as just saying that you believe in Him. It is a daily, sometimes hourly walk with Him through your day, every day. He walked with Adam in the Garden, so why can’t we walk with Him every day? He doesn’t get in the way, and He certainly won’t be a hindrance to anything that we do, unless you intend to do or be in agreement with sinful actions on a daily basis.

Being a Christian is not as easy as it is portrayed because even though becoming one is easy, the process is a daily walk with Him. As Jesus said, “take up your cross and follow Me”, sometimes that means that we have to put something else that we have been holding onto down. For many people today, that is not an easy thing to do. We are addicted to our computers, our tablets, our phones, our games and almost every other distraction imaginable. But, we only come to Jesus when it is necessary or when we have to.

Seeking Him and learning about Him and about our relationship with Him is something which we don’t consider important. We will worry about that tomorrow or next year or when the next revival service is at church. But…what if you don’t live that long? What if you were to die in an hour or two from now? You would be standing at the judgement of your life in front of God without any help at all.

God knows your life and He knows if you will come to Him and when. He is your Creator and He will not turn you away IF you will come to Him with a repentant heart and ask Him to save you from yourself. Ask Him to help you to become the person that you can be in Christ and He will do it IF you are sincere and truthful about your need for Him.

If this is just “lip service”, He won’t even hear you. But, this has to be done in this life. Waiting to take care of this on your death-bed won’t cut it because you may not have that chance. A car wreck, a heart attack or any number of other ways that you can die without any notice, might prevent you from making that last-minute decision. So, what will you decide?

Are you going to keep doing what you have always done, hoping that God will just let you pass? Will you just turn away, like the rich young ruler did because you are having too much fun and you don’t feel that you need Jesus in your life? Maybe you think that being a devoted Christian just doesn’t fit your lifestyle right now. But, if you were to meet Jesus at your judgement and He says that “I never knew you”, how will you feel? Eternity is a long, long time to be outside in outer darkness, away from the Love of God.

Think about it, pray about it if you are serious about your Eternal destiny and then pray some more. Seek Him while there is time, in this life, because when this life is over…your time to be His is up and your eternity begins wherever you are.

Short days and short times

It has been almost two millennia since the time of Jesus and His disciples and His prophecy concerning the end of the age , yet people don’t seem to be concerned. Even with many of the signs already shown and seen in years past, as well as the signs which are in front of us every day. When I say that the days are short I am not speaking of days like in the winter when the Sun seems to go down not long after it comes up. I am speaking prophetically of the time in which we are living.

It is true that many don’t believe that we live in these particular times, but in fact we do. There are many signs in the heavens which God has used recently which point toward this time, as our generation is called the “terminal generation”. Yet, most of the people in the world today don’t want to acknowledge the truth of what is going on around them. Even if they recognize that these signs are true and occurring almost on a daily basis!

I don’t bring this up to attempt to scare people into church or make you fearful enough to seek out the truth in the Bible, although you should be doing this anyway. What I am saying about this period of time is that we don’t know how long we have. It could be a couple of months or a few years yet, but just as the virgins in the parable, we need to be ready when the Bridegroom comes. Not sitting around twiddling our thumbs but watching for Him in Scripture and in our everyday lives.

Praying every day, seeking His wisdom concerning these times and those around us who are in need of His love and compassion. Telling those who are in need of salvation about Jesus is the mission which we have in these times. If they don’t want to receive Jesus, then tell someone else and move on. It is imperative that we keep telling as many as will listen because very soon, they will be on their own in a world which will not tell them of Jesus and will kill anyone who does profess faith in Him!

God loves humanity, but His patience is drawing to a close. The Spirit will strive with man for a while longer and yes there will be a few who accept Jesus during the Tribulation, but they will be in the minority when they do. I pray that most of you who read this will accept Him before this time has come. If you have not, then I will be praying for you from the balcony of Heaven. I hope that God might allow me to come to Earth during this time and help guide those who have given their lives to Jesus, because they will need the help.

I am not special. I am a sinner just as you were or maybe still are, but I am forgiven and that makes the difference. Please, if you are seeking your Savior, read the Bible and pray about giving your life to Him, asking Him to come in and change your life from the inside out.

Today, tomorrow, forever

Today is the present day that you are living in, moment by moment, so enjoy all of its beauty and goodness that God gives you to enjoy. Tomorrow isn’t here yet and by the time it is, it isn’t tomorrow anymore, so don’t count on it. Live today as if Jesus was coming back tonight! Forever is a time that we will spend after this life is over, whether we spend it with Jesus and other Christians or not is your choice!

God has always intended for us to be with Him forever, but humanity has rebelled every step of the way. Even when we only had one rule to follow, we still thought we knew better than God. After that, it was all downhill. God has always had a plan in place to bring us back to Himself and the reason is simple: He knew that we couldn’t do it on our own, so He gave of Himself in order to pay the price for our disobedience.

He didn’t have to do it that way, but He did! Tomorrow never really comes because when it gets here it is today, so make the most of today, every day. Seek out the One Who holds tomorrow in His hands so that your eternal home will be with Him and all of the joyous people who will be thanking Him for His love and mercy! Why do I say that we will be doing this? Because without His love and mercy, we wouldn’t be worthy and forgiven in order to be in Heaven!

Just a thought…

Maybe more than one…I saw this on another site or maybe in an email and considered that it was worthy of placing here: Listen and silent

So much of the life and the times in which we live is part of the prophesied times told of in the Bible. The books of Revelation, Daniel and Ezekiel all have some points which give us some insight into the times in which we live right now. So what is the point of the words “listen” and “silent”? Simply this: you must be silent in order to listen and you need to listen in order to understand. In order to understand the wisdom of God, you need to learn to listen to Him and what better way to do that than to read His Word so you will know His voice when He speaks? If you don’t know someone’s voice, you can’t pick them out in a crowd of people, and that is what we have to do in order to hear God.

There is so much going on around us today until it is extremely hard to pick out relevant information, let alone the actual Truth of God. It just gets drowned out in the background until you can’t hear it well enough to know what is being said. Daily living with God’s Word, not just once or twice a week, is what is truly necessary for all of us who wish to know Him and be known by Him.

Seek His guidance in all of life’s problems and triumphs, the good and the bad times, and everything in between. Why? Because that is how the relationship between us and God was supposed to work in the beginning! Walking, talking and learning from Him was the normal and the only way for Adam and Eve to learn the things needed to be caretakers of the Garden. It is very sad that we fell from His grace so soon, but it didn’t surprise God. He knew that it was coming and what brought it about as well as who was responsible, just as the rebellion in the ranks of the angels didn’t surprise Him.

Silent and quiet times are few and far between, but we need to try to have those with God. Because, Jesus made sure in His ministry to do just that and He did it often, not just when He needed some advice or inspiration. We should do the same. Seek Him out so that you can learn from the Creator, He really is the best teacher.

Miracles

In everyday life we see them but we may not recognize them for what they are. Some of them are little miracles that don’t seem like God had anything to do with them at the time. Some that we hear about are easy to recognize as a miracle because the healing or the shrinking of a tumor just doesn’t happen on its own. God works like this, in the background doing little things which will accomplish His Work and His purposes even when it seems that things aren’t going very well.

Our lives are like that too. Some days they are very good and some are, well not so much. Do miracles happen in your life? Occasionally you may notice something that couldn’t happen that way otherwise, but I would bet that many of our miracles happen when we don’t know about it. A guardian angel slips between you and someone intent on robbing you or maybe they redirect a car or truck from slamming into you. If you don’t think that God uses angels to do this kind of work, I imagine we will be surprised when we do get to Heaven.

We are His adopted children after all and if you have not given your heart to Jesus and asked Him to forgive you for waiting so long, then you need to get it done! Whether the world believes it or not, this age of grace which we have lived under for almost two thousand years is nearly over. A lot is going to happen in the next decade or two, maybe less, who knows? God does. He knows the day and the hour of your death as well as the time when He will send for all of His Church to be brought to Heaven.

The signs are in the heavens but many people are just saying that this is just astronomical signs and nothing more. The Bible clearly states that God intends to use the heavens to declare seasons and times and we are coming up on one of those times, the end of days or the Tribulation. Whatever you want to call it, it will be a time of war and disease and death as well as the judgement of God, all of it spelled out in prophecy.

Choose today who will be your Savior because your tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.

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.

road2eternity As 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!

john317 Please, 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.