Tag: Jesus loves you

Dear America,


Have you considered that we have never looked at our condition religiously? Our country and its people have never actually thought of Christianity as our religion. Specifically, since our government doesn’t endorse or choose any particular religion for our nation. Our people have many denominations and religions in our country and today we also have many who don’t claim any belief in God or religion.

So have you thought about any of this? Is it possible that we truly need religion? There are so many who commit suicide on a daily basis and we have so many who are struggling with drugs and alcohol on a daily basis too. So…what is the fix or the cure for this emptiness which we seem to be dealing with?

themissingpieceWhether our country as a whole wants to believe it or not, the answer actually is a relationship with Jesus. The empty place in all of our lives which we try to fill with all sorts of things from sex or money or careers and even family is only filled by one Person. Jesus Christ. That is the missing piece of the puzzle which we have been searching for all of our lives!

It isn’t a hard thing to do but in a society which prides itself on its independence, individually and collectively, we don’t want to depend upon any one person whether it is a Savior or even a spouse or a friend. Except when you look at the feeling of hope which He brings into our collective conscience. So why don’t we look to Him for our hope? Why can’t we do this so our country can have more hope?

Hope hasn’t died but to look at the news, you would think it has. Hope is in the Person of Jesus, Love is Jesus and He is Love for all of us because He did love us enough to give His life on the cross to pay the debt which we owed because of our sins. Even those of us where weren’t born when He did this still owe the debt if we haven’t given our hearts to Him.

I pray that those of you reading this will give Jesus a chance in your life. If for no other reason than to fill that empty place and give you hope for eternity and a heart full of gratitude for a Creator Who loves you more than you can imagine. Please, seek Jesus out for your soul and for your eternal hope because it is needed in our country today.

So little time


Why the title of “So little time”? Because we are so close to the end of the age that’s why! I am not going to try to predict anything here, but if you pay attention to the events happening around the world, we are getting very close. When will the church be taken up to Heaven? I have no idea. It could be tonight or three months from now or even three years from now. But, in God’s time, it will happen and it will likely happen sooner than most people think it will.

The timing of the “rapture” of the church and its believers and the beginning of the Tribulation are entirely up to God. There are no clues which give the date for these things found in the Bible. There are some prophecies which foretell the things which will happen before that day and many of those are happening right now. But to think that you can come up with a date and time is foolish. God’s Word is not that specific for clues to the Tribulation or the time of the rapture as some seem to think it is.

God cares for the whole human race and He is working to bring as many to a saving grace through Jesus as possible before that day comes. He is the only Person who knows the end from the beginning and He knows the names written in the Book of Life. When those are fulfilled and no more are joining the ranks of the Bride of Christ, which is the church redeemed, then the trumpet will sound and there will be a shout for all of the dead in Christ to rise! Then those of us who are alive will be caught up with them to be with Him forever.

This prophecy is the only one left to be fulfilled before the Tribulation begins. It will begin with the peace treaty between Israel and its enemies all around it, but until then everything will continue on as it has before. Your eternity, whether you believe in God or Jesus or not, will be determined by your decision toward Him. You will enter into eternity by being judged by the actions of your life OR you will be welcomed into eternity by being a redeemed sinner covered by the blood of Jesus.

I know there are some who think that Christianity is a “bloody religion” just because of the death of Jesus on the cross. It could be called that because it is the blood of Jesus which paid the debt for all of our sins, but we are talking about His blood, the Lamb of God, which took away the sins of the world! Whether everyone accepts this or not, and most don’t, it is still part of what God put in place for our redemption. You can choose to believe in it and the Person who died and rose again for you or not, but the fact is that your belief in Him and what He did is the only way to gain access to Heaven.

God provided this and it was put in motion long before the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. As the Bible says, “the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world“, Jesus was prepared to die for all of mankind even before Adam was created! Make sure of your eternity and place your faith in Him. Amen

Bridge2Salvation

Coming or going?


Our church is having a homecoming service this weekend, today actually, and I was wondering this morning about whether we are coming or going? Are you going to church or coming home from church? Will you be coming to the homecoming or going to a home-going one day?

What do I mean by a home-going? I am speaking of one of two totally different events actually. Either you will die and awaken in Heaven or the Trumpet will sound and the dead in Christ will rise and those of us who remain will be caught up in the air to meet Him! That is the home-going of which I speak. We are only visiting the Earth for a while and during the times in which we are living, we are very close to that day of which Paul speaks.

When our home-going takes place, the world will be changed dramatically. All of the Christians in the world will vanish, graves will open and the bodies of those who believed in Jesus prior to their deaths will rejoin their Spirits in the air to meet Jesus! The world will be perplexed and wondering what is going on. Many won’t understand,  but some will know because they have been to church many times, they may have gotten baptized at some point in their lives but they never gave Jesus another thought after that.

Those people who have been in church at some point in their lives will know what happened even if they were left behind. Life on Earth will get progressively worse because the Tribulation will begin soon after these things.

Why am I writing this on a day when we are having a homecoming? Because there are many people who don’t know Jesus even if they come to church, that’s why. God loves every person on the Earth, which is why He sent Jesus to pay for their sins, but He knows that all of them won’t give their lives to Jesus and ask forgiveness for their sins. I pray that most of you who read this will consider that God loves you and Jesus died for you, so please ask Him to forgive you and grant you salvation through Him.

IamtheWay

I will rejoice in the Lord


Habakkuk 3: 18-19: “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will be joyful in God my Savior.  The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.”

When you get a bad diagnosis at the doctor’s office, rejoice in the Lord. When your day doesn’t go very well for you at work…rejoice in the Lord. When you wake in the morning, rejoice in the Lord!

Why do we need to rejoice in the Lord during times of good and in times of bad things? Because we are to give thanks in everything and rejoice in the Lord Who is your Strength and your shield in times of distress and in good times as well. God is always near to His children and even to those who don’t believe in Him and His goodness. He will be there when you call because He is always near you regardless of your circumstances.

There are some friends of mine and some family members too who are going through treatments for cancer or joint problems or recovery from surgeries or from the loss of loved ones and yet God is present in all of their daily problems or in their rejoicing over a good outcome. He is near to all of us when things are good, even though we may not seek Him in those times. He is also near when things aren’t going so well and in those times we usually do seek His favor and His help.

Regardless of your idea about how you get salvation or even prove your salvation, God is near your heart and He loves you. Jesus died for you and paid that debt, all that each of us need to do is to turn to Him when we feel His touch in our hearts convicting us of our sinfulness. If you haven’t done so, please seek Him out while there is yet time in this life.

You don’t get a second chance after this life is over, regardless of what Satan may tell you, he is a liar and always has been. Jesus has never forsaken anyone but there are many who have turned away from Him because of something that they heard from someone else and they believed them rather than Jesus.

I pray that all who read this will seek Him out in your time of need or in your time of good fortune because it is God Who gives you the strength to live through both.

Grace from the Cross


Jesus paid for our sins when He died and rose again, so why do we decide not to believe in Him? Is it too easy or is it that we don’t want to know Him?

God loves each of us and yet there are so many in the world who deny His love and His mercy. They seem to think that they can make it to Heaven without Him. The Scripture tell us that Jesus is the way, the truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father except through Him.

May the Lord bless you and keep you in all of your ways. Amen.

A child’s story


There was a young child many years ago who was in kindergarten. He didn’t know much about the world around him except that Mom and Dad loved him. He went to school and played with his friends and went to stay with one of his mom’s friends until she got out of her classes in the afternoon. Life went on like this for a while and not much changed until one fall when his Dad came over before his Mom did and he saw Daddy kiss the woman who was keeping him.

Still too young to understand or even comprehend what was happening, he just shrugged it off. For years it never entered his mind until the memory surfaced when he was old enough to put the pieces of the puzzle in his mind together. From that point on he carried anger along with him. Not the kind you see in movies which causes a lot of pain but the kind that you bury inside. Where it festers like a splinter that you can’t remove. At some point in his later teens, he wanted to die but he couldn’t bring himself to the point of suicide, although through drunkenness, he did come close at least once.

Even though he managed to drive home many nights after attending a football game, most of those nights he was drunk or at least buzzed to the point of not walking very good. Thankfully, his grandmother was praying for him and that very prayer was the reason that he didn’t kill himself on a road somewhere.

That child was me.

In many ways, we are all like children even as we get older. We add years to our life but the child is still inside us. We leave home, go to school, get a job, maybe get married one day, but we are still seeking a mother or a father in some way. Someone who can show us how to be the person that we never learned how to be. Some of you can relate, if you were a part of a home which was broken or in some way detached from being “normal” with both parents in a loving home.

I am not telling you this to show how broken my life was, just that my early life and my teenage years weren’t what they should’ve been. This is not who I am today because I do have a father in Heaven and He is my Savior. I never had a chance to know my biological father so I really don’t know if he is in Heaven or not.

To get to the point of this side trip into my life I will tell you this: God LOVES you with the deepest, most profound love that you can imagine.

Remember these verses in John: “16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

The love of God for all of humanity is such that He made our world perfect for our life and for everything that is needed for us to live. The right temperature and the right mixture of gases in our atmosphere as well as the fertile ground where our food can grow and the animals and fish and all of the other life on our planet. God did this not because He had to but because He wanted to. Life is not an accident or an evolution of chemicals and other adaptations to be more complex.

The universe doesn’t work that way. Entropy doesn’t go from simple to complex, it goes the other way. That is easy to see when you find an old implement in the field. A saw blade will continue to rust away into a red powder, iron oxide until the entire thing is gone. Now, what does this have to do with the child who started this story? LOVE

Without the love of God and the effect that it had on him and his life, he (I) wouldn’t be speaking to you today. I would never have gone down the pathways which God guided me toward to get to this place. I did take a few detours and ran off on my own path a few times but when God has a plan for your life, He will bring it to be…to fit His purpose for His Kingdom. It may take some time, but eventually, your path will intersect with His intended path for you and when that happens, hopefully,ourlovingsavior your Spiritual eyes will recognize where you are and where you should be.

What will you do?


I think I have written a post by this name before but it does need to be repeated. Why? Because there are too many people who haven’t figured it out yet. So, have you figured out what this means?

Jesus died on the cross for you. He paid the penalty for your sins and mine and everyone else’s sin in the world. While it is true that not everyone will be saved, that doesn’t mean that the way is open for all. So…what will you do with your gift of eternal life in Heaven? Will you throw it away or just decide not to follow Jesus because you think there isn’t any fun in it?

Every person is going to live for an eternity, but it is your decision about your belief in Jesus which determines where you will live it. If you decide to only believe in yourself or in some other “god” besides Jesus, then you will meet Him but He will be your judge instead of your Lord. Some of you may think this is unfair, but God has provided a way for you to live in Heaven but it is dependent upon your belief in Jesus or not which determines your admission to His Kingdom. Why did God make it dependent on your choice? Because salvation is a choice. While it’s true that the Holy Spirit convicts you of your need of salvation, it’s still your decision to accept the offer.

God loves all of humanity but He doesn’t love our lifestyles or our sinful lives. Many in the world deny that Jesus was the Son of God even though God says so in the gospels. Why do we rebel against our Creator in this way? Because we are stubborn and we want to live our lives the way we want to live them, not according to the Bible and His way of living. Can we live the way that Jesus taught His disciples to live and work and spread the gospel? Of course, we can, but we will have to live our lives daily according to His example

Will it be easy to live this way in the world today? No, it won’t be but with Jesus in your heart and with His Spirit, in you, it can be done. But, only if you depend on Him to get you through each day…one day at a time. Which is why you should look in God’s Word for wisdom and support for your life. As Paul wrote about each of us “keeping our eyes on the prize of glory through Jesus the Christ our Lord”, it’s necessary to do exactly that!

When Jesus told Peter to get out of the boat and walk on the water, he did it for a few steps. But, then he took his eyes off of Jesus and began to sink. That’s why we should spiritually keep our eyes on Him every day! Because walking in this life as a Christian is not easy, even though many people think that it is. Walking as a Christian daily can only be done successfully by keeping our heart and our mind focused on Him. Don’t seek out your own wants and stuff, which most of us don’t have enough room for anyway. Seek His way and His Truth in your life and in all of your steps through this life.

I pray that our churches, our country and our representatives in Washington will turn to the Lord because our country and the world needs to see us doing this.

 

How can I be saved?


There is a scripture which says this in the book of John: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will have everlasting (eternal) life”. John 3:16

FB_IMG_1521382243378All that is required of us is to be convicted of our own sinful nature and then desire to repent and believe that Jesus really DID pay the penalty for our sins! A child can believe this, so what makes it so difficult for an adult? Is it because we have learned more about life during our years or is it that a child can believe without needing proof?

In many ways, I think it is that a child’s mind and heart haven’t been corrupted or polluted with all of the evil that is in the world. They still carry a bit of innocence in their spirit so when they hear the Truth or when the Holy Spirit touches their heart, they know Who it is and they turn to Him without question. As adults, we want to analyze and ponder over our decisions, even if those decisions have eternal consequences.IamtheWay

Salvation is not something which can be bought or earned in any sort of way. It is offered by the will of God through faith in Jesus the Christ and by the grace and mercy extended to us by God Himself. We cannot demand it of Him nor can we purchase it with any amount of money, even if it were silver or gold.

Jesus came into the world with only one command from His Father and that was to go to the children of Israel and offer them salvation through their belief in Him. While it is true that many did believe in Him and what He came to offer, many more did not. The priests of the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees did not believe that He was the Messiah, with the exception of a couple of them. He came to the people, the fishermen to bring His message through them.

His birth was announced to shepherds, His disciples were a collection of fishermen, a tax collector, a thief, and a tentmaker/mender. He went to the house of a sinner who was a tax collector and has a meal with his friends. Jesus went to the people that He came into the world to save, not to the people who thought they were too religious and righteous in their own minds. They thought they were too good, too righteous to need to be forgiven of their sins. Even at that time, there were those who were too heavenly minded to be any Earthly good to God’s Kingdom. (In other words, they thought they were doing God a favor by worshiping Him)

God doesn’t need us for our worship or our money or anything else that we can offer Him. But…we need Him for our very lives! He provides us with shelter and with sunlight and the air that we breathe. He provides the water for us to drink and our food that we eat. God is the Creator so everything in the universe is His! All of the gold and silver and copper and bronze and the precious stones as well. What could your pitiful bank account offer Him? Every dime and penny which we have earned in life is His anyway, we are just borrowing it to use it for our purposes and to give some back to Him to keep the message going.

The least that we could do is to give Him our body and mind as a living sacrifice every day! Wake up in the morning and ask Him what can I do for your Kingdom today, Lord? Then read some scriptures in the gospels and the Psalms and pray that He will give you an answer from your Bible.

Do you consider your blessings?


There are many who may not think that almost everything in your life is actually a blessing from God but each of them is exactly that. Consider the fact that each of us who live today was blessed with life through God’s grace in order to live through the night. Some of you may look at it like a teenager “I’m young I won’t die just by going to sleep tonight”, are you absolutely sure of that? Many of us look at life like it is guaranteed to us until we are old. Really? I have heard of teenagers who have had a stroke or a heart attack after practice for sports in the past couple of years. These children were sixteen or seventeen years old! The same age as my son at the time!

Gods Promise2We are blessed with having a family who loves us, if you are blessed with this you should truly count your blessings! Because there are so many who are in relationships where they are beaten or sexually abused or any number of bad situations! Do you realize that your days are only numbered by God Himself and only He knows how long you will live on this Earth? God loves you and He watches over you in this world, whether you have given your life to Him or not. He knows if you will become a Christian and when it will happen, but that doesn’t give you the permission to go out and do whatever you wish until God calls you!

Jesus said that we should believe in Him and we will be saved. Some people think it is too simple and that it can’t be that easy to be saved from our sins? Yes, it is that simple! Think of the thief on the cross. He didn’t have money or time or even the opportunity to be baptized, but Jesus didn’t care about that. He believed that Jesus was Who they said He was, the King of the Jews, the Messiah, and all he asked was for Jesus to remember him when He came into His Kingdom. Jesus told him that “today you will be with Me in Paradise”.

We are seeing things happening all over the world today which prove that Satan and his agents are working hard to point people away from God or even cause them to blame God for their suffering and we see it on the news every day. Why is all of this happening? Because he knows that his time is growing very short in this world, that is why! When the church, those who believe in Jesus, is taken up to Heaven he knows that his time will only be seven more years in this world.

We can’t live a Christian life alone because our strength is weak, especially our spiritual strength. Even pastors have trouble living a holy life, one which people might look up to him for and I never thought about why we can’t do it? It is very simple actually. We have to walk with Jesus every day, put our troubles on Him, depend upon Him for our strength in every matter of life. In America, we have always looked up to many “actors” who played the part of an independent cowboy or a strong military person, one who could accomplish almost any task that was before them. The problem with that is this: being a Christian is even harder than being an actor or a cowboy or a strong military person.

Our biggest problem is our “old nature”, that part of us which had all sorts of fun or at least thought we did because when we are saved by Jesus we have to walk in Him and read the Bible, which is something we likely wouldn’t have done prior to knowing Him. So, how can we walk in Christ? First of all LEAN ON HIM! Don’t act like you can do it alone because you can’t! The Holy Spirit gives you the knowledge and the power to live your life in Jesus the Christ. Don’t turn away from His call on your life!

So much useless fun


When I was a child I am sure that my Mom and my grandparents thought the same of “cowboys and Indians” that we played. But today, there is so much electronic uselessness in these games that are so rampant on cell phones and game consoles until I am not sure where they are taking the next generation. I cannot see any useful education that these games bring to this generation except maybe hand and eye coordination.

What will that do for you? Actually, in the real world, I am not sure what it will help with except for maybe swatting flys. I suppose that while playing these games young people can’t get into any real dangerous trouble. Although some of the games that I have seen described in game magazines which my son gets are very graphic in their portrayal of violence and how it is used to “get what you want and kill the other guy”.

In truth, these are games which don’t teach a vocation of any kind but they reward you for behavior which would get you killed or put in jail in the real world. So if playing games can allow you to work out your aggression in a non-violent way and which causes death and destruction to a non–existent animal or person then I suppose it might have some useful quality.

The world today is violent enough without adding to it in gameplay, but as long as the next generation doesn’t bring that violence into our world then I suppose these games can be tolerated. How does God look at them and the outcome of this gameplay? That is a question which I can’t answer. He may view it in the same way that I see it, but some of these games are occultic in their nature so I hope that those who play them don’t take the powers from the game into a real religion.

Translating some of the occultic themes and powers from a game into using them in real life could be much worse than many would think. It only takes an invitation to a demon or a spirit or Satan himself, even if the invitation is muttered in a joking manner. Once the spirit or demon is in your home or worse in your mind, then you and your family are in serious danger. I realize that many people don’t believe that these entities exist, but since Jesus cast demons out when He was on Earth, then I do believe that they exist and are present now.

Why do I bring these ideas into the light now? Because until we realize that they are here and they are real, then all of the evil that goes on around us will be played off like it is just someone who is insane or that they are evil. When the reality is this: they were influenced by a spirit or demon to do whatever they did. Killing many people at a concert or at a school sounds exactly like something which a demon would have a person do if they are susceptible to them.

I pray that no one who reads this is into the occult, of any kind. If you or your children have ever thought about reading something or trying a tarot card reading or going to a medium who claims to read your palm or tell you about your future…don’t do it!! Get away from them and stay away from them! It looks innocent and fun, but that is how Satan tempted Eve all those thousands of years ago. He is doing the same thing with all of the scientists today. Trying to make them believe that natural forces created us and everything else in the universe and that God had nothing to do with it. These are all lies but they can be disguised as a true statement.

Seek out the Creator instead and learn from Him because the Truth is in God’s Word and it is only there where salvation and eternity can be found. Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light because he once was an angel of God. Make sure of your knowledge and from where it comes.