Tag: Jesus

Eternity…..


Humanity cannot imagine or even comprehend one million years, at least with any degree of understanding. How can anyone with a life-span of less than 130 years comprehend an amount of time that is so vast? We can graph it on paper or on a computer and simulate its effects on a planet’s ecology and surface with some degree of success. But, eternity is so far beyond even one million years that it is staggering. If we didn’t perceive time in the way that we do, we might understand it better. But linear time like we experience through the seconds and minutes and hours rolling into days, weeks, months and years is hard for us to get into our perception.

Yet, God lives outside of time and can see all of it. From beginning to end of each of our lives. It is hard to place my limited understanding outside of time so that I can make sense of it, but that is where He is. We will know and understand these things when we are there, at least in a limited way we will. Because, taking in eternity and the vast knowledge of God and all that this entails, would require an enormous amount of time. Which I suppose is why our souls are immortal, so we will have the time to learn and understand, even when time doesn’t truly exist for us anymore.

We live here in lives which are fleeting in comparison to even a millennia, yet we try to understand as much as we can. We formulate hypotheses about how things were brought into existence but we can’t even comprehend our own existence or the purpose for which we are here!

By faith, we can see things in nature and in Scripture which give us a hint of our purpose. But for those who refuse to accept faith and Scripture for any kind of explanation, there is only science and reasoning. These are wonderful pursuits and they do help to explain in a limited fashion how things are put together, but they can’t give you a purpose or a meaning to your life every day!

God intended for us to have a relationship with Him, every day, not just on certain days or when we have been hurt or feel the need to “find God”. The original purpose of mankind was a relationship with our Creator and to take care of the place that He had created for us to live. But, God knew that since He had given us a choice in our obedience of His rules or laws that were laid down in Eden, we were destined to question and break the one rule that He had laid out at the time.

Is it any wonder that we can’t live in a law-abiding society today, if our ancestors couldn’t even abide by one rule? While it is true that many people all over the world are law-abiding citizens, the numerous laws that are in effect in the world simply can’t be ignored. They are destined to be broken!

The only requirement for your salvation is acceptance of Jesus as your Savior. Anything beyond or besides that doesn’t grant you access to Heaven or to eternity with God. Just as in the garden of Eden, there is only one requirement, one rule to live by and accept. Your works nor your money will not help, in fact they may hinder your acceptance of Jesus.

God gave His Word to us as evidence of His love toward us. Yes, there are some harsh words and requirements in the Old Testament, because the Messiah had not come. God was using the world and the religions around Israel to test and to prove their obedience to Him. He knew then, just as now, that given a choice they would “run after other gods”, forsaking His love and His provision and grace, until they realized what they had done and repented. It happened time and time again then and it happens today as well.

People are chasing after money, power, sex, drugs, alcohol, and just stuff which cannot give you any satisfaction spiritually, much less for eternity. Jesus is the Only Way to the Father and Heaven.

Fantastic stories and outright lies


To many people, that is exactly what the Bible is, a book of fantastic stories and outright lies made up by a bunch of old men. That is what the book of Genesis sounds like to some, with people living to be over nine hundred years old and the whole population of the world supposedly coming from a single couple? Then you have a world-wide flood, with a man who is five hundred years old when he begins building a boat that God told him to build in the desert because a flood is coming? At a time when, the book tells us, that it had never rained before?

Sounds crazy doesn’t it?

But, you know God can take nothing and make it into something so those life spans and everything that He told Moses to write down don’t sound so crazy when you consider that God is behind it all, right?

Oh, that’s right, you don’t believe in God or any “supreme being”! All of this just clumped together on its own and somehow all of the chemicals and molecules put themselves together to form DNA and then all of life just showed up on our little ball of mud and rock, right??

You have more faith in puzzles accidentally putting themselves together than I do in a man walking on water!

The “evolution” of the cosmos and of the Earth and of life on the Earth is the most fantastic pile of nonsense that I have ever heard. Yes, I believe that God did all that He said in the Bible! He is God after all.

If you wish to keep believing in evolution and not believing in God or Jesus, that is your choice and I am not going to refute it here. I don’t have enough proof for His Creation, other than my faith, any more than you can prove that we evolved from apes. Just because an organism has two arms and two legs will give them the same general DNA as any other mammal on Earth. Neither can be proven nor disproven, at least to the satisfaction of those who hold one belief or the other.

Yes, this post will likely get the ire of those in atheist and evolutionist camps all stirred up. That is the point. Whether you believe my argument one way or the other doesn’t matter. What matters is that you may read it. The Bible, that is. To many people it is confusing and a load of crap, which is your opinion and you have a right to that opinion.

But, to me it is the Word of God, given to Moses on the mountain when they met over three thousand years ago. Moses was told by God how the world was created and how mankind was created and all of the history up to that point. The amazing part of those first few books of the Bible is that they point to a Seed, the Messiah, Jesus, Who would be born much later and He would be the perfect, sinless Lamb of God that would sacrifice His Life so that we might be able to be forgiven. Each book, no matter who wrote it from Moses on down, has a reference to Jesus in some way. Some of the prophetic books like Isaiah and Psalms even tell where He would be born and how He would die.

The most wonderful part is that He rose again on the third day and six weeks later, went to be with the Father until He comes again. His return has been waited for by many for the past two millennia and the amazing part is that everything is in place for His return. It won’t be another thousand years, it will likely be in our life-time. Study your Bible, borrow one and seek Him and prove Him through Scripture and in history.

Romans 8, Psalms 22, and the book of Revelation will give you more proof than you need. Psalm 22 was written over one thousand years before crucifixion was used, yet it describes it very accurately. Consider the truth found in Scripture, ask God to show you the truth of what you are reading, whether you want to believe it or not, He will hear you and show you what you didn’t know was there. He doesn’t want anyone to go to hell, but your choice of believing or not will send you there, not Him.

Why?


If God’s presence has really left our country, why? Well, over the last fifty years we have continually pushed Him away from our children, from our educational institutions, from the public square, from being present at football games and other sports through prayer, even out of political and other bodies of legislative actions where His Presence is sorely needed today.

So, what would you expect Him to do? Granted, His feelings and actions are much different from ours but if your congregation or your spouse were doing this wouldn’t you leave too? I would. We are going to reap exactly what we have sown and I don’t think that this country is going to recover from it. There have been many signs and warnings such as the attack on 9/11, the financial crisis seven years later and now we are seven years past that point. What will happen this time? I don’t know and I am not going to speculate, but the moons that are happening on the Sabbaths this year and the two full solar eclipses could be telling us to wake up and repent of our ways.

God loves each of us, whether we are saved or not because He loved us all before we felt the conviction to repent. We are being given a chance to change and repent of our ways, and come back to Him.

Read the Bible, especially Romans and Revelation, because we need Him now far more than we have ever needed Him before. Please listen to the words from the Old Testament:

“Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

This is referring to all who call on God, not just the Jewish people. In Romans 9:25 it says: “Concerning the Gentiles, God says in the prophecy of Hosea, “Those who were not my people, I will now call my people. And I will love those whom I did not love before.”

Seek His counsel through the Bible and pray that it isn’t too late for our nation and our world.

God has left the building!


And she named the child Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel: because the ark of God was taken, and because of her father in law and her husband. (Isaiah 4:21)

Is this what is happening in our culture and our country today? Is this happening in the world today? From what I have seen on the news and on the Internet, it seems to be happening. The thing is that it was prophesied to happen at this time and we are going through what is called the “falling away” or in some translations it is called the rebellion. In any event, it is the people of the church, who have attended church…some for years and yet when persecution comes or times get hard then they turn away from their faith and rebel against the teachings of the church.

These are people who I believe aren’t really Christians at all, they were just going through the motions. The did all of the “churchy” things like being teachers in Sunday school and even being Deacons in the church, some were even pastors, but they had never accepted Jesus as their Savior and Lord.

I don’t understand how that is possible myself. How could you deceive people, and even yourself, into thinking that you are saved and even called to be a pastor, if you don’t have Jesus in your heart? “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17; isn’t this the scripture which shows exactly where your heart is and to Whom you belong? If you aren’t a new creation, then how can you possibly act like and perform as if you are, even when it isn’t genuine?

Our lives, in Christ or not, are in God’s hands and if we continue to push Him out of our lives then one day He will leave entirely. He will still be in control, but He won’t be there when you call on Him just as He did when Israel did this. There are many people today who don’t want to believe in Him or don’t want to hear about His message and that’s okay. Not what you were expecting me to write though huh?

The reason that I did write it is because I can’t convince you, all that I can do is give you scripture or some wisdom that I have gleaned from God’s Word. It is your choice to do with it what you will. Take it into your heart and learn about Him, then ask Him to come into your heart and live every day seeking more of His wisdom. That is His desire for us, at least in part.

Of course, you can ignore it and choose not to learn of Him. Deciding that He is an imaginary being from myth. Choose this road for your life and follow it carefully, watching everything along the way. Then when you die one day, and you stand before the One that you rejected maybe then you will see and understand. By that time, it will be too late to change your mind and your eternity will be before you.

“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:15

Celebrate Life, celebrate God!


You hear singers and people on news programs saying things like “We celebrate life itself!”, usually with much enthusiasm. Yet, we kill unborn children by the hundreds every day! There are murders, planned and spur of the moment, that seem to happen almost every hour of every day. So, why don’t more people actually celebrate Life!?

Is it such a hard concept that we say it and it sounds good but it isn’t something that we can actually do? It is just a mantra that we use to sound important or special in our own eyes and the eyes of those around us, right? In a manner of speaking, yes and no. I know, confusing.

My point…if you really intend to celebrate Life, then act like it and get out there and enjoy life! Do spontaneous things, stuff that you haven’t done but have wanted to do such as things which might be on your “bucket list” maybe? Yes, Jessica, there are people who truly need to get out and DO these things! Not just because they need to get up, like me, but because life is too short to dream about them and just say “I’ll do it later”. There may not be a “later”, for many of us there won’t be.

Now, I am not trying to get into “doom and gloom” here, I am just saying that winter for this year is nearly over and spring is getting closer. For many of us, it doesn’t seem that way but it will soon enough. My point on this page and this post, is to point to God Himself, the Author of Life! When we celebrate Life, we should be celebrating God’s purpose in Life and we should be celebrating Him as well! Don’t get into this “new age” thinking that God is not part of the 21st century, He is part of ALL of them! He is now, He was then and He will be God no matter what century that you might be thinking of!

In spite of evolution and its proponents, God is the Author of Life and everything that goes along with the creation of Life, and the maintaining of Life. Yours and mine and everyone else’s on this planet including the animals, fish, mammals, and birds. So, why is everyone so hell-bent on taking Him out of Life? Our everyday living even! It seems that the laws which have been adopted lately have been putting more pressure on just one group of people, Christians. Specifically, to keep us from expressing or following our mandate of how we live and what we are supposed to be doing with our lives.

The Bible clearly says that: “Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations,b baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28: 18-20

This is the command and the commission that we, as Christians, have been given. We have not been told to kill or behead people if they won’t convert to our way of thinking and worshipping, but to love them as Christ did and to tell them of the gospel. Though, it seems that we are leprous in many people’s eyes, they don’t want anything to do with us or our religion yet they will gladly accept almost any other religion without complaint. Why is that? What is so attractive about all other religions that makes Christianity seem as if we are trying to give you a sandwich made of mouldy bread and maggot-infested meat?

Celebrate the Author of Life and the Finisher of Life itself, God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. Between them all, the Earth and all that is in it were formed, created, and established in six days. The day of God’s “rest” has not ended, yet He is still creating, He is still giving Life to all of His Creation. He offers eternity to you if you will believe in Him and in Jesus’ work on the cross and the atonement for all of your sins and mine. This is your choice…it is not forced upon you nor will it ever be. Choose Life in Him and in His Son because the alternative is an eternity of the same punishment that Satan will get one day. Celebrate Life from God’s point of view…the grander scale of the entire universe, big and small, on Earth and in the far-flung galaxies! He knows you better than you do, so give Him the chance to infuse your life with His Life and the possibilities are endless!

What do you need from God?


There are many things which we need and He provides them all, even when we don’t ask for them. We need air to breathe and our health which enables us to get up every morning. Water and food are the next things on our list of needs and God has provided those for us through our ability to pay for them. Clothes and shelter are another couple of things which I would describe as needs, since we don’t want to walk around without clothes in the winter especially! Shelter is nice because we can stay warm and dry when it is cold and wet outside. These are the basic needs which everyone has that God has provided for us, even when we haven’t asked for them.

What about our life itself, didn’t God provide us with that too? God has provided for us to be alive every day that we live and He has provided a way for us to have eternal life too. In truth, we all will have an eternity since we have an immortal soul. The difference is our place of residence. Jesus said that “I am going to the Father to prepare a place for you, so that where I am you may be also.”. The dwelling place is in Heaven, which is beyond our comprehension to understand the beauty and majesty of yet.

Since God loves each of us enough to do this, why won’t many of us accept it on faith and believe in Jesus’ sacrifice for us so that we can have it one day? Looking at the Bible, God’s Word, from our stand-point, we see a book of rules and regulations and a book of historical stories which may or may not be true. Many people today see it as just that, a book written by a bunch of old men which has no real truth to it and is a work of fiction. Really?

One day soon, our world will be shaken with the Truth coming back like He said that He would. Then many who don’t want to believe will have their world turned up-side down because of their un-belief. Why do I say this? Because a book with over forty authors which spanned over two thousand years of history could not possibly point to the birth of a Messiah from beginning to end, if it was an imaginative fable written by people who made these stories up!

After His resurrection, His disciples went all over the world that they could reach and were all killed for the message that they brought except one who died of old age. During the last two thousand years there have been many thousands of people persecuted and killed in horrific ways for their belief in Jesus and this Book, the Word of God! I doubt that they would’ve died the way that many did if this had been a fantasy or a lie.

What do we really need from God? Forgiveness, which we already have through Jesus, if we will believe and accept it. Our world and many of our churches need forgiveness for perverting the gospel into something which is twisted out of Scripture and doesn’t look like any of the Wisdom contained within the Bible. Yet, today many so-called “preachers” and “evangelists” are teaching a form of godliness which is not represented in the Word of God. This was prophesied by Jesus when John wrote the book of Revelation.

It is a book of the Bible which many are afraid of and they don’t want to read it but it is relevant to our time.

Living with Love


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

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

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

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

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

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

What is going to happen?


That is a loaded question to which I really don’t have an answer. I can’t see the future except through the prophecies of God in the Bible and from that our future is getting darker. Why? Because of our own natural tendencies. I know, there are many people who really don’t believe in God or in anything that is contained in His Word. That’s okay. You are entitled and able to believe whatever you wish to that might give you some comfort.

We always wonder what is beyond the curve or over the hill and it is the same way we feel about the future. Most everyone wonders about what is going to happen in our life and many times we try to plan for it or make plans for those future days. The problem is that we aren’t given those days until they get here. The only day that you actually have is today, and even that is not guaranteed for the full twenty-four hours.

We are fragile and we do make mistakes, all of the time to some degree or another. Many of life’s problems come to light when we try to do something which is beyond our ability or we attempt something which our common sense is telling us not to do and we do it anyway.

I know, many people especially men think that they are invincible, particularly those in military service but the fact is that it is only modern protection which makes them able to come home. Mostly in one piece. During the wars before Vietnam, the injuries which many of our disabled Vets come home with would’ve killed them or they would’ve died en route to medical help. We look at our lives from two perspectives most of the time…right now and tomorrow.

We want gratification of our wants and desires immediately if not sooner. Sometimes we have the patience to wait until tomorrow for some things, but our country and its culture has become so focused on instant gratification until very few children know what it means to wait from Mom to cook a meal or to go to the library to read a real book.

The future isn’t fixed in stone but the outcome of the future is. God has already ordained what will happen at the end of this age and at the end of the one thousand-year reign of Christ. Those outcomes are not up for debate, whether you believe in God or not you will bow to Him one day and acknowledge that He is God and King. Wouldn’t you rather invite Him into your life and your heart now? So that your eternity will be so much better and enjoyable for you and those that you love?

I know that many will choose to go their own way and follow whatever suits them but in the end, when your life is over and you do find out the Truth, it is too late to change your mind at that point. We are only given this life as a sort of “practice run”, once this existence is over your decisions made here will have an effect on your eternal home. Your soul, that part of you that longs for purpose and meaning, is immortal and your future home depends upon the decisions which you make now, today while you have it. As I said, you aren’t guaranteed tomorrow. Seek Him while He can be found in this life, before your eternity begins.

Are you a follower, a leader, or a Christian?


In many ways we are called to be all three, especially if we claim to be Christians. Today, we are supposed to be a people who follow Jesus and His example, not the “politically correct” way but His Way of Life! If you are a follower of Him, will you be one when the persecution comes to America, and it will come sooner than you think! Will you stay true to your faith in Jesus and your claim to Him when someone is threatening your life or your family’s security?

We need to be that strong in our faith, we are supposed to be that strong so that we can stand in our faith and for our communities and our churches. We are also called to be examples and leaders of our churches and our families faith. If we aren’t doing that then what is the next generation going to learn? Who are they going to learn it from?

God gave that responsibility to parents. To raise their children in the knowledge and reverence of Him, not to be afraid of Him as if God were going to strike you with a bolt of lightning for doing something wrong. God allows us to make mistakes, but we aren’t supposed to live in those mistakes. We are supposed to learn from them, repent of the sinful ways that we had and move into a life of service to Him and not to ourselves.

Christians are supposed to be fundamentally bound to the Bible, God’s Word. It really isn’t supposed to be an option because if you choose to not believe one part of it, you are invalidating all of it! We have to be consistent in our faith in God and in the Word of God because if we aren’t going to believe all of God’s Word, then why be a Christian at all?

The belief in the Word of God comes with the faith that you have in Him and His Son. If that isn’t there, then you need to check with the Bible and see if you really do believe in what you say that you believe. This is exactly why there are so many people who don’t want to believe in God and who don’t go to church. They see all of these “so-called Christians” that go to church and then don’t live their lives by what they are claiming to believe on a daily basis.

This is exactly why so many people choose not to come to churches. They see many of those who claim Christ on Sunday, but who walk a different way during the week. The walk of a Christian is not an optional thing. It is just like walking on a thin line which we are called to do, you are either on it or not. Yes, we fall from our walk and step off of the line, but we should try to get back on it as soon as possible. Don’t decide that once you fall off that you can’t get back up! You don’t learn to ride a bike or a horse that way and your walk with Jesus is no different!

When you choose to be a Christian, regardless of how long ago it was, you are in a committed relationship. One which is dependent upon you to keep it going. Jesus has already done everything that He needed to do, it is up to you to seek Him out daily in His Word. Pray for your day to be the one that He would want. Keep your mind focused upon Him during the day, as often as you can, because the more you keep Him on your mind then the less chances Satan will have to cause problems in your day.

Make sure that, if you are a Christian, you are walking with Jesus and not dragging Him up when someone asks you about Him and then pushing Him away so that you can do what you want to do. Prayer is good, if it is done for the right reason and God hears those prayers when your heart is in them too. If you are just saying something like “God bless you”, then it is just an automatic thing and really doesn’t mean much. Consider what you are thinking because God knows what you are thinking too. Nothing is hidden from Him no matter where you might be.

Racism…why?


In our world today there are so many different ism’s until it is hard to tell which is which. But why is there one called racism? There is only one race on Earth and it has been that way since God began everything in Eden. Adam was not one race and Eve another, they were both human. Their skin may have been dark, not brown or black but not white or yellowish either. We are all part of the human race.

For many years, centuries even, we have separated ourselves from each other because of our different cultures and skin tongenetic-variationes but honestly those are really the only actual differences between us, no matter where we live on Earth. Yes, we do have different cultures, that can be seen easily in our customs and the religions, the way we talk and dress, but it doesn’t make us different in race. We are all of the same race, human beings or Homo sapiens and there are no others. If there were you would easily be able to see the differences.

I know that cultural differences are varied in every country and region on this planet, but that is the only thing besides skin color that separates us. It is something that we must contend with and it is a difference which we have had since the beginning. The problem with our separateness began with the Tower of Babel where everyone’s language got mixed up and they were forced to separate and move away from each other, at least that is my opinion about it.

We live in a world which is broken and bruised in many ways because of the original sin in the Garden, but also because of our own nature. We want things a certain way in our lives, we like our coffee a certain way and our eggs cooked a certain way and when someone comes along with a different way of doing things we fuss and fight against it until we decide that maybe their way is better. If not, then we have a problem between their way and our way. This causes a split in communities and churches sometimes and in times past, it caused us to distance ourselves from each other along cultural lines which soon become “racial lines” because we considered the differences to be so great.

When in reality, the differences are not that great if you get to know someone better. Sooner or later those differences become not so different really. The difference in culture, between the way people dress or act or even the music that they listen to or the way that they talk, those are the separating lines between us. We are all of the same race, just different branches of the tree that’s all. The branch at the top is no better than the roots because they are all a part of the whole.

Of course, this explanation is one which will be very hard for most to accept. “My branch is better than yours because I am not so close to the ground”; “My trunk is better because I get my nourishment before you do”; these are silly arguments from a human standpoint but you get the point. Is there a way for us to fix these differences in culture and skin tone? Not with our human understanding alone. Force and wars, whether fought with guns or bombs or swords, have never solved any of these problems and in many countries they have made the problem worse.

The only cure or fix for this is Jesus. When He comes to rule the world for one thousand years, things will be different. Yes, there will still be separation between most nations, tribes, and cultures and all of the diversity that has come to Earth since Creation but we can take our grievances to Him directly and He can judge fairly between the parties which are having problems.

Until the new heaven and earth appear though, there will be disagreements and arguments. Maybe no wars or bombings or killings, but that won’t stop us from having disagreements between people.

Seek His counsel and His Wisdom in your life, every day, so that you have the best advice available in all of your daily activities, whatever they may be.

An addendum to this post:

Christ did not come to Earth for only one so-called “race” of people, He came to save ALL of us, to bring the possibility of salvation to all skin colors and nationalities and the cultures from which they come. God created us as one race, humanity, and He wants to have fellowship with all of us, no matter where you may live or what color your skin is.

Think of our skin colors like this: there is a snow leopard which is mostly white, there is a leopard which has black spots and a tawny color and there is a black leopard in South America which is black, but you can still see the spots well enough to know that he is still a leopard. The colors don’t change the fact that it is a leopard any more than our skin color doesn’t change the fact that we are all homo sapiens! One race, different cultures and skin colors, blessed and loved by God to be His people if we will accept Him as our Savior.