Tag: Jesus

How many times?


There are riots in the streets over a decision by some legal entity in our society, yet those riots will not change the outcome. The killing of people and burning of businesses and cars only makes the so-called “racial” issue more loaded, more explosive. During a time when the only real racist people are those who lived through it in the sixties and seventies!

Most of the young people in college now and those who may be a little beyond college age, don’t really recognize race as a problem or even a factor in their friendships or relationships. Why should our country keep on digging up the bones of a dead issue? Let it stay buried and move on, please! How do you think that God would act in this instance?

Not with violence or hatred, those are human emotions. Jesus got angry in the Temple, but that is because they had turned the outer court of the Temple into a marketplace and that was not what it was intended to be. Anger, hatred toward your fellow-man, is considered as murder in God’s eyes because the feelings which come out when you act and feel this way toward someone are very violent and just by thinking of the act in your mind you have committed it in your heart, whether you did so physically or not.

Our country and its people need to get back into church, soon, because we NEED God in our hearts and in this nation desperately! We have been pushing Him out of our lives for long enough and it is time that we got on our knees and begged for His forgiveness! Ask Him to come into your heart and cleanse your life and bring you back into a relationship with Him!

We can’t keep this kind of tension in our country because soon it could escalate into a real conflict between races and cultures, essentially another civil war of unrest and hatred and I don’t think that our nation could survive that at all. It would rip this nation apart and America would no longer be a nation, although I can’t imagine what is would become and I really don’t want to.

Please, get into a Bible teaching church, read and study God’s Word and ask Him to show you what He wants from your life and mine. We can’t wait for another “great awakening”, we have to wake up NOW! Before it is too late!

Life is tough, be tougher!


People who are survivors live through things that many of us would cringe at, accidents, war injuries, PTSD, cancer and chemotherapy, the list could go on and on.

My nephew is living proof of this and I feel that it is my duty to tell what I know of his story, at least to a certain point at least.

He was hurt in a four-wheeler accident about a month ago. He and two other boys were on the four-wheeler, which is not a good way to ride anyway, but they were being boys! Anyway, to make a very long story a bit shorter, a truck went to pass by them on the road and the driver of the four-wheeler decided that they should come back up on the road and they ended up in front of the truck. All three boys were hurt, but my nephew was hurt the worst, physically. He is still recovering in the hospital and he has only been in a room for about a week, the first three weeks he was in intensive care. He is strong, in his will and in his body, but it is God and many, many prayers that has brought him this far.

God has a plan for him…He has something to do in God’s Kingdom. I don’t know what yet, he doesn’t know what it is yet, but I hope that when he comes through this, he will find that purpose. I am not going to post pictures from his wreck or his recovery here, but I am placing a link to his prayer page on Facebook. If you wish to help in any way please visit this page. His family will need as much help financially as they can get due to the cost of the treatment that he has already had, but he will be going through therapy for the next year or so. Please, pray for him and if you feel that you can or should help contact them through this page.

He needs medical help, but God is in the help that he is getting. The doctors have been impressed with his progress, but I am not sure that they realize Who was doing the healing because it really is God working through them! According to the news that I got on the night that he had the wreck, the paramedics had to bring him back once or twice before they even made it to the hospital by helicopter. Our God is awesome and He is able to do exceedingly above what we think can be done in ANY situation.

I am not writing this to beg for money for my brother-in-law’s family, although the bills have already started coming in. I am writing this to let people outside of Facebook know that God is awesome and He still heals people today! They had to remove part of my nephew’s skull to relieve the pressure on his brain, although there is no brain damage today. As I said earlier, God has been guiding the doctor’s hands and their treatment of this young man, he is only thirteen years old.

Life is tough, and it is fleeting, his life could’ve been over that night if there had not been a helicopter team able to come pick him up. The other boys lives could have been taken, but they weren’t because God intervened in their lives at that time. I know that some won’t see it that way, but it is true! Even the person driving the truck was not at fault, because God had a plan and a purpose for this to happen. We may not know what His plan is yet, but He will bring it about one day.

Live your life for God. Wake up to know Him, read His Word, pray to Him to give you the understanding of His Word, because He is the only One Who is truly in control of this world, and the people living here and their lives, whether they have given their life to Him yet or not. God loved us enough that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for us and to bring salvation to us, all that we have to do is claim it and realize that we can’t do anything to make our lives better, but He can.

All things work together…


Does this verse or beginning of the verse speak to your life or your spirit? Yes, to me it does, because everything works together for the good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose. Kinda limiting isn’t it? “For those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose”, not for everyone, not for those who are not Christians, but for those who are Christians! Things will work out for your good, maybe not immediately but eventually, because God’s timing is different from yours or mine.

We want things to work out right now! Nobody wants to work for something or anything today, they want it given to them regardless of the cost! The problem with this is that people don’t value things which are free! It doesn’t matter if the item cost one thousand dollars or more, if they got it for free then they don’t place any value on it at all! The cheaper something is, then the less value is given to it so people will not value it or take care of it like they will if they truly had to work for it and earn it.

I think that is the very reason that many people don’t place value on their salvation through Jesus. They don’t value it because it has already been paid for and all that they need to do to claim it is to believe it and ask for it and it is theirs! There is no need to do anything to earn it because our works, even done in Jesus’ name, will not earn us a place into Heaven! Our place, our salvation has been paid for through His sacrifice and nothing that we can do can come close to the price that was paid for it!

All that you have to do is claim it by asking Him into your life and your heart, ask for forgiveness of your sins and you will be a different person from that point on. Then, the works that you can do for Jesus will be worth something! Because, they will be done in the power of the Holy Spirit and not through man’s strength and will. God loves us all, but He doesn’t love the lives that we lead until we dedicate our life’s accomplishments to Him.

Time is running short because the “birth pains” are beginning, the ones which Jesus spoke about that would happen before the troubled times, the Tribulation of the world. You can see it in the financial markets, in the news every day, it is building up and one day, soon I believe, it will blow the world’s eyes open so that people can see what is happening. Yet, for some it will be too late. Give your life to Jesus, read and pray over the Bible so that you can be part of His Kingdom because if you aren’t then you are part of Satan’s world and that won’t be a pretty picture or a good future at all.

God uses the foolish things…


“But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound
the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty.” 1 Corinthians 1:27

It is so true, God uses the simple things, the people who weren’t the most popular and the ones that nobody thinks will amount to anything,  and He will use them to do and accomplish the most in the world and for His Kingdom. Why would God do that? Because He is God and because He wants the world to see that He can do more with a little than anyone else can do with a lot!

I mean, He did create the world and our universe by speaking into the dark void, “Let there be light!”. The light that God brings into the world and the Light that He caused to shine forth in the beginning is alive! It is not just light like you get from a lamp or even the brilliant light that you get from our Sun, it was and is the Light from His Son! Light which can do more, Light which can cause things to change and people to change, Light which can bring life to a dead place. Light which will bring water into a wilderness or make “dry bones” get up from the ground and become people again!

The Light that God uses is more than just light, but it is also something which we cannot know until we have gained faith from Him and our souls have been revived to be “new creatures in Christ Jesus”! The Light of God also contains His love for us…each of us, because if He hadn’t loved us, then He wouldn’t have taken on the flesh of humanity and came down as a baby to be born into a world that didn’t know Him. A world that had mostly forgotten Him, like today’s world has.

God did exactly that and lived as a human for twelve years before he came to the temple in Jerusalem as a boy. Then He confounded the “wise men” of the day, by answering their questions instead of needing the answers Himself! After this, he spent eighteen years as a carpenter, learning the trade from his Earthly father (although He already knew) before He began His ministry in Judea. After His baptism by John the Baptist, He went into the desert and fasted for forty days before truly starting His ministry.

The men whom He called to become disciples were plain men, not Pharisees or Teachers, but during the three years of His ministry, He taught them all that they needed to know in order to accomplish that which He called them to do. They didn’t need a degree or a paper showing that they were anything more than they were, just plain people who came to know Jesus through faith and to believe that He is the Son of God! During His ministry, He was challenged by the “teachers of the Law” many times, but He passed all of their tests and confounded the wise men. How? Because, He was God! They could not trip Him up! Yet, He allowed them to capture Him, scourge Him and hang Him on a cross so that you and I could have a chance at eternity! He didn’t have to do it that way, but He wanted to do it that way. Then, after three days from sun up to sundown, He came out of the tomb victorious over death and He taught them for an additional forty days before ascending into Heaven! As the angels told His disciples, “He will come again in like manner as you have seen Him go”, and it will likely be soon.

He can use each of us in the same way today. Just as some of the teachers today have gone to school and to advanced degrees to show themselves approved, there are some who are just plain folks like me. Yes, I do have a college degree, but it isn’t in religion or theology. Yet, God has taught me through His Word and through prayer, the knowledge which I need to be useful to Him! My skills are not accepted in the “great churches”, because I don’t have a “seminary degree”, I am just an un-learned man so what do I know? I know that God can take me, just as He did those fishermen, and use me and you to do far more than people think can be done by someone as simple as I am.

Seek Him out today, read His Word and come to know Him through it because He can make you into a giant of faith if you will answer the call on your life now while there is still time. Don’t put it off until tomorrow or next week, you don’t know if you are going to be here that long! While there is time, especially if God is calling to your heart now, answer Him. His disciples did, I did, and many others have over the years. Give Him a chance to be your Lord and Savior.

God’s plans…


We tend to make plans from the time we are able to play with other children, we make plans. Plans for forts, and rescues and wars and all sorts of stuff. When we get older, we still make plans, although we are making bigger plans at this point like what we will major in when we go to college or if we decide to go into the military then which branch and what specialty to follow. God’s plans are never wrong or come at the wrong time, He is never calling an emergency session of the Trinity and nothing catches Him by surprise. He knows what He has planned and that it will do exactly what He has purposed for it to accomplish, whether in your life while you are young or later in your life, His plans will always be done on time.

Just as His signs in the heavens happen at the time that He appoints for them to. The eclipses that we have seen of the “blood moons”, the solar eclipse that will happen next year along with the other signs that happen every day that people disregard or don’t recognize as signs from Him. Like the one that happened during the filming of a mini-series that will be released on Easter next spring. It seems that God is giving His approval to it. Of course there are many who will say that it is just a coincidence, but take a look at it and draw your own conclusion. As a verse in the Bible says: “I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.” Joel 2:30cross1

There are very few times that a cross is formed in the sky, especially with no jets crossing paths to aid it along. God is the creator, and He can form anything wherever He wishes to, whenever He wants it to appear. Your life, your plans are part of His plan and if you will align your heart and your life with His, then you will see the difference that you can make in other people’s lives.

Give your heart to God and the rest of your life will fall into place just as it should. I never thought that I would be doing what I do, but He brought my life around to a point where I could be used in His Kingdom and for His Kingdom. My small church is small now, but it is possible that someone from my church may have an impact in the world one day. I don’t know God’s plans, but He does and He knows exactly how this will work out to His glory!

Listen….


Have you heard from the Word of God lately? Many people don’t want to hear someone preaching from the Word because it is God’s Truth. Some don’t think that it is true or that it is God’s Word, they think that the Bible is just a book of stuff, stories made up by some bunch of old guys which tell a little about historical figures and some of them are good stories but that is it, nothing more. Have you ever really listened to it, really sat down and read it? The Bible is about much more than Jewish history and the kings which ruled Israel, it is a condensed history of the world itself, from the viewpoint of God’s chosen people.

Why did God choose the Jewish people? I don’t know, ask Him? The Word of God is living and alive because when you read it with faith and pray for understanding, it doesn’t matter how many times you read it…you will find something new, even in the same passage or chapter. If you can read it with no faith, just as a book and nothing more and it doesn’t have any effect on your soul or your life, then I feel sorry for you. I pray that a sermon from the Bible will touch your heart, that a verse will open your eyes and prick your soul to want to know the God of the Bible and His Son.

The time that has been foretold in Revelation is coming soon, whether you believe it or not. This generation will see it, will experience it in one way or another. The message that is contained within the Bible is one which points you to Jesus and to His saving of our souls through His sacrifice of Himself on the cross. He did it out of love for us, all of us, not just because He had to but because He wanted to do it. We are all loved by God but our sins are not and that is what Jesus came to save us from, our sinful nature, our rebellious nature, the one that says “Yeah, I know you said that I shouldn’t do this, but I am going to do it anyway.”

If we could just get our “buts” out-of-the-way and out of our life as we go through it, knowing what we should and shouldn’t do “but”….if we could just stop injecting that part of us into the equation of our lives then we would be so much better off. But…that is our nature, it is just us being human, being the people who God made us to be. Except, He didn’t make mankind to be that way, it happened when sin entered into the world that God had made. Yes, there are many truths found in the Bible, in God’s Word if we will read it and learn from it.

Allow yourself to hear the Word at a church, read from God’s Word and pray that God will show you the wisdom that He has for you, don’t close your mind to His Wisdom. He loves you for who you are in Christ, not your sinful lifestyle. If you feel His call on your heart, answer it and tell Him that you need Him in your life because you can’t do it on your own. Seek Him and His Kingdom through the study of the Bible. He will come into your life and change it into what it is supposed to be.

 

Honor, Dignity, and Commitment


The character of our nation’s heroes, its Veterans, is uncompromising commitment to their job, their duty, and to their country. We honor their commitment with dignity on this Veteran’s Day, but what about our commitment? Do each of us have a commitment that we are duty bound to honor and carry through? We all should honor our elders, our parents and grandparents but especially our Veterans, whether they are veterans of a branch of the military or of the police service or fire and ambulance services, we should honor them. Why should we honor people who aren’t putting their lives on the line for our freedom? Because they actually do put their lives on the line, every day. When a police person (man or woman), puts that uniform on, it means that they are taking their lives and putting them on the line, not just for a pay-check (which isn’t much actually) but they are putting themselves in harm’s way for us, each of us, every day. Yes, Veterans do the same thing in the line of fire on a battlefield wherever they are sent to defend our freedoms and the freedom of the people that they are sent to protect. The same is true for ambulance personnel or fire service personnel, they put their lives in the line of traffic, or in the heat of a burning house or apartment building whenever they are on their jobs. So, they are all veterans of their respective service, regardless of the field that it may be in.

The same can be said about Jesus and His disciples. They put their lives on the line for their beliefs and for the cause of Christianity, to further the Kingdom of God around the world. We are to do the same, if we are committed to the cause of Christ, to take the knowledge of Jesus to all nations and people. We are also in a battle against Satan and his forces of spiritual beings, demons, principalities and powers which we cannot see, but they are in the world fighting against us and God. They are trying to keep people away from Jesus and the knowledge of Him and His grace toward us. Our fight is with those enemies which we can’t see, but they are there regardless and they will try any form of deception to win their cause, any lie, any death that they can cause to bring our voice down to silence. This is the enemy that we fight as Christians, the ones that can take our loved ones from us and ruin our witness to others if we allow it to happen, if we give in to their forces.

But, we can’t and we mustn’t give in or give up. The time is growing short and the battle lines are being drawn. We have to stand in our faith, we have to learn from Jesus what it takes to be still and know that God is with us and that He is far more powerful than the enemy that we face here on Earth. The victory is already ours through Christ, all that we have to do is claim it in faith by His power and His name. Stand in honor and dignity and commit yourself to Jesus’ cause and ask Him to give you the strength to commit to His cause and to stick with it until the end. God loves you and will give you the victory in all things if you will only believe in Jesus and the sacrifice that He made for you.

Semper Fi!  Praise the Lord! Come Lord Jesus!! Amen.

New hope for the future


The election has fostered hope in our government and in the future of America, but it is likely that it is a false hope. Oh, yes, the promises that were made in order to get the votes are high and grand, but are they real and doable…hardly. In the climate that our lawmakers find themselves in during this administration, few if any of the promises that were made will make it to a committee, let alone a vote. Then there is the chance of a veto as well, so the newly elected will not likely to make any real progress at all.

I don’t want to seem to be down on our President. I am glad that I have lived in a time that we could elect an African-American president because it is something that I didn’t think I would ever see. What has been done to our economy is tragic, but I fear that it really isn’t the President’s fault at all. It is the fault of our country and the people who have been pushing God and Christianity out of our culture and our schools and especially out of any government sponsored event or office.

Our nation was founded by God-fearing men and women and it is time that we accepted it as fact and got back to the God of our forefathers in truth and in our schools. In all honesty, if you don’t want your child or children to learn of God and what He has blessed us with, school your children at home and let the majority of children learn of our Creator and the blessings that we have enjoyed because of His grace toward us. He didn’t condone the slave trade that occurred three or four hundred years ago when it started in Africa and in Ireland, but it happened and brought many people to Christ anyway.

Right now, I am schooling my child at home because I want him to learn about God and His grace toward us and in the history of our country. I have to do this because of cost and because it isn’t allowed in public schools today like it was in my parent’s lifetime and their parent’s schools too. Our country was better off when God was part of the curriculum and not considered part of the “problem”. The problem is that many people, Christians, have not stood up to the minority who scream the loudest saying that our religion is harming their kids. How can learning of God and His love for you and your children harm them? Would you rather learn of Satan and his “rewards”? How about Buddhism and it’s rewards?

The only way to be blessed with an eternity that is meaningful is to follow Jesus and learn from the Bible, God’s Word and Wisdom. No other “religion” can gain you access into Heaven, only through the gates of hell and Satan would be tickled to death if he could get you to follow him there if only because he deprived you of a place in Heaven!

In the beginning paragraphs, I said that our problem in this country and its economic woes did not start with our President and it didn’t. Many of our policies concerning the secularization of America began before he was ever born and we began reaping the consequences of those actions long before he became President.

A revival is needed in our country and in every person’s life and if not revival, then salvation through Jesus. This is the only way of actually saving our country and no elected official can do it, only Jesus can have this effect on each person who will ask Him into their life and their heart. Yes, I do read my Bible and I have read the places where slavery was approved of, where genocide was approved of, but in both instances God was approving it because of the outcome of His people, not because He hated the ones that were supposed to be killed or enslaved. Pray for our country and its leaders, those who actually know how to lead at least, and for the mercy of God to come to our country and not His judgement upon it!

This is the day


A verse in the Bible begins this way, “This is the day…”, but it is not the only verse that has those words as its beginning. One verse says: “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118: 24

Another says: “This is the day of your salvation”, (2 Corinthians 6:2) , maybe not in those exact words but the idea is there nonetheless. The Bible is full of verses which have “this day” or “today” contained within them and the meaning of them in relation to your salvation is that you shouldn’t put it off at all, not even one more day! God loves each of us, which is why He came to Earth in the person of His Son so that He could pay the price for our sins, not just yours or mine but for the entire world! Your sins have been paid for, you just have to accept it, believe it, and allow Him to change you into the person that He wants you to be.

There is nothing that you can do to add to the work that He performed on the cross for you, it has been done and it is finished. All that you have to do is accept it in faith and ask Him to forgive you for your sins, then seek Him out in His Word so that you can come to know Him better and more completely. It is not required of you to do this, but in gratitude you want to because of the grace and the love that has been shown toward you and the whole world. I did.

Oh, when I was younger I didn’t understand the Bible and I didn’t take the time to ask Him to help me understand it. But, later on I realized that I needed that wisdom, His wisdom for life, for living, for being a better husband and father, for being a better representative of His grace and mercy toward us, toward me.

I lived in a broken home for a long time and I blamed my life on God. I blamed Him for my parent’s divorce, and for the fact that I grew up without a father at home. I was a rebellious teenager all during my teens. I drank alcohol, I smoked pot, I ran around with a bad crowd. It would’ve been worse had I lived in a larger city, instead of the small town where I was. But, the worst of it was that I thought I had accepted Christ at the age of 13. I had gone forward and I did all of the things that you are supposed to do, like come before the church and get baptized. I went to Sunday school and church all during my school years from the seventh grade on, but when Friday night came around and I had my drivers license I went to town to get drunk. I didn’t go to watch the game, I didn’t care about the game.

I had some wrecks in my Mom’s car before I graduated, because of my drinking. But, I still thought I was saved. It wasn’t until twenty years went by that I realized that I had been playing a game doing all the outward things which looked like I was a Christian, but inside I hadn’t changed at all. Essentially, I had put on a coat that said “Christian” on it, and when I go ready to do something that I knew didn’t fit in that coat, I took it off and did what I wanted to do. It wasn’t until I became a father that I realized that I needed to change my life so that I could, at least, be a real role model for my child. That is when I became a Christian. I had been going through the motions for a long time, and it still took some study and some real, honest prayer between me and God before I truly felt Him touch my heart and my life and make me realize that I truly needed Him. That, I couldn’t be a Christian without Him and without giving up my “life” so that I could put His on.

Birthday wishes and kind words


Birthday wishes are like snowflakes, they are beautiful as they come and they make you appreciate the life that you have. We appreciate them when we see them or hear them fall on your ears. Wishing someone a happy birthday is a wonderful way to appreciate this person’s friendship. Appreciation of someone’s friendship is a wonderful way of showing kindness toward people who are or have been part of your life. Whether they are in your life now or not, even if you only see them infrequently, kindness and appreciation are qualities which you get from being Christ-like.

Yes, you can be kind and appreciative even if you are not a Christian but you will be even more so if you are one. Your character or the character of Jesus will come through into your daily living, your being, and it will show through everything that you do. There won’t be much of this distrustful, mean-spirited, person left in you. Now, I am not saying that everyone who is not a Christian is this way, I have met a few Christians who act this way in their life and their business practices. I suppose thinking that if they are kind and caring toward their competition that they will be run over in their business and be taken advantage of by people, so they think that they have to be “tough-minded and hard”.

Do you think that Jesus was this way while He was a carpenter before He began His ministry? I doubt it. I think that He was just as easy-going and kind toward those who didn’t want to pay Him for His work as He was to those who paid Him a little extra for the work that was done. Being a kind person, whether in business or in your everyday life, is easy but as Jesus said “be shrewd as vipers” when working or talking around people who might take advantage of you. In today’s world people will try to take advantage of you when you are kind to them or seem to be naive, so conduct yourself in the way that Jesus would.

Seek His wisdom, found in Proverbs mostly, to conducting your life and your business and then do it everyday. Some people may not see the love and compassion of Jesus until they see it or hear it in something that you do or say. Just a kind word, a “thank you” for something that is expected but say it anyway, open the door for someone who is carrying a package, just being helpful can go a long way toward bringing someone to the knowledge of Jesus.