Tag: Jesus

Negativity everywhere


Besides the news channels and websites, there is so much negative in and on the web. I thought that this collaborative network was supposed to be open and free of this kind of rubbish! Everywhere you look on the web these days, someone is saying something about someone’s religion or their beliefs or their nationality and most of it is not positive at all.

In keeping with the message of my blog, there were a lot of negative vibes around when Jesus was teaching  and all the way back to the beginning too. During the time that Moses was leading the Israelites  out of Egypt, there were many complainers and whiners, all sorts of negative comments flying about. How could he deal with it? Moses took all of the negative comments to God and prayed about it! Why can’t we do the same today? The reason that we don’t is because we have pushed God as far away from us as we possibly can.

Even the church has watered down His message so that it is more tolerant and easy to handle for those who want their own version to live by. That is not the way to get people saved! If we don’t show them and tell them what is in God’s word, without diluting it, how will they know? I know there will be many people who do not agree with me on this and I may get some nasty comments from this, but the point is this: If no one tells you that you are going to fall, what will happen? You will fall!

If I could see that there was a very thin sheet of ice or something that you were walking on and I didn’t warn you about it, I would be guilty of your death wouldn’t I? The same principle applies to life and the religion that we have a choice to follow. There are multiple paths that are in the world right now and many of them look and sound great. Many of them don’t require you to do anything. No changes in your life at all in most of these religions although some have dietary restrictions as well as restrictions on what you may drink and how many times you should pray. Others, only require that you be as good as you can be and ask that you be a morally upright person. The problem with these religions is that they all require you to do something to be accepted.

The truth is that none of us, not one person on earth is good enough to be perfect in our performance regardless of what we are attempting to do or be! We cannot adhere to the Law of Moses perfectly without breaking even one of the laws. No one is perfect enough to adhere to all of the requirements of any religion, it is humanly impossible!

That is why Christianity is the only religion which allows for our imperfection and provides us with righteousness through the sinless Son of God who died in our place and took the punishment for us all. So that all we have to do is..believe in Him and ask Him to come into our heart and our lives! When we do that, we are changed into “a new creation; the old has passed away and behold, we are made new”.

The negative part of your life at that point is over and you have a positive life from that point on. I am not saying that your life will be perfect and without problems from that point on. Satan may make your life harder because you may bring many people to Christ in your life and he knows it, so he will try to make you fall and stumble, but Christ will be with you to strengthen you and get you through those trials. Because of that, you will be stronger in your faith and able to be what God intended for you to be!

God loves you, each and every one, and He knows exactly what you can do and what you will do when you are His child. Your future is in His hand because He knows the end and the beginning, and all of the points in between. Give Jesus a chance in your life and make your life His from this point on!

Are you OK?


How many times have I heard this on a day to day basis? I have no idea, some days I don’t hear it at all and some days it seems that someone is asking me this at least once every fifteen minutes. I must not look like I am doing very well when people keep asking me this, huh?

Is it possible that my own life or my anxieties show through the thin veil that covers my persona? Is that what the rest of the world sees, instead of what is in my heart and my life? I suppose the worries and anxieties that I have could have that effect on the way that I look or act, so the people see me as whatever that makes me. Normal.

Yes, I am OK. I am normal just like most everyone else, except I have an advantage that many people don’t. I have a risen and living Savior, Jesus Christ! He came to our world as a baby, helpless and unable to walk or talk. The amazing thing about Him is that even as a baby, He was and is God. We have to let Him grow up and get out of the cradle though, otherwise He will not help us to grow in our faith and learn more about Him.

I know, many people today don’t really want to hear about Jesus. Well that is too bad. If you don’t want to read about Him, then find another blog to read. I have been given  a wonderful gift from Him and that is to be able to write as well as the fact that He saved me from my sinful ways. He loves each of us far more than we deserve to be and He forgives us for all the things that we have said and done when we ask Him to come into our lives.

To answer the first question: Unless you have Jesus as your Savior, no you are not OK! None of us, regardless of our denomination or race or culture can truthfully say that we are OK. The rest of the world says that we are. Our friends may say that we are, but spiritually we are not. Because we cannot be OK on our own merit or with our own concept of religion.

Many people would tell me that “I don’t have my own religion!”, but today many people actually do. They may not realize it but it really is possible. Your doctrine or your church may have specific “steps” or rituals that have been used in the church for years and these can become blocks that get in the way of your relationship with Jesus. Even your job or the amount of money that you make can get in the way of your relationship with Him.

“Why do I have to have a relationship with Jesus?” is a question that many people want answered. The answer or the reason for this is because your salvation was purchased with Jesus’ blood and His death and resurrection. In more modern terms, if you were about to go to prison for a life sentence and would never be able to get out and before you served your sentence someone came forward and said that they would take your place, how would you feel? If you owed about a trillion dollars and were unable to pay and were going to lose everything and go to prison and someone came and paid the entire amount for you, wouldn’t you want to know this person? I would!

God loves each of us so much that He sent His Son to die for our sins just so each of us can be OK in His sight! The spotless Son and Lamb of God came to be the sacrifice that would take away the sins of the entire world.

Feed your faith!!


Background: Romans 10:17

Learn to feed your faith and starve your doubts. The doubts that you have can truly affect your life so eliminate them by getting into your Bible and in a Bible teaching church!

If you don’t come to church, read your Bible, and pray, then you have no shield of faith for protection from Satan. Sometimes college students go off and let some ungodly, unbelieving man make fun of their faith. And they fall apart like a house of cards. That’s because they don’t have a strong faith in God. Feed your faith. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God,” and it will be like a shield to you to protect you from all the fiery darts of the wicked world that we live in. It gives the believer certainty, certainty about what they believe and Who you believe in.

Again, you must actively, consciously clothe yourself in the armor of God. How much are you dedicating yourself to being in His Word, learning how to wield your Sword? If you are doing this only on a weekly basis, the destroyer can get to you!

If you don’t open God’s Word and read it at least once a day, you don’t have the shield with the faith to wield it against everyday things which rob you of your faith in the One who can and does save you. Yes, this is about you and God, because He wants to know you and He wants you to know Him! Only by hearing the Word preached and getting into the Word can you know Him. Only by reading the Word can you recognize God’s voice and His way of speaking to you. He does love us all, each of us individually so there is a reason for what He does and how He does it. Our Savior asks us to come in and eat with Him and He waits for us to invite Him in as well.

Jesus does stand at the door and knock, patiently waiting for you to let Him in and He does this every day. Believers and non-believers are in this situation because many of them seek Jesus once per week and then leave Him at the church when the sermon is over. You have to take Him with you everywhere, every day, not just when things aren’t going your way or when you think you are “good enough” to do so.

Clothing yourself in the armor of God means that you get into the Bible so that the Spirit can use it to teach you what He says and what you are to do. The armor of God only protects you if you have it on; going to church on Sunday for thirty minutes or an hour doesn’t take care of the rest of the week! It reminds you of what you are to do and who you are to be with daily, but the cares of the world and your daily routine gets in the way or at least Satan lets you believe that.

Once you decide to trust and believe in Christ for salvation, wholehearted surrender and Christ-likeness becomes a goal to achieve with the help of the Holy Spirit and the fellowship of believers. The only way to have the fellowship of believers is to be in fellowship with them, regardless of whether they are family and friends or not. The Bible says, “And we should not be forsaking our meetings, as is the custom for each person, but plead with one another all the more, as long as you see that day drawing near.” Hebrews 10:25

The “sword of God” is His Word and if you don’t learn it and how to use it to counter the things that you hear and read every day, then Satan can get into your mind and change things just as he did to Eve in the garden.

Then, there are many who will say that the thief on the cross didn’t do these things so why do I have to do them? The thieves on the cross were divided in their view of Christ. One of them extended the condition, “…if you are the Christ, save yourself and us” (Luke 23:39). The other placed his faith in Christ, asking, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (vs. 42). Christ’s response was the best news a dying man can hear. “Surely I say unto you, today you’ll be with me in paradise” (vs. 43).

There was no way this dying thief could have told others of his salvation. He was saved by recognizing Christ as who He said He was—the only One who could save him from his sin. He also showed Christ that he believed in Him as who He was, so it was the belief…the faith of the thief that saved him. Their death was imminent so they had no way of getting baptized or of learning the scriptures, but that is not required, yet belief in Jesus is!

It is true that they didn’t have the opportunity to do the things that we can do, but we are not to use the thief’s inability to do these things as an excuse for us not to do them! As long as we can do what Jesus wants us to do then we should, the Lord is coming back and He will require of each of us an explanation of the words and thoughts that we have had as well as why we heard the Gospel and did not act on it. Don’t be part of the crowd which is cast away because they didn’t act  or believe in what they heard before He came!!

Our God loves each of us as shown by Jesus’ sacrifice for us, even before most of the world was even born! No one can claim immortality without belief in and surrender to Jesus! Your life here is meaningless without Him in it, guiding you daily to do those things which He would do if He were in your shoes. We can be the feet and hands of Christ in a world that is going dark, but we must carry His words in our hearts and our minds to do so. We must tell others what Jesus has done for us and for them, so that they will know.

Many people have died during the course of writing this sermon and the time that it takes to give this sermon many more will die. Will any of them be on your mind or conscience? Were they your responsibility to give account of the joy that is in your hearts? Did they see the joy and peace in your life that Jesus brought into your life, and if they did, what evidence did you give them of Who was responsible for that joy?

These are questions that we all must answer, whether we will have to answer for them in front of Jesus or in front of the people that we see every day, I don’t know. Jesus gave each of us a job to do. How well we perform that job is our daily responsibility. It is not an easy task, because each of us has our own gifts and strengths and weaknesses too. But, with the power of the Holy Spirit living in each of us, we can do the job that we were given. Whether we choose to do that job or not is our choice, but in the end we will have to account for that choice. Which choice will you make?

When will it end?


The time is not yet for our world to end. The looming date set by the Mayan calendar is going to come and pass but we will have Christmas and New Year‘s day to follow. The ending that I am speaking of is the hatred toward Christians. Every news outlet that I know of, with the exception of one, seems to discount or discredit only one religion and that is Christianity. Every other religion in the world, regardless of how silly it may be, is fine. Why is that?

The only reason that I can think of is because Christianity has a living Savior and the Bible to back up its claims. No other religion does this. The places and people of the Bible can be traced by history and archaeology to the places that are referenced in the Bible. A few other religions have this as well but not to the extent that the Bible does.

Many people have claimed that the Bible is just a made up story, a book full of fairy tales. The historical record of the Israelite people shows that this book is true and that it is linked to them and their history, so why is it so important that the Bible be discredited? I think it is because of fear.

People are afraid that it may be true and if it is, then all of it is true and our world needs the hope that is found in it. If the words and the message of it is true, then there are many people who are needing salvation through Jesus. Why is that such a bad thing? He doesn’t require you to go by the rules of the Old Testament Jewish laws. The only ones that are even mentioned in Jesus’ teachings are the Ten Commandments.

Is it possible that people just don’t want to be responsible for their actions and the things that they say or do? Have we become so callous that we want a society that is that “self driven”? Humanity has always had a tremendous capacity for evil thoughts and actions, regardless of the religion of the time. We have never shown, in any redeemable way, that lack of religion has made things better. In countries where organized religion was outlawed, the people were controlled by fear of the government itself.

That is no way to live. Satan fell from his position because of pride and we are subject to the same thing. Without Christ in your life and sometimes with Him, pride still gets in the way but you can overcome it through Him. Our world is going to end. When will it happen? No one can predict that because God is the only one who knows the day and the time. The surety and the hope that we have through Christ is that His word is true and the prophecies contained in the Word are sure to come to pass because most of the prophecies that are in it have already come to pass.

There is no part of this book that is fiction, nor is it fantasy, it is real and true. You can choose to believe it or not, but that doesn’t change the words or the prophecies contained in it. You can choose to believe or not believe in gravity but that won’t change the fact that it is there either. When the time comes for you to stand in front of God at your own judgement, you will realize too late that the Word and the truth contained in the Bible are true. Although nothing can be done about it then.

We only have the time that is given to us on earth to realize what is true and what is not. The decision is yours to make. So which will it be? Follow Jesus into eternity or spend eternity wishing that you had?

Can you be a Christian and a communist?


In many people’s viewpoints, the Church started out as communist because they were “selling what they had and giving to those in need as they had need”. This is not a communist viewpoint but a command from Jesus to help those who are less fortunate than you are. Modern Marxism and communism both deny the deity of God and Jesus and both pursue the idea that man is his own god and that outside of man there is no other help. Granted, I have used a very simple way of writing this but that is what their views boil down to.

So, to answer the question then the answer would be a resounding “NO!”. The viewpoints are on opposite sides in every respect, especially when it comes to Who is in charge. God is and always has been the Creator, regardless of the humanist viewpoint of communism and other human-centered ways of belief. I a believer in Christ and a pastor of a small church so my view is skewed toward God but the overwhelming evidence that has been put forth to prove evolution just doesn’t! There has never been a fossil dug up that was in the transition stage between one form or another. So, with that in mind, why can’t the “intelligent design” or creationist view be correct?

I know that I have strayed from my original argument about communism but since both evolution and communism try to give man the preeminent place in the world, I wanted to touch on both. Are there Christians in communist countries? Yes, there are but they are not the ones in power usually. Are there Christian scientists in the world? Yes, but they don’t believe in evolution entirely. They do believe, at least in theory, in intelligent design and not evolution. Now, I have not interviewed them because I don’t have the resources to do so. But, the evidence in most Christian magazines and articles is that evolution can’t and doesn’t happen and it is backed up by scientific proof.

Communist ideas and ideals attempt to show that we, as humans, are the ultimate animal, the pinnacle of evolution. We are the pinnacle because God created us that way! He did so because He wanted us to be created in His image, not the image or the likeness of an ape! Life doesn’t spring forth from a primordial soup of protein spontaneously, regardless of the composition of the “soup”. Scientists have used computer models and proved this. Even a short sentence being randomly created from letters is nearly impossible and Richard Dawkins agrees with this in “The Blind Watchmaker“.

So, how do we and all other life forms on this planet come from a pool of protein? We don’t. God created the life that is here from the plants to the trees and the fish to the insects and bacteria, as well as mankind himself. The Designer of the universe, Who placed all of the stars in their places as well as the planets, did this and no other.

Communist thinking tries to insert man into the area that is occupied by God. He is the One that is our Creator and He is. If anyone can regrow a finger or cause gray hair to turn back to its original color without chemical application then prove it! We are not and never will be gods but we are His creation. The Creator doesn’t and will not give His seat to another! Man can’t create life from nothing. Without previous amino acids or DNA, we can’t and never will be able to create life, therefore we will never be “like God”!

Satan, who aspired to be “like God”, is a created being and therefore can’t be! He desires it, but even he can’t  cause things to happen so that he will be like God. Our world and the universe that it resides in was created by God and made in such a way as He desired to perfect His will, not ours nor any others. One day, we will find this out and it will be proven beyond a shadow of any doubt. Until then, there will be those who are against this line of thought and against God and all that He stands for.

Read God’s word and don’t doubt what it says because His is the truth regardless of the hype and spin that has been put on it. Many so-called “experts” have given their opinion on the truth and the truth is that God’s Word has stood the test of time and history and has been proven by archeology. All other religions were influenced by Satan and his fallen angels in the past in order to put doubts in the minds of humanity. Listen to God’s word, give Him a chance in your life and in the life of those that you love. He loves you too and He can only  prove it if you allow Him to.

Righteousness, can we have it? Do we get it?


In the book of Romans, Paul writes in chapter three verse ten: “As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one”. Does this preclude anyone and everyone from obtaining it? Can we be righteous?

We are able to be righteous, but not on our own or by our own strength. Anyone can be righteous. Everyone can be righteous, but there are conditions for our ability by itself is not sufficient. How can it be obtained for us? Is it possible for us to be righteous?

Yes, we can be righteous but our own power and will, cannot accomplish this. At least, not to the satisfaction of a righteous God although in many ways He doesn’t condemn our efforts. It’s just that there is nothing that we can do to be good enough compared to His perfection. Our efforts and our own goodness can never be good enough without Christ and His righteousness covering us with His perfect righteousness.

The prophet Isaiah wrote:

Isaiah 64:6

6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all of our righteousness is as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

The apostle Paul wrote again in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”

None of us can hope to attain a level of being as some today teach that we can that is comparable to God and His perfect righteousness. The only way that we can be righteous is through the transforming power of Jesus and by accepting Him as our Savior. When He comes into your heart and your life, then you are made a new creation, righteous through Him toward God!

We can’t accomplish this on our own in any way that mankind has devised. Through morality, or charity, or any of the good things that man can do. None of them are good enough, even though the world looks at them as being good. In comparison to God’s perfection, they are not.

Yet, according to Paul in Romans chapter six verse twenty three: “For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”. Again in chapter 5:8, he wrote: “But God commended His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”.

Can we ignore these things that God has done for us even though we don’t deserve any of them? God’s grace and mercy toward all of mankind is more gracious than we could possibly deserve. Truly, God could have just destroyed the earth and started over someplace else but He chose not to. We can’t understand why He did this or what His reasons are for loving us enough to be this merciful, but that doesn’t discount the fact that He does love us, all of us and He will never stop loving us.

What about our love for Him? Do we show that love in service or in dedication to Him? Why not? Doesn’t He deserve our love? If for no other reason, He deserves it because He loved us before we decided to come to Him. He loves you even while you are a sinner and He loved all of us in that way, before we felt the call to give our life to Jesus. God doesn’t require you to “clean yourself up” before you come to Him. Jesus didn’t ask the thief to “clean up” before he would be in paradise. He told him that he would be in paradise that day!

If He can accept someone who has done something bad enough for the Romans to crucify him, then we certainly are able to come to Him at any time in our life. There was no time left to “clean up”, all the thief did was ask Christ to remember him when He came into His kingdom and he did this in faith. Can we do no less than this? Jesus told His disciples that they needed to have the faith of a child but in many ways, that may be why so many can’t or don’t come to Him.

It is too simple and easy and they aren’t required to do or give anything for this grace. That is not exactly true. We are required to give our life to Jesus in exchange for His righteousness and forgiveness of every sin that we have committed or will commit. Giving your life or my life is not an easy thing because we must continually do it on a daily basis. That is what Jesus meant by taking up your cross daily and following Him because in doing so you have to stop doing what you have done before. Giving your life to Jesus is a daily process; it isn’t finished when you ask Him into your heart, it is just beginning!

I know that is not what many people have heard or been taught but it is the truth because that is what Jesus taught. Taking up your cross means laying down your life (your old self) daily to follow Jesus and it is a process that doesn’t stop until you meet Him face to face. As you walk with Him daily through your life, the process of laying down your “old self” will become easier. The beginning of your journey with Jesus will be a little rough because your friends and your habits will still be around and that will complicate things.

I am not saying that you have to get rid of your friends, but you are not the same person once you give your life to Jesus. If there has been a change in your heart, it will show and they will see it. It will shine through your heart and into your character so that the world will see that there has been a change whether you tell anyone or not!

When your friends ask you what has happened to you? All that you have to say is that “I have met Jesus, and I am His and He is mine!” If they want to know more, well, bring them to church with you. Show them some things that you have learned in the Bible. If you don’t have the answers for them, call someone who does and let them answer their questions. Your life in Christ is your witness to the world, but only if you allow Him to change your heart and your life into a reflection of Him. If you decide that you want to go back to what you were doing before, then there may not have been a change. You may have felt an emotional high when you came down the aisle, but that could have been it.

Only God knows the condition of your heart, no one else can discern your spiritual condition except Him. Give your heart to Jesus and He will strengthen you and help you to do His will in your life because you can’t do it alone and you won’t unless you have Him there.

How can we know that we are saved?


Is it possible for us to really know that we are saved? According to the Bible and most preachers, yes it is possible for us to know for sure. How many people know for sure? There is no answer to this question because the relationship that you have or don’t have with God is your business and it is between you and Him. There is no foolproof way of knowing if someone is saved by talking with them or looking at them because we don’t look any different from the outside. The proof is on the inside and that is where God sees the change and knows that there has been a change. We see it from the outside by the lifestyle that the person leads or the changes in their lifestyle.

When there is a true spiritual change in your heart and your soul, then it will show by your character and the changes in that character. If you were a person who got drunk every weekend, like I did when I was young and foolish, and after you accept Jesus you don’t want to do that anymore then that is the first visible change in your life. The language that you used before may change immediately or gradually, but eventually it will change. People will notice these changes.

I am not saying that it is required of every person to go through these changes, but consider this: if you wouldn’t do certain things in front of your mother or grandmother, then you shouldn’t do them when you have given your life to Christ. Mainly because He and His spirit are with you constantly after you have accepted them into your life. So, they are with you no matter where you go or what you are doing or saying from that point on. Would you take your pastor to a strip club? If you wouldn’t then you shouldn’t be going either is the point I am making.

In the book of Romans, Paul wrote: “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. Christ died for your sins and mine and everyone else on the planet, but He was raised to life everlasting on the third day. He did all that was necessary for us to become Christians, all that we have to do is believe in Him and ask Him into our hearts. Then, follow Him like the disciples did. Follow Him like many people follow their favorite singer or sports figure, but follow Him!

The change that comes into your life after receiving Christ is not immediate, but it is miraculous because you are not the same person that you were before and you can’t go back to the life that you had. Your life and your outlook on life is different, because your heart has changed. Once that has happened, everything that you are and everything that you do will reflect Christ to the rest of the world. You are responsible for your witness and everyone will be watching!

Is atheism better?


 

Is is possible to believe in nothing or no one but yourself? It seems that it is in the culture that we live in today.

The number of books on the rejection of religion and God has exploded in the past few years. Is this something which could have been foreseen? Yes and it was foretold but there are many who have refused to teach or preach on this subject.

Your life and mine would never have happened if God did not exist. Chance and accidental combinations of chemicals can produce nothing. If that were possible, Europe and all of the countries and towns that were bombed during WWII would have never had to rebuild. The pieces would have flown apart and rearranged themselves and all would have been as it was.

Chaos does not create order, it destroys it by rearranging order into disorder. It seems that it would take an awful lot of faith in accidental order causing what we see in the universe. Is it possible that all of the whole cosmos came from an explosion with no intelligence directing it? According to scientists in our day and time, it is possible because natural forces would take all the matter from that explosion and arrange it where it needed to be. But..what about you, the fish in the ocean, the bacteria that live in total darkness at the scalding vents in the ocean, the redwood trees? These did not come about by accident and they did not evolve over millions or billions of years. The Creator, God, created those and many more. He is the “director” of the universe.

He is the one who put you together in your mother’s womb to be the person that He knows that you can be. Not what society says or dictates but what God knows you can do and be in His kingdom! Since the world that we live in is part of His kingdom and everything in it belongs to Him, why not accept it? A belief in the existence of something does not dictate whether it exists or not. If it exists then your belief in it or not has no effect on its existence. We can’t change the way the universe is or the order of things just by our thoughts and feelings.

If that were the way that things worked, then we could choose not to believe in the tax code and just not pay our taxes and everything would be fine, right? No, because as rational people we have to go along with the laws in the country that we live in and belief in those laws has nothing to do with the consequences or whether we think they may be right or not.

The world that we live in was created by God and the laws of the universe were too. Regardless of your belief or unbelief in the existence of God, He is there and always has been. His love for each of us has been there from the beginning as well and your belief or not doesn’t change that. God did not trouble Himself when He created you or this universe because it was no trouble for Him at all! He spoke and the universe and most everything in it came into being. The only created being that He took time with was man and He didn’t have to do that, but He did. God used His hands and formed mankind out of the clay of the earth and blew into his nostrils the breath of Life. We hold a special place in creation because of that.

Belief or not doesn’t change it and never will. God sent His Son, Jesus, into the world to take the sins and the punishment for them on Himself so that we could find grace in Him and put on His righteousness. He died and then rose again so that we will be able to have eternal life through Him, if we will just ask Him into our lives. Being saved by God’s grace through Jesus is our choice, just as believing in God or Jesus is a choice. The choice that you make will determine your place in eternity. Which choice will you make?

 

Why all the hostility toward the Bible?


The main reason for all of the hostility toward God‘s Word is because of its claims to the Truth. The Bible is an old book and today, many people look at it as such. Why should I read something which was written over two thousand years ago? It was written as our hand-book for life, that is why. True, it was written for the Jewish people to begin with, but when Jesus came and the New Covenant was established in His sacrifice for all of mankind it became everyone’s book!

Jesus said that “I am the way, the truth and the life. He that comes to Me will have everlasting life“; I paraphrased that but those words were spoken by Him for us today, now! The time is growing short, much shorter than it has been since He went to His Father and He said that He would return and He will, soon. No one knows the day or the hour but with the world on the brink of what the Bible calls the end times.

There is hope for each of us if we will give our lives to Christ and ask Him to come into our hearts. This web address is very helpful in answering your questions and pointing you in the direction that you need to go: http://peacewithgod.jesus.net/.

The world and those who are in the world, at times, cannot see or understand God’s Word. If you have not given your life to Jesus, think about it, pray about it. It is not a weakness to ask Him into your life because being a Christian is sometimes one of the hardest things to do.

I know that many people see it as being weak and some even view Christians as people who have their screws loose. That is not the case but the secular world doesn’t recognize the wisdom which is contained in God’s Word. Even the Bible says that the world sees God’s wisdom as foolishness.

Regardless of the message that other religions give, Jesus is the only way to heaven and eternal life. Can you come to Him by any other way than accepting Jesus as your Savior? No, the only way to know that you are saved from your sins is by repenting (turning around/away from) of them and asking Jesus for forgiveness and asking Him to come into your heart and change you into the person that you were meant to be.

The ruler of this world, Satan, doesn’t want you to come to Jesus or the knowledge that you can change your life by coming to Him. He will do anything to keep you from this because he hates you and God! Pride can get in the way of your salvation too. There are many things of this world that can keep us from turning to God, but your heart knows where to turn when there is nowhere else to go. Give your life to Jesus and your life will never be the same, it will be better!

Your life’s purpose


Did you know that just twenty-one days elapse from conception to the first heartbeat when you are still in your mother’s womb? From that point on your life is begun and your parent’s lives will never be the same. The things that you desire in life that give you a purpose or worth, make you feel significant or accepted, give you security or cause you to feel loved or allow you to experience the beauty of God’s creation. These are the things which you will follow after and crave  most of your life. Can they be found in one place or person?

The answer is yes, they can be found in one person and His name is Jesus. The creation, of which we are a part of, is His doing. We are special to Him and to God, so why don’t we feel special? Did we do something wrong? Can we fix it if we did?

Some of us do feel special because our parents and grand-parents reinforced that feeling. But are we special? To God we are special because He created each of us for a purpose and we are made for that purpose especially by Him.

The second question: Did we do something wrong? No, not exactly. We all do or say things that we regret later, it is just our human nature. That is the problem but we can’t blame everything that we say or do on that. We cannot abrogate or refuse to acknowledge our responsibility in life because of “human nature”. It is that nature that we have been handed down from antiquity that we must take control of but we cannot do it on our own strength. We have to allow Jesus into our life and our heart so that we can become someone better than we can become ourselves.

We can’t do it on our own. Regardless of the science-fiction stories of a utopian future where we all get along and disease and poverty don’t exist. That world is not possible without the rule of Christ in our lives and even then it would not work unless He was the ruler of the world as He will be.

But, the most important decision that you will make is whether to accept Him as Lord and Savior in your life and your heart. When you give your life to Him and give up your way of doing things in favor of His way, your life and the influence that it has on others will be changed dramatically. God loves you far more than you or I can possibly imagine and He wants the best for you. That does not mean that you will have millions of dollars or houses or anything that the world recognizes as “success”, but you will be successful in other ways, eternal ways.

The life that we have does not end when our physical body dies because God created us with an eternal spirit which will live on. Eternity makes this life seem like a puff of smoke so the influence that you have here needs to be based on following and loving Jesus, not on following what the world wants you to do.
Think about it. Pray about it and seek the wisdom that only God can provide through His Word, the Bible. Don’t just read it like a book, because it is the Creator‘s conversation with us and His people. Pray and ask Him to show you the wisdom that is intended for you and your situation. He will open your eyes and your heart so that you can see and understand that which you need.