Tag: Messiah

Bad things happening to good people


I always wondered why this happened. I thought that God always brought good from bad things for those who love Him? Yet, bad things still happen. Why is that?

In many ways, the world itself is the cause of the “bad things”, and they are allowed to happen so that others can see how a Christian reacts to those things which happen so that God can get the glory! I know, it sounds crazy but those bad things are usually caused by Satan or his demons because of something that a Christian is doing in their life. They may be making a difference in the world. Maybe not in the world at large, but just in the world immediately around them.

They might be having an influence on some of their family members or some of the people in their community. This is what is getting Satan and his demons upset, so they cause bad things like cancer, wrecks, infections, broken bones from a fall or an accident. It is not your fault or your Christian family member’s fault, it is what they are doing that is causing the demons to cause these things to happen in their lives.

If you are truly working to tell people about Jesus and to bring others into the Kingdom of God, then Satan will attempt to stop it one way or the other and it doesn’t matter if he has to kill you or your friends to accomplish this. If a death, regardless of whose death it is, will stop you from spreading the Gospel then he will do it!

The apostle Paul said it clearly in Ephesians 6:12, we are at war in heavenly places, with powers and principalities that we can’t see but they can influence our lives and the lives of those around us. Whether you believe in him or not, Satan and his demons and powers have you in their sights. Especially if you are actively working for Jesus and His Kingdom.

Pray for God’s angels to watch over your church and your family because prayer is our most powerful tool in this war. Praying scripturally and reading the Bible gives you more power too. Seek His wisdom and knowledge in all of your readings in the Bible. Pray and thank God for all of your business and life successes and ask that He would show you how to give Him the glory in your daily walk with Him.

Satan knows that his time is short and will be heating the world up with persecutions and other ways of destroying the church and God’s people. Pray for strength and wisdom through Him. Watch and pray.

Regarding God


Yesterday, I reblogged a post about an African church and it tells how they praise God in their worship. It very likely doesn’t do them justice, but it does tell some of what they do. In our churches today, in America in some places around the world, we tend toward restraint and dignified worship. Why do we do this? So we aren’t perceived as “those crazy Christians” maybe?

David worshipped God with dancing and singing, so much so that it embarrassed his wife. Why don’t we worship God with all of our being and our strength? Maybe we don’t want to look ridiculous to others? What difference does it make?

If every person in the church was clapping and singing and dancing in the aisles, what difference would it make? To others, who were doing the same thing, it wouldn’t matter. Someone who had never seen this kind of worship, would either run away or join in on the fun! Would that be so bad? The one that ran away might think that all of us are crazy, but God wouldn’t.

Worship can be as dignified or as rambunctious and care free as it needs to be. Why would you want to go into God’s presence with a face that looked as if you had a lemon in your mouth? Jesus laughed I am sure of it and we should be happily praising God regardless of our situation in life.

Just as Jesus told His disciples: “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5″I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 6″If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.… (John 15:4-6) We are to do the same. Abiding doesn’t mean just sitting there like a lump on a log. A branch grows and produces fruit, and so should we and we ought to be happy and joyous in the process!

God is our Creator and our Judge when that time comes, but when you have accepted Jesus as your Savior then He is your Father too. He doesn’t judge you anymore because you are covered by Jesus’ blood and your sins are forgotten. You may falter and fall occasionally, but you are still forgiven. His sacrifice was a one-time gift to us all and the only thing which we have to do is to accept the gift from God as it is, by faith. There is nothing that we can add to it and we can’t tarnish it by not doing anything after we get it, but you will. A grateful heart will do something for God.

You may think that what you do is small, but God can use even the smallest gesture or word to plant a seed in someone’s life or maybe to open someone’s eyes to the Truth. You may not think that what you said or did will amount to anything, but God can use it in ways that you might never imagine. This blog can make an impact in someone’s life and I pray that it will.

Peace in our time?


“Since its inception in the 7th century, Islam has used the sword to advance its territory. It goes on to this day. The goal is to bring the world into submission to Sharia law. This is what motivates all these “terrorist” groups. ISIS is getting a lot of attention, but what is going on with Boko Haram against the people of Nigeria today is just as horrible. This practice of using force to compel conversion is a distinctive to Islam compared to the world’s other major religions.” (borrowed from another site afa.net)

Our world here in America and elsewhere is becoming much more dangerous, especially to Christians. Why? Because we don’t believe the same as other religions. Yet, people in America want tolerance from Christians toward everyone else’s beliefs and their lifestyles, but they can’t stand our beliefs. Talk about a double standard!!

It seems that people can’t comprehend the reason that Christians believe the way that they do, and I don’t understand this at all. The Bible, which is our guidebook and our Holy Book, is available almost everywhere. Most of it is part of Jewish belief as well since their Torah and much of our Old Testament are the same. Even Islam recognizes the Book and the Patriarchs and Jesus, although they don’t give them the same reverence that we do.

Peace in our life-time has been a common theme that many have tried to bring about for many hundreds of years, yet it is something which is either fleeting in its brevity or almost impossible due to cultural and religious differences. Is it possible? Yes, but it cannot be done through force and it will not come at the hands of a man, it will come about when Jesus returns and rules from Jerusalem.

Why do I say it this way? Because it is a fact. God has prophesied it in His Word and therefore that is the way that it will be. There is no argument and there is no other way that it will happen. Many people will fight against it and they will fail in the end. Like it or not, that is the way the future will be.

Christianity is not forced upon you. You will and always have had a choice to follow Jesus or not, but peace on the Earth will only come when He is ruling from Jerusalem. I am not speaking of the Anti-Christ, but the real Messiah, Jesus.

Yes, I know, many who might read this will not agree with me which is fine. I don’t expect nor require anyone to agree. I am just stating something which is prophesied to happen and it is going to happen. Whether you believe that I am delusional or not really doesn’t matter at all, I have been called worse.

God knows the hearts of men, regardless of their religion or their doctrine, and it is He that will judge each of us according to our faith and that which we have done or not done in this life. The things which have been done for His Kingdom will last, anything other than this will be destroyed. Your possessions and your money are all part of this world and it doesn’t matter how much you have of either. When  you die, regardless of the manner of your death, your “stuff” will be here for someone else to sell or enjoy. You will be in eternity and your decisions in this life for or against Jesus will determine where that eternity will be. So make the right choice.

Is there punishment in eternity?


I have seen people and I have heard some in churches and magazines claiming that there is no hell. God wouldn’t do that! A loving God wouldn’t do that! That is absurd!

OK, so Satan is going to be admitted back into Heaven and forgiven along with all of his compatriots, is this what that means? The Bible, the Word of God, has been speaking of Sheol and hell for a very long time. It was created for the punishment of Satan and his fallen angels.

But, those who oppose God and His teachings and who do not accept Jesus as their Savior are in the same camp, the same place as Satan. They are unwilling to give their lives and their hearts to Jesus, and they don’t believe in God. At least Satan knows that there is a God, he just doesn’t want to serve Him!

God loves all of humanity and everyone has been given a chance to become Christians and to serve God in whatever capacity that they can. You are not required to become a missionary or a preacher or an evangelist. Just be yourself, but reflect Jesus in all that you do!

There is no grey area where good and evil or black and white is concerned, it is a clear division just the same as the difference between those who believe in and serve God and those who refuse to do so. Anyone who believes that they can be a “casual Christian” on Sunday and then go out and do whatever they want until they come back to church or find that they really need God, is just wrong.

Just as you can’t have a kosher hog or even be “a little bit pregnant”, or have a dark sky with the sun shining, you can’t be a “casual Christian”. You either are or you are not!

Hell is a place just as Heaven is a place. It is not a state of mind. Why would the rich man ask Moses to allow Lazarus to dip his finger in the water to cool his tongue if it were a “state of mind”? It is not God who sends those who choose to refuse Jesus’ offer of forgiveness to hell, it is their choice. Believing that you are not going to hell, but then not accepting Jesus and living your life as you please will get you there just as quickly.

Read and pray your way through the Scriptures and ask God to give you the wisdom to learn and know His will in your life and for your life. Ask God to come into your life and repent of your sins so that you can know the peace of God and live it in your daily life.

If you don’t want to read the Bible or give your life to Jesus, then I suggest a different approach: A sure way to prove that there is a hell would be to refuse the offer of Jesus in your life. Live the way that you want to, do whatever makes you happy and when you can’t find happiness or contentment, seek out a place where you can access “assisted suicide” if you can’t stand to live this way anymore. When your eyes open on the other side of death and you are facing God, you will know but it will be too late.

Please, don’t take the advice in the paragraph above. Learn about Jesus and Who He is. Seek Him out, especially if your life has been or is hard in ways that I can’t imagine! He can save your soul and He will be with you from this point on, no matter what happens! You are valuable and important to God because you are His creation and He considers you His child whether you have yet to give your life to Him or not. You can do things for this world and for God’s Kingdom that nobody else can do! Consider this when the world is piling in on you and things just seem to be too much, God loves you!

 

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.

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.

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.

Reasoning


We make excuses for every decision that we make. Why? There are many who look to themselves for power and the way to have wealth and prosperity. Even if you are able to make lots of money and have all of the toys that “rich folks” have, what are you going to do with it when something happens to your child’s health or your spouse’s health? Having a Jag in the garage with twenty-six inch wheels won’t help you when you are diagnosed with cancer. Having a huge home won’t help when the economy crashes and the electric grid fails because of no bills being paid. Having a walk in refrigerator with enough food to feed a small village won’t do you much good when the electricity is cut off.

Justifying your excesses in life or your excuse for not going to church is the most silly and stupid way to take a trip to hell that there is. Even Satan himself knows Who God is and the atheists and Muslims don’t believe that he exists either, but one day they will meet him and the demons who followed him.

Stuff and nonsense will not be of any good at all to your eternity. The only One that can possibly change you and your life is Jesus Christ! Learn of Him through the Bible and a Bible teaching church, not some place where they tell you that you can pray anything in His name and He will give it to you! God is not a genie, He is the Creator of all that is and He is jealous of our love and devotion. He wants us to come to know Him and to choose to love Him, but it is your choice and nobody else’s decision. God doesn’t even force the angels in Heaven to worship Him, it is their choice.

It was their choice when one-third of them chose to follow Lucifer in rebellion against God, which got them all thrown down to Earth. We have been deceived by their lies since Eve decided to try some fruit from a tree which God had told Adam NOT to eat of. She justified her actions by blaming it on the snake and we have been doing the “blame game” in one way or another ever since. Justification is something which we have in our fallen state that we use to get out of punishment or to make us feel better about the lie that we told. It is just another way that our pride is able to deceive us into thinking that we know better than God how to run our lives so we can feel better about what we do, even when we know it is wrong.

All sorts of behavior has been justified in the name of Jesus and Muhammad and other religions for hundreds of years. It make the religions of the world and religion in general look bad because of what has been done, being justified by beliefs that others did not share. Which then makes those religions look terrible and hypocritical in the news and to the world in general. This is one of the reasons which has caused so many to walk away from and choose not to follow or believe in any religion.

Choosing to walk away doesn’t help and won’t fix anything. By doing this you are agreeing with Satan that God has no place in your life and that you have no place or reason to follow Him. It is your right and privilege to believe this way if you wish, but how will you feel when Jesus does come back one day? When you see Him and know that what you had heard about during your life was true, but you chose not to believe it, then it will be too late. Your decision for your life and for your eternity has been made.

Please, give Jesus a chance to prove His promises in this life so that you will have an eternity after this life is done. True, we all have an eternity to step into after this life is over but the difference is the life that your eternity will bring because of the choices we each make now. Your life and the decisions made in it are tiny compared with eternal life which you have before you when this one is over so choose wisely.

The End Game, what is it?


There are always end games in movies, in computer games of all kinds, in business deals and in life itself. So, what is the end game from God’s prophetic point of view that is told in the book of Revelation? It is very simple actually, to bring about the end of Satan’s reign on Earth and to restore Earth to its pre-fall condition.

Humanity fell when Adam didn’t obey God, not just one couple, but also the entirety of creation itself. Before the fall, there was no corruption of the Earth, no weeds or thorns or creeping vines which were of no use except to cover everything. All of this came to be afterward. Death and decay began after the perfection of creation was broken by disobedience.

God knew that it was coming and when. He also knew who would be responsible for the fall, not just Adam but Lucifer too. It was he in the form of a snake which tempted Eve and then Adam decided to go along with his wife instead of following the command of God. Then the Seed of the woman was foretold and we waited for about four thousand years for Him to come into the world.

When that happened, it was still a few years before His ministry came to its conclusion but when it did the endgame began. Bruised by the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus, Satan has been attacking humanity for the past two thousand years. Bringing war, disease, famine, infanticide in the form of sacrifices to demon gods and abortion, the list of tragedies and heartache goes on and on, all because he knows that his time is coming to a close.

Regardless of his pride and his boasting, Satan has already been defeated but he hasn’t stopped trying to get as many people away from God as possible. If he can keep you or me from asking for Jesus to come into our lives, then he will find a way to do it. He is not above killing your family or taking your job or your home either. Any way that he can get to you, to keep you in the place of blaming God instead of asking for His help, then he and the fallen angels that followed him will do it.

Humanity has always had a special place in God’s eyes and if Satan can hurt God by hurting us or causing us to miss the calling that God has for us, then he will do it. The thing to remember is that he is already defeated! The battle is won because Jesus was triumphant over sin and death on the cross! All that we need to do is to believe in Him and His grace that has been given to us.

God did have a Son and He came to bring salvation to us by His death and resurrection at Calvary. He was foretold at least four hundred years before His birth and all of the prophecies about Him were fulfilled by Him when He came! We are important in God’s Kingdom, each of us, and there is something which each of us can do that God knows only we can do. Pray that you can and will find that point in your life, find that place which will bring you to know Jesus.

Because when you do, nothing else matters except doing something, anything for Him and His Kingdom, no matter what it might be, no matter how insignificant you may think that it is, because for Him it will be significant and you can make a difference. Why would anyone do this? Because, Jesus died for you to be able to do it, that’s why! He paid the price so that you can be the person that God knows you can be with His Spirit guiding and helping you to be that person.