Tag: Messiah

When?


There are many times that this is asked of us and of God Himself. When will we see your deliverance of the church? When will you return, Lord? When will the church wake up and take salvation to the places that truly NEED it?

This question cannot be answered today. But, we as Christians need to get off of the pews and into the streets and take God’s gospel to those who may not have heard it. Yes, there are some places in the South and all over America that still haven’t heard the gospel preached in a way that people truly need to hear it right now. God loves all of you, but the sinful lives that we lead and the sins that all of us commit are not included in that love. He wants us all to come to salvation, but God doesn’t force anything on you or me. It is our response to His call, His Spirit which gets His attention and His Spirit should get our attention too.

When will we learn to be disciples and be the feet and hands of Jesus? When will we be the church that Christ wants us to be…intended for us to be? I don’t know, but the time is winding down. There is very little left to happen before the angels will sound the Trumpet of God. More people have to hear about salvation, more people need to be ministered to physically and spiritually. If the church doesn’t do this by being the REAL church that Christ intended for us to be, then who will?

Life today is hard enough, particularly in places that are devoid of churches or where there are many miles between them. Yes, there are places in the world where Jesus hasn’t been preached yet, and those are the places that need to be touched with the gospel. Working at it for a few years, telling people in your community or your county is good but will they take the message with them? When will those in Mexico hear about Jesus’ love for them? When will those in Jamaica or Honduras or Bolivia or Columbia hear about a loving, caring, powerful God Who wants to save them? These are questions which need answers and I can’t give those answers to you.

The church needs to sit down and have a Holy conference of all of its members, regardless of denomination, and determine to get out there with the message of love that we are supposed to be telling others about! We were not saved from hell to sit in the pew and say “amen” in a timid little voice! God needs people to blow the shofar and tell others about the God Who loves them so much that He sent His Son to die for them, in their place, so that by grace we can come to Him and know Him!

Time is on my side….is it really?


We are not guaranteed any time. Some of us get to live to be 8 or 9 decades old, some make it to the century birthday mark, but those years are not given at birth. We live them, one day at a time, one year at a time, one decade at a time as God wills for us to be on this Earth. It is not something that we have any control over, for the most part. Of course, if you live your life doing dangerous stunts or smoking or drinking all of the time then you can have an effect on your quality of life and its quantity too.

In the Bible, God says that man is allotted “three score and ten“, any years beyond that is a true gift from Him. Right now, I am not far from my three score but I am going to serve Him until He comes again or until my time is up, whichever comes first. Your time and mine are pretty much the same. We all get, if God wills it, 24 hours every day. Part of that we spend sleeping, part of it we are travelling to or from work, part of it we are eating and we usually work about eight hours or so depending on the job we have. So, do you see time as a friend or a master? The reason for my question is that many people rush through life day after day, like they are being pushed or forced to rush through the day. Then, some of us see a day as a gift which God has given to us and we use it and every hour that we have is precious.

This is the way that I have had to learn to live since I became disabled and unable to work at a regular job. I wake up and thank God for the day, then get my coffee and read a few chapters in the Bible. I may get inspired to write a post for this site or one of my other blogs. I make sure that our dogs are fed and the cats too and I try my best to get my son out of bed before noon. God has given me this time to enjoy in life because the age of grace that many refer to as “the Church age” is coming to an end. I don’t know when, but God does and according to all of the prophecies in His Word it won’t be too much longer.

By saying that I mean that I believe that I will be alive when the Trumpet sounds and He calls us home. If you would like to go with me, please consider giving your life to Jesus soon. Pray about it, go to church and talk to a pastor about Jesus. Ask questions about Him, seek Him in His Word and in prayer. Why do I say this? Because, after the church and the dead who are Christians are raised, the world is going to change dramatically and it won’t be for the better. God loves you and knows who you are and where you are in your life, all that you need to do is seek Him out and pray that He would forgive you of your sins, just like He forgave me of mine. I am not perfect, only Jesus can claim a sinless life, but God will forgive you if you are sincere about changing your life and following Him.

So much need and so little time…


In our country there is a vacuum that is forming in towns and cities, communities and homes and it seems to be going unnoticed by most people, but God knows that it is there. We have pushed Him away from our churches and our homes and our jobs, especially from our own government so the vacuum that has been created is of our own making. We have caused this, we as a culture and people have done this collectively. Why did it happen? What is the purpose of it?

In reality and in truth, we have been fulfilling Scriptural prophecy that God inspired the writers of the books in the Bible to write down. Many people seem to be wondering the same thing that I have for many years: Why is America or at least a reference to it completely absent from the Bible, particularly the prophecies concerning the end times? It is simple really, it is because we are not a powerful nation anymore. We have lost our foundation and our purpose for being. How did that happen? Over the past century, our government and many politicians in the states have gradually taken freedom from us. Just a little bit here and there, nothing that would be missed for a while. But, after fifty years or so the missing pieces begin to add up.

Like taking a rock from a pile of rocks. At one point, after the pile has settled, the rocks are all suspended and touching each other supporting the ones above on the ones below. If you remove a small one from the bottom, it may not make much difference, but if you take enough small ones from the bottom the result can be hundreds coming crashing down. Another illustration would be a large amount of snow packed on the side of a mountain. As long as you don’t disturb much of the packed snow, there isn’t a danger. But, if you disturb enough of it then the whole side of the mountain may come crashing down as an avalanche.

The only difference in taking freedoms away is that the catastrophe won’t necessarily kill you, although many people may die in the aftermath, but the economy of the country will fail eventually. Bit by bit, a little knowledge is taken away, a bit of history is changed so that the next generation doesn’t really know the truth, money is printed to keep the supply up and the interest rates are dropped to prop up the economy. The net result is that sooner or later, the stocks and bonds that were sold to keep everything going are worthless, the money that our economy depends on is not worth enough to keep the value up when the banks come looking for payments on loans. Our creditors in other countries will look at our devalued status and demand payment on the bonds. Sooner or later this house of cards will collapse under its own weight.

Why is this traced back to our character and our heritage of being a country which feared God and used His Word as a template for our laws? Because, without God at the center of our nation and its governance, the wheel will fly apart and our country will be no more. The movement, if you want to call it that, which began at the beginning of the twentieth century is called “progressivism”. By the time that this is published, we will have lost about half of the freedoms that our great grandparents took for granted and it will get worse before it gets better.

Our country and all of the people in it NEED a true revival of Biblical proportions. Similar to the Great Awakening of a couple of centuries past, but even more fervent in scope. We are seeing our country brought down by a few people, those who believe that an altered view of the Bible is needed or those who believe that God and His Word needs to be booted out of the country and all of its institutions and offices all together. Our people, those in the United States but also every person who reads this blog, need to get into God’s Word and pray for a real revival in their hearts and in the heart of the nation itself. Please, take this to heart and look for God in His Word because He is there waiting for you to come and open  your heart to Him.

Prayer…does it accomplish anything?


Last night, I went to a Wednesday night prayer meeting. Not a Bible study like we have been to before, but an actual prayer meeting. All of us prayed for someone or a group of people on our hearts. Many of those in attendance prayed for each person on their hearts, some prayers were long, some were specific about their health problems. In truth, we really had a “prayer meeting” and not just Bible study.

Does prayer accomplish anything? Yes, it does! A sinner’s prayer can bring a soul that has been searching for something or Someone into a relationship with Christ. The prayer which is prayed by a grandmother or grandfather can keep a child out of harm’s way until they can come to know Jesus. A nation which prays and humbles itself before the Lord and repents of its sin of turning away from Him, will be forgiven and their land will begin to heal. Prayer for someone who is suffering from cancer or some other incurable disease or condition can bring relief or healing, if that is the outcome that God sees for that individual, especially if they are to be used by Him in a special way in the future.

Prayer is a two-way communication between you and the Creator. There is no loss of signal, or misunderstood words or problems with interpretation because God knows what you need, He is just waiting for you to ask for Him to fulfill your needs in your life, not your wants! He doesn’t pour out money from Heaven just because you ask for it, but He will provide for your needs at the right time and the right amount in relation to your faith and belief in Him. We all have a measure of faith, but our ability to have a prayer answered is in His hands and His will not yours. Just as Jesus prayed in the Garden for “let this cup to pass from me, nevertheless not my will but thine be done” Matthew 26:39

God allowed Jesus to go to the cross and He had to drink from the cup of suffering because that was the Father’s will. The punishment and pain that He felt on the cross and from the flogging beforehand were miniscule compared to the Father turning away from Him and leaving Him as He hung on the cross. The pain from that is what caused our Lord to cry out on the cross in agony as the separation became clear and it was very painful to Him. The abandonment and isolation from His Father is the punishment which Jesus endured for us, because it is the same isolation that we would be subject to feel if we were cast into Hades or hell. We will know the times which we had a chance to choose life with Jesus, we will remember all of those chances that we had that we didn’t take. If you haven’t given your heart to Jesus, then consider it please. Anything that we have to endure here is but a puff of smoke compared to the eternity that you face without God’s presence in your life because of turning away from the grace offered to you while you live today.

Yes, prayer can and does accomplish many things today. Not just in your life or in the lives of your loved ones but God can use your prayers and those of others to affect the world and how things turn out in the rest of the world today. Prayers asking for strength and endurance for those who are persecuted as Christians, God especially answers those because the people being prayed for are praying for the same thing. Thank you for reading and I pray that all who come here will seriously consider accepting the offer of grace that we have been given in this life.

 

What is your view of the World?


Is it evil or good or somewhere in between those extremes? Do you see much of either during your daily commute or at work? In many ways, our world is exactly the way that we have made it. Cruel, uncaring, apathetic toward anyone with a different opinion or belief than you, because yours is right of course! So, what can we do to make our world and the people in it more caring toward one another? Honestly, I really don’t know the answer to that at all. Because we are flawed human beings, we do the best that we can with what we have. If we were taught a set of beliefs and morals then we will act accordingly. If we came up in the slums of Rio or Delhi, orphaned and alone, then we will possibly be like animals, take care of yourself first and foremost and don’t worry about anyone else because they certainly won’t care about you.

There are other places and cultures where we could grow up in a much different set of circumstances and depending upon the beliefs and the comfort that we lived in while we were growing, our values and outlook would be different still. As some researchers have proven in the past, it really is more nurture than nature when it comes to our culture and values and our beliefs or lack of them.

So, can this horrible situation in which the world stands on the brink of our next war, world-wide though it may be, be solved and fixed satisfactorily by an ordinary man? I very much doubt it! Humans will do things and agree on things only if it serves their purpose. Our world is under the control of Satan and his forces and they are causing all kinds of evil in our world, yet God will not allow them to go any further than He allows. We see prophecy being played out in the world and on the news every day, whether you believe it or not this is happening today. Griping about it won’t solve anything, electing an official who shares the same agenda as the last President won’t solve our problems either. Getting back to worshipping God and learning about His ways from the Bible will help get us on the right path. But, there is no quick fix for any of the problems in our world today. 

God does have the answer, but many in the world today will not like it and they won’t enjoy it at all. When the church is taken up into Heaven and the world descends into the chaos which will follow, those who come to power at that time will bring their answer and many will accept it. But…it is a lie, a ruse, one that will plunge the whole world into a war that many millions will die in and that time is also foretold in the Bible, it is called the Tribulation. It isn’t a made up fantasy, it is a time that will purge the world in some ways and burn the world in others. Please, turn to God and give your heart to Jesus before the trumpet sounds and many Christians are taken up.

“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.…” 1 Thessalonians 4:16

 

Promises and Blessings


And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19
Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, Exodus 23:25

Life sometimes throws us a curve, usually one that we don’t see coming until it hits us square in the eyes. I know, some of you may have thought I would say something else, but it’s the truth. God’s promises are new every morning and they are meant to be for us as well as the Jewish people. Some of us can claim them and some of us never will claim them. It also seems to happen at the worst possible times, but I suppose that is when God wants us to depend upon Him and lean on Him more than we depend upon money or people.

Your life and mine are part of God’s creation and His Kingdom, particularly if we are Christians because we have given our hearts to Christ. We are supposed to be following in His footsteps on a daily basis, not a weekly or every few months or just when we feel like it. Studying the Bible and learning from God’s wisdom about circumstances in our lives, whether we have faced them yet or not, is the best way to learn about Him. Reading through God’s Word at least once every year is not as hard as it sounds and yet many Christians only read what is called out in church on Sunday and maybe on Wednesday night services.

How can you claim God’s blessings and His promises to you and for your life if you don’t know about them in the first place? You won’t know about them if you have never read the Bible, yet that action is severely lacking in churches today. Why is that? Very likely, it is because the Truth of the Bible cannot be ignored and you can’t disprove it. Many people say that it is just a book of stories written down by old men long ago and it doesn’t mean anything. Without faith in God and His Son, Jesus, that may be true, but if you look at the prophecies that have come true from the Bible how can you claim this?

The land of Israel was given back to the Jews in 1948, many Jews have returned to their homeland after nearly two thousand years in exile and their language has been revived as well. All of these are foretold in Scripture and very little is left to happen according to the prophecies in God’s Word before the time of Tribulation will be upon the world. Nobody knows the day or the hour of this time which is coming except God, but I don’t believe that this generation that is alive today will die before it begins to happen.

That could be within the next few years or it may be a decade or more away, but we are living on the edge, the cusp of it right now. The players are moving into position and the time is coming soon. Be prepared. Be watching and be ready!

Huddle up!


In the game of football much of the game’s outcome depends upon what is said and done during the huddle. Of course, the talent that each player brings to the team counts a lot as well, but if each player listens to the plan and follows it, the plays will go as well as they can, depending on how the other team interprets your formation and your strategy.

In life, we have a much harder problem because our enemy can see into our minds just as well as God can. Satan and his cohorts can get into your mind and manipulate you in ways that appeal only to you and your desires. This is why we are instructed to put on the “full armor of God” so that we can be more successful in our life while following Christ. The full armor of God is shown to us in these scriptures:

Ephesians 6:11-18 King James Version

11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;

15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;

16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

These pieces of armor are only good if you place your life inside of them each day. Neglecting to do any of this can cause you to stumble, which we all do, but make sure that you get up and pray asking God to strengthen you and give you the wisdom and courage to follow Him every day. God emptied Himself into human flesh in order to make a way for us to become His children. He gave His life on the cross so that we would not have to go through the punishment and pain associated with a life that rejects Jesus as Savior.

Some people see God as being outside of the universe and outside of time and He is, but He is also present here. Some may say that with all of the evil in the world, where is God? Think of it this way: without an ultimate, pure, and Holy God there would be no option for evil. In some ways, the idea of a balance is right except when you look at an Asian Yin/Yang symbol there is good and evil on both sides. That is not how the world is nor is it how God designed it to be, there is good and evil…period.

The picture below shows what I am talking about. There is only one or the other, they don’t mix and there isn’t a little of one on either side. We are given a choice and many choose one side or the other, you can’t stand on the middle line and claim both. Yet, many people try to actually live on that line until they find that theScreen shot 2012-07-23 at 10.49.14 AMy can’t live there. You have to choose one or the other, you can’t wobble over here one day and then change sides and to back to the other.

God loves us that is why we have a choice in life simply because you can’t force someone to do something, like love you. Trying to make someone do something which they don’t want to do would be similar to giving a cat a bath or putting water back into a bottle while it is being poured out. Unless the cat has been trained to allow you to give them a bath, you will be needing medical attention before the bath is over!

We are God’s creation, made in His Image or as it is said in Genesis, “let us make man in Our image” since God is a Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are the only part of creation which God actually used His hands to mold and shape the clay from which He fashioned mankind. Some may wish to ask “when will evil be taken out of this world”, the only answer that I have for that comes from the book of Revelation. At the end of the millennium of Christ’s reign on Earth, there will be one last battle and Satan’s forces will be crushed. Then the White Throne judgement will occur and all of those who sided with Satan and did not seek Jesus in their lives will be cast into the lake of fire for eternity. That will be the end of evil as we know it.

Seek Jesus out in the Bible and learn of Him, ask Him into your life and ask for His forgiveness, then follow Him until He comes again or until the end of your life. Yes, there will be trouble and trials, even with Him in your life, but the reward in Heaven will be so much sweeter!

Cracks and pieces missing


Have you ever noticed, maybe in a museum or in a cupboard, that with time some pottery or china will have little cracks or pieces missing? Is your life today feeling a little cracked with pieces missing or gone? Did you know that God can fix that? Yes, He may have allowed the cracks to happen, but it is because He is trying to get your Spirit and your faith to expand so you can do more and endure more. Life is in itself a work in progress, just as pottery and other artistic endeavors are also. We as humans live and breathe as a work in progress from the day that we are born until we die. Life is never the exact same from day-to-day, yet we look at it as if it is.

We see our lives as a continual struggle of sleep, waking hours, eating and then sleep again. Simplistic though it is, it is true isn’t it? It doesn’t matter what type of job you have or where you work, which falls under the waking hours, the rest of the day usually falls in the time of eating food or sleeping with a little TV thrown in to dull the day down before going to sleep.

My representation of life in those four areas is simple, but if you think about it then it is the truth. Getting back to our title about cracks and missing pieces, where do they come from? Some come from our own existence, some of the cracks are there because God put them there so you would depend upon Him more, the missing pieces are those parts of yourself that seem to get lost. Some of them are lost when a loved one dies or when some tragedy occurs in your life or in a close friend’s life. They are not totally lost, it just feels that way. That part of you may have fractured into many thousands of pieces and it feels like it is gone, but God can put the pieces back together again.

Sometimes we can feel the cracks and fractures in our life, but think of it in this way: God may be using this trouble and the problems which we feel through it to cause a change in us. The judgement that came against Israel in times past was specifically for the cause of bringing them back to God…to relying on God every day! Captivity in Babylon, slavery in Egypt, slavery through other people in the Old Testament like the Assyrians, each of these was designed and used by God to get God’s people to turn BACK to God! Trouble in this life is there for a reason, specifically to refine us into better and more dedicated people in God’s service.

God loves us deeply, far more deeply than we can understand with our limited minds. In reference to the cracks and chastisement that we may go through, think of it like a weight lifter beginning to lift weights. At first you are very sore, so sore in fact that you can barely lift the bar without weight on it. Then, as those muscle fibers grow and repair the damage of lifting weights, they become stronger and you have to add more weight. You tear and work the muscle tissue so that it will grow and become stronger, that is what these trying times in your life are and God uses them to make you and your faith stronger!

Life everywhere is hard and trying to an extent, depending upon where you live. Seek God and His Wisdom from the Bible, not just one or two verses from it but the whole Bible. He can guide you and give you wisdom and strength to make it through the most tough and trying times in your life. He helped to get Job through his trying times, He helped the Jews get through their slavery and back into their homeland, He helped those who were scattered all over the world to come back to their homeland after WWII. God will help you too IF you will seek Him out and follow Him daily! Time grows short, don’t wait.

Each person matters


It doesn’t matter whether you are rich or poor, homeless or live in a mansion or a penthouse, all of us matter in our lives to Someone. The person that we matter to may be our spouse or friends, co-workers or partners, we may even matter to some office or position that we hold but the most important Person that we matter to is God. Yes, I said that each of us matters to God! He cares even if we didn’t get an answer to the prayer that we prayed last night or last week. He has cared about you since before the Earth was created because He has known you and known about you since then.

You are important to Him because He created you for a purpose that only you can fulfill, a job that only you can do and nobody else. Do we realize this in our lifetime? Sometimes we do if we are paying attention to His voice. If not, then we will trip along through life, ignoring that little voice that part of our conscience or whatever you want to call it…until we truly NEED Him! Then we will call out to Him loudly and insistently. Will He listen to these prayers? Yes, and He may use the outcome of them to touch your heart again, just to get your attention.

You do matter to God. Believe it or not, He has always had an interest in this little speck of dust and all of us who are made of its substance. He has been able to see you and your family from far back in time before you were born and yet He has always had a purpose and a place for you. All that you need to do is believe in Him and follow His lead, live your life for Him so that others can see Him through you. Why you may ask? Because He paid a price for our atonement, for our sins and frankly it is the least each of us could do!

The world today, particularly outside the Christian faith, thinks that we as Christians should just shut up and go away. One day, God will call all of us to Heaven and then you will see the kind of world that you have without us and His influence in it. He will still be in control, but it will be a world under judgement at that time and not one that will be hospitable to anyone. Seek Him out while there is time, while there is life in you to do so because when your life is over here, eternity begins whether you like it or believe in it or not!

For God so loved…


The beginning of the passage from John 3:16 is a beautiful and gracious statement, “For God so loved the world”. Because He did and He does love all of us regardless of the country that we live in or what religion that we cling to in our daily lives. Whether you are a religious person or not, there is something that you use in your life to guide you and direct your life. It may be your own personal feelings or abilities or it could be a religion that you aspire to be a true follower of. But…God still loves you even if you are not a Christian and haven’t accepted Jesus as your Savior.

That is the very reason that Jesus came to live as one of us, blamelessly and sinless in His life so that He could die on the cross and make atonement for all of us. This was His purpose while He walked and preached to those who would listen and really hear His message. He loved us first so that we could come to Him humbly and broken, knowing that our sin and our version of “righteousness” would not avail us any honor or acceptance in God’s sight.

Look at a pure white canvas or sheet of paper. It is as pure as we can make it, yet allow just one spot of dirt or ink, even one as small as a period like this (.) and it isn’t pure anymore. True, we can and do overlook a spot like this everyday but when we are exposed to the Holiness of God, we won’t be able to cover our sins because only the blood of Jesus can do that.

The next part of that verse is “that He gave His only begotten Son”. This is something that we cannot understand! Could you give your only son as a sacrifice so that one other person could live? I don’t think anyone could do that, even for a close friend! God gave His Son so that ALL of us would have a possible way of forgiveness for ALL of our sins, big and small, if we would put our faith in Jesus and in His atonement for us!

Believe! The next part of this verse, “that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”; belief in Him and His sacrifice is the requirement for eternity, is that too much to ask?

The eternity that I am speaking of here is an eternity in Heaven, with God and His angels and His Son! Many people seem to think that if you die without God or Jesus in your life, then you are just dead, period. Not so! Jesus spoke of hell and there is a place of torment for those who have rejected the grace and mercy which is offered to all! The reason that I mentioned this is that you are the person responsible for your eternity due to your own decisions in this life. God does not sentence you to hell or an eternity of torment, your decisions are responsible for that.