Tag: Messiah

Birthdays and time


I know that many of you have noticed that the more birthdays you have “celebrated”, the less time it seems to take between them. Even my son, who turns sixteen today, has noticed it and he doesn’t have that many under his belt so to speak. Your perception of time changes when you get older. Days and weeks seem to run together, then the months and years, until pretty soon you are wondering “What happened?” It is true that time goes much slower for those who are incarcerated or who are in living conditions that are far from ideal, but in truth time moves at the same pace that it always has it is our perception of it that has changed.

Life is filled with experiences which cause us to take note of them and make our days either go by quickly or pass by more slowly. If you happen to have a fast paced job, then the day goes by so fast until you have to bring home work to get it finished before you go back, then again if you work at a store where people come in spurts, the days drags by between the customers. Then there is the waiting for the return of Jesus. We know that He is coming back because of the statement made by the angel, “He will return in like manner”, when He was taken up to be at the right hand of God. It has been nearly two millennia since that day. Many people say that He isn’t coming back, some think that it will be hundreds of years in the future if at all, some think that it could be tomorrow or today.

We don’t know and the Bible doesn’t tell us. Jesus gave us some signs to watch for and most of them are happening every day around us, particularly in the Middle East. He also said for us to keep watching and don’t lose faith in Him and in the words spoken in God’s Word. He will return and if you notice the prophecies that have been fulfilled, it very likely will happen in our lifetime. When it will happen, nobody knows for sure. I have noticed that some are saying that it will happen when the last lunar eclipse happens at the end of September, I don’t believe that but anything and anytime is possible.

God knows when our days are coming to an end and He knows, for each of us, how many days we actually have from the day we are born. Thankfully we don’t have access to that information or many people would have bucket lists and the world would be even crazier than it is already! Time is something which we all count during each day that we live. We count it by the minute and the seconds and the days and weeks. The most amazing thing is that we won’t have to count any of it after we arrive in eternity, because time for each of us will cease to exist if you are blessed with the love and the atonement granted by Jesus in your life.

Eternity will be very different if you have not accepted Jesus as your Savior. Time will be miserable and pain-filled and never-ending. I know the argument that “My God wouldn’t allow that to happen!”. God didn’t sentence you to hell, you did. Each one of us has had a chance to accept Jesus as Lord, yet if you don’t by the end of your life it is YOU who has condemned yourself to an eternity without God in hell! We have all seen the handiwork of God in nature and in our bodies, we have heard a sermon or a prayer about God and His grace which is given freely to us even when we don’t deserve it. Even the American Indians prayed to the Great Spirit that they believed created everything and they were right, they just called Him by a different name. That doesn’t mean that Allah or Buddha or any of the “man-made” religions are right because their gods were created by their minds or were just men and nothing more.

God is real and He is in control of time and the number of birthdays that each of us has. Seek Him out in your life while you can, give your heart to Him and ask Him to come into your life and give you the strength to work for Him during the time you have left. Even if it is only a few days or weeks, your example during this time can have a great impact on someone you love or even someone you don’t know.

So much going on….


Looking at and listening to the news is not one of my favorite things to do, in fact I avoid it if I possibly can. There is so much going on in our world until it just brings you down in  your spirit and just gives you the feeling that nothing will ever be better in the world in which we live in.

Then…you hear a child laugh and giggle or you hear them say some of the sweetest things that can only come from their minds. Minds which have not yet been messed up by the world and education and all of the things which go on. Then, of course, you see the children on the news who are living in places where they could lose their parents or their friends any moment. Where gun shots and bombs are going off and people are threatening others for not believing in the same religion, the one that they think is the right one. Stupidity, ignorance, hatred, bitterness, heartache, fear, death are all around us today whether it is just on TV or next door, we can’t seem to get away from some or all of it. We can’t live a life of peace and harmony, not in today’s world because there isn’t a place like that on Earth anywhere!

It makes me sad to consider what our children and their children will be living in and having to try to stay alive through before Jesus comes back.

Whether you believe it or not, He is coming back to judge the world for all of the cruelty and hatred and violence that has been going on and is still going on. He will bring peace with Him because His government in the Kingdom which He sets up on Earth will not tolerate the things which are happening today. Swift justice will be the rule then, no twenty years of appeals for someone who kills a child. Our world will be run by Him from His throne in Jerusalem.

You can choose to believe it or not, but it is coming and I believe that it is coming in our lifetime. He has told us to be watching and waiting and the prophecies that were given in the Bible have all lined up. There is very little that has to happen before the day that the trumpet sounds, and I am looking forward to that day. From that day forward, for seven years there will be very little that will be good on this Earth. The wars and diseases and famines that are happening now will pale in comparison to what is coming. It will have nothing to do with “global warming”, or anything which mankind is responsible for except the rejection of Jesus the Messiah.

The last of the Blood Moons is happening in a little over a month from now. What happens in the next few months or years is in God’s hands and everyone will see and know that it is His doing, not us. Study the Bible, read the books of Daniel and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Revelation. Between these books, if you pray for understanding, they will reveal that all that is happening is happening according to God’s design and purpose. Seek His wisdom for your life and for your salvation because salvation only comes to you through Jesus and His atonement for your sins and mine, there is no other way to get to Heaven except through Him. Don’t put it off and don’t wait because the time is short.

Love…do we know where it comes from?


Today, the word itself is used so much until the meaning of it is diluted to the point of the word not having a real meaning at all. Can we get back to a point where words mean something and actually are felt when they are said? Is it possible to make life itself mean something again or have we drifted so far away from our intent and our passion that life itself just doesn’t mean anything anymore? How did we get this way and why? We have drifted so far away from God until our beliefs and our character is more in line with Satan today, whether we worship him or not. Of course that is fine with him because if he can get us to turn away from God and His love and teachings, then we who follow him during this life will follow him into eternity. By then it will be too late to change your mind and he will be laughing at you when  you claim to have been a deacon in church or you taught Sunday school for twenty years or so. Those things don’t matter if you have never taken Jesus into your heart and made Him the Lord of your daily living!

Love comes from God because He is love and He showed His love for us by giving His Son as a sacrifice to die on the cross so that we can come to know God through Jesus by faith in Him! Today, the word is just that…a word. “Love” to many people doesn’t mean anything at all. It is just a four letter word like hate or some other words in our daily language. But, when you put it into action and really love someone through Christ, it doesn’t matter what they have done or who they may be, you can see them the way that God sees them. They may be filthy and covered with sin or maybe they did give their lives to Christ at one time and have fallen into a ditch full of sinful desires and things, but they are still His.

In this world, we aren’t guaranteed tomorrow, regardless of our age and yet God loves us and wants us to come to know Him, if we will only turn to Him in faith and ask Him to come into our lives. You don’t have to go across the ocean to witness to others although it is needed and if He calls you to do it then you should. But, God can use you right where you are. When I started this blog six years ago, there weren’t many Christian blogs out there on the Internet, now there are hundreds and I pray that if only one person turns their life over to Christ, that is enough.

Thank you for reading and I pray that you will turn to the Bible and read from Psalm 16 and others.

We are real!


baby development You hear so many times in the news and the media that abortion is a woman’s right to choose whether she is going to have a baby or not. Great, then DON’T have UN-protected sex! If you must have sex outside of being married, then make sure that you don’t get pregnant! That way you won’t have to exercise your right to kill that child which came from your own mistake.

That child is not a collection of cells and body parts, it is a life, a baby and a human being and it deserves to live just as much as any other child does. I know a woman has the right to do as she wishes with her body, but if you are going to enjoy sex and don’t want to have a child then get “fixed” just like a dog or a cat so that won’t ever happen! You won’t have to worry about it, ever!

God created mankind male and female so that we could be “fruitful and multiply”, not so that we could pick and choose which child is the one that I want to keep and just throw the rest away! When He sends a child into the world, regardless of who may be the lucky parents, He has a reason and a purpose for that child to fulfill. If you take the life of that child because you don’t want to have it for one reason or another, you have taken a human life. One that had meaning and purpose which God had plans for and you took it away. If you never come to a saving knowledge of Christ, the question will be why did you kill my child?

HowmanymoremustdieSo, look at this picture and tell me who is the most dangerous person or regime on the planet? War has taken only about two and three-quarters of a million lives combined in the past 239 years since America became a country. Abortion has taken over fifty-five million lives in the past forty-two years! Lives that never had a chance to learn to walk and talk or go to school or go to a prom and college. Which sin is the reason for all of this death? Selfishness for the most part, convenience would be another part of the equation.

It is a very sad comment on our culture when we are so selfish that we can’t allow another person to live, even if we gave them up to adoption. That would be preferable since there are many people who can’t even have children and would gladly take a child in and love it and take care of it if you don’t have the time or money to do so.

Another sad thing about this is that you will be held responsible for the lives that have been taken, especially if you have done this more than once.

Yes, God loves each of us and there will be many people in Heaven who never had a chance at a life here on earth. They never took their first breath here, never even had a chance to poop in a diaper or drink some milk from their mother.

I know that this sounds like a rant about abortion and it is to an extent, but God loves all of us even if you may have done this. Please consider that if you do give your life to Christ in this life then you will very likely meet your child in the next one.

Just a thought from a preacher.

What is it which gives you strength?


Is it your food or drink? Is it your will to do what needs to be done for today, no matter what it is? Our strength comes from our bodies to work and to do what is needed every day and our body gets that strength from our food. The quality of that food and the amount that you need to do your work is what gives you the calories to keep going to finish your work for each day. All of this is known by each of us as we live through our lives every day in the world, but how can you get the strength to do things for God? True, sometimes your food is all that is needed, but most of the time that is not all that you need.

We are spiritual beings because the spirit that we have that is in us, our soul that is immortal, needs to have contact with God the Creator. That contact comes through reading God’s Word and by prayer. Prayer is a direct line to God and His Spirit! Not only are you in contact with Him with your words and your spirit but He is in contact with you, giving you the strength to pray for the things which you need to be able to do. It may be that you are in need of His strength for a problem in your life, whether it is grief or a loss or some physical ailment in your life or a family member’s life but prayer is the line…a lifeline that is a direct transmission line from God to you!Ican'tmakeit He knows exactly what you need and how much, all that He is waiting for is for you to ask Him to do this.

God doesn’t intrude on your life without you asking Him into your heart and your life. Nothing about the walk..the life of a Christian is forced on us by God. We participate in it with Him as our Strength and our Comforter and many times we find that when those days sort of pile up on us, He is exactly what and Who we need to make it through them. Being a non-Christian is somewhat easy because you don’t look to a “higher power” for inspiration or strength, you are your own strength and inspiration.

So, what do you do when the strength and inspiration that you have available to you isn’t enough? You have come to the end of your rope, a deadline is only a few hours or days away and you have nothing to bring, the chemotherapy isn’t working and you are in hospice waiting to die…your own strength is mostly gone at this point, so now what or who can you look to or call on for help? Do you just give up and die? What could possibly help in this instance? It’s not a what but a Who. God can help you in every situation and it doesn’t matter whether it is big or small because the Creator of the universe can handle it all! He may not fly in and heal you from a serious illness, but He will give you the faith and the strength to make it through with dignity and when you are taken to Heaven…the pain is gone, your worries are no more, you have an eternal home which is yours FOREVER!

I know that to our small minds dying is not a fix to a situation, but if you have given your life to God and asked for Him to forgive you, then your witness to others during your pain and suffering will be your witness and your sermon. It may not impact their life now and it may be years from now before it takes root in their lives but that seed…that spark that they saw in your life, even if you were suffering, can make a big impact.

God can use the most unusual people to get His point across. Homeless people and those in countries where Christianity isn’t tolerated at all have a very big impact on people because of their faith and their life that they live for Him while they have the time. Christians, since the time of Christ, have given their lives because of their faith in Jesus. This is not a blind faith or a cult, belief in Jesus is belief in the Truth and the Life that is available to you from God! People don’t die a martyr’s death for something which they don’t believe is real, but there have been thousands of people who have been burned at the stake, frozen in winter by exposure, torn to shreds by lions, or mercifully shot in the head because of their faith in Jesus and His atonement for them, even if it was against the “state church” like it was in the middle ages.

God loves you because He has a purpose for your life, no matter when you truly come to know Him. Even if it is at the end of your life, your decision to come to know Jesus will have an impact on someone else’s life and they will make a difference in another person’s life. Like a neatly stacked line of dominoes which expands into the shape of a tree, one person may affect two, they may impact four, they may impact sixteen, those sixteen may impact sixty-four until God has used up your impact but it is never really used up. Because the effect of one person can make a difference in millions of lives, especially today and with God and His Spirit powering the effect that your prayer or your reading of the Bible may have on others, you may be astonished at how many people you find in Heaven who will say that something that you said or wrote or shared online made a difference in their life.

Think about that. I do and I pray that all of you who read this might pass it on to someone else who needs it too.

A living Message


Jesus was and is considered the Living Word of God, so our message about Him and salvation through Him should be different for each person. Truly, it is different for all those who seek Him because nobody gets the same message from the Bible. We all get a different meaning and purpose from the words which we read in it and since there are many on the web who are writing about Jesus, all of our messages are different too…at least in some respects.

First and foremost, God loves all of us whether we think so or not. It grieves the Spirit of God when a person dies who has not found Jesus to be their Savior and Lord. Some may not see it this way, but it is true and it says so in the Bible. One of the first instances of this is found here:  Judges 10:16 “And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the Lord: and His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.”

God loves us far deeper and more intimately than we can understand, so it shouldn’t be unusual for Him to grieve when we go astray or refuse to become an adopted child of His through Jesus. We don’t have to do it and we aren’t forced to do it but your life and mine are so terribly short compared to eternity and yet it is only during our lifetime that we can make this choice of asking Jesus into our lives. God loves each of us even to the point of the parable which Jesus used about the sheep that went astray out of a flock of one hundred. We have all gone astray at some point and some of us haven’t become the sheep that God wants us to be, meaning that He wants us all to come to know Him and His love for us.

We can’t do that walking around in the world looking for something or someone who we feel the need for but don’t know who or what it is that we are searching for. God sees us all wandering around but He won’t intrude on or in our lives until we ask Him to come in and help us with our lives. Just as love for another person can’t be forced or “made to happen”, your love for God can’t be a forced love it has to be one that you initiate. Once you make the step of asking Him into your life, to forgive you of the sins that you feel can’t be forgiven, then He will work in your heart and your mind to help you to conform…help you to become more like Jesus. This is our ultimate goal, to become more like Jesus. Like it or not, that really is your purpose in life because life is the training ground for so much more.

What are we training for? I don’t really know and I probably won’t find out until I get to Heaven. The point is that we are to strive toward the goal of being as much like Jesus as we can, with the Holy Spirit’s help, while we are here. Don’t judge people or look down on them because they have less than you do or more than you do because stuff is not what’s important in this life, people are. We are called to be mirror images of Jesus and for a while our reflection of Him will be a bit blurred but it takes a bit of polishing to work out those rough spots. Getting through the polishing phase is the toughest part that you will find yourself in during this life, because you will feel like God has left you to fend for yourself when He is actually using those trying times to get your faith and dependence upon Him to work together.

As long as we keep our eyes, spiritually on Jesus, then we won’t falter when the going gets a bit rough. We may have to endure some hard times with our children at home or with a disease or a family member but as long as we keep God in the center of our lives and depend upon His strength to get through today and the next day then we will come through just fine. This is what I am having to deal with today. A teenage son that, unfortunately, is just like me at his age and I have forgotten what he is going through. I have to give this struggle to God and let Him work it out because all that I can do on my own is make it worse. Lord, give me the wisdom to keep my mouth shut until he is ready to really talk to me about what he feels.

See, I may have some good advice but I have to take it too.

True for today but sad…


I saw this on Facebook and I couldn’t do any better so here it is:

A preacher transformed himself into a homeless person and went to the church that he was to be introduced as the head pastor at that morning. He walked around his soon to be church for 30 minutes while it was filling with people for service….only 3 people said hello to him. He asked people for change to buy food….NO ONE in the church gave him change. He went into the sanctuary to sit down in the front of the church and was told the ushers he would sit n the back. He greeted people to be greeted back with stares and dirty looks, with people looking down on him and judging him.

As he sat in the back of the church, he listened to the church announcements and such. When all that was done, the elders went up and were excited to introduce the new pastor of the church to the congregation……..”We would like to introduce to you our new Pastor”….The congregation looked around clapping with joy and anticipation…..The homeless man sitting in the back stood up…..and started walking down the aisle…..the clapping stopped with ALL eyes on him….he walked up the altar and took the microphone from the elders (who were in on this) and paused for a moment….then he recited:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

After he recited this, he looked towards the congregation and told them all what he had experienced that morning…many began to cry and many heads were bowed in shame…. he then said….Today I see a gathering of people……not a church of Jesus Christ. The world has enough people, but not enough disciples…when will YOU decide to become disciples? He then dismissed service until next week…….Being a Christian is more than something you claim. It’s something you live by and share with others.
2 Timothy 2:15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.

Is Jesus’ message relevant today?


If you aren’t sure if that is a valid question then you probably don’t think so. In my viewpoint and many other Christians who are trying to follow His commandment to take the gospel to the whole world…Yes! His message is very relevant to our world today because it is needed by those who have lost hope or their will to go on. His message is relevant to all who are looking for something to fill that void in their lives. Jesus came and died for all of us, believers and non-believers!

I know that many of you don’t believe that this message is for you, but it is. Particularly now. Why do I say this? Because, regardless of  the way the media treats all of the things which are happening in the world today, we are on the edge of the times spoken of in the book of Revelation. True, the one called the Anti-Christ has not appeared..yet, but the other rumblings of pestilence, wars, persecution of Christians, are all happening now.

So, why do I look at this as a warning to everyone in the world? Because that is what it is…a warning! Turn to Jesus before the end of the age comes! I am not trying to be one of the nuts that you see with the signs that have been around for decades saying that “the end is near”, but in truth it actually is! Whether you believe me or the Bible or not, it is near. Much nearer than it has been in the past.

Jesus came into the world to save those who would answer the call to be saved. If you will seek Him and believe in His sacrifice and His message, you will be saved. Regardless of the sins you have committed in the past, with true repentance and a faithful heart to turn to Jesus…you will be saved!

Is there more to the message? Of course! We should strive to be more like Jesus every day! Like straining to get to the end of a race and cross the finish line, our goal is to be as much like Jesus as we can so that others can see Jesus through us and our words! We are not perfect and won’t be until we have our glorified body in Heaven, but working toward that goal daily makes us less of our sinful self and more like Him every day!

Salvation in Jesus is preferable to being in sin and yet many people reject it. To me that is like someone walking up to you and asking if you would like to have a briefcase full of money and then you just walk away from it because you don’t want to take that which is freely given. I know, the money is something that you can feel and touch so most people wouldn’t turn it down, but consider this: eternity is worth far more than one million dollars! It is worth more even than one hundred billion dollars or one trillion because none of that can be compared to eternity! We can’t comprehend one million years and that is just a drop compared to eternity.

Feeding your faith and starving your fear!


This is needed in our world today because there is much fear in the world and it seems that our faith in God is dying. Why is that? Maybe because of the wars and all sorts of other troubles going on around us. These things can make us lose heart and lose sight of our Savior. Why not try reading the Bible? Not just as a book of Jewish history or so-called “fairy tales” as some people refer to it but as a Book of Wisdom and one which God inspired his prophets to write! Fear keeps us from living our lives to the fullest and it keeps us from knowing our purpose in life as well.

How does fear have such a powerful hold in our lives? Because we haven’t embraced our life, regardless of how hectic you life is or how miserable it may be. Life is what it is and there is no getting around that, but we do have Someone to give us hope and that is our Savior, Jesus the Messiah! He is always there and available to us to give us strength and hope every day. You can deny it if you wish or even try to argue about this but God is available to you all of the time. Learn this Truth through His Word and find His peace in your life. It isn’t hard to understand, but you have to read and study the Bible to get the wisdom out of it. Just as you do in school when studying for a test, cramming doesn’t work and glancing at it occasionally doesn’t do you any good either.

The Bible is a book full of wisdom which changes because of your needs. That is why it is referred to as the Living Word of God. You can read one scripture verse this month and next month it will have a different meaning for you through faith and believing in the Creator. Without faith in God and His Word, the Bible is just a book with words in it and nothing more. That is why many people have told me that they have read it many times and they get nothing from it. The reason is a lack of faith in what you are reading. If you don’t believe it or won’t believe it, then no book in the world will make sense to you whether it is the Bible or biology 101!

God loves each of us and we should believe in Him, yet we want to believe that every living cell, whether in a bacteria or a whale, came from a pond of amino acids and a few proteins which got struck by a bolt of lightning billions of years ago. Really?!! The amount of faith that it would take to believe that would enable a person to walk on water or point to a mountain and it would fly into the ocean!

Fear of the unknown, and the future is certainly that, is what keeps us up at night and that is the very type of fear that God says we shouldn’t have. Why? Because, the future is something that only He knows about. There is nothing that you or I can do to affect it because the future is out of our reach. Tomorrow is not here yet, today is, so let’s make sure that we take care of the time that we have in front of us. The only “tomorrow” that we can have an impact on is that which comes after our death and that only by accepting Jesus as our Savior. If you choose not to accept Him, then your future is also affected, but you won’t enjoy the eternity that you get if that is your choice.

Life as we know it


On Earth life is everywhere! Scientists have found life in the most inhospitable places such as volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean where sunlight doesn’t reach. Temperatures there in the pressurized waters can reach above the boiling point, yet there are bacteria, and crustaceans and other life which get their nourishment from the chemicals coming from these vents. They have also found bacteria and other organisms living in the ice of Antarctica at depths of thousands of feet.

Scientists are finding new species in the oceans and in jungles, on islands that are isolated and in some areas where we live in cities. These species have adapted to life in those areas where they are found, not evolved as some tend to push into our consciousness.

Evolution is a theory in biology postulating that the various types of plants, animals, and other living things on Earth have their origin in other pre-existing types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations.

Just in the past ten years there have been over 1000 new species found in the Amazon region so the proof of God’s genius and His creative power is in the scientific record not in a theory. Adaptation drives these changes because of where they live and what they have to live on, not evolution. Yes, I know that I am going to be targeted by those who believe that evolution is a proven fact and I am not going to debate the issue because there are too many professors who push it as such.

If Christians believed as strongly in their beliefs about God and Jesus as some of the proponents of evolution, there would’ve been a revival in this country a long time ago and it would have been of such proportions that we wouldn’t be having the problems that we have had in the past three or four decades! Unfortunately, that kind of faith doesn’t seem to exist in the church now nor did it during the fifties and sixties!

God has allowed our faith to shrink because of the time that we live in and the place that we occupy in His time and prophecy. He is in control even if it seems that everything is out of control, but His hand is guiding the world toward a time when people will seek Him or be judged by Him depending upon their decision and not His. Your decision toward God and His Son is the one decision that will have an effect on your eternity and where you will spend it. That is the only decision which really counts because this life is short like a puff of smoke, while your eternity is…well eternal!