Tag: Salvation

Choices that we make


“My real problem is that I don’t want to live up to the standard that Jesus demands.” This from a university student speaking to Dr. Billy Graham in New Zealand after the 1959 crusade that he held there.

There is the problem which many people in the world today face about turning their lives and their hearts over to Jesus. They think that it is an intellectual problem of living up to the standard of Jesus Christ when in fact, it is belief in Him and faith in Him which changes you from the inside out. Once that happens, you are changed into a person who can follow Him like the disciples did. It is not a question of whether you can live up to it or not, the Holy Spirit will strengthen you and guide you into a life which will be able to serve Him.

It is still your choice whether you will believe in Jesus and follow Him, but once you truly repent and begin to seek Him and learn about Him then your character is changed from the inside. According to 2 Corinthians 5: 17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” and from that point on every action that you do can be in service to God. Praying for those friends of yours who haven’t made the commitment to give their lives to Jesus, attending church services, reading your Bible and studying it so that you can give a defense of what you believe and why. All of this will come to you as second nature after you have accepted Jesus as your Savior.

Living life without Christ is like getting on a boat and not knowing how to swim or flying in an airplane that has problems and may not make it to your destination. We all will die one day and as violent as our world has become, it would be a wise decision to begin to follow Jesus daily. Nobody knows when they may die and our world is so violent and crazy at times, just driving to the store is hazardous. I pray that I will make it to the store and then pray on the way home to get back there too.

Yes, God is with you all of the time, but it doesn’t hurt to pray for safety and mercy in the face of a possible car jacking or having a wreck on the highway. God loves us and watches over all of us, and He does have a plan for your life and mine. Seek Him out with an open mind, don’t close your heart off to the only One Who can give you eternal life. Jesus spoke of an eternity in hell too and it is a fact that after we die, we do have an immortal soul which will inhabit one place or the other, but it is your choice in regards to which destination you will be in for eternity.

Christ’s message


Our Lord, Jesus Christ, came to Earth to bring a message and hope to all people. He also came so that all might have a chance at being saved from their sins and from the punishment in eternity.

Yes, God loves you and me and because of this love He sent Jesus to die on the cross and pay the debt that we all owe. The only requirement for us to fulfill is to believe that He did it for us and to accept it by faith in Jesus. You cannot add to the redemptive power of His blood nor can you take anything away from it other than eternal life.

I have had people to say that they don’t believe in God so why should they believe in His Son? It is your choice to feel this way and your choice to follow Jesus or not, God doesn’t force you to do anything. Just as you can’t force someone to love you, He doesn’t either. That choice is completely up to you and it is your choice which will condemn you to hell, not God.

The verse which many know by heart, John 3:16-17 tells the story better than I can: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son; that whosoever believes in Him will have everlasting life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.…”

Jesus did not come into the world the first time to judge anyone, but to bring the news about Himself that through Him all might come to repentance and be saved through faith in Him. When He comes again, He will be a conquering King and Judge of those who have rejected Him. Your life can be more hopeful and better in many ways if you will trust in Jesus, please consider doing so.

There are many who don’t believe and that is their choice. God doesn’t force belief on anyone, because you can’t do that. You either believe or you don’t and belief only comes through faith and that comes by hearing the Word of God preached. God loves all of mankind, but the enemy hates us with a passion that goes beyond human reason. That is the one who brings all of the suffering into the world, Satan and his demons, not God.

If you have ever felt the Holy Spirit speaking to your heart and Spirit at a church service or a crusade or even a television program, I urge you to seek Him out in the Bible. Ask Jesus to come into your heart and cleanse you from your sins. We all have them. I have lied and cheated on tests when I was in school, I have also been a drunk and smoked weed. I don’t deny these things, but Jesus changed me and now I preach and tell others about Him every week and almost every day here and my other blogs.

The words which I have written over the years didn’t come entirely from my own mind. I am not that eloquent, but God gives me the words to bring to you just as He does on Sunday when I preach. Seek Him out while there is still time.

Love is the message


How could love be the message of the Bible? With all of the killings and the wars that are fought in its pages, how could the Bible be considered a book based upon love? We will see that very soon.

Love is the message which shines through every book in the Bible. Yet, some people can’t or won’t see it because of the words in the message. God loves each one of us and the people around us, regardless of their race or religion. Of course in the Old Testament, He told the Israelites to purge the Promised land of their enemies, why? Because God knew that if they were left in the land, soon they would become a stumbling block to Israel as a whole. The people would inter-marry with them and begin to worship their gods and their ways and pretty soon, Israel would be just like them. They would no longer be God’s chosen people because they had mixed with the “world” around them to the point that you couldn’t tell them apart.

The love that God has for everyone is the kind that we don’t understand, agape love or unconditional love. It is hard for us to understand it because for us, there has always been a give and take approach to affection and love. But, that is not how God’s love works.

The Church that began with the disciples after Jesus went to Heaven started out with the love of God in their hearts and toward all of the believers. Not only that, but that love is turned outward toward the world itself because we are to take it to the furthest reaches of the world so that others who haven’t heard of Jesus can come to know Him. That is the expression of God’s love. We do not seek riches or power for ourselves, just the continuation of Jesus’ work and His Grace to all who will receive it.

Your witness to them, no matter who they are or where they live, can be expressed through your life or your words or even something that you do for them. It doesn’t have to be done because of your love for them, but because Jesus loved them first and we should too. Many people seem to look at this as loving others like we love each other, but the love that we must spread abroad to others is from God and not ourselves.

Could I love someone who has killed my children or my wife? No, not with my own strength or my love but through Jesus and the love that He has given to me in my heart, yes I can love them through Him. I can also forgive them for what they have done to me or my family through Him as well. It does sound as if I am crazy and to some people I may be, talking of forgiving someone for killing my family. Only through Jesus could I do this, not on my own.

Can anyone feel or express God’s love if they don’t know Him? Feel it, yes, express it..not a chance. God can love and does love everyone. He does not condone the sinful life that they lead apart from Him, but if they repent and turn to Him when they feel His Spirit touch their heart then He will forgive them and take them into His family. It really is just that simple.

Jesus died to atone for ALL of humanity’s sins. The only thing that is left for each of us to do is to believe in Jesus and that sacrifice which happened on the cross for us. Humble yourself to ask Him to come into your heart and change you into the person that you can be, then your life will be forever changed and you will be a new person. The thief on the cross believed in Jesus enough to ask Him to remember him and was saved, that was all that was necessary. Belief, heartfelt and true as a child.

What else is new?


Many times we see things, maybe for the first time, and we think that it is so beautiful. But, a sunset or sunrise isn’t a new thing and neither is a beautiful butterfly that we have never seen before. All of these things have happened and have been seen by many other people in years past, so what makes them so beautiful and new to us? It is because to our eyes and our perception, it is new and it is just as beautiful as a newborn baby. Why is a newborn baby so special? Because each of us is unique and special. We all see things differently and with a perception that nobody else sees. That is why we all see art differently, regardless of the type of art it might be. To your eyes, a painting by some unknown artist may not be so beautiful and special, but to someone else’s eyes that painting might just point to a newly discovered talent which will one day grace the halls of a museum.

Just because you have seen something like a painting or a sculpture or even a sunset before and to you it is just okay, to someone else it may be the most fantastic sight in the world! Think of it this way: if you were born blind without the possibility of ever being able to see a painting or a sunset, then one day you woke up and were able to see for the first time in your life. Everything and everyone that you saw that day would be the most beautiful person or vision that you had, until then, ever seen!

To each of us is given a certain amount of time and talent that we have to use to try to make the world a little better place after we have been here than it was before. Your use of that talent or talents is the gift that God has given to you along with the ability to use it. What you do with it from this time forward is up to you. What will you make that is new and beautiful and fresh for someone else to see and feel? Would you if you had the chance? Don’t use your talent for just yourself, make sure that you do it for others and their enjoyment as well because when you are gone, how will people remember you if you didn’t?

God’s grace


God’s grace is sufficient for all of our needs. Why does He extend His grace to us? Because we don’t deserve it, but He gives it to us anyway, that’s why. God loves us and wants the best for all of us, whether you believe this or not doesn’t change the fact. His love is deeper and more pure than anything that we can understand and yet we push Him away more and more. Many people today seem to want less and less to do with Christianity in general. What have we ever done to deserve this? Have we attacked your schools or your homes? No, we do want the best for all and that is why we try to tell you about our Savior. It is that “telling” that everyone who has a phobia against Christians is afraid of or is totally against.

There are numerous instances where the church is vandalized or even set fire, especially in Europe, but it seems to be happening more and more. The sentiment toward the church was predicted by Jesus for the time that we are living in, so it is not totally unexpected but it still brings out pain in my heart and it hurts our world, not as an entity but as God sees us.

God extended His love and His grace to us through Jesus and His sacrifice for our sins. Whether you want to believe in Him or that grace which is so richly poured out on us is totally up to you. It is your decision to choose which part of the world that you will live in, the Christian part or Satan’s part, because there is no middle ground! You are either on one side or the other.

I know that some have said that they will sit on the fence until something or someone knocks them to one side or the other. The problem with this thinking is that, you may fall off when you die and if you haven’t made the decision to follow Jesus by that time then you will be on Satan’s side of the fence. Paint the church black on one side and white on the other to represent God and Satan, allow them to meet in the middle and see how well you can walk the line without dipping into one or the other. You must choose!

The problem that we have is that it is the choice and the power that we have to choose one or the other that causes so many to wait or to put it off for too long. God is patient, but your life goes on regardless and it is limited. As the writer of James said, “your life is like mist or a puff of smoke”, especially compared to eternity and while you have it you must make the best choice that you can. This can’t be denied because even comparing our lives to the past millennia or two, we are only here for a very short time! The choices that you make during this life do have an effect on where you spend eternity! Choose Jesus and come to Him, before it is too late. We live so close to death that many people don’t notice it anymore. People get killed on the highway every day. They are shot and killed for no reason at all in our cities and towns and we hear about it every day, but we get used to it. Life is precious but it is short, make the choice which will give you life everlasting. Ask Jesus to come into your heart and save you from your sins and from the life that you would’ve lived.

Do it…before it is too late.

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.

What are you looking for?


Many people today are searching for something in life to give them hope and joy, but many don’t find it. Why is that? Mainly, it is because they are looking in the wrong places and trying the wrong things.

People tend to give all sorts of stuff a try to see if it fits or if it might fill the need in their lives, hoping that one of them might fill the spot which seems to always feel empty and hollow. Is this because they are ignorant or maybe it is because they haven’t found the right combination yet? No, there is no specific combination or specific thing or drug which will fill this void in your life. But, there is a person Who can do all of those things and more and His name is Jesus.

Living without Him is possible but it is unfulfilling. Yes, you can get through life without Him in it, but you will always feel lost and alone regardless of what you try or who you may be with. When you have felt a tug from the Holy Spirit, whether it is by a dream or a church service or someone witnessing to you, that is Him calling to you. You can walk away and ignore Him, but the call will be felt again. It won’t go away. When that call comes to you, it will come whether you want it or not, because there is something that God knows about you that you do not. That something is a particular thing which only you can do. It may be a message that you can bring to someone or it might be that you will be able to touch someone’s life in a way that nobody else can. But, only you can do it and God knows this which is why He is calling you.

Yes, there is something that you can do or someone who you and only you can speak to or bring the Light into their life and until you let that Light into your life they might never see it. Jesus is the Light and the Life and the proof of it is in God’s Word. All that you need to do is seek Him out because until you do, that part of you which feels empty will never be filled with the One and only Person that can and will make you feel like a whole person.

Think about it and allow Him to come into your life and give you His Life.

What should we do?


I read a report today about some research that the Barna group did and here is a small excerpt from that report: The California-based Barna Group reports that the combined number of unchurched people in America, approximately 156 million, would make the eighth most populous country in the world.

What can we do about these people who don’t want to go to church? Can we, as Christians, reach them in ways which might make a difference? I don’t know.

I have heard from some who say that we are all hypocrites and that they don’t want to go to a church service with people who claim one thing and live another. Then, change your own life! Be the Christians that God intends for you to be! If you truly are and you have given your heart to Christ and asked Him to come into your life and change you, then show it! Let people outside the church see Him and not a fictitious version, a fake Jesus, through your life and your actions.

Why do I say this? Because, if they won’t come to church then you may be the only Jesus that some people ever meet! And, if you aren’t being Jesus outside the church walls, then what good are you doing? What is your fruit that Jesus said that you would produce if you really are His disciple and an adopted child of God?

Are you going to fulfill the role of being the “hands and feet” of the church and of Jesus? This is what we are supposed to be doing if we truly belong to Him after all. I know that many of us can’t provide much in the way of monetary help to people in need because many of us are also in need too. Just being a worker for Jesus, showing your Christian character when you are at work or in a public place, essentially practicing your Christianity. That is what we are called to do and to be!

The best part about practicing your faith is that it will be easier for you and it will help you to learn more about being like Christ if you act like Him every day. Just as practice makes you better at sports or music, it also helps with your walk with Christ and since you are doing it every day it will become more genuine to those who don’t go to church with you. Therefore, they will see how you are enjoying life with Christ and they might want that joy with Him too.

You know, it seems that many people think that being a Christian or becoming a Christian will restrict your joy in life or even take the enjoyment out of life and that is not true at all! I have more joy in my life because I am a Christian, not because I pastor a church but because I have a future to look forward to. Not just in my life here but also in the life that I will have in Heaven or on the renewed Earth one day! The best part to look forward to is that time and the measure of it won’t matter anymore!

We will have all of eternity to learn from Abel and Adam and Noah and Abraham. We can know the wisdom of Solomon and of all the people in the scientific past such as Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci (they weren’t agnostic you know).

How can we make it better?


Many people today don’t seem to want to make anything better, have you noticed that? It seems that everyone wants things given to them but nobody wants to make life better and give back. What a waste. I know that the world in general is getting worse because that is all that you hear on the news and on radio and television these days, even though I would question the truthfulness of the reporting from both of those outlets sometimes.

Does anybody even care about each other any more? It seems that we are more worried about being politically correct and being non-offensive to everyone, except Christians of course. We also can’t bring ourselves to put any part of natural habitat in danger or even a fish or a bird, and yet people are being killed by the hundreds every day!

The thing is, people are trying to ban guns but the places where they are banned is usually where the most violence WITH guns is! Huh??

Giving back to your community is what we were commanded to do, yet when that is brought up people tend to laugh about it as if it is a joke. What has happened to our world and the society that we should be developing? It seems that we are more barbaric now than we were hundreds of years ago. We couldn’t do as much damage back then because our weapons were more limited than they are today, so maybe that is why it is so bad now.

In many ways, there really is no way for us to make this world a better place to live and work and go to school, because no matter how hard we try our efforts aren’t good enough. Why is that? Because we are living in the closing years of the age, that is why. Oh, yes there are people who don’t believe this because the Bible has been saying that we are living in the “end times” for hundreds of years. Why should today be any different or even ten years from now?

Because, if you really take a close look at the prophecies in God’s Word, you will notice that all of the players from Asia to the Middle East are coming into play just as God’s Word said that they would. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe it or if you don’t want to believe it, it is happening. Like it or not, we are coming to the end of the road in a way that is going to get the attention of the world in a very immediate way, one which can’t be denied or explained with “natural phenomena” as its cause.

The only real way to make things better is to commit to give your life and your heart to Jesus because He is the Hope of the World! No person or “savior” or man can make this world any better, only Jesus can bring peace to your soul and to the world. There is nothing else which will fill that void in your life and no drug or amount of money can fill the empty feelings that you feel at the end of the day. Jesus is the One which is able to fill your empty life and make you whole for the first time and forever! Giving your life to Him is the only way to make your life feel the way that it was meant to feel.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend[a] it. (John 1:1-5)

These words testify to the fact of Who Jesus really was and Who He is today. He did not die on that cross permanently, He rose again on the third day just as He told His disciples that He would. The world and those in it don’t want Christianity to be true, they never have, but God intends for the world to hear the message of Jesus whether the world wants to or not and it will.

Jesus is the answer for the world’s problems and for yours too. No, He may not fix things immediately, but He will be with you in the storm and through the storm and give you strength enough to get through it! Seek Him out, learn about Him from the Word of God, pray that He would show you the things that will help you to know the Truth and He will do that and so much more.

Post traumatic stress disorder, where do we go from here


There are few things that many of us will ever accomplish in life, especially the things that many of our military servicemen and women do every day. But, there are also the trials of being in the service. Trials which only those who have been there can know. The only trials which some of us may know a little about are the kind which come during times of stress and pain and danger to us or to others around us. It is true that those of us who have never been in war-time situations will never really understand them, and truly that is a good thing in some respects.

In our country, America, we are privileged to have armed men and women who, in some instances, consider it an honor to serve their country so that we don’t know armed conflict in our streets the way it is elsewhere. I served in a branch of the service years ago, in the Air Force, but being an only child I didn’t go to war or to serve in far away places. My mother became disabled and I got out of the service because I was needed more at home.

The men and women who come back from service today come home with injuries which are evident to some but then some injuries are not so evident. Yes, there are many who come home with limbs missing, some with TBI (traumatic brain injury), many come home with moderate to severe PTSD. It is this ailment which is the type which many of us civilians can relate to. Some who are in relationships which are abusive know of this condition, some who are in police service or fire service know about it too, yet their struggles are also un-heard or disregarded just as the veterans who have served and come home still feeling the effects of trials and trouble and pain.

I will admit that I have only suffered from PTSD while being a fire-fighter/EMT during my time of service in that occupation, but even though it has been twenty years or so since that time I still feel its effects sometimes. With God’s strength and His help I have been able to overcome many of its demons, but there are many who are not that fortunate. Many of our servicemen and women are plagued by it all of the time, many women are haunted by it due to an abusive relationship that they either can’t get away from or maybe are afraid to get away from. Police and firemen/women are haunted by things which they have seen during their duty tours. The biggest problem that the public has with this is that PTSD is un-seen from the outside. It is a mental disorder and one that many people, myself included, don’t want to bring to light or are ashamed to do so because of the stigma which mental disorders seem to have in our society.

We are fine, in a way, when seeing a veteran come home with a missing limb or some deformity which is visible to the outside world, but when the issue is inside everyone seems to treat you as if you are crazy! You have lost it. You should be locked up to protect society from your rantings and possible outbursts which might kill someone. This is what our society has become over time. We look at war as we see it depicted by Hollywood, but we don’t believe what we are seeing or that it could somehow break down someone’s mental fortitude. The problem is that there are things which we don’t know about in wartime or in peace, on the streets and in homes which are so violent and cruel that our minds never were designed to process those kinds of feelings and the pain that comes with them, the fear that is there but we can’t or won’t show it.

God did not create mankind with the mindset to be hateful and cruel. This came to us as a result of Satan’s influence and the fall that was experienced a long time ago, which we are still feeling the effects of today. Many of our veterans are suffering from this brain injury, the kind which doesn’t go away with pills or treatment because it is part of your memory and unlike a computer our brains don’t have a delete key. We can’t just purge these sights and sounds and pains away. You just can’t do it, whether it was caused by abuse from a spouse or parent or in the middle of a fire-fight in the middle of Ramadi or in a gun fight on main street or even when you were on the scene of a murder or a fire in a small town or a big city. These things were not supposed to be this horrific, but it is part of our world today.

The only cure, the only person that can help is Jesus. The Word of God which became flesh and dwelt among men to know their pain and suffering so that He could understand more fully and be the Helper and the Physician to heal our hurts. Help me in the process of helping those who are in need of it. The homeless vet or battered wife or husband, the cop or fireman or woman who has seen much more violence and hate than they should. I don’t have the resources to do much, but prayer can go a long way toward helping more people than we realize. At least do that for all of them.