Tag: Salvation

What Child is this?


Immanuel, God with us. Those few words explain the “why” of the Babe in the manger and the “Who” as well, so why do so many people choose to turn away from the offer of grace and mercy of God? Well, it has to do with that six letter word that has been having such a great impact on the human race ever since the Garden…choose or a different version maybe, called choice. It is what God gave all of His creatures, angel and human alike.

Why did He give us a choice in our life, in our service to Him and in what we ultimately do with that choice? Because of love. You cannot love a Creator or a person that doesn’t give you a choice of returning that love. You cannot enjoy being a servant unless you are given the choice of being a servant or not. We can choose to obey the call on our lives when we feel and hear it or to turn away from it. We can choose to be the people that we are called to be or not. It is choice which distinguishes us from animals who live by instinct.

Instinct is natural for animals whether they are dogs or cats or apes or whales, that is their position in the Creation of God. We have a choice to be or not to be what we are called by God to become, and yet some people don’t allow God to change them into the people who He knows that they can be. They refuse to “conform” or to be called by God. They want to do it their way, in their time, and for some that is fine. It may give them a successful life that the world sees, but it may not lead to eternal life unless they finally accept the call of God in their life.

“But, what if I don’t ever fell or hear the call of God?” “Can’t I just read the Bible and try to do what it says and I’ll be saved?” Reading the Bible is good and God may speak to you through it, if He hasn’t already but you can’t force God to save you. Just as God chose Jacob and not Esau to make the nation of Israel through, He can choose those whom He wishes to be saved which will bring glory to Him and His Kingdom. Why? Because He is God. He doesn’t answer to you, He does as He pleases in all situations.

God sent His Son to be born of a woman of the lineage of David, so that through Him we would all have the chance to be saved. He paid the price for all of us, all that we have to do is listen to that voice in our hearts which calls to us. If and when you hear it, don’t turn away from it. God gives us all second and third chances but when we keep turning away, He will call on someone else that will answer and the most telling part about His call to us is that He knows which person will answer His call and which ones of us who won’t.

Are you ready?


I just got used to this year, and now we’re going to begin another one in about two weeks! Why is it when you get past the half-century birthday, it seems that every year goes by faster and faster? It’s like time speeds up just trying to get you out of here quicker! Granted, I am ready to be done with this life, in a way, but I would like to enjoy the years that I may have left, rather than watching them speed by like race cars!

In some ways, I think that it is God’s way of letting us know that the best is yet to come and the quicker we get to the end, the better it will be! At least, that is the most hopeful spin that I can put on it anyway. God loves us far more than we can love ourselves and truly, He must have since He allowed His Son to die so that we could be saved and forgiven for our sins.

Also, the age of the church is coming to an end so time grows short and the time of the second coming of Jesus is at hand. Everyone seems to be moving about like a bunch of ants, some with a purpose and some seem to be just running around. So, what can we do to make sense of this short time that we have? Well, for one thing…read the Bible! It tells you everything that we know for sure about this time, from God’s point of view and for us.

Some people might say that it is too confusing to read, but the Bible explains itself if you will take the time to pray about it as you read and look up the references for the scripture that you are reading. The NT explains the OT and vice versa, but you have to read both, not just a verse here and there. It is something that we don’t or won’t do as we are growing up because our teachers tell us to and many of us just read the parts that the preacher is speaking about in his sermons and no more. Even if he reads an entire chapter, sometimes that is not enough to get the real meaning of it, which is why many people leave church looking “dazed and confused” more often than not.

How can anyone learn about Jesus and His mission and message if you only hear a small portion of it or just one chapter of it? Honestly, you can’t! Get into a Bible teaching church, read the Bible with a friend and ask each other questions when you don’t understand something, look it up in a concordance  or online if need be. We have many resources today that were not available to people just twenty-five years ago, but test what you learn against the Bible. Make sure that the message you hear is the same one that is in God’s Word, if not then run away from it.

So much to do….


Yes, there is a LOT to do before the end of the year. Even before the celebration of our Lord’s birthday (although it isn’t in December), there are many things which need to be done. Where do you start? Many people right now are in the malls or in certain stores picking up gifts to give to their loved ones, big and small, older and younger, but what about your faith? Where does that fit in with all of this? Have many of you even considered the true Reason for this season, not the pagan festival which was co-opted by the early church but the Person that this is supposed to be pointing our hearts toward?

Living your life all through the year, waiting for the time when you get stuff just for being here? What for? There has to be a reason and a purpose to our lives and the things which we get on our birthdays or at Christmas are not good enough to qualify as a reason to live from one December to the next! It seems that commercialism is the mainstay of American culture…the more we have, the more we want and many of us want it NOW!! So what are we to do? How much should you spend on all of this stuff?

Do you really want me to tell you? The amount needed for true, eternal joy and eternal life is….nothing. That is right, we can’t do or spend or add to anything in order for each of us to have eternity because it has already been paid for in full! All that we have to do, if we want eternal joy and life is come to Jesus and repent of our sins and ask Him to come into our lives and make us new creations by His power, the biggest hurdle we have to cross in this is….belief! Child-like belief, the kind where we know without a doubt that He did it for us and we believe it, period. No amount of searching for other proofs or justification because He justifies us through Himself and the proof is in God’s Word.

There is no other proof that we need. True, many people don’t believe that the Bible is true but that is because they don’t have spiritual faith to believe in the Word and the Truth contained in it. As one teacher said, “it takes far more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in God’s creation”, and that is true. Accidents and possibilities aren’t proven to create anything, after all it is the “theory of evolution”, it is not a proven fact and can’t be proven because of the time that it takes. Yes, I am going to get some folks hot under their collars but I still challenge them to find an honest and true fossil of something which is changing into another form of life. It hasn’t been done in the few hundred years that scientists have been looking and I don’t believe that it will happen before Jesus comes again, then you can just ask Him!

Merry Christmas everyone! Have a wonderful holiday and be safe. Attend a church service where they are celebrating the birth of Jesus this weekend with an open mind. Seek Him because He does exist and He loves you more than you can believe.

Is today a really bad day?


Are you under the bus? Is that how it feels today? How bad are you feeling today? Are you in a place where you feel like you are under the bus?

We all have days, sometimes weeks, where we may not feel good about the situation that we are in, whether it is one that we put ourselves in or our health may have put us in this spot. Did you do it to yourself or did God allow it to happen? For some of us, it is something which we actually are responsible for the situation, good or bad but usually bad, that we find ourselves in. Then, depending on how bad it may be we get into a pity party over it and carry it into other people’s lives so we won’t be alone. Is your situation caused by dependency on drugs or alcohol? Then, you got yourself into it and nobody can get you out until you make that decision to do so. God can give you the strength and the courage to get out, but it is still your decision to take the first step away from where you are.

For many people, that first step is the hardest one to take, especially if you are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Why is that? Because, our body reacts with the chemicals which we put into it and depending upon how they make us feel, we get strongly addicted to them. The stronger the so-called “good feeling” is, then the stronger the addiction is which makes it harder for you to break the addiction and get away from it. Why am I bringing this up during the holidays? Because, during the holidays is the time when many people get depressed over money or relationships or ??? Who knows what can cause these feelings, but it seems to happen during Christmas more often than it should.

We see people who seem to be happy in their lives, smiling and laughing and getting stuff to give to each other and if we aren’t able to do the same thing, then it makes us miserable. How do you know that they really are happy? That may just be a “fake happy face” that they use during this time of year! We don’t let people see the real us most of the time, that is reserved for close family or sometimes nobody knows the “real me”, you know how that feels? I do.

I have lived it and been that way for years and didn’t realize how much damage that I caused in my own life and in my own relationships until recently. I went into a real depressive state earlier this year and it took reading and praying my way through the Psalms to get me out of it. Depression can make you feel like you are not just under the bus, but that the bus is parked on top of you and you feel like there is nothing or nobody who cares enough about you to help get you out! Although, sometimes we want to stay in that condition. We don’t really care to get out or maybe we don’t want to get out from under this cloud and feel better.

Well, I am here today to tell you that you can do it! It is possible to come out from under the cloud and the bust and the addiction because there is Someone Who loves you dearly, even if you don’t feel lovable and may not even love yourself! God loves you and has loved you for thousands of years. Jesus came and died on the cross for you, so that you can come to know Him and the Father because of His sacrifice which covered not only your sins, but everyone else’s sins in the world as well! He came down to Earth in human form but with God as His Father and He had no “sinful nature” inside of Him like we do, and yet He still died for our sins, our weaknesses, our problems even though He didn’t have to…He did it because He loves us. Not because we are lovable, but because if He hadn’t, we would be doomed to eternity without knowing Him or God. We wouldn’t have been able to make ourselves right with God because it just isn’t part of our nature.

Jesus came into the manger as a babe in swaddling clothes, clothed in flesh so that He could know our troubles, our weaknesses, our fears, our heartaches and give us comfort through all of them because He has been there. He knows about your trouble and your triumph, your fear and your joy. He knows your pain and the pleasure of love without the sinful nature that we have to deal with. He and the Father love each one of us regardless of our trials and faults. All that we have to do is believe that He conquered our troublemaker and our sickness and then ask Him to come into our lives and give us the strength to make it out from our place of pain…out from under the bus. Then, pray and seek His strength to do it again tomorrow and the next day and the next day. Being free from the pain of addiction is possible, but it takes us and Jesus to move, to take that first step, and then another and another until we are clear of it and we can see the Light and His love for us.

Loving yourself


Many people seem to think that this means being selfish, but that isn’t it at all. Learn to love yourself because you are the only one who can love you that way, except for God. He knows you better than you know yourself and He loves you more than you ever could. Loving yourself is the only way to undo the damage done to you by Satan and the depression and self-hatred that he brings into our lives. Can we do it without being vain and selfish? Yes, through God’s Spirit and with His strength we can.

Do many people think this way? Not many do in our society, I’m afraid. We all seem to be caught up in the latest “reality show” or the latest news on Facebook and Twitter and we don’t seem to have time for each other, let alone ourselves. At least we don’t until something goes wrong in our lives, such as a wreck or an illness, unexpected or not, then we get down on our knees in NEED of God, right now! The only problem with this is that once the emergency is over and there is a healing or an improvement moving us toward being healed, we tend to just say, “Thanks, God, I’ll take it from here.”.

How arrogant we are? Yes, we are independent and we have a choice of whether to be a Christian or not, but the relationship needs to be a deeper one than that. We know it, we just don’t think that we want God hanging around everyday. But you know, He never really leaves your side.

Its like telling your spouse, “I don’t need you today, but don’t go far.” How hurt and unnecessary would you feel if someone told you that? I am not going to presume that God is hurt in the same way that we are, but I imagine that it does hurt Him in some way when we reject Him, even once, let alone on a daily basis. So, what can we do that will help our situation in life and be of service to God too?

Love your neighbor as yourself and for that you have to love yourself first. Because if you can’t or won’t love yourself, how can you love others? Seek God’s wisdom in this through the reading and study of the Bible. We learn how to do things everyday in one way or another, so why not learn of the Creator and how to be His through learning about Him? How can I learn about God? By reading the Bible! It was written by men who were inspired by God to write His wisdom and His laws down so that others could study them and learn to be His and why they should be His.

God loves each of us, far more than we could understand and truly more than we deserve. He has loved us since the beginning, before the Earth was created. In His Wisdom, God created everything so that we would know that Someone had to have been the Creator of this, and up until the turn of the twentieth century, scientists really didn’t deny His existence but tried to use science to prove that He is God.

I know that some people will not believe that statement, but it is true. To love yourself and your neighbor is to show and exhibit the love of God to others as well as experiencing it yourself. To experience something, like love, you need to know love and since God is love you need to know Him. Seek Him while the time to do so is on your side. Read His Word with an open mind and with prayer so that He can teach you that which you need to learn.

Come, let us see Him!


Nativity-29The angels told the shepherds about the birth of the Christ child. The wise men from the east knew of Him from the scriptures and from the prophecies in them. Yet, the teachers and Pharisees didn’t pick up on the prophecy of Bethlehem being the birth-place of the Messiah. What happened? Could’ve been that nobody considered the birthplace of David as the birthplace of the Messiah or maybe they just weren’t thinking about the timing or possibly…well who knows what or who they were looking for if anyone.

Our Lord, part of the Trinity, clothed Himself in flesh to become part of our world in order to redeem us to the glory of God. Whether you believe in Him or in the Bible or not, it doesn’t matter because in the end everyone will see and know He is the Redeemer and the King of Kings.

But, when He arrived He came as a little baby but He was still God, enrobed in the flesh of man. Many deny that this could happen, but the Bible clearly states that He was born of a virgin, God created Him inside her, therefore He was of God the Father and not man’s nature. Jesus is and was God in the body of mankind and grew just as any child did. It is not a hard thing to believe this, if you believe that the Bible is true and inspired by the Spirit.

The angels told the shepherds about Him and they came to see this thing which God had deemed necessary to reveal to them first! After they saw, they went out and told others of their knowledge of Him and Who He was, even at His birth, the Messiah. People considered this and pondered over it, but in time they forgot about what they were told. “It was only told to us by shepherds, how could they know?”; this was very likely the words used as people scoffed at the news and whether it was true or not. How much like today this is, when people come up with all sorts of explanations for the miracles of God, whether it was the miracles that brought the Israelite people out of Egypt or the parting of the sea. Science and man have thought up all sorts of “explanations” to discredit God as the cause of anything from Creation to the return of the Jewish people to their home after nearly two thousand years.

The Creator Who can bring about creation by His spoken Word, can do anything that He desires or plans to do. He is not surprised by any of our problems and yet we try to see Him as being limited as we are, how foolish! Paint cannot tell the painter which color to put here or there and it cannot request to be blended a certain way so that it is a prettier shade of purple or blue. The creation, whether it is an animal, a star, a planet or man cannot dictate to God how or when it is to be used and for what purpose, He is the Creator and our place and purpose are dictated by Him. The difference between us and the other parts of creation, except for the angels, is that we can choose not to obey Him. We have a choice regarding whether we will believe in Him and trust our lives and our purpose will be used by Him in the manner in which He desires. If we choose to follow Him and serve Him because He loved us before we made that decision, and loved us enough that Jesus died and was the first born from the grave so that we would be granted His righteousness if we humbled ourselves and became His through Jesus.

Eternity is granted to us through Jesus’ sacrifice, forgiveness is granted through the blood of Jesus, adoption into the family of God is granted through His Grace. What more could you possibly ask for? In the world today, many people see this question as a silly one. They want everything! A bigger house, a nicer car than their friends, more money and enough of it to retire and never work again, these are the blessings that the world and everyone in it seeks. The problem is that these things are temporary and only for this world. Your eternal home is Heaven, where there will be no more death or sorrow or burning heat or bitter cold.

The place prepared for Satan is entirely different altogether. Darkness rules there. Not the kind that we know, but one that can be felt and it burns. The heat and the lack of water and coolness for an eternity will be part of it too. I am not speaking of a heat like we feel on Earth, I am talking of a kind which would kill us but in that place you will have an eternal body, but you will be totally out of God’s presence. Away from any semblance of life and you will be near or in the lake of fire which burns for eternity as well. This place was not prepared for man, but for the demons and Satan who rebelled against God and for the Anti-Christ and his false prophet. Anyone who is, by choice, against God and chooses to reject Jesus as their Savior will end up here too.

Christmas is the time that we are to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, the One Who can save us from this place if we will believe in Him and ask Him to come into our lives and live His life through us so that others can see Him too. God bless you all for reading this and pray for our country, it sorely needs prayer and God’s grace.

In His Service.

So much to do, so few to do it


Every day we see things happening around us, down the street and around the world. On the news, on the Internet, alerts on our phones, calls from family and friends, all of these things alert us to the problems around us and it is overwhelming! We look at all of these things and it increases your stress in this life beyond what you normally have to deal with every day. What can we do about it? Can we do anything that will help the situation and not make it worse?

It depends….

It depends on what you can do personally in your area of influence, however big or small it may be. Your effect on the crises in the world around us may not be so big, but there is still something which we all can do…pray.

I know that sound like something that you would hear on a television show or a broadcast from a church somewhere, but it is the most effective way that most of us have which will produce results. Those results may not happen tonight or even next week, but in God’s time the effect will be seen and felt wherever it is needed. God does work quickly when it is in His will to do so, like in a life-threatening situation or a disaster, and other times He moves when He deems it time to move on a problem. That is where we have a gigantic problem with Him.

We are not patient. We want results NOW! We want results today, like they were supposed to have happened yesterday! God doesn’t work that way though. He works according to His pleasure and His glory, for our good. Many things that we see in this world could have God’s hand working in the background, but we don’t see it that way because it may not be visible to us yet.

Such as the healing of a cancer in someone’s life or the healing of someone in a wreck as they are treated in the hospital. Many of the ways that God moves in our lives, for our good and His glory, are unseen by us until the result is done and it comes to fruition in us and our life. The command which was given to the disciples and by extension to us, was that we should go and tell all of the nations, tribes and tongues about the good news of Jesus. Whether they accept Him or not, it is their choice after all, we are supposed to go and tell. But, it seems that there are so few who are willing to go. Telling is not so hard, because that is what I am doing here. Regardless of who reads this, I pray every day that someone’s heart will be softened by the Holy Spirit and open to receiving Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

Our lives here are fleeting like smoke in comparison to eternity, and yet we can help people to come to know the Christ, Jesus, Who died for their sins and rose from the dead. Your sins have been paid for, all that you have to do is accept it and believe it and in the One Who accomplished it, because you can’t! There is no amount of works or money or any other “man-made” thing or accomplishment that you can do which will gain you access into Heaven! Only your humble repentance of your sins and accept the grace that God has extended to you through Jesus and His death on the cross, only this will gain you access into God’s presence as an adopted child in His Kingdom. Otherwise, you will stand before Him and be judged for the sins that you did during your life, but the only sin which will send you to hell is the rejection of Jesus as your Savior and Lord. The sins committed otherwise would be wiped clean by His blood if you would just accept Him as your Savior when you heard or felt the call in your heart.

Turning away from the Holy Spirit when you felt Him call to you is the “unpardonable sin”, nothing else in the world qualifies as such except for that. No, we are a very impatient race of people and have been since the beginning. It has been getting worse and worse and today it is so bad until we can barely wait in line for anything, whether it is at the bank or at the drive-through window at a “fast food” place! God’s time is His time and we don’t like it and never have, but if you can surrender to Jesus and seek His counsel daily then His blessings will follow and flow into your life.

Do you know that you are loved?


“For God so loved the world (everyone in the world past, present and future), that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will have everlasting life.” John 3:16

How much more should we love and honour God’s gift to us? God loves each of us even when we are sinners and we don’t deserve anything that He has blessed us with. This is not a fairy tale and it is not an imaginative story, it is the Truth of the Living God. He carried the children of Israel through the wilderness on their way out of Egypt. He made the way through the Red Sea so that all of them could escape from Pharaoh’s army and from their bondage in slavery. God made a way for the people to destroy the city of Jericho, not by their own power but by His. He took the blocks down that were holding up the wall around it, all they did was walk around the city for a week until God told them to blow the trumpets and the wall came crashing down. He loved them enough that their clothes and shoes didn’t wear out during the entire forty years of their journey through the desert.

Today, it seems that many churches are trying to “water down” the gospel, to make it more tasty to those who are fighting against its message. Making it more palatable, like putting four ounces of cream and sugar in a cup of coffee which only holds six or eight ounces. At this point, it isn’t much as coffee goes and the same is true of a message or the preaching from a church which has watered down the words taken from God’s Word! When you take out the words and the meaning from God’s Word, you are preaching another gospel, one which is not approved of by God but by men. Yes, many churches are doing exactly that today because they want new members to give their tithes, and offerings to the church.

That is all good, but the message being taught and preached by those who water down the gospel is a message which Jesus said to flee from because it is not the True Gospel! It is a false gospel taught by false teachers and it needs to stop! Why? Because the path that we as preachers are supposed to be leading people on is one that is narrow, not broad! A gospel that has been sweetened up and made pretty and acceptable is not the gospel of salvation but of damnation and it will lead many people to hell! The church today in many ways sounds much like the church in Revelation from Laodicea  which Jesus said that He would spew from His mouth because they were a lukewarm church. They had gone astray from Him and from the gospel and they were neither hot and on fire for Him nor were they distant and cold. The city and the church there was wealthy from material goods but spiritually they were poor and naked.

A watered down gospel is a lukewarm gospel and it will cause the church to be like that church and being that way is a terrible thing. Why? Because you are putting yourself and your congregation on the side with Satan because of what is being taught. Making Christian “church” more easy and palatable to many is not the way to go. Ignoring the words of the Bible that are against lifestyles which are offensive to God, such as homosexuality or belonging to a cult are not the way to salvation. Yes, God loves all people regardless of their sins but He still hates the sin itself. Because of this, an unrepentant person (one who will not part ways with their sins), will not be able to be saved and enter into Heaven. When your heart is broken spiritually and you feel God calling you to Himself, answer this call on your life. Don’t turn away because sometimes, the call to be saved is only given once and if you turn away from it you may not get another chance to change your life for  the better.

I don’t want to mislead anyone, Christianity is not a “prosperity cult”, you will not prosper so much that you are wealthy beyond belief if you turn to Jesus. The wealth that you gain with Christ is the kind that is stored in eternity for you, not here on Earth for people to see and steal. Eternal life is also misunderstood. We will all have eternity to enjoy our choices, although enjoy is not the right word for those who reject Jesus. Eternity in hell is reserved for those who have sided with Satan and it doesn’t matter if Satan himself has promised you that you won’t be in a “lake of fire” for eternity, because that is his destination and all of those who have rejected Jesus and the grace of God will be there too.

Seek out the wisdom found in God’s Word, pray about what you read and that it will illuminate your heart and open your eyes. Give God a chance to show you Who He is, ask Him to come into your life and help you to walk with Him daily, because it is a wonderful journey in the right company.

Living your life


Yes, we can live joyfully, but what about living for Jesus? Living with Him, waking up with Him, praying to Him about everything, no matter what it is. We can do it, if we choose to do it. It is our choice, we are never forced into a relationship with God. Can we live this way?

Yes, we can! But, we have to do it by choice! Wake up in the morning and thank God for giving you another day to serve Him and live on this Earth, enjoying our family and our blessings. Where do those things come from? God, of course. He provided you with the ability to do the things that you do, whatever your vocation.

You can’t tell God what to do, but many people are so proud and prideful in their way of doing things until they try to do just that. He loves you, but He is going to answer your prayer in His time and when you are ready for the blessings that He will provide for you. How do I know this? Because He has done it for me and for many others, that is how I know His provisions and His love.

Can you know Him like this? Yes, you can. All that you need to do is to decide to listen to His Word and ask Him to come into your heart, when you feel the calling, the prompting of the Holy Spirit which calls to us. Answer that call on your life and your heart and you can be saved. Many people will think that they don’t need saving, they are doing fine on their own without Jesus. Are you really?

Have you had a time recently which caused you to question your life or your place in life? Many people today question whether God cares about us, but if you look at all of the blessings which we see every day in the light of His love, why would you question Him? You woke up this morning with a new day to serve Him or yourself, which will it be? You were able to get up from your bed and go about your day, isn’t that a blessing from God? Many of you had food to eat and a warm place to live, those are blessings from God. Your job and income comes from the One who owns it all, so that is a blessing.

Can we be His in our daily lives? Yes, it is not something that you can do on your own, but you can do it with His help! God loves you and is concerned about everything that happens to you, from losing your keys to forgetting to pick up the milk. Yes, I pray when I go to the store or when I am driving to the store (especially when I am on the road with all the others out there). I need Him every day, all day, how else would I be able to come up with the content found here? My mind is not filled with words enough to fill these pages like I have these past few years.

God has given me a small church to pastor every week and I enjoy it, but I have a larger audience here. Why? I think it is because there are many more people outside my local area who are looking for God or evidence of His love or even just an encouraging word in the times that we live in. I can’t be in all the places that you live, but the words that God gives me to put here can, so I do this a few times a week, sometimes more if I am given the words for it.

I don’t want you to think that I am anyone special, because I am not. I am a servant of Jesus, gladly, until He comes again. Whether He wishes me to serve here or in a church doesn’t matter to me, I will do one or the other or even both as long as I can. I will only be able to do it with His wisdom and His strength, and I pray that all of you who read this will pray for me to be able to do this as well. We all need prayers, and I pray for my fellow bloggers as well. Have a wonderful, Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!

Living Joyfully!


For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. (‭Colossians‬ ‭2‬:‭9-10‬ NKJV)

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭2-4‬ NIV)

These two scriptures encourage us to live with joy in the knowledge that Christ has forgiven our sins and if we have accepted Him as our Savior, then we are truly complete in Him! But, what do you do on the days that things aren’t going so well? Those times when you get a bad report from your doctor or a pink slip from work, what about those days? Are we still supposed to be joyful in those situations?

Not exactly joyful in the way many people think of it, but in the knowledge that Jesus is in our hearts and that we have His strength to get through them. God is in control of all things on the Earth, He knows what is happening and when and for His children He has prepared a way to make it through the storms of life, those times when things are not going very well. Yes, God allows trials in our lives and trouble too, but He provides the strength and the way through those times if we will lean on Him, trust Him, seek Him in all things.

Smooth sailing in life is good, but it doesn’t prepare you for the times when things get rough. If you ask for patience, you will surely find this out, which is something that I advise you not to do. Because it will take patience to get through the trials that come with learning patience, which is the reason that you never ask God for it unless you are truly prepared for the consequences. You may forget that you even asked Him for it by the time the trials come, but if you seek Him about their reason then He will let you know. I made that mistake once, and I won’t do it again.

Joyfully living in Jesus is knowing that He loves you and cares for every part of your life. He even cares where you may have lost your keys or the ten dollars that you can’t find or any number of “little” things that we wouldn’t normally pray about, but He wants to help you in all of the life that you live. If you will let Him. As Christians or someone who may be looking for that something that they feel is missing in their life but haven’t found it yet, your life and every part of it is important to God. He loves you enough that He sent His Son to die on a cross for your sins. Jesus chose to die in our place so that we could have eternal life, He wasn’t forced into this decision but He willingly accepted God’s will in this so that we would be the beneficiaries of His Grace.

Knowing this, how could you not want to praise Him joyfully and thank Him for this blessing of eternity and forgiveness? It is a debt that we can’t repay and we don’t deserve it, but God freely gave it to us through the sacrifice of Jesus so that we would be able to come into His presence in the holiness of Jesus. Our own “righteousness” is as rags, found in the garbage that have been there for a LONG time. God is Holy and we cannot stand in His presence without the covering of the blood of Jesus in our hearts which gives us the righteousness of the Son.

We, as Christians, serve a living Savior that is in Heaven at God’s right hand. He is interceding for us when Satan accuses us of wrong, or points out where we have stumbled along the way. Jesus’ blood covers everyone’s sins, but you don’t get to enjoy the benefits of it until you are called by the Spirit and you answer that call by asking Him into your heart. God knows exactly who will answer and who will not, but the offer is still open to all who will make that decision to follow Jesus daily.