Tag: Salvation

Cults, idols, and people


What can you say to people who won’t listen? Nothing and even if you do say or discuss your belief with them, it is like talking to a dog or a cat. They hear what you say, but it means nothing to them because they choose not to really listen. It is the same with cults and their beliefs. They think that they are right and everyone else is wrong. No matter the proof that you give them, until God changes them and opens their eyes spiritually nothing that you say or show to them will make any difference.

I have been burdened by the Spirit to attempt to bring the Truth of God’s Word and His Son, Jesus, to those who are caught up in a belief which isn’t much over a century old. Yet, the followers of this “religion” claim to be the only inhabitants who will be in Paradise. They also refuse to look at or believe any other book (Bible) other than their own. I am talking about the Witnesses or Jehovah’s Witnesses. Now, I don’t claim to have the knowledge of God, just the facts as stated in their history so here is a sample of it:

The Jehovah’s Witnesses was begun by Charles Taze Russell in 1872. He was born on February 16, 1852, the son of Joseph L. and Anna Eliza Russell. He had great difficulty in dealing with the doctrine of eternal hell fire, and in his studies came to deny not only eternal punishment but also the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and the Holy Spirit. When Russell was 18, he organized a Bible class in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1879 he sought to popularize his aberrant ideas on doctrine. He co-published The Herald of the Morning magazine with its founder, N. H. Barbour; and by 1884 Russell controlled the publication and renamed it The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom and founded Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society (now known as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society). The first edition of The Watchtower magazine was only 6,000 copies each month. Today the Witnesses’ publishing complex in Brooklyn, New York, churns out 100,000 books and 800,000 copies of its two magazines–daily!

Russell claimed that the Bible could be only understood according to his interpretations–a dangerous arrangement since he controlled what was written in the Watchtower magazine. This kind of assertion is typical among leaders of cult religions.

I have had many friends over the years who are Witnesses, but we never tried to convert each other. Now that I am a pastor, I need to get the word out to those who may be caught up in this deceitful practice. I know that there are many who are genuinely righteous about their religions and many of them are good people, but we can all be deceived at some point, especially when the deception is convincing.

The times ahead of us will see many who will be led astray, even as the Word says “to fool even the elect of God” but we must adhere to the Truth of the Word and not someone’s opinion of it. The NWT was born out of a man’s mind and because that man and religion didn’t want to accept the punishment outlined in the scriptures as well as the God-head including the Holy Spirit, the Son and God Himself.

I am not going to expound upon the evil of man or the cult behaviour of certain religions in our world, but the point is that Christ is the only way to salvation! Works look good, but the entirety of the Old Testament was God’s way of proving to the nation of Israel that man’s works and mankind’s religious expression was useless without faith in God and also in Jesus. Disbelieving Jesus’ deity and putting Him in the same category as an angel will get you nowhere near Heaven’s gates except in judgement.

How you believe is important but the most important part of that belief is Who you place your faith in and it must be Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is the only way to eternal life, He is the Door and the Good Shepherd and He should be the One leading you daily. Not your meeting place, not your church leaders or your work for the church! Nothing that we do here will last except that which we do for Him and through Him for the Kingdom of God and not the kingdom hall.

A Christian is not somebody who simply believes that Christ died for his sins. The devil believes that. A Christian has repented of his sins and has invited Christ into his heart to be his Savior and Lord. You can intellectually believe that an air-plane can fly, but in order for you to fly you must try out its wings by getting on the plane. In the same way, when you give your heart to Jesus Christ, He takes control of your life and begins to make you into the person He wants you to be, yet you also have to give Him that control every day. That is what Jesus meant when He said “take up your cross daily and follow me”. Your life doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect for you to go to heaven but you do have to be “under the blood” of Jesus and be clothed in His righteousness.

At the moment you trust Christ as your personal Savior, you are eternally saved, eternally secure, and God begins to work on you and in your life daily giving you the words needed and the ability to get through that day’s temptations and be an example to others as they see your life and His through your actions. Ask God to show you these truths and pray about the salvation that only comes through Jesus.

The differences between traditional Protestant Christianity and Jehovah’s Witnesses are trivial. Yes, there are doctrinal differences but there are those between Baptist and Methodist and Episcopalian churches, so what is our problem with the Witnesses? Their dedication to God? Their willingness to go out to tell others? Jealousy? Because of their faith in God, in YHWH? I think that that is the very thing that most people have against them, many Christians don’t have the faith and the confidence in their faith to go out to people’s houses and try to talk to them about the Bible and what it says! If the church, all denominations, would go out and do this just half of the year the whole of the nation would be experiencing a revival that would rival that which happened in the past two hundred years!!

All denominations are similar and they all have differences, but as long as we are following Jesus and giving our life and our heart to Him it doesn’t matter which name is on our church. Even Jesus told His disciple’s that those who were teaching about Jesus who were not of their group that “as long as they are with us, they are not against us” regardless of their position.

Think about it carefully because we are all going to be in Paradise one day.

Sacrifice


Today, there are many speeches being given about “sacrifice” or “sacrifices” which have been made by our servicemen and women over the years, so what have we done in our lives that qualifies as sacrifice? Have you really sacrificed much in your life? Most of us who live in America, especially those who have been born in the past forty years, have not really had to sacrifice much at all.

Our soldiers have sacrificed their time with family, their safety during war and many have given the ultimate sacrifice…their lives for their love of country and the freedoms that we have and enjoy everyday. We have had such freedoms because of their sacrifice or the sacrifices of earlier heroes in earlier wars like World War 2.

I must confess that I did serve for a while in the Air Force, but I had to get out due to medical reasons and because a family member needed me at home since I was the only son. I am not complaining about this, I enjoyed my time in the service and had the intention of making it a career at the time but circumstances got in the way.

The point of my post being sacrifice, we are privileged to live in a country that has enjoyed the freedoms that we have that have because of the sacrifices of others. The same is true of our salvation through Jesus Christ. He sacrificed His life for our sins in order to pay the debt needed for the atonement of ALL the sins of every person on Earth! He was the only person that could’ve paid this price and He did it willingly! Can we deny Him our life and our service and sacrifice after He gave so much?

Jesus is at the right hand of God the Father and Creator of all, waiting for the time when everything is accomplished on Earth before He comes for the believers who await His return. The world doesn’t recognize Him but it will one day soon, although I fear that for some it will be too late. They have already made their minds and their hearts up to be lovers of the world and of themselves, some even attend church every Sunday. But, they are being deceived into thinking that being religious and going through the motions will get them into Heaven…it will not.

Satan himself, as well as some of his demons, follows a few of them into pulpits of any number of denominations as well as into the pews. They agree with all that deception and believe in God because they knew Him before their fall from Heaven, but even that belief will not save them because they will not repent and choose to serve God through His Son. We are known by God more intimately than anyone else and it breaks His heart to know that many will choose not to come to Him through Jesus.

You and I and every person on Earth are important to God, otherwise He wouldn’t have sent Jesus to pay the penalty for our sins. All that we have to do is accept the gift of that redemption, confess that we know that we are sinners and ask God to forgive us for our rejection of Jesus, then ask Jesus to come into your life and turn from your old way of living to living by His power and grace in your life every day from that day forward. At times, the life and the walk of a Christian is hard because of the struggles and the persecution and many people turn away from it because of that. They thought that when you came to Jesus, all of your problems would go away.

On the contrary, Satan will attack you more savagely because you are a Christian. You may get sick more or a family member will, there may be accidents and a host of other problems but the test can be overcome by relying on Jesus and His strength to get you through those times. Seek Him first every day and each day will be better, walk with Jesus daily and you will never be alone again.

Think about it and pray, because the time is growing short.

 

Why are we so critical of others?


In the educational arena as well as in everyday life, people seem to be critical of cultural norms, regardless of the consequences. If someone doesn’t think that you should be doing something, such as walking barefoot or wearing an earring or whatever it might be, they don’t mind saying so. Even if your religion offends them in some part or point, you will hear about it if your religion is Christianity. It seems that nobody cares if there are those who try to change your mind about other religions, but if you happen to be a Christian then you should just keep your mouth SHUT!

Criticism of a Christian point of view has been going on for a long time, but it seems to be getting much worse and out in the open today. Even our culture, whatever it might be, seems to offend some people. Going barefoot, wearing shorts or earrings, allowing your pants to ride down on your….well you get the point. Offence can be taken at any point in your daily life from someone who doesn’t go along with your ideas or your viewpoint or you culture and also those who share or attempt to share their religious views and beliefs with others.

In the Bible, we are told by Jesus Himself that because we belong to Him the world will hate us because it hated Him first. Mainly because of the Truth that is contained in Scripture about Him and about our beliefs, there is no loss of animosity toward Christians, actually it seems to be getting worse. The time of this grace period for the world is growing shorter each day, yet it is something that nobody wants to hear about.

We are given every necessary provision for our lives and yet we crave more “stuff” that doesn’t satisfy, things which can’t help in any way at all because we want all of the toys we can get our hands on. Why? Is it because the life that we have simply isn’t enough? The car or the house that we have been given isn’t enough? What happens to those things when we die? Someone else gets them or they are sold but there is no way that we get any benefit from them after our death.

The truth is that we are eternal beings, created with an eternal soul that science cannot understand or explain but that doctors know that it is there. That part of you continues on and according to the words of Jesus, we will be as He was when He came out of the tomb…flesh and blood but also so much more because we will never taste death again. We will be immortal and no longer subject to disease or death, isn’t that wonderful! I know, it is hard to accept now because we don’t have this advantage now and we can’t have it in our life now but it will be granted to us when we die.

Some people look at it and wonder what happens to those who are not Christians when they die. Do they have an eternal, immortal body too? The answer is…Yes! The problem that they will face is that they won’t enjoy their immortality. They will endure pain and suffering for eternity. These people are also the ones who say, “My God would never do that!”.

God does not condemn you to this punishment, you do by your own decision to reject His offer of grace and forgiveness through Jesus. It is your own choice which sends you to the place that was prepared for Satan and his demons alone. This place, Hell, was never meant to be a destination for humanity but when you choose to “live my life my way”, then you are following Satan’s path because that is what he did. He chose to go his way instead of listening to and living through God’s will and purpose for him.

Please, consider the consequences of your own actions and decisions. Decide to ask Jesus into your life and to live according to the Bible and His teachings every day. It really isn’t as hard as you might think.

How wealthy are you?


There are many people in the world who don’t have anything at all. They make less than one hundred dollars in a year, so why are we so worried about a piece of plastic and electronics which cannot do anything, yet we guard it like a precious child? I am speaking of the way we, in America, treat our cell phones of course. It seems that many people almost have one permanently attached to either their hands or to the side of their head, but IMO, unless you are spreading the gospel of Christ over your conversation there is nothing that is THAT important!

The Christians in China and North Korea are being jailed and persecuted every day, yet their numbers are growing…why? Because God is blessing the message that they are getting out! They don’t have mega churches, they have to meet secretly in rooms inside their homes like the early church did, but their message is being blessed!

If the church in America would get up off of the couch and begin having study time instead of watching TV, then America wouldn’t be in the situation that it is in! Jesus didn’t lounge around and wait for people to find Him, He went out and found them first and asked “What do you want me to do for you?”, read it because those words are there.

In our country, we don’t think of ourselves as wealthy but to many people in the world all Americans are wealthy. We spend hundreds of dollars on plastic phones to talk and Tweet and surf the Internet with, then we wonder why we can’t get much done everyday! Many in other parts of the world could live very comfortably on what we spend on just one cell phone, even if it is subsidized by the carrier.

I don’t mean to be knocking cell phones, I use one myself, but the point is that we should be doing more for the Kingdom of God and less for our own little kingdoms that we live in everyday. Why don’t we try to do more for Him, instead of being so selfish? It is because of our nature, the one that we have grown up with for our entire life. Our nature, even if we have given our life to Christ, is one of being selfish and concentrating on what each of us want, sometimes just what I want. And, we want it NOW!

The entire culture of the past twenty or thirty years has revolved around personal gratification in meals, cell phones, work, and even when we come to church. People hop from one church or another trying to find a “preacher” who will tell them what they want to hear and not what they should and need to hear from God’s Word! Our culture and the way of life that seems to be in front of the world is that we have everything and are lacking nothing, when the opposite is true! The perceived way of life here is that we have more than enough of food and money when the majority of Americans barely make it from paycheck to paycheck. Even though our paychecks may be a bit more than many in third-world countries have in a year, the culture is different as well as the lifestyle.

Honestly, that is not really the point anyway! We depend more on our stuff than we should and the stuff that we depend upon is just plain junk when you get right down to it. Depending on God and His grace which we receive every day, is the way that Christians are supposed to live out our faith and our lives. When people see us stressing over things that don’t really matter, they think that our faith in God isn’t real or that we don’t think that God can handle it. This is false, since He is the Creator of everything. Our problems are but small trifles to Him and all that we need to do is exercise our faith and put our trust in Him so that the world can see it.

Are you ready for Jesus?


One time I told someone who came into the place where I worked that I was ready for Jesus to come and the very next words from their mouth was, “I am not, I have too much I want to do before He comes back.” The attitude expressed in this statement is that life is over when He comes! Why would you think that? If you belong to Jesus, your life will never end so when you arrive in Heaven so your life is really just beginning.

Why would someone think that life ends when Jesus comes? If you are a sinner and there are some things that you want to do that Jesus wouldn’t approve of then from that point of view, I can understand. But, if you don’t belong to Jesus when He comes to call the church to Heaven then you will be left behind during the worst time on the Earth.

During the flood of Noah’s day, when the rain and the fountains of the deep broke open, the people of Earth drowned except for the eight that God saved on the ark. During the Tribulation, there will be seven seals, seven bowls and seven trumpets with each one being a specific plague or punishment for those on Earth. The difference during this time will be that there will be some who will still be able to come to faith in Jesus, although it will be hard and dangerous to do so.

Many people think that God will remove the possibility of salvation when He takes the church to Heaven, but I believe that He will not do that even though faith and believing in Jesus will be dangerous for those living at this time. This belief is mine, and it has not been taught in seminaries because they have been taught that the Holy Spirit will be taken from the Earth before this time. God may do this but I think that He will give everyone who chooses not to worship the Antichrist the opportunity to learn about and come to faith in Jesus the Christ.

My own beliefs may have been influenced by some of the books that I have read about the end times, but also by my own prayer and study of God’s Word, but your own life and the message that you get from the Bible is yours. The truth contained in God’s Word is God’s Truth and since He cannot lie, then I accept it as such. The writers who were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write the words were men, but those forty men could not have produced a book of such accurate and truthful proportion without the Spirit’s guidance. Especially the books from over a thousand years before Christ, which describe His death on a cross exactly and all of the other prophecies which point to Jesus which were written so long before He came into the world. Men could not have made this stuff up and then it came to pass!

Please, if you are a Christian get into a deeper relationship with Him and serve Him in some way until He comes. If you are not a Christian, but you are searching for meaning in your life then look to Jesus and read about Him in the Bible. Ask Him to show you what you need to know and Who you need to follow, the answer may surprise you.

Can your life mean something?


Many people seem to be looking for something to do these days. Someplace to be or go or do because it seems that so many people are bored. Why? Is it because there is no fulfillment in your job or in your life? Do you feel that you have a purpose and a meaning in your life, but you don’t know what it is or how to claim it?

These are questions that many people besides Christians would like to have the answers for, but they don’t know where to find them. Can I give you the secret to life’s most frustrating questions? No, I can’t but God can! The answers are all found in the Bible! The meaning to life, for each one of us, is found there. Advice for life, living and for business questions as well are all contained within its pages. God is our Creator but He is also the giver of life, purpose, meaning, hope and continuity in our daily lives. He will do this for you each and every day, if you will determine to get up each morning and begin your day with Him. Listening to His prompting and His advice because if you can listen closely to Him daily, then your life will be more fulfilling and more abundant.

The purpose which we all seem to be chasing is in our grasp, if we own a Bible and will sit down and read it. Not just read it as a book, but ask Him to show you what He wants you to get from its pages. If you just read it as a book then that is all that you will get from it, which is what many people who don’t believe the words contained in it do! But, if you wake in the morning with an urgent need to find your purpose and meaning, then open it and ask God to show you what you need to know for just that day. Tomorrow, do the same thing and the next day and the next. When you have completed a week of reading and learning from it, then you are well on the way to finding your purpose and meaning for this life and the next!

In the world that we live in today, people are so concerned about offending others until we don’t even preach from the pulpit the way that God would have us to. Yes, it is true that He loves you just as a parent would a child but also like a parent, God doesn’t like the things that we are doing in our lives when those things are wrong! If you would not take your mother to the places that you go, then why go there? Would you introduce your grandmother or grandfather to your “friends”? Would you invite Jesus along with you to go to the mall or other places that you go, especially if you don’t tell your family about it? If you have accepted Jesus as your Saviour for real and not just saying some words, then you are taking Him along with you wherever you go no matter where it may be. He sees and knows where you are anyway, and He knows what you said and did while you were there. God sees all of these things, whether you have taken Him into your life or not, and like a parent He loves you even though He doesn’t like the things that He knows you are doing.

Consider giving your life and your heart to Jesus and making a change in your life so that you would be willing to follow Him wherever He leads you to go!

 

Are you a child of God?


Jesus_Loves_UHave you given your heart to Jesus? Have you even considered it? You know, when Jesus told the disciples to let the children come to Him, he was talking about the little children. But, now He is speaking of the children in faith. Babes in Christ, like you may be. We are to come to Him, just as we would to our Earthly father or brother for comfort and help and to feel loved!

He cares for each of us, whether we have given our heart to Him or not. He will give you love and grace even more when you are His child, even though many say that they don’t want to be a child of God we are really His anyway because He is the Creator. Many of the things which we have been taught in school, and sometimes at home, tell us that we are worthless and that we came from an ape. We are not responsible for our actions because we are just animals and prone to do things by instinct.

 

This is not the TRUTH!!! We are created by God, destined to do His will in our lives. Whether we choose to do so or not is our choice, but the path is there. Yes, whether we choose to follow it is our own choice. It is not forced upon us nor is it required that we do so. God has a plan for your life, but you do still have a choice and that is what separates us from animals of all kinds. The choice to do or not do things based upon what we know in our hearts is right or whether we choose to do them because of our selfish and prideful side.

Also, the price for your salvation has been paid in full already. You don’t have to do anything except claim it and ask for Jesus’ forgiveness. He loves you enough that He willingly gave His life so that each of us could come into the family of God. He wasn’t forced into that decision, yet it was required so that mankind could be reconciled and justified by Him to God the Father. There is no other way into Heaven, no back door or loophole, only Jesus can let you in and He will if you follow Him daily and do the things that you know that you should do as a child of God.

I don’t mean that you have to have a worldwide ministry, just being who you are in Christ everyday is enough but if you are called to do more or be more than that don’t refuse or hesitate. Just follow Him and He will give you the power and the ability to do that which He has called you to do.

Noah and the condition of the world


Have you seen the movie or read the story in the Bible? Jesus told His disciples that at the end of the age, the world would be exactly as it was in the days of Noah. The world at that time was so bad that God decided that mankind was so evil that He was sorry that He had created them.

Our world is unfortunately coming very close to that point. People are ignoring the truth found in the Bible. Nobody wants to hear a message of hope that hinges upon belief in Jesus, but they are perfectly fine with any other “god” that you want to mention. People are being imprisoned and threatened with death for their belief in Jesus, let alone telling someone about Him!

I haven’t even started on the drug trade or the slavery that is going on, sexual and otherwise. Then there is all the crime that is rampant in the nations, not just America but most prevalent here as well. Crimes against children, murder, kidnapping, rape,….the list could go on and on. The point of this is that our world has gotten to the point of being very close to the evil ways that was present at the time of the Flood.

Of course, there are plenty of people who deny that there was a flood or even a Creator-God for that matter. They don’t seem to want to admit that many of our phrases and sayings that we are comfortable with actually came from God’s Word! Why???? The arguments against His existence and the Truth found in His Word are many and varied but the main point of all of them seems to be that nobody wants to be held accountable for their way of life, regardless of what they may be doing.

Everyone seems to want to make up their own version of “god” so that he is tolerable of whatever they are doing and will still allow them into Heaven anyway. By denying the Bible and its truth, they are turning away from the Creator just as the people did in the time of Noah. Even if the world doesn’t end in the next fifty years, the truth and the veracity of the Bible can’t be questioned although many would argue that point. The end will come when God decides that it is time and not before. It can’t be rushed, nothing that we do can make Him speed up the date. He already knows when it will happen, but many of the people in our world are ignoring the signs.

The signs in the heavens, the condition of mankind on Earth, the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, the crazy weather that we have been having and that is getting more destructive…all of these things are foretold in the Bible. Maybe not specific places or types, but the warnings are there. We, as Christians, need to be telling as many as we can about Jesus because there isn’t much time left. This generation that is alive today will very likely be the one which will see the Tribulation and the coming of the Son of Man. It is not an “if” it will happen but “when” it happens, it will still come as a surprise to many even though some have heard it for their entire lives.

Please, be on the watch. Read, pray that you will be given the understanding to see the signs. Tell your family and friends about the Lord so that they won’t have an excuse for not knowing and hopefully they will make the decision to follow Jesus too. Every minute that passes by is one that we can’t get back, but it also brings the Second Coming a little closer. Watch and pray that you don’t fall into temptation.

In His Service.

A red moon and a black ring


Both of these have been seen in parts of the world this week (or at least since Friday), but what do they mean for us? The black ring I have no clue about, likely it is exhaust from some smokestack somewhere that just floated close enough to alarm someone. But, who knows? The possible explanations will likely be numerous as well as humorous too.

The “Blood moon”, is a full eclipse of our moon but the dates that it is occurring on this year are significant. This week’s eclipse happened on Passover. The next one will happen on the day of the Feast of Tabernacles in October. NASA says that there is no “prophetic warning” to be seen or interpreted in these events but there could be in my opinion. In the past few hundred years, these events have been seen by historians and they all came before an event in the lives of Jewish people and the state of Israel itself.

Whatever happens in the near future, will be hard on the world and on the people of Israel too. What is going to happen? I don’t know and I am not going to make a prediction about it. We will all just have to wait and see what happens. I imagine that it will be something which the entire world will notice in one fashion or another. How will everyone know? The signs will be unmistakable, but most of the “enlightened” world will come up with an explanation for them in one fashion or another.

If you care to look up the tetrad (group of four) of lunar eclipses which happen infrequently, you will see that they have occurred at specific times in the history of the Jewish people. God uses the heavenly bodies as sign bearers so that the world can see the signs. Our world and the people who refuse to admit that God is real are kidding themselves into not believing in the only One who can truly save us from our own idiocy.

Yes, the Bible is real and the prophecies contained in it are true and will come to pass. Whether you choose to believe that or not, it will not change the outcome. As the cartoon shows an ostrich sticking its head in the sand hoping that the danger will go away as long as it can’t see it, we seem to be doing almost the same thing today.

The rising debt of governments and the people, diseases which were gone are coming back and are resistant to most treatments, tyrants and governments all over the world are trying to control the people that they govern by spying on them and taking their freedoms away bit by bit, specifically these things were not predicted in the Bible but the troubles of the world at the end of the age were.

All of the things that are happening around us amounts to “trouble” I would say, wouldn’t you? Prayer can fix things if you expect it to because you are depending upon the One Who can fix your problem, even the world’s problems. Living in the world doesn’t mean that you have to agree with what is happening, it means that you need to show Who lives in you so that others will see it and want it!

Just because everything else is going down the tube, regardless of the destination, you and I need to depend upon the One who can strengthen us so that we can resist any temptation as well as know Who to go to for the solution to our problems. We can’t do it on our own because in our own strength, we can only do so much and usually it isn’t enough. We can’t resist the temptation that comes in the form of money, or prestige or drugs or sex on our own.

We have to have Jesus in our lives giving us the strength to get through today and then depend on Him tomorrow for the strength to get through tomorrow. One day at a time is how you have to live with Jesus. Tomorrow is still in the future and you don’t know if you are going to get there or not. Don’t hang on to yesterday because it is already past and all of the decisions made then can’t be undone, but today is what you have! Live it with the presence and the power of Jesus in your life and it will be a good day, every day!!

The Bible is not Dead either!!


There is a great movie out called “God’s not Dead” and it is one which all of us need to promote and go to see with someone who needs to see it or even a bunch of someone’s! A survey came out today that I heard about and it talks of how the church, the body of believers, has failed to defend the Bible.

It doesn’t need to be defended, it needs to be read and taught, faithfully and truthfully because it is the inspired, truthful Word of God!! Written down by men who were moved by the Spirit of God to write His wisdom and His Word’s down so that others might be able to read and understand. The Bible is relevant to us today and it was relevant to those to whom it was given as a message or advice or even a warning at the time, but the message is the same today.

We are moving away from His teachings, even some church leaders are watering it down and changing it so that it doesn’t mean what it originally did. In some ways, it has been changed like our history so that it really doesn’t say what actually happened. We are supposed to take the Message of the Bible as God’s Word and since He cannot lie, we are to believe it as the Truth. If you are not a Christian, it is certain that this won’t mean anything to you, faith and the belief which comes with it are things which people who belong to the world can’t understand.

I apologize for offending you with the statement above, but it is the truth. Just as someone who is not a computer programmer would not understand the instructions of a programmer, the words and the promises of the Bible are meaningless to those who have not accepted Him by faith either. The Bible is just a book of the history and ancient stories of the Israelite nation and the heroes and the patriarchs and none of it is useful for today. Faith is required in the service of God and in understanding His Word and the promises contained in it and if you are not willing to give your heart to Jesus in faith, then you are lost.

If you are serious about seeking Jesus, then pray about what you need to learn from God’s Word and ask Him to give you the message and the wisdom to understand it. Seeking Jesus is a daily task, it is not something which is accomplished and then you move on. It is a daily reading of the Word, prayer about what you have read and the knowledge contained in it, asking God to reveal Himself to you through the reading of His Word as well as prayer about your own salvation.

If you have not been drawn to Jesus or felt that you truly needed Him in your life, then seeking Him is going to be a very bland experience. You will know if you have felt it because you will have felt that something is missing in your life and that there is something which will fill that empty spot. But you don’t know what that “something” is, it is not a thing….it is Jesus. The Bible speaks of Jesus from Genesis all the way to Revelation. He is the Seed of the Woman, the Rock that the water came from in the wilderness, the Tabernacle, the Spotless Lamb for the sacrifice that was required for the remission of sins. Give your heart to Jesus and learn of Him through reading God’s Word and praying for Him to come into your life because your life and your work will be so much more fulfilling now and in eternity if you do.

Edit: I was pointed toward a website which showed some disturbing things about the movie which I refer to in the first paragraph and I need to address the points of that now. I have been writing this blog for a while now and I have noticed that there are many in the movie industry who believe with their heads and not their hearts and it seems that the producers of the movie “God’s not dead!” are only intellectual Christians. They have knowledge of God and believe that He exists but they don’t have faith in Him nor do they give His Word any credibility as being factual at all. They try to insert man’s wisdom, such as it is, into the Creation account as well as in other places. Changing what they wish along the way so that it fits their life and what they want to do instead of changing their lives to learn about God and changing themselves by His grace to be able to do what He calls them to do.

Also, there are many true Christians who are doing this as well today. Allowing evolution and the big bang to be placed in between the first verse and the second verse in Genesis. Anything could be put there in someone’s mind and it would fit whatever you wish, but the Truth which resides in the Word of God is that all of it is true or none of it is. The truth contained within it must be the Truth because God cannot lie, and if we are trying to change the Word in any way then we are nullifying it and we will pay the price for our arrogance.

Read God’s Word as the Truth. Pray about it, investigate any book, movie, or television show and compare it to the Truth found in God’s Word. If it can’t stand the test of Truth, then regardless of who is promoting it, don’t go to see it. I haven’t seen it yet and likely will not go to see it. Thank you for pointing me to the right review of the movie so that I could fix my own assessment of it.

Think about it, please,while you have the time.