Tag: Satan

Charismatic movement a cult?


I just read a little of the article which carries this as the title and I couldn’t believe it! If the Holy Spirit is drawing people to Christ all over the world right now, I don’t care if they are speaking in tongues or jumping pews or whatever, if God is getting the glory for it then it is not a cult! On the other hand, if the man or woman bringing the message is getting the glory then it most likely is a cult!

Jesus told His disciples that “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draw him: and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:44). If the Holy Spirit is moving in the world today, and He is, then who are we to say that it is wrong? The Holy Spirit or the Spirit of God is moving and will continue to draw those who will answer the call to come to Jesus until the Father decides otherwise. It will do so until the end of the age, if God wills it, so who are we to say if it is something out of the ordinary.

Arguing and fighting between denominations and churches should not be happening, and yet Satan will cause this to happen because if he cannot get rid of the church then he will tear it apart from the inside. He has done it before, numerous times in the past, and he will continue to do it. If we can’t agree on Biblical teaching and preaching and stick to the Word of God as the Truth, then we are wrong altogether, regardless of denomination or translation.

The disciples argued among themselves during their evangelistic efforts after the resurrection, about doctrine and law. The point is that if we are going to show a united front to the world as Christians, then we cannot allow the body of believers to come apart because of disagreement between doctrines and denominations. The facts are that our churches have come apart in the last two centuries, mostly over small disagreements and sometimes over things which have nothing to do with evangelism or Christ.

This is the kind of divisive work that Satan enjoys the most because he can show that we are petty, spoiled children. Unable to cooperate or get along with each other and continually sniping at each other about points of doctrine and disciplines and man-made laws that our congregations should abide by if they want to belong to a certain conference.

How is it that Christians can claim to know the Truth from God’s Son, Jesus, and yet we make up rules and statutes and disciplines for those who belong to our conferences to follow? Isn’t this what the Pharisees and Sadducees did in Jesus’ day? They laid so many rules and regulations on their people until they couldn’t possibly fulfill them all. Many of our churches today are doing this, especially in the Methodist group of churches. I am not against the Methodist denomination, but it seems that they are a divisive and divided group.

There is little wonder why people call the church a place of hypocrites, because it seems that we cannot make up our minds which way we will follow Christ. Biblically we are supposed to be following Jesus and the doctrine that He taught, not our own! After His resurrection and ascension, individual congregations existed in different localities, but they were not religiously divided. All of them had the same pattern of organization, doctrine, worship, salvation, etc., so why can’t we do this today? The reason is Satan himself. He is the one who is putting the divisions and the jealousy in our churches to break them apart so that they will be ineffective for God’s kingdom!

We must cling to the Word of God and to its doctrines and not our own. Stick to the teachings of Jesus and don’t add anything to it nor draw your own conclusion from it, if the wisdom is not coming from the Holy Spirit then it should be questioned and proven through the Word of God. Pray that our churches can stay the course until Jesus arrives in the clouds to take His saints home.

What is going on now?


Many people are confused, scared and worried about what is going on around the world and in our own country, and they should be! Our officials seem to have lost their minds about what needs to be done about our economy and about our nation as a whole. They want to pass a so-called “balanced budget” which we haven’t had in years, but they won’t let go of an insurance tax that no person in America can actually afford! Why are we being pushed to the brink of economic disaster? Because those in charge don’t care about the people that they were elected to represent! That is why!

I know that my site is supposed to be about learning about our Lord and how to serve Him, but sometimes it is hard to keep from preaching about something that it seems that many in the media are ignoring completely! Yet, God is in control, whether those in Washington, DC want to believe that He is interested in our country or not. He knows which direction our country is heading in and where it will end up. Time is catching up with us and with the world in general and how much longer we have before the time of testing, only God knows.

There are many things happening all over the world right now, every day, and yet God is in control. Many people think that He is not because of all the evil, sick stuff happening everywhere but that is due to Satan and his demons which influence all of the evil that men do. Mankind is evil without God, their thoughts are evil and against God’s law from the time they are born until they feel the call of God on their hearts. If they listen to it and follow Him, God will create a new heart in them so that they will know and follow Him and learn from Him how to be a Christian.

You don’t have to do anything to be saved and become a Christian, in fact it is free. There is no amount of “works” that you can do or have to do in order to receive the grace that God provides for us through Christ because nothing that we do counts in eternity until after we accept the gift of grace from Christ! Your life in eternity begins with your acceptance of Jesus into your life, then everything that you do in His name counts in eternity. A glass of water given, teaching someone about Jesus, giving food to someone who is hungry, if all of these are done in the name of Jesus and because you are a Christian, then you have done it to Jesus Himself.

Charity in this life, done as a follower of Christ, has eternal rewards and maybe eternal consequences. The charity that you do for someone may have an impact in their life and may cause them to become a follower of Christ and it could go on from there. Eventually some small thing that you did for someone may affect many people that you don’t know, but because of something that you did the effect rippled out away from you to include more people than you could’ve known. If we, as Christians, act as we are supposed to do after we come to know Jesus then the world will be a different place, even if it is only one person at a time.

The “ripple” effect can eventually effect many hundreds or even thousands of people. Yes, there is a lot of evil in the world and a lot of bad people to go with it but if we can inspire one person each, then there will be more light in the world than there is darkness eventually. People need to know that there is good in the world, that there are good people, Christian people in the world who show the love of Jesus to those around them. What is going on now can be changed into something good going on now and in the future, if we will be the witnesses and the disciples that Jesus had at the beginning and the ones that His Word commands us to be today!

Is hell real?


(To those who may read this be warned, this is the dream that I experienced during a sickness that I had about a year ago. The scenes which I have portrayed in this story were scenes which I was allowed to see, but which frightened me at the time. I have just now been able to put this down in writing so be patient and kind in your comments, but take heed to the warning given.)

I stood looking over the edge of the world as I knew it, I noticed a place that had not been there before. No light illuminated any part of it, although I could see it and see down into its depths. I suppose God was allowing me to see this, whether it was in a dream or a nightmare (more likely), I am not sure but it was frighteningly terrifying to my soul …. to me.

The reason that I say it terrified my soul is because I felt a fear deep down inside, in a place that I didn’t know was there. I couldn’t feel the heat physically but by the look of the place I knew that it was hot, much hotter than any place on earth. There was fire, but it seemed not to be the kind of fire which had light. I know this sounds crazy but this is my nightmare, so it was crazy and I knew that it was a place that I did not want to go. Nor did I want anyone that I know, whether they are a friend or not, to go there either.

There were places which seemed to throb with wave-like motion sort of like an ocean of liquid pitch or tar and yet it was more than that, because it seemed to be the hottest part of this place. Yet, it did not produce flames. I could hear screams of agonizing proportions, as if someone was being cooked, boiled alive in this lake but they would not die or could not die. The screams came at different intervals so I guess it was due to the wave-like action of the lake of fire, since this is the best description that I can give it.

Outside the lake, on the shores of it, there were caves that were just as hot as the lake but they were relatively dry because the oily lake did not reach them. There seemed to be people, damned souls, who were bound inside those caves so that they could not escape. These were those who had not accepted Jesus as their savior in life, but who had attended church or some religious meeting at some point in their lives. Intellectually, they knew of Jesus and what He could do for them, but they never accepted Him. Some had been deacons, some were even former pastors. They had used their position in the church to gain power and money and for some, prestige, but they had missed the real point of their own ministry, the focus of what their real ministry is about and that is Jesus.

The information on these souls was given to me by the Holy Spirit and He told me that after I had learned all that I could about what I had seen, He would give me the words to go with it.

The descriptions that I have or can remember of this place had been blocked from my mind until tonight. They were so horrific in their magnitude of pain and suffering along with the certainty of this place being part of hell, if not the very place itself. I am very glad that I didn’t experience this place directly or I might have gone completely mad. The fear that these nightmares brought into my being at night was of a type that I have never felt before. I have been a firefighter and have seen some horrific things but nothing that I had ever seen compared to this.

The imagery that I have used in this portrayal, this story, is the best that I can give because, like John, I saw things, images, which no human eye was meant to see. Hell was not, is not made for us, we were created to reign with Christ, not be punished in hell. It was created as a place of punishment for Satan and those who rebelled against God with him, but if you rebel against God then you are part of Satan’s kingdom. I know this sounds crazy, the images and the fear and terror that they brought out, but this was a nightmarish vision which I experienced and I believe it was for a purpose. Not to write a book and make money off of it, but to use it to tell others about the place that we have been saved from.

It may seem that I am making it up as I go along, but I experienced these nightmarish dreams last year while I was sick and they terrified me so much that I would wake myself, shaking from fright! I have never been that scared before and it is just now that I am able to remember the details by the Spirit’s prompting. The point of this sermon, talk, whatever you want to call it, is to bring into your reality and mine, as much as possible the terror of hell, and also the eternity of it so that no one would want or desire to go there.

Even though we think of glorified bodies that we receive in heaven, in order to endure an eternity of punishment in hell we or at least the people who will go to hell also receive immortal bodies. The difference is that they will endure pain, suffering, and heat that would be enough to kill a mortal body, but they will endure it like the immortal demons and Satan, for eternity. The reason for this punishment is because of one simple decision: the people that I saw decided not to follow Jesus and believe in His atoning blood that was shed for you and for them or they just never got around to it before their time was up.

I know that some will say that I am trying to scare people into believing and following Jesus, and you would be right! I would rather scare you out of going to hell and into a relationship with Jesus, Who many people don’t believe in at all, than to see you go into hell and know that there was a possibility that you could be saved from that eternal place.

If you decide to follow Him and learn from the Living Word while studying the Word, then you will not go to this place. However, if you put it off or just decide that being a Christian is just too much for you in this life, because you want to do your thing and not be held accountable for it, then you are deciding to be on the side with Satan. Hell was prepared for Satan and his demons and those who won’t follow Jesus, who decide that they want their fun rather than finding out about the fun of being a child of the King!

The time is now to make up your mind, so which will it be? An eternity in a place where the heat of the day doesn’t beat down on you and you are living and working with those who decided to love and follow Jesus or an eternity in a place where there isn’t much light at all. Where the heat is not from the sunshine, but from hell itself, where the heat and the burning never end for eternity, because there will be no parties in hell, there will be no place where you can “chill” in hell, there isn’t any water there at all, only heat and plenty of it.

New-age thinking


We are beginning a new month and it is one that is fraught with ties to a pagan past. Witches, goblins, ghouls, ghosts, vampires, the list could go on and on but you get the meaning. This month is a time for seeking ties to the past, our pagan past but is it? True enough, the so-called ancient religions existed before Christianity, but did their gods really exist or were they just figments of people’s imaginations?

Some might say that it could have been in their imagination or partly due to some herbal tea that they used to get more in touch with the spirit world. Whatever the case may be, it is also possible that Satan and his demons also had a part in most if not all of them. They could stir up deception and lies among the people and get them to believe anything they wanted them to believe as long as they could keep them away from a belief in God, which was their goal.

Pagan religions and new age thinking, whether they are referring to religions or non-belief in any god, are mostly the same. They are trying to put a man-made twist on something which doesn’t need it. Many of those who claim no belief in a god of any kind and also don’t claim any religious affiliation are just trying to justify themselves. They don’t want to be responsible to anyone but themselves, regardless of their actions.

Many of these people have a moral center because they were taught right from wrong at an early age but they don’t know why it is right or wrong. It just feels that way so its OK with them. Pagans, Wicca followers, atheists,  and druids as well as other eastern religions claim to revere nature and the natural beauty around them. Their belief is, like evolutionists, that everything just is and always has been and in times long past it may have been in a different form. It and we have evolved into what is seen today but I contend that if we, as evolution says, evolved from apes, then why are there still apes around?

Religion and the followers of any religion can be religious about their beliefs and the rituals associated with that belief but what do they believe in? The purpose of this site is to point you toward the One who created all of the beauty that is around us every day. None of this came about by evolution or by accident and whether you believe it or not is not going to change it. I know that many people might disagree with me about this but ask yourself this: What if I am right?

Just as not believing in the Sun or the moon or gravity won’t make them go away, non-belief in God or Jesus doesn’t get rid of them either. Denying that gravity exists before you jump from a building or an airplane won’t make the landing any softer, it is still going to kill you. Then when you are standing in front of God, Who many say doesn’t exist, it will be a huge wake up call for you, but by then it is too late.

What will you do? The life that you have here and now is the only chance that you get to make that choice about what you believe and Who you believe in, so what will you decide? Will you choose to go through life seemingly unaware of God or will you truly take notice of the order and beauty around you and realize that this could not have come about by accidental means?

Mathematics and physics and all “hard”science agree on the outcomes of their formulas and theorems and the fact that those outcomes don’t change. But, neither does God. He created those laws and the universe around them, they are His creation too. Just because He is not visible to us now does not take away from Who He is. The wind is not visible but its effect is felt and seen every day. The light from the sun is visible because the sun is visible as well as the heat that comes from it.

Christian beliefs are not some tale made up to frighten people or to give people a crutch to hold to in times of trouble. Our faith is not just based on rules which bind us to a belief, but it is in One Who is coming again. Jesus is the Son of God and will return soon and just as the sun rises it is a sure thing. We do not know a specific day or hour, but He will come again.

The time is growing short and yet I cannot tell you that it will happen in five or ten or even twenty years. I don’t need to know the time, my time may be next week and yours may be tomorrow. We are not guaranteed a number of days, but when you wake in the morning you will have at least part of another day to live. If it turns out that you have the whole day, then you have. But, what about tomorrow? Are you sure about tomorrow and the outcome of your meeting with God? Have you scheduled a meeting with Him? Will you?

Think about it.

Stand tall and depend on Jesus


We need His power and strength in the time that our world is in today. We also need Him every day regardless of the circumstances or who we think that we are. How can we possibly think that we can get through our lives without leaning on and depending on Jesus? I know that we are supposed to be individuals and independent, but God made us to have fellowship with Him on a daily basis!

Pray-for-strength

He wants us to lean on Him, to depend on Him when the times in our lives get to be more stressful than we can manage. Instead of drugs or alcohol, we need to depend on God for our strength because He can give us what we need when we need it. Anything or anyone besides Him is just a cop out or counterfeit and we need the real God Who can perform miracles in our lives daily!

 

Have you asked Jesus into your life? Would you ask Him into your life so that your daily existence is more than just existence? Your life will have a meaning and a purpose because of the One who gives life to all who ask for it.

 

We face many troubling times ahead from the economy to stress at work and at home, with bills and expenses that we never thought we would have or would be so unmanageable. Many in the world today are dealing with personal issues which they never thought that they would have to handle before retirement. Now, some wonder is it possible to be able to enjoy life at all? Do we really have to work until we just work ourselves into our graves? Today it seems so.

Life may be easier in some ways than it was fifty or more years ago, with technology helping us do more in less time. The problem with having technology and all of the convenience that it brings with it is that we are never away from the connectedness of the world! We are always in touch with anyone, either by e-mail or instant messages or posts on Twitter or Facebook or any number of social networking sites out there.

The fact is that we need to be connected to the One who brought all of this about. We need that connection, daily with Jesus. His signals never fade and you are never out of range with Him. You can always get in touch with God and Jesus at any time and anywhere. Regardless of how far away you may think that you are, He is beside you. He is always waiting with open arms to take your burdens and problems and give you the comfort and the strength to make it through the day, every day.

Don’t turn away from Jesus, but turn to Him especially when things don’t seem to be going your way! Because He really is the One that loves you more than you even love yourself! He gave His life for you so that you could be forgiven and be with Him in Heaven instead of being in hell with Satan and his fallen angels.

Think about it and pray about it, ask Jesus into your life. He knows where you are no matter what or where you may be in your relationship to Him.

What shall we do then?


Should we believe the testimony of man as many seem to do in the world today or should we cling to our salvation through Jesus?

There are many today that are leading people in the wrong direction, some of them supposedly doing this from their pulpit in the church. What will become of them and their followers? If they will pray and humble their hearts toward the God that is spoken of in the bible, then they can and will be saved from their transgressions. Yet, many people today place their faith in the messenger rather than the message. This was a fine thing to do when Jesus was the messenger before He ascended back into Heaven, but today the messengers are just as flawed and sinful and the one bringing the message (yes, I am including myself in this ).

We are all flawed, sinful human beings and none of us who stand on this earth are any better than anyone else, but there are some who think that they are and they are the ones who are leading others astray. They are subtle, like the one that they are serving and not the One that they think they are serving. Many deceivers are present in this world today, but they have learned well. The message that they bring is wrapped in words that are beguiling, some of them from centuries past, some of them from recent times but their meaning is that we can do it ourselves and we don’t need God’s help.

We cannot do it without Him! Can you command a storm or rain on parched ground? Can you tell the sun to come up an hour later today? We are the created and not the Creator, only He can do those things if it pleases Him to do so! It would bring glory to Him and would make us see that He is in control and not us, but there are many today who would scoff at signs like these.

Our God, the only God, is in control even when things seem to be going wrong. We only have to place our faith and our trust in Him because He will bring about good things from what we see as bad. Our times and our time-table don’t line up with His unless we are surrendered to Him and know Him by His Word. When we walk with Him daily, then our wants and our desires will be the same as His, although we will still be attacked by Satan and his demons in very subtle ways.

Some of those will be our own feelings like depression or feelings of not being in control, which we are not, or even emotions which overwhelm us to the point of hopelessness. All of these come from the one being who is trying to derail your faith and your belief in God and His Son. This has always been the goal ever since Eve decided to follow her own desires rather than listening to Adam and God.

Before anyone gets upset or thinks that I am blaming Eve for our problems, I want to make it clear that she had encountered a master of lies, Satan himself. Adam couldn’t have withstood him either and he didn’t so it wasn’t the woman’s fault! They both knew what God had commanded, yet they chose to follow their own desires. God knew that this was coming before they did so it wasn’t a surprise but it still hurt His feelings just the same.

If we really knew Him and the awesome power that is being held back because of His love for us and the grace that has been given to us through Jesus, we would be humbled beyond measure. Considering His power to create or destroy with a word, how could you tell Him that you don’t believe in Him? What pitiful arrogance we have to confront the Creator of everything and then tell Him that we don’t think that He is real so we won’t believe in Him!!

These words and deeds are being done all over the world today. In different ways and different words but the message toward God is the same. We should be on our knees begging Him to forgive us and to take us as His sons, pitiful though we are, and make us as His servants just so we can have a place at His table if nothing else!

The time is coming when mankind will bow to Him. When that time is, no one knows but it is coming and soon. The prophecies of His Word are clear enough for all to understand and we are in what is called the “birth pangs” prior to that time. We will know when that time has come, but for many it will be too late. Read God’s Word, study it carefully, pray over it so that you will understand what you read and then get your heart ready for Him, ask Him into your life because He is the only cure for what is ailing our world and each of our lives.

Can you live without Jesus?


Unfortunately, the answer is yes, anyone can live here on earth without Jesus in their lives or in their heart, but can it truly be living? Can you really be alive without Him? I once thought so and I thought that I was enjoying myself at the time, but I was only fooling my self.

We were not meant to live without a relationship with Jesus or God Himself! Originally, mankind was created to have a daily encounter with God in all aspects of his life here on earth. We are supposed to have that close relationship with Him every day, many times during the day. I know, there are many people who will say that only preachers and others who serve in places of worship and as worship leaders are supposed to have that kind of relationship with Jesus.

But, that is not how it was in the beginning. In Eden, God told Adam that he was to have dominion over all of the animals and the birds and He also spoke with him every evening. Isn’t it strange that the Creator would want to walk and talk with His creation? God didn’t think so at the time.

Until he sinned, Adam was pure and righteous and could come before God about anything and ask anything of Him. The earth yielded its bounty to him willingly with no effort on Adam’s part before he made his mistake and thought that he knew better than God. When he chose to go against the command that God had given him, he stepped out of his comfortable life and into the one that he and generations to come would have to endure.

God knew that this would happen and He had made provisions for it, so it wasn’t a surprise to Him but it made mankind’s life much harder. Which was supposed to cause us to seek Him, to want Him to be in our lives. Of course, Satan had his plans for mankind as well and it didn’t include getting to know God.

I could recount the whole creation/pre-flood saga but the point is that since Satan was cast to earth after his rebellion he is provisionally the ruler of this world. This is the reason for the bad things which happen everywhere, although God is in control of how far Satan can go with his plans and won’t allow him to really cause as much trouble as he would like to.

In reality, religion itself is the creation of Satan. He devised all of the gods which people have been worshiping for thousands of years. He or some of his fallen angels very likely appeared to man at some point in their angelic forms or their demonic forms and that is where many of the pagan gods and myths came from.

He has always been able to stir up our emotions because he knows where to tweak our unconscious minds and hit our most vulnerable parts, the parts of us that we may not even know about having. Even after we come to Christ, Satan still hits us in those areas and will cause us to stumble and fall if we don’t lean on and depend on Jesus every day for our strength.

Our life is in Jesus and the life that we have here is better when we are His. Our troubles don’t go away when we become Christians, but they are far easier for us to deal with when we have His strength in us to help us with those troubles.

Your life and mine is but a whisper


If we look at the time of our existence, the time that we have to make a difference, it truly is but a whisper. Like smoke or your breath in winter, there but a moment and then gone. I know that many look at this and say: “What about those who live to be 8 or 9 decades old or more?”

Is that a really long time in comparison to one thousand years or more? It is not and we were created by God with an immortal soul, one that will never die. So, when you compare our lifetime with an eternity that doesn’t have an ending, it doesn’t matter if we lived for five hundred years it is still like a puff of smoke.

What will you do with the little time that you have? Will you use it selfishly, doing what you want, playing around like a child most of your life and then wondering why you feel so empty? Many people try to fill that empty space with all sorts of fun things like drinking alcohol or using drugs to make them “feel better” but what do those things do for you? Make you feel worse in the end. I know because I have been there. I did those things, even though at the time I supposedly knew Jesus. I wanted to see what the fuss was about.

I didn’t like the way that I felt afterward because I usually felt worse than I had before. Our life and what we do with it is supposed to mean something, we are here to do the work that God has placed us here for. But the only way that we will ever learn that purpose is to submit our life and our hearts to Jesus. I know, submission is not something which we like to do. But, consider this: Jesus came from Heaven to be clothed in humanity in order to be the perfect sacrifice that would pay the penalty for everyone’s sin (from the beginning to the end of the age).

He did this for each one of us and He would’ve done it even if there was only one person to be saved! That kind of love is the kind that we don’t understand and cannot understand with our limited perspective.

God loves each of us enough that He sent a part of Himself to take the punishment for us because there was no other way to do it. He knew this from the beginning, but He allowed us to try our way first and He still allows us the choice, even though it grieves His heart when we don’t choose to ask Jesus into our lives.

Our purpose which we were created for is to glorify God and His mercy and to tell others about Him. The talent that each of us has in our chosen profession, whatever that may be, is secondary to this. The short time that we have to accomplish our life and our purpose is the only time that we will have prior to eternity. Life doesn’t end when your body dies, because your soul lives on.

God is in control of all things and works toward the completion of His purpose whether we can see it or not. The so-called “ruler” of this world, Satan, thinks that he can win but a created being cannot overpower the Creator! Satan hates us because God intended to give us dominion over the earth and all of creation which God placed here. He also hates us because of the favor that God bestowed on us even though we are made of clay. The favor that we received is our soul, the breath of God which made us the way we are and what we are to be!

Nothing can separate us from God’s love except us. We can choose to walk away from it, not believe in it or deny Him altogether…but He still loves us! It is our pride that causes most of our problems today because it is the principle sin! It was pride that was used against us when Satan tempted Eve and Adam and we have been falling into it ever since. Comments are welcome, but advertisements will be deleted.

Being a religious person doesn’t make any difference?


I saw this on the news today and I wonder just what people think will make a difference in our society? Religion itself has gotten a bad reputation in the past few years because of the problems which have cropped up in churches in many places. But you know you can be religious about many different things. You can be religious about the way you cook your food or how you put your clothes on a certain way or even about going to the golf course or fishing. People can make a religious experience out of most anything, but what about your faith?

Do you have faith in the sun coming up in the morning? You really don’t have to, because you know it will. What about the moon rising later in the day or after the sun goes down? Faith doesn’t really come into play there either because you know that these things will happen.

Religion and faith together can be an explosive combination, especially when you are so caught up in emotional issues and a religion which stirs these to a point where many people get uncontrollably caught up in what their teachers teach them. I am trying to be as politically correct as possible here so I really won’t offend anyone. The point is that our individual faith, regardless of which “religion” it happens to be in, is our own.

But, what will you do with that religion or lack of faith when you are confronted after your death by God Himself who is the final judge of our lives? What can you say to Him about your religion which will make a difference? If you never accepted Jesus and the sacrifice which He made to reconcile us to God, there isn’t much that you can say. God knows your heart and every word which has come from your mouth. If you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, then He will be beside you as your life is judged, if not you will stand alone.

What then? Would you want to be standing in front of the Creator of the universe with nothing except your deeds and your personal “righteousness” which is as Isaiah 64: 6 says:

“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags;
and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

Unless we have put on the righteousness of Christ, God sees us as we are and we cannot enter into Heaven in that way. What many people today do is to create their own version of “God”, one that is acceptable to them and doesn’t judge them for their personal faults but this is doing nothing except delaying the inevitable. We will all be judged by God, the One True God, whether we are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus or not. If we did things in this life while belonging to Him, we will be rewarded if not then those things will be judged on their merit if any, except without Christ those merits will mean nothing.

How can our lives really mean anything or have any meaning at all without Christ? To each of us, our lives do mean something, but when you look at eternity once your life here ends, without Jesus eternity is not something that anyone would want to experience.

I know that there are many who think that life ends completely when we die, but we were created as eternal beings and part of us does live on. Without Jesus, it will not be an enjoyable eternity but with Him we will not be without anything good . You can choose whether to believe and accept Him as your Savior or not, many don’t wish to believe in Him at all. Satan knows that He is and believes that He is but he won’t worship Him and that is his downfall, don’t let it be yours.

Live according to the Spirit


“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” (Romans 8:5)

What do we do when we get into a bind? Usually, we cry out for help in some way to someone or sometimes some “thing”. Whether it is a friend or co-worker, a family member or even Facebook, we lean toward finding someone to help us deal with whatever the problem may be. When the One who can help the most in any and all situations is not even consulted in whatever the problem is, then your life could take a very different direction.

I am not saying that God will punish you for not consulting Him but the results could be very different than what they would’ve been had you spoke to Him first! Remember, we are to seek Him first in all things…this is what God’s Word says. We are not to seek out help from those who are powerless to help, especially if the situation requires the One who can affect all parts of a problem, even those that we aren’t aware of yet!

Can you have an effect on all parts of a problem? God can and He does, but only when you ask Him. Many people blame all of the bad things which happen on God, but all things are known by Him yet this world is under Satan‘s rule at this time. He cannot do things without God allowing him to, but he is in control of all the evil and bad things, whether it is natural disasters or from mankind’s own evil ways. We, as Christians, can have an effect on this world through prayer and by living our lives according to the Spirit’s leading.

We have a responsibility to do just that. It is not thinking that you are better than anyone else, but we are to let people know that there is a better way, the way that Jesus lived! By allowing yourself to be led by the Spirit of God, submitting yourself to Him daily, you can be a force for good in the world. Others will see what you have and they will want it, although many will persecute you for not following their religion instead of yours.

Religion by itself is not bad, but those who try to push their religion on others is. Telling people the truth about Jesus and letting them make up their own mind is not the same as forcing them to be or worship one way over another. We, as Christians, don’t force anything on anyone. We just tell others like our Lord told us to do, and then let them make up their own mind whether to believe in Him and change their lives or not…it is your choice.

Your salvation is exactly what Satan doesn’t want you to have! He doesn’t want you to belong to God, because he hates God and us with a hatred that we cannot know. Don’t fall for his lies and the lies of the world. Listen to your heart, read God’s Word and ask Him to show Himself to you through it and He will! There are many in the world who don’t want to believe what the Word of God says and they try to convince others that it is false, but it wouldn’t have been such a popular Book and one for whom many people died for if it wasn’t the Truth! You wouldn’t die for a lie and nobody else would either. God’s Son, Jesus, came to give us eternal life through Himself and belief in that is what many have sacrificed their lives for over the centuries. We are awaiting His return now and I believe that it will be soon, although no one knows when except God Himself, although all of the prophecies have been fulfilled leading up to His return with the exception of the appearance of the world leader that will usher in peace for Israel for a short while.

When that happens, the world and every religion of the world will take notice, but those who have truly been following Jesus will still have hope and the assurance of life everlasting.