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Archive for the ‘Salvation’ Category

He Loves Us And Forgives Us

26 Sep

Psalm 103:8-12 – 8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the
earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

We need to thank the Lord more often that He does not treat us as we deserve.

Praise our God that removes our transgressions from us.  He is worthy of our Praise.  Not just because He made us, but because He is slow to anger and wants His children to love Him.  He constantly shows love to a bunch of fallen people who are full of things detestable.

The war is for your heart.  You can be on the winning side guaranteed.  Choose Him that loves you, cares about you, and made you.

 
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Posted in Encouragement, Inspiration, Salvation

 

The Sacrificial Lamb Of God

22 Sep

Genesis 22:6-8 – 6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

I’ve got to be honest.  The first few times I read over these passages I didn’t catch on to even 20 percent of the real meaning or understanding of them.

The first time I read these passages I thought, really?  God would even ask Abraham to sacrifice his son?  Give me a break this was after the first time I read it.  Then I realized and focused on the commitment of Abraham.  Then after a few more times and studies one realizes God would have never gone to the trouble to give a 90 year old woman and a 99 year old man a son only to have him slain.

The thing that took quite awhile to realize was that God had and always has a plan from the very beginning.

Let’s read verse eight again.

Genesis 22:8 – 8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

God indeed did offer His son for the sacrifice.  Amazingly a little further along in the chapter we read this:

Genesis 22:10-12 – 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the
LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

The Angel of the Lord?  That’s one of the terms for Jesus in the Old Testament before he came into the world in the virgin birth.  Jesus is actually speaking to Abraham not to hurt Isaac.  Pretty neat.

Who’s the Lamb of God?

John 1:29 – 29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

That He did.  Jesus is the only way we are saved.  That closed mindedness is not popular in the world today.
The ones who don’t like to hear it are the same ones who want to do things their own way in the first place.
That’s how we got away from God originally.

God provided the way back.  In the form of the Son, He died on the cross.  What could man possibly do, or what is he thinking, that he can get back to God on his own?  He can’t.

Accept Jesus as your Savior and Lord and be saved for eternity with your King.

Revelation 19:9 –   9 Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”

 
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Posted in Encouragement, Inspiration, Reflections, Salvation

 

The Scale Of Good Works Doesn’t Compute To Salvation

30 Aug

Galatians 2:16- 16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.

I have been listening to Dave Hunt lately and he often mentions that good works outweighing the bad ones doesn’t work.  You can’t kill one person today and save two more tomorrow and be ahead of the curve.  Think about that.  Just trying to weigh the balance of one’s life and hope that it tips in the right direction.

It makes no sense at all.  Not to mention who is going to make that measuring determination?

We are not saved by our works or anything that we can do.  The only way we are saved is by what He has done.

Ephesians 2:8-9- 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

This is a real easy formula.  We are all sinners.  Therefore we don’t have to debate on rather someone is qualified in needing their sins forgiven.

Romans 3:23-24 –  23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

On the flip side, people take it too far.  Many treat their salvation like a get out of jail free card.  Faith without works is dead.

James 2:26 – 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

James 2:17 – 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

Also there is the follow up to Ephesians above in verse 10.

Ephesians 2:10 –10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

We’re not saved by the work we do for the Lord.  That is the free gift and only attainable by accepting His grace and forgiveness by making Him Lord.  However, we if we love our Lord, we need to work for our King.  We were created in Christ Jesus to do good works.

 
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Posted in Encouragement, Inspiration, Motivation, Salvation

 

What Is God’s Will?

29 Aug

John 6:40 – 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

God doesn’t want anyone to perish.

2 Peter 3:9 – 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

God doesn’t want anyone to perish.  I repeated that on purpose.  God doesn’t want people to reject Him.  However, when they did the punishment is death.  He loved us so much He paid the price Himself.

But, we must accept that free gift by accepting Him as Lord.

Cancer is a bunch of cells doing their own little thing.  Man when outside the will of God is a cancer.  Cancer destroys as we know.  We can’t embrace cancer.  God can’t embrace cancer.  It’s either cured or it destroys and then dies.  He supplied the cure.

John 3:16-18 – 16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only
Son.

You have to choose to accept the healing.  Don’t wait another day to choose Jesus as Lord.

 
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Posted in Salvation

 

Psalm 146:3-4

18 Aug

Psalm 146:3-4 – 3 Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save.  4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.

I think the part that sticks out on this psalm is the part about saving.  The Psalmist understood this back in the Old Testament.  We read about it so much in the New and we see that the Jews weren’t focussing on that part when looking for the Messiah in the Old, that we tend to forget that they still had the concept.  Mortal man cannot save and the elite of this world still return to the ground like everyone else.

Who can save the soul of a man?  Only the Lord can save the soul of a man.

It’s not as easy of just pardoning this one and not that one.  The Lord is just and there are rules.  The wages of sin is death.

Romans 6:23 – 23 For the wages of sin is death, ………….

Somebody had to pay the wage.   God did in the form of the Son.

Romans 6:23 –………but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Somebody had to die.  God chose to take the place for sinners, who now will accept His sacrifice
in the place of their own?

Who is willing?  Who is willing to make Him Lord and not themselves?  Who is willing to come back from the separation that was and is still caused by pride?

If you haven’t done so, I have a page that will not only run you through on how to do that, but another page next to it explaining why we need to do it.  Please don’t let another day pass if you don’t know Jesus as Lord and Savior.

 
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Posted in Encouragement, Inspiration, Salvation

 

Psalm 8

09 Aug

Psalm 8:1-9 – 1 O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory
above the heavens.
2 From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise because of your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.

3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.

6 You made him ruler over the works of your
hands; you put everything under his feet:

7 all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

9 O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

I love that how in this Psalm David gives praise to the Lord in the beginning and at the end.

In between it he mentions how Big and Awesome God is that he created the heavens and the stars and yet God still allows man who was made a little lower than the angels to still reign over the other creatures that He created on this earth.

The Lord is love and he loves the human creation He made.  However, He wants us to love Him
back.  If you can’t love the Lord who made you, you won’t find the free grace He has offered.  It takes a repentant heart to find the way back to God.  One must accept His death on the cross and die to their sinful prideful nature.

That’s when one finds out how majestic and loving our Lord is.

 
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Posted in Encouragement, Inspiration, Reflections, Salvation

 

Quote – C S Lewis

26 Feb

Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever.
C. S. Lewis

The eternal soul.  Yes this is the reason people should be having an urgency when it comes to their eternal destination. 

I think there are people out there that have the attitude, I’m going to control what I can control and not worry about what I can’t.

This is the rub.  Each and every one of us do control our eternal destiny and it comes in the form of a decision.  Will you choose to accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which is the only thing that can cover your sins?  Will you choose the gift that God has provided so you can return back to being His child?

It is a free gift in the sense that God provided it.  You don’t have to earn it.  However, the bible does indicate that one is suppose to now walk towards God.  We are to die to ourselves and live for the Lord.  That in a sense is why it will cost you everything you got, but that’s because God knows what is best for you.

Seventy years will be only blip on the eternal time clock, but the decisions you make will make that blip of time the most important concerning your destiny.    

The eternal soul.  Yes this is the reason people should be having an urgency when it comes to their eternal destination. 

I think there are people out there that have the attitude, I’m going to control what I can control and not worry about what I can’t.

This is the rub.  Each and every one of us do control our eternal destiny and it comes in the form of a decision.  Will you choose to accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which is the only thing that can cover your sins?  Will you choose the gift that God has provided so you can return back to being His child?

It is a free gift in the sense that God provided it.  You don’t have to earn it.  However, the bible does indicate that one is suppose to now walk towards God.  We are to die to ourselves and live for the Lord.  That in a sense is why it will cost you everything you got, but that’s because God knows what is best for you.

Seventy years will be only blip on the eternal time clock, but the decisions you make will make that blip of time the most important concerning your destiny.   

 
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Posted in Quotes, Reflections, Salvation

 

More Than Conquerors – Part 6

18 Feb

Romans 8:31-39 – 31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

   “For your sake we face death all day long;
   we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 

 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Verse 36 explains being sold out for Christ.

36 As it is written:

    “For your sake we face death all day long;
   we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

Rather we face death all day long to ourselves, or we do so in true martyrdom sense, we need to be dead to our old selfish sinful nature.

Galatians 2:20 – 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Here is our King and His example.  God and Jesus didn’t have to participate in our redemption.  They chose to do so out of love.  God gave His Son.  Jesus chose to die for us.  Sometimes it can be hard to grasp the three persons, because on one hand they work together and can’t stray apart and still are three Persons in One.   The Lord shed His blood for us so we may be saved. 

We need to now die to that old sinful nature and live now for Him.  Two good reasons exist right off the top.  One, sin destroys life.  Just look around you.  Two, we were wonderfully made in the image of God.  We need to get back to what that is.  Only through the Holy Spirit can we begin act right and help others get back to the Lord. 

Think of it like this.  There is a burning building and your one of God’s firemen.  We need to go in and help as many people out before the place burns down.  Yes, there is a chance we may perish, which brings us to the second part of our scripture.

We are sheep.  We certainly are.  Who are we going to follow?  If you’re following yourself, you just bought the lie that the devil fed to Eve.  If we choose to follow Christ, we need to do what’s best for the Kingdom of God, not ourselves.  Many have chosen to follow Christ and it cost them their life here on earth.  However, everyone on this earth will die to this earthly body sometime. 

Matthew 10:32-33 – 32 “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.

Your life on this earth without Jesus leads to an eternity without anything, but the things promised to those who have rejected God’s redemption.  As we all know life on this earth goes fast and there is no guarantee of what tomorrow brings.  However, if you are saved, we know it brings eternity with our Lord.

If you haven’t accepted Jesus as Lord, please do so now.  Don’t hide in the burning building.  Come out and start serving the Lord, forever.

I have put a page on how to do so, as well as why we need to do so, on the right column of the blog page.

 
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What Happens To The Satanic Trinity?

19 Nov

This really is a continuation of yesterday’s post on the Little Horn, but they can stand on their own so I didn’t name them parts 1 and 2.  So If you haven’t read yesterday’s post please do so and preferably first. 

What happens to Satan and his personal mimic false trinity that he tries to copy God with?

Revelation 20:1-3 – 1 And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. 2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. 3 He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.

Revelation 19:19-20 – 19 Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army. 20 But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

Daniel also has a verse that goes along the same lines concerning the little horn, beast, or antichrist (many names, same guy).

Daniel 7:11 – 11 “Then I continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire.

John and Daniel both agree its fire for the man who decides to sell out to Satan.

What about Satan?  He is let out again at the end of the millennium.  I believe it’s to reveal that even after a thousand years of wonderful rule of Christ the King, man will rebel when given the opportunity.  Satan still gets what coming to him in the end.

Revelation 20:7-10 – 7 When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. 9 They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. 10 And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

Shortly after that those who chose not to follow God and accept his grace through His Son Jesus, will follow into the same lake.

Don’t make the mistake of turning your back on God when He has given you the free gift of salvation to accept.  If you haven’t accepted Jesus as Lord, I have put a page over on the right hand side of the column.  If you need to know why you need Him I have wrote a page on that too.

 
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Posted in Bible Prophecy, End Time Prophecies, Salvation

 

Two Things God Can’t Do – Part 2

03 Nov

Yesterday we spoke on the first thing God can’t do.  He can’t be evil and He doesn’t lie or change His mind once He promises it.  I suppose you could say that’s more than one thing but He can’t go against Himself brings those things together.

Today we are going to talk about the second thing God can’t do.

He can’t make you love Him. 

Wow.  Think about that.

Why were we created?  To worship, praise and have relationship with our loving Father.  To rule and reign under His power.  He didn’t want robots.  Would you want to marry a robot that had no decision to love you back? 

No. 

The thing that’s great about real love is when that person unconditionally loves you back.  We have a lot of pain because people choose to not love.  Every divorce that started out with two people loving each other, ended because at least one chose not to love back somewhere along the line.  Love is a choice.

God has given us that choice.  Many have chosen not to love Him.  Many have chosen to love themselves.  Many have chosen to not even take the time to seek Him.

No one will be able fast talk themselves past God when the time comes to stand in front of the Righteous Loving Judge of All.  That choice of love and talking needs happen before you take your last breath on this earth. 

God has given people the whole day to make choices.  God has given many people years to make choices.  God has given us a whole book called the Bible should we choose to read it.  In the Bible it warns us that there are good choices and bad choices.  The worst choice humans can make is to not accept His Sacrifice for the redemption of our sins.  That choice and it is ours to choose, will land you either with God in paradise or without God and in hell.  The next group of choices will either having you living for God so He reward you or living for yourself which will lead to no reward.

Looks like God is Pro Choice accept when it comes to killing His unborn children that He created.

Your choices affect your destiny.  Don’t take a chance for another minute.  Choose Jesus as Lord.  Choose to Love God.  Choose to seek Him.  Choose to read His Word.  If you want to make Him Lord I have made a page to run you through on how to do so.  It is in the right upper column of this blog.

 
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Posted in Inspiration, Motivation, Salvation

 
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