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Archive for the ‘Encouragement’ Category

His Yoke Is Easy And His Burden Light

10 Oct

Matthew 11:28-30 – 28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is
light.”

Satan wants you to fail.  There is no love in him.  He doesn’t care about you and that goes for all the fallen angels with him.

On the other hand, the Lord loves us.  In His love he wants us to be conquerors and
to hear His voice.  His burden is light.

The one that hates you has a very heavy burden he wants you to develop, spread, and carry everywhere.

How can we love God?

1 John 5:3-5 – 3 This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he
who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

Our Lord stands ready with His arms wide open.  Will we embrace Him or run away?  Will you push Him back for your own space or invite Him to rescue you from yourself?

Sad part is many of us do it off and on depending the time in life we’re in.  We have to keep fighting the good fight.  Don’t let your guard down or take the armor off.  If we
want to show God we love Him, we need to obey Him.

 

Truth Doesn’t Change – Part 3

06 Oct

We’re going to finish up on the truth doesn’t change.

Who is the truth?  God and Jesus are the truth as we have read the last couple of days.

I want to write on one of the most important promises that God has made that hasn’t changed and yet many in the church want to think He has.

Psalm 33:11- 11 But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.

God doesn’t believe in replacement theology.  God didn’t make a plan to Israel only to change His mind.  He is faithful and we can count on Him to keep His word.

Malachi 3:6 – 6 “I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.

In the last days God told Ezekiel that His promise would be fulfilled to Israel.

Ezekiel 37:21-23 – 21 and say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. 22 I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms. 23 They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God.

God doesn’t change.  Man tries to change God.  God’s promises are truth and truth doesn’t change.

 

Truth Doesn’t Change – Part 2

05 Oct

We’re sticking with a theme of Truth doesn’t change.

Who is the Truth?

John 14:6- 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So now the question is does the Truth change?

Hebrews 13:8 – 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Jesus according to scripture doesn’t change.  We read yesterday that God doesn’t change, so not surprisingly that Jesus doesn’t change either.

John 10:30- 30 I and the Father are one.”

Political correctness is always changing.  What’s acceptable today won’t be tomorrow.  Why?  Because man is always changing his mind on what’s right or wrong.

Tomorrow we will finish up on the fact God and Truth do not change.

 

Truth Doesn’t Change – Part 1

04 Oct

I’m going to do a few short posts using scripture that our God does not change when it comes to truth.  If someone repents such as Nineveh did he will hold off His wrath, but that was a condition of the warning from Jonah in the first place.

However God is not like man that he is wishy-washy or changes His mind or His truth.

Numbers 23:19 – 19 God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.  Does he speak and then not act?  Does he promise and not fulfill?

One of the reasons I say this is because there are certain religions that will change their so called truths as time goes on.  If something isn’t viewed as politically correct a modern day prophet suddenly has a revelation and it changes it all.  However, does God say in His Word that it works that way?

1 Samuel 15:29 – 29 He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind.”

Pretty much another identical verse.  God doesn’t change His mind on His promises.  That’s one of the reasons we can trust Him.  We can take Him at His Word.

If God changed things around 180 degrees and something meant the opposite of what it did before, how would you know He wasn’t going to do it again?  Yet that happens today in the name of convenience for people.

Tomorrow we’ll carry on with this theme.

 

Bad Company Corrupts Good Character

03 Oct

1 Corinthians 15:33-34- 33 Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” 34 Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame.

I wrote a short blurb on this last week and came across this scripture that could have been part of it.

Each one of us is a sinner.  That means we have to seek God and ignore our normal sinful ways or intentions.  Getting around things and tempting ourselves or putting ourselves in bad situations will pull on us.

We need to stay strong in the Word.  Those who are not are not in tuned into the Spirit of the Lord.  They want you to join them.  It’s kind of a mentality of hey if I can get Joe, Ralph, Susie, and Loretta to all do this then I must be in the majority of those I like.

Everything we do is important.  Every path we choose is important.  If we try to reach people for the Lord it’s important and if we don’t try at all it’s important.  IT ALL MATTERS.  We all have to have that mentality.  Even with that mentality we still struggle, but we are at least in the right mindset moving forward.

 

Earthly Tent Will Soon Be Destroyed

30 Sep

2 Corinthians 5:1-5 – 1 Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

The truth is inevitable.  Our bodies are going to grow old and pass away.  Nobody has taken worldly goods with them.  They are still here. 

These are scientific facts, not faith.  Yet man still tries to find the fountain of youth and obtain riches in this temporary life. 

Why?

What’s neat about the Bible is it explains why.  It explains who we are as fallen creatures.  It explains what God expects and wants from us and that it takes His strength and spirit working through us to get it done.

The Bible is full of the words of life.  It is full of how to live and warnings of how not to live.  

Growing up in High School, many people strived for good grades.  They weren’t happy for just barely passing.  In the spiritual realm concerning their relationship with the one true God, just barely passing or getting a D- works just fine for them.

 We need to seek our Lord and all that He wants in our lives.  If we do our best we have a tendency to fall way short.  Just think how bad it is when we don’t try at all?

 

Just Felt Like A Rapture Verse

28 Sep

1 Corinthians 15:51-52 – 51 Listen, I tell you amystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

I look forward to it with excitement.  To be taken in an instant to be with the Lord in the Air and forever be with Him.  Exciting indeed!

 

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.

 

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.”

 

Be Joyful Always

21 Sep

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 – 16 Be joyful always; 17 pray continually; 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

When I met my wife she had a saying that has stuck with me.  Fake it till you make it.

Nobody can demand that someone actually be joyful.  They can put on an act but we choose to be joyful.

The thing is; if you consider yourself blessed, you will always in your heart be joyful.  We may have lapses of emotions, but overall if we put God at the top and center, we will have joy.

Pray continually!  Also known as unceasingly.

Why should we give thanks in all things?  Because God will always take care of those who love Him.  We may not understand certain things when they happen, but if God is the love of our life, He is faithful.