Let’s all make our New Year’s Resolution that of trying to please God. Listening to His voice and seeking what He wants to do through our lives.
The rapture is going to happen someday and by all the signs someday soon. Will 2011 be the year?
I don’t know, but I can promise you’ll never regret living for the Lord like it is.
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.
Followers of Christ are to be a new creation.
That means we don’t know what’s best. How we feel about things should be first determined about how Christ and God feel about things.
How should we view homosexuality, bestiality, sexual immorality, marital unfaithfulness, drunkenness, gluttony, covetousness, and greed?
We need to look at them the way God views those things. They’re wrong in God’s eyes. That’s why it needs to matter to each of us that choose Jesus as Savior. If God didn’t care, I wouldn’t care. The reason I care is because the one who gave me life said, “Don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t give false testimony (lying), and respect your mother and father. God does not tell us to respect everything around us. God hates evil and who determines what is evil? God does!
The devil and men which choose to serve themselves and not God, want to make the rules. It’s easy to do. It’s easy for everyone to want to believe everything they want to believe.
There is a problem though, God is perfect. Man is a sinful mess.
We that are truly in Christ are a new creation and need to die to our old sinful nature and to our selfish ambitions.
2 Corinthians 5:17 – 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! NIV 1984
God cares about how you think. Truth is God cares about everything.
2 Thessalonians 2:15 –15 So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.
There’s a lot of stuff in the world.
Millions of different philosophies exist.
Can God be two total different people at once?
Can God be love and then in another religion not even have the characteristic of love?
Can God promise one people that they will live in a land and be ruled by the Messiah one thousand years, be the same God as another religion says he tells them to kill all of those same people and drive them out into the Red Sea?
Can God say I am God and there is no other, I am God and there is none like Me, do not worship idols, be compared to a religion that thinks they are all Gods and everything is God?
Impossible! God cannot be two opposite individuals at once. Most humans aren’t even that messed up and yet they want to believe God is everything that every human can think up and all those roads lead to Him.
Now it’s possible they can all be wrong, but it’s impossible that they can all be right. So what are we supposed to believe?
You are incredibly made. The universe is absolutely awesome and was created by the same God. You don’t think there is a true way that God has communicated to us? You bet He has. The Bible has stood up to the tests and is only ridiculed by those who won’t serve any God.
Hold fast to the teachings. It’s the Truth, the Word, the Living Word, and God’s Word to us all. That’s A-L-L. We choose to follow or we choose to reject.
How do we please God? By faith and obedience. Obedience to…..what? There has to be an absolute to be obedient to. Obedience to His Word.
Paul knew the importance of having people understand what they missed. He knew the Old Testament scriptures and how Jesus had fulfilled them. The Holy Spirit worked through Him and the other Disciples, because God wanted His living Word passed on for the children of the future.
Many have obeyed, died, and sought God, so we would have it today. Hold fast to the teachings.
If you insist on making God whatever it is you want to make Him you might be about the 5 billionth person to do so. God is more absolute than you and I will ever be.
WWJD? Stands for What Would Jesus Do? Not too many haven’t heard of this by now.
But I want to expound a little on this, because I think some people look at it and dismiss it easily for one reason. They say to themselves, ”Wow, Jesus was perfect and the Son of God! So whatever he did is unattainable by me and if I fall short of that, so be it.”
Fair enough. Actually that is a true statement. We can’t be perfect no matter how hard we try. But we do need to do our best to be Jesus with skin on and try to do the best we can in following the Lord.
So I’m going to not ask you what would Jesus do? I’m going to ask you to be honest with yourself and to ask yourself, “What does Jesus want me to do?”
Did He give me life to be anything I want to be? Did He make me to do anything I want to do?
Why did He make man?
It’s when we can answer this question, that we realize what we are supposed to be doing. We are made to worship and have relationship with the Lord.
Now let’s get back to that question. What does Jesus want me to do? How about first and foremost seek Him and God. That’s the first and most important thing we can do.
Matthew 6:33 – 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
When you get “you” out of the way, it’s amazing what He can do in your life. We are all created by the incredible glorious God, who created the whole universe. Same Individual that created the Milky Way, created you. I think He knows what’s best for us than we do.
So is this earth a proving ground? Well in one respect out of many it sure reads that way. You’re not just showing the Lord that you love Him while being here, but rather or not you trust Him, seek Him, worship Him, try to bring others to Him, or that possibly you have no time for Him at all?
Of course I’m not referring to salvation in that paragraph, but everything else beyond that. You’re saved by the Sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. To accept His death in the place of yours, we are to make Him Lord and Savior.
So what does Jesus want you to do? Won’t you be happier when it’s time to stand before Him, if you at least attempt to do those things?
Today is a new day. Today is the day we all try to seek and serve Him more.
There are some neat scriptures that I think we tend to look over without noticing this.
1 John 2:15 – 15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.
Notice the last part of the scripture. It doesn’t say the Father won’t love him, it states that if anyone loves the world, their love for the Father is not there. God already loves us. When we read through the scriptures, it’s about what are we doing when it comes to loving God.
1 Corinthians 2:9 – 9 However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—
Deuteronomy 7:9 – 9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.
Romans 8:28 – 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
James 1:12 – 12 Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.
James 2:5 – 5 Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?
Not for those who God loved, but for those who love God. The ball is in our court. It’s in our court when it comes time to asking for forgiveness. The ball is in our court when it comes to repenting and turning away from our own sinful ways. It’s in our court in choosing to love God.
Happy Birthday Jesus! You are my Lord, Savior, and King!
May you all have a great celebration of our Savior’s birth.
God Bless.
For many young Christians the importance of the virgin birth of Jesus is overlooked. I remember the first time the importance was explained to me, it made a lot a sense, but had it not been addressed I wouldn’t have thought much more of it other than another miracle that could have only been from God.
It’s ture that a virgen birth seems even more like a miracle than a regular birth, but it goes much further than that.
For Jesus to be perfect, He needed to bypass the sinful gene that has been passed down through Adam after he fell in the garden along with Eve. Man passes this gene, not the woman, so the virgin birth bypassed it.
When Jesus died on that cross, He died as a perfect sacrifice for everyone who accepts His death in the place of theirs. He was God, and God’s Blood can wash away our sins. If Jesus was just another man entering in as a sinner, there is no significance of the cross.
By bypassing the sin gene, Jesus was God and Jesus was a perfect man.
Luke 1:28-35 – 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
The world today says you can believe whatever you want as long as you don’t tell anyone else that they are wrong in their belief. This obviously excludes Muslim countries that only allow people to believe in Islam.
However, for most of the rest of the world, the only intolerance is intolerance itself. Ironically, how will they treat this matter? They will be intolerant towards it! Go figure?!
If you want to believe the grass is god, or the tree is god, or you are god, that’s fine with this country. However, if you actually state that Jesus is the only way to God, that’s unacceptable.
Why?
Well one reason is because if you want the world to come together in a big one world order and government, you have to get the people to all accept each other’s ideas and opinions. That is understandable in a worldly sense, but God doesn’t see it that way.
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.
Acts 4:12 – 12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
1 Timothy 2:5 – 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,
These Words of GOD are not accepted by most of the world. Most of the world is deceived by Satan. Satan hates God’s Word.
Fallen man doesn’t like to be told what’s right, what’s wrong, or how to live his life. No different than that of Satan. He wants to be the God of his own life and not be told what to do. So does Satan. Some even want to be worshipped like God. So does Satan.
If the rapture doesn’t happen soon, this country is working its way towards persecuting Christians who take God’s word literally. For those who don’t, they won’t be bothered. In many cases they will be either leading or hanging right by the side of those persecuting the followers of God’s Word.
Stand firm and obey God’s Word. Many have in the times before us. There is no greater calling than siding with Jesus and God, no matter what the world chooses to do.
It’s a small group of people with a long heritage. They’re probably the most popular and documented heritage when you figure in the Old Testament and the Bible is the most published book of all time.
Today all its Islamic neighbors would not only like to see them out of the land they occupy today, but want them totally annihilated. They want to drive them into the Red Sea.
Why?
Hitler just 80 years ago wanted to do the same thing. Used the excuse that they killed Christ as a reason, but clearly he had more issues than that with others he also killed. He ended up killing more Christians than Jews.
Why?
In the book of Esther in the Bible we read:
Esther 3:8-13 – 8 Then Haman said to King Xerxes, “There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them. 9 If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will give ten thousand talents of silver to the king’s administrators for the royal treasury.”
10 So the king took his signet ring from his finger and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. 11 “Keep the money,” the king said to Haman, “and do with the people as you please.”
12 Then on the thirteenth day of the first month the royal secretaries were summoned. They wrote out in the script of each province and in the language of each people all Haman’s orders to the king’s satraps, the governors of the various provinces and the nobles of the various peoples. These were written in the name of King Xerxes himself and sealed with his own ring. 13 Dispatches were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces with the order to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews—young and old, women and children—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods.
Haman tried to get Xerxes to kill all of the Jews.
Why?
Because after Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden, they turned over the reins to Satan who had tricked them. God’s redemptive plan was going to come through Abraham, through the line of Isaac, and down through Jacob. Jacob is also known as Israel.
Satan has done his best to try and destroy this line of people and continues to, because even though Satan was defeated at the cross, he isn’t going to give up until his fate is sealed. He can’t accept defeat and feels that if he can still annihilate the Jews, then the book of Revelation might not come true. Nor any of the prophecies that promise that the Messiah will rule over the Jews and others forever. Most importantly he doesn’t like the sound of this one.
Revelation 20:10 – 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.
Do you know who Satan also hates as much as the Jews? That’s right, Christians? Both remind him of his Creator that he wants to be in the place of.
The whole world functions as if everything is material, when in reality its 100 percent spiritual.
Keep your eye on Israel, Church. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. She does have one more go of it (the worst ever) before Christ returns, but in the end, they will finally recognize their Messiah.
Many have tried to destroy Israel and they have failed.
Why?
Because when our God makes a promise, He keeps it! All glory be to our God!
The title is one you look at and say, “Well, duh Pat, tells us something we already don’t know.”
I think we look over those words for that exact reason.
It’s one which is so obvious, we move on because it just goes without saying that we just do. But, do we? The Bible is full of how to’s and warnings of what we need to be doing when it comes to loving God.
Deuteronomy 6:5 – 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Matthew 22:37 – 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Old and New Testaments, nothing has changed. It’s still the most important commandment.
No clichés here ladies and gentlemen, we are to do this more than any other thing in our lives. You see that’s why God makes it clear you can’t put anything else before Him. Your mother, your father, money, things, spouse, yourself, nothing is supposed to come before Him.
Matthew 10:37-38 – 37 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
There’s a lot of them we mentioned right there in those two verses.
Matthew 6:24 – 24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
You can pretty much add material substance to that one too.
If we are not reading God’s Word at all the message is we don’t have time for your Word in our busy lives Lord. Is that an act of Loving God with every fiber of your being?
If we’re watching sports and not attending worship, are we loving God with all our hearts?
What have you stopped doing or started doing in your life because God and Jesus matter more than you do? These are the things that speak “I love you Lord”. Words without action are a lot of failed good intentions. Grace isn’t meant to be for everyone to accept the get out of jail free card and live however they want to the close of the show. Grace was for man to repent, reconcile, and get closer to God.
We need to first and foremost love God. Fill your days and nights with Him in your music, in your television, in your reading and in your conversations. Make Him your obsession. He won’t be offended, He’ll be absolutely thrilled.