Straight From His Mouth

Straight From His Mouth

Mark 1:14-15 ESV

14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying “ The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, Repent and Believe in the gospel."

Sometimes when you hear preachers on radio or podcasts, or when you watch them on tv, or listen to them on Sundays and Wednesdays…..It’s pretty common, in my opinion, to wonder what style of preaching Jesus had.  I mean, we are all to follow Jesus' lead and tell others about Him right? So how did He tell others?  Well, let's see...

Reading the above verse should be a good indicator of how Jesus preached, and to put it in terms we can understand…..the above verses would kind of be like an alter call at church.  Notice no frills, no puffed up preaching, and certainly no feel good about your sin type verbage either.  Plain and simple….Jesus said REPENT and BELIEVE…

Wonder why there is such a problem with the simplicity of salvation.  He didn’t say Repent, Believe, and say 3 prayers per day…or Repent, Believe, and tell your sins to your preacher….Nope, it is as simple as Repenting ( turning from your sinful life, being sorry for your sinful life) and Believing ( grow in faith by Knowing God had a Son named Jesus who died for YOU). 

After we are comfortable with the above mentioned commandments from Jesus himself, we need to pursue a truly close relationship with Him, by reading His word, by prayer, and by fellowshipping with other Christians. 

We should never be comfortable with where we are spiritually…we should always long to be closer to the one who gave His Son.

God Bless!  Please sign up as a member below….It allows you to receive updated blogs automatically, which frees up a lot of time for me.  I will continue to send out emails as long as people want to read these, but it would be a great help for me if you choose to sign up.

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How Does God See YOU?

HHow Does God See YOU?

Titus 3: 3-7

3 At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. 4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace,we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

Hebrews 9:22

22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

Had a great thought this morning that I thought I'd share.  What do you think God sees when He looks at people?  Does He see deeds, or maybe thoughts?  What about maybe our past, present, or future?

I'm here to tell you that when God looks at people, He only sees 1 of 2 things....sin or Blood!  Look at Titus first...Paul is explaining about a saved persons past, before they were washed by the Blood of Jesus..." At one time" (past sins) ..."we Lived" (past sinful life) You see Paul is telling them , about their lives before they were saved.  Hence the past tense verbage.

Now to my favorite verse...Hebrews 9:22.  It is obvious here what is being stated...Had there not been a sacrifice and shedding of Jesus' blood, then we would still be in the sinful life that is mentioned in Titus.  Stay with me here, I'm fixing to tie it all together...

So, God sees 1 or 2 things when He looks at us...If we are lost (unsaved) he only sees sin...period...that's all He can see...But if we are saved by the blood of Jesus, then He only sees Jesus' blood.  How awesome is that?!  No matter our past, no matter our old ways or thoughts...God looks at us with the love of a Father, because Jesus' blood allowed us to be forgiven.  Basically He only sees His Son in us! 

OK....so I ask you today....what Does God see when He looks at YOU?  If He sees the blood of Jesus, then fight the good fight...go tell others about your salvation experience...!!!  If he doesn't see Jesus in you and you feel like you are being convicted then just ask Jesus to be your new Lord, above work, family,ect...  Yield your life to Him, the way He yielded His life for You...Ask God to forgive you and ask Him for wisdom on how to move forward as a christian.  Now go tell somebody about Jesus!

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Just GO!

Judges 6:12-14

12 And xthe angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, y“The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” 13 And Gideon said to him, “Please, sir,1 if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are zall his wonderful deeds athat our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” 14 And the Lord2 turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; bdo not I send you?”

Ever feel like God is asking you to do something that you just don't think is possible?  It may be talking to the person beside you at work about Jesus or maybe you feel sometimes like He is asking you to be a missionary, pastor, or lead a Sunday school class.

Well imagine you are Gideon, and God asks you ( the weakest of all your brothers) to lead Israel to freedom from their enemies.  That's  exactly what happened though.  Gideon was perplexed to say the least, and started asking questions like,  "God, if you are really our God, then why are we in bondage in the first place."  I personally think he was trying to convince himself that this couldn't really be God speaking to him. ( Ever thought like that?) Look at verse 13 again and see if you agree.  Now what is interesting here, to me, is that God never really acknowledges Gideon's fears.  He just tells him to Go!  Why?  God knew His plan for Gideon. He knew He was in control.  All He needed Gideon to do to receive his power, blessings, ect.. was to be willing to GO!  See where I'm going with this?

If you feel the Lord telling you to do something, especially if it scares you to death....Don't worry you can be assured it's from God, and you can also be assured that to get where God wants you to be... All you have to do is be willing to GO!

God Bless!

The Afflicted

The Afflicted

Judges 2:13-18

13They abandoned the LORD and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. 14So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. 15Whenever they marched out, the hand of the LORD was against them for harm, as the LORD had warned, and as the LORD had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress.

16Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. 17Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the LORD, and they did not do so. 18Whenever the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the LORD was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. 

Lots of verses today guys and gals.....Please read all of them so you will fully understand this message.  As most of you know, when I write a message it almost always is a message to myself and today is not unlike the norm.

These verses describe the period of time in Israel's history where they would repent of following other gods and turning away from the one God, then fall back into sin.  When they followed the one true God they were blessed with peace and prosperity, but each time they fell away they were punished at the hands of their enemies.  Sound familiar?  Isn't this what we all do as Christians most of the time?   We follow the road map set forth in the bible and have that peace in our heart that " surpasses all understanding", then we go back to whatever sins we were committing before.  And when we do, our peaceful feelings go away as God then directly or indirectly punishes us like any good father would.

I guess my point today is this.....We should all strive to keep focused on our relationship with God...Strive to do it just like striving to "enter through the narrow gate" like we are told to do in Luke 13:24.  Will this mean our lives will never have stress?  Absolutely not!  But the comfort of the relationship with our Father will help us better than any counselor could ever do. 

 Imagine you are 5 and you did something bad...maybe real bad....you struggle with the guilt until you dad finally finds out, or maybe you even tell him....He punishes you for the wrong, but then hugs on you and tells you it's ok and that he loves you!  Immediately the guilt from the sin goes away because it's out in the open and you have been forgiven.  THAT SHOULD BE THE RELATIONSHIP WE STRIVE FOR WITH GOD.  We will make mistakes, I assure you, but when we do and repent of them, the comfort that comes to us from Him will make us understand Grace all the more.

God Bless Ya'll!

Please email me and let me know if any of these messages have helped...I would like to start posting some of the messages I get.  I won't use your name unless you agree to let me.

How does someone get to Hell?

The mountain in front of Hell

John 3:16 KJV  For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

I might preach a little today, so y’all bare with me.  I was listening to one of my favorite pastors on the radio the other day, and heard an awesome message on God’s love.  Some of my ideas came from his message just to let you all know.

OK.  I hear people talking about how “ if there was a God, why would all of these bad things happen”?  I get angry too sometimes, but we have to realize that God doesn’t make everything bad happen.  Most things happen simply because we live in a sin filled world.  All that being said, let me get to today’s message.

God gave us the easiest way possible to salvation, but we have to make the first step and ask for God to save us.  He can save us because of the wonderful sacrifice of His Son Jesus.  No one has to go to Hell.  God doesn’t want anyone to go to Hell.  If he didn’t care about us, do you really think He would have sent Jesus to die.  This was His one and only Son.  If He didn’t love us, would He really have sent His son to be tortured, spit on, and cursed at.  I can’t imagine having to watch my son be tortured by the very folks he was here to save. 

I get frustrated sometimes dealing with lost people.  I mean it’s like they are drowning, and I’ve got a rope throwing it to them, and all they have to do is grab on.  If they would just give up the worldly things in there hands and use them to grab on to the rope (Jesus) , they would be saved.  I worry that these same people one day are going to look up and be in eternal torment.  The sad thing is that God has done soo much to keep us out of Hell, if you end up there it’s only because you climbed over Mount Calvary to get there.  In other words, lost people have to try harder to get to Hell, than they would to get to Heaven.  Grace is a free gift of God.  He can offer it to us because His Son, was a sacrifice to God for all of our sins.  As soon as the first drop of blood fell from Jesus on the cross, Satan was defeated.  Praise God!!!  Just got chills!!!!  One drop of Jesus’ blood kicked Satan’s butt.  That’s how powerful a God we serve.  Satan hates to deal with Jesus’ blood becuase it was at that point he got defeated.

Ok, so we know Satan has been defeated, we know that if you end up in Hell it will be because you climbed and treaded all over Mt Calvary, so why is it soo hard for people to see the truth?  “ The World blocks the view of Jesus”  “ Religion also blocks the view of Jesus”  Don’t get soo caught up in what denomination you are in, focus more on whether you are saved or not and I promise God will send you to where you need to be.

Sorry I was all over the place today, but sometimes I have soo many things going on in my head, that I just have to get them all out before I forget.  Remember this, Jesus is the one who saves, not us.  All we can do is tell people the truth about what Jesus did on the cross for us.  If they refuse to listen they will have to deal with the consequences.  Just don’t be scared to tell them the truth about Grace and Hell.   

The Other Side of Desperation

The Other Side of Desperation

²⁸ And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

Romans 8:28

New Living Translation (NLT)

8) ³³ I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33 (ESV)

Quick thoughts today.........

After about a year or two of continuous trials and tribulations, I can finally start to see the other side of all this junk.  PRAISE!  I'm still trying to figure out what all I need to have learned from the past few years, but regardless I am doing better.  Thanks for all of your prayers.  

When you are in the midst of trials, it's very hard to focus on these types of verses because they probably will just anger you or depress you.  In the first verse, we see that God promises to the Christian that anything that happens to us will be used by God for His will.  That is comforting if you think about it.  Even if we said and did things during our trials that we aren't proud of, have no fear because something good will come from it!

In John 16:33 we see that we are promised tribulation, so for those of you who may believe that as long as you live your life right then you won't have to deal with spiritual and personal trials......Please read the above verse again.  The great thing is that even though we are promised tribulations.....we are also promised peace!  Now this peace might just be spiritual peace about where you will spend eternity.....but like Forrest Gump said....."It's one less thing"   I'm not making light of eternal salvation just saying that as a Christian we are promised peace....not peace in our world, but peace in our heart about our eternity no matter what Satan or the world throws at us.

The important thing that I have learned is to stay the course no matter what.....I haven't written as much as I used to, but I've written!  I haven't prayed as much as I should have through all this....but I did pray!  During your trials just remember to keep on course.  Don't let go of your relationship with God because it took His Son dying on the cross for you to be able to have that relationship.

God Bless!

Not by Sight

Not by Sight

 

"Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful." 1 Corinthians 4:2 NIV

Guard my life, for I am faithful to you; save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God;" Psalm 86:2 NIV

I read an account recently of a plane that crashed in California during a thunderstorm.....It seems the pilot was trying to fly VFR, now VFR is when you control the aircraft by looking out the window and seeing the horizon. The problem with it, is that during a thunderstorm it becomes very hard to see where you are and where you are going. This is when you have to have learned to trust your instruments to get you through the storm, even when your instruments seem to go against everything your sight might be telling you.

In church yesterday, we were talking about walking by faith. You know there are times when we go through trials and tribulations, and we think God isn't there. We think He abandoned us or maybe isn't listening anymore, but it could be that He is teaching us to live by faith rather than by sight. Meaning, what we see as the worst time in our life may in a few years be seen as a blessing. It doesn't make sense to us right now with all of our Human senses ( sight, sound, ect..) but if we have faith in God's plan for us, then we must trust that he is either chastising us for something or maybe just teaching us to be more faithful so He can use us in a better way.

As me and my family come are starting to come out of a stormy time, I am starting to realize that, although it was hard and I would never want to go through anything like this again.......I do see how my faith wasn't where it should have been during the biggest portion of the storm. Had I just trusted Him that He was in fact, in control, my storm may have been little more than a passing rain shower.

Remember, God is in control. What you may be going through right now make not make sense to you....You may think God has abandoned you or isn't listening, but I challenge you to think about what He may be teaching or revealing to you about yourself in your current situation. Maybe He is chastening you....Maybe He is teaching you to trust Him not your senses..Like the pilots sometimes have to do when flying during storms....They have to trust their training and trust the instruments. Maybe it's time to trust in your christian training and go by Faith.

God Bless!

Guilt..Guilt..Guilt

Guilt...Guilt...Guilt

          

         

1 John 1:9 ESV         If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.   

Romans 8:1 ESV /      

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.             
Romans 5:1 ESV     

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.


     We all have done things in our past and maybe even continue to do, that can and do keep us distant from God.  I know through all my trials, I feel guilt about not writing on the blog as much as I should.  I feel guilty about things I mis handled in my personal life. I feel guilty because I think I might not be giving my all to my kids sometimes.  I feel guilty when I think about how much money I've wasted over the years not being a faithful giver. You see, all of these things are legitimate feelings caused by legitimate sins....

    All you have to do is read the first verse....As long as we confess our sin to God, it WILL be forgiven and we can just forget about it. Now, don't think this is a free coupon for a sinful life, because when we truly repent and ask for forgiveness, we make a conscience effort to turn away from the sin we are asking forgiveness for.  If we continually do the sin, then my advice is to pray and ask God for help with whatever it may be.  Also, go talk to a good bible preaching pastor or counselor if the sin seems to be too much. Anyway, back to the lesson.... Satan loves to keep us focusing on our past sins because if we are always looking back with regret, we are unable to look forward with HOPE!

Also, look at the next verse.  Very self explanatory.....If we are saved, we have pasted the point of condemnation...I mean if God forgives us then why do we feel the need to keep tormenting ourselves with past shortcomings....I'll tell you why....because it is nothing more than Satan battling us in spiritual warfare.  Remember in Ephesians, we are told to put on the armor of God to help protect us against Satan's schemes. So pray that God will keep our minds focused on the future and His will for our lives, rather than the past and Satan's schemes.

I think the main point for today is to accept the fact that we have sinned and done things that make us feel terrible.  But if we are saved and truly have turned the sins over to God and have turned from the sins, then forget about it.  God has... We have to take the God at His word....He does not condemn saved people for past sins.  Jesus took care of all of that guilt and sin on the cross..PRAISE!...

Speaking of guilt...Just had to go yell at my 4 year old for not letting me finish this blog in peace...LOL

Anyway, seriously....Jesus took your sin on His shoulders and handled them.  Just try to visualize this mighty Jesus warrior telling you " OH..those sins you keep remembering...I handled it!  I got this!....Now move your life on to doing Kingdom work and quit living in the past"

 That's a cool visual.

God Bless Ya'll!!   Pray for me and my family and also the blog...AND FYI...IF YOU HAVE ANY PRAYER REQUEST, JUST EMAIL THEM TO ME AND ILL PUT THEM ON MY LIST..





 

Hello! God are you there?

Psalms 13:1


1 How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?

     Ever felt like this?  Boy I have. It's been over 6 months since I have felt the drive to write and the verse above explains why.  This is one of David's many attempts to beg God to show His presence in his times of depression.  There's no way to know exactly what is causing David to fall into depression, but it is probably a combination of many sins he committed. ( murder, adultery, ect...)

We've all done things in life that put distance between us and God. I certainly have.  Throughout my whole ministry since about 2011, I had been having personal battles in my marriage.  For along time now, I blamed all of my problems on other people in my life.  This made my divorce and other things easier to deal with, or so it seemed.  I have learned a lot through my trials, but I always seemed to be able to justify my lack of forgiveness just based on the hurt placed on me and my family by others.
I always knew God was there, but for some reason I just couldn't feel His presence.  

Guilt of past sins and even past thoughts can drive a wedge in between us and God.  I mean look at David.....He was King and had a great walk with God, but he let his earthly wants and desires come before his relationship with God.  Satan loves to place us in guilt mode.  Why?  Because if he can keep us feeling guilty then we feel like we have no access to God.  But remember what God says about our sins when we are saved by the blood of Jesus? " they are as far as the east is from the west". 

What's my point?  David felt guilty, which is actually great.  Because of his guilt of past sins though, he felt separation from God, which is not great.  God is always there, as David found out later....But sometimes, in my opinion, God allows us to swim around in our pool of guilt and sin to show us the magnitude of our actions.  Then in our most honest and desperate hour he will show Himself to us whether it be in our reading, through other people, or our prayer time.  The kicker is...if you quit looking and fall away because of guilt or sin, then even though He is there you will have a hard time feeling His presence. Why?  Because He will never force Himself on anyone. Ultimately, it is our choice to have a relationship with Him.  He's always there, sometimes we just need to tell Him we are sorry and have faith we are forgiven...then move on!

I could spend the rest of my life mad about the hurt caused by my divorce, but all it will do is keep me distant from God.  He needs us wholeheartedly to believe He is in control and for us to tell others about our stresses and how He helped or didn't help us.  If He lets you swim around in guilt for a while, could it be He is teaching you a valuable lesson?

Father, for give me for being un-forgiving.  I'm sorry I spent the last year being angry at you and others.  Please refill my cup and allow your spirit to flow through me so I may start sharing about Your Son Jesus again. Thank you for saving me through Your Son's Death and resurrection.

OK.  Hopefully I will be felt led to start writing these again.  I would greatly appreciate your input even if negative.

God Bless!