Trouble times

I have been away from this blog for far to long. I was not given the ability to write for my own use but for his.

Today as never before we must turn to The Lord. Our country is in deep trouble. We are losing everything, our jobs, our money, our freedoms. If we look at history we find that the great powers of the past all fell when they became morally corrupt. Even those that were not of a Christian faith fell the same way. Are we to be the next. I believe that if we continue the path we are on we will fall.

We today allow the killing of unborn children and say it is the right of the mother to do this. I dare anyone to find that right in the Bible. It is murder plan and simple. I am not calling for the murder of doctors that do this killing, that is for God to punish. I am saying that we need to be on our knees daily.

It is now becoming a right for homosexuals to marry. If anyone reads the Bible they already know what God thinks of homosexuality. Those that favor the legality of homosexuality claim that we are bigots, We are old fashion. Well if things keep going the way they are and the Muslims take over there will be no homosexuals. There religions says that it is a sin to be punished by death. Yet we as Christians are the bad guys to them. God will punish all who allow this.

This brings be to my next point. This country was founded as a Christian Country. The so called separation of church and state was for only one purpose and that was that the government would not impose a doctrine as the English government had with the state running the church. All our founding fathers were members of their Church and God fearing men.

If we look around at the state of our country we can see the results of our turning from God all around us. Our country is in decline. God will not keep his hand on us forever if we do not return to Him. It is not to late, but we as His people must return to Him in a mighty way. We should be as Paul with knees like a camel. Our knees should be sore every day from the praying we do. We need to pray for our country , our leaders, our children, our grandchildren, our jobs, and the souls of all the lost.

If we return to Him he will bless us again as a mighty nation. He has shown us much mercy. The bible shows us this many times. Join me it this. Make it a part of your daily prayers to pray for this country and the world.

The New Covenant

What is the reason for the tree of knowledge. Knowing that the tree was put there for the purpose of allowing Adam and Eve to make a decision as to obedience or disobedience has shown me why we are where we are at today spiritually. The act of unbelief and disobedience that cause the spiritual death of man kind is made clear. We wanted to be God.

Man today still wants to be God. Adam and Eve were just the first in the line that still has the same desire. We were before the act of disobedience made in God's spiritual image. We were to rule Earth for him and to be his companion, not because he needed us but because of his love. Instead we must now struggle to find our way. Human kind must return to the earth that we came from instead of ruling it.

All of our lives we have to struggle with the temptations cause by that one act. Until we know what is missing in our lives we must continue this life of sin and despair. But from the beginning God in his mercy and love had a plan. The covenant, made with Abraham, that we today, that are born again into Christ partake of, was his plan. The blood of Christ, is our covenant blood. All of the promises that God gave Abraham are ours. Every thing that the Scriptures tells us is ours. God made a covenant with Abraham and with us, through the Blood of Jesus his Son. He does not break his covenant, we do. Most of us still do not know what a covenant really is.

In Bible time a covenant was a binding pact between two people our groups of people. This covenant made them as one group, a family. They would take on each others name to show that they had a covenant with each other. Countries would bind together, not as today with a piece of paper but with blood. Some cultures today still practice this type of covenant. The shed blood bound them together. To be a true covenant there had to be the shedding of blood.

God is love. That is probably one of the most important statements ever written. We as human can not come close to understand that it is his nature. Our concept of love with all of it's limits can not come close to fathoming his love. His love is unconditional, if we come to him as he calls us, through the blood of Jesus the Christ. It is his love that seeks us, to bring us to a saving grace. His love nailed Jesus to the tree not us being good or holy.

Only by becoming man and taking all of our sins could Christ be as us and for us. Thus he became our representative in the New Covenant. We in our sinful nature could not approach God. We needed a man that could take our sin, pain, temptations, and death. He had to be sinless. He had to overcome the temptations of life, from his infancy to adulthood. He was a teenager with it's problems, and of course he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness. He over came all even suffering a cruel death. We were there with him. He willingly became our representative and carried our troubles and trials. He is the one who represents us in the New Covenant. It is his blood that was shed for the covenant.

God is faithful. We all hear this from every pulpit. Do we really understand what it means. It means that God is truth, to be certain, enduring, to trust or believe. What God promises he will always do. He made the covenant with us through Jesus blood. Our faith is brought about by our personal relationship with God. It is not an energy or some power that comes about by our on strength but through The Holy Spirit. As with Sarah who had the faith to conceive a child in her old age we also can find that faith in Christ.

We live under the grace of the New Covenant, free from the burden of the old covenant. Jesus freed us with his blood. We no longer need the blood of a substitute animal to cover our sins. God's perfect plan is the Good News of the New Covenant. Jesus dealt with our sin, now we need to accept the divine amnesty, and be reconciled to God.

faith

This morning I attended a men's breakfast and we discussed faith. The question was ask what makes up faith. What is faith. The Bible says that faith is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" Heb 11:1. The question became what is the substance that makes up faith in us, how does faith grow?

We are to come to Christ as a child. That means with a child like faith. A child has the ability to have a faith that is based on trust. A child will trust and believe its parents until they find that the parents do not always keep their word. That is the way we are to come to Christ. We come with the trust that he will do as he promised. That is an element of faith.

As we develop our relationship with Christ we need to add other elements of faith. One of these is knowledge. We need to know that the trust that we had in the beginning is correct. We have the need to know that God always keeps His Word. How then can we know this? We need to study His word. If we study we find that through out the Bible God was always faithful to those who trusted Him. He always kept His word. Sometimes His word had to be a punishment, both wither it was for punishment for disobedience or a blessing He always kept his word.

Through obedience we also grow in faith. As we trust Him we find that He always leads us. He always keeps His word. As we trust and obey Him He is faithful to lead us. This will bring about a growth in our faith. We must keep our eye on Him and not let the world sway us. The world can cause us to start questioning God, and this brings in a loss of faith.

Jesus said that we only need the faith the size of a mustard seed to move a mountain. We all face mountains that only by faith can we move. We can not see a way out of a problem, or an illness. These are mountains to us. But remember Jesus said we can move that mountain with faith. By faith in Christ the mountain is moved, not by us but by Christ because of our faith. God created all things and He alone can change anything.

These are but 3 elements of faith. I challenge all who read this to think about what makes up their faith. Is their faith growing, stable, declining? If it is not growing, why is it not? Are you letting the things of this world drag your faith down? Do you feel God has not answered a prayer? Maybe you need to find out if God has answered the prayer but not the way you want. Sometimes no is an answer. My brothers and sisters we need to always be studying His word. As we do we will grow, in faith as we find more about the loving God we serve. He will never not answer, He is always trustworthy.

He paid it all

Yesterday at church Pastor Quinton Moore ask the question, Did Jesus do enough on the Cross? Did all the suffering that He went through complete everything that we needed? The answer of course is yes. He paid it all with His death.

He suffered, He died, and He arose as the Old Testament said He would. Most Christians believe that. But He did more than that on the Cross. His Blood made the blood sacrifice that was needed. Another thing He did was pray for those who put Him on the cross. What a love, he forgave all of us then and there. He Prayed to the Father for all of us as we were putting Him on the Cross.

He also took all of our sins on Him, and His Father had to turn away from Him at that time. God The Father had to forsake His Son so that Jesus could bear all our sin. It was only when He had born all our sin that the task was done. What Satan had meant for evil and to stop God's plan was complete, Jesus then said " it is finished" He was saying that for once and for ever the forces of evil had lost the war. The forces of evil still battle on but they will face defeat because of the cross. This was God's plan and Jesus fulfilled it all.

Blood of Jesus

Jesus came to the Earth with one main purpose and that was to die on the Cross. It was the shedding of His blood that was the only way to save us from our sin. Today many churches do not preach the Gospel that includes the blood. It is only through the blood that we can be saved from Hell and go to Heaven. Some do not even preach that there is a Hell.

Hell is real. I pray that none will go there but many will. We are told that there will be a total separation from God in Hell. We will have eternal separation from Him. Revelations speaks of the lake of fire. Torment awaits those that go there, that will last forever.

God in the person of Jesus came to Earth as a lowly man to purchase us with His blood. He came as the perfect Lamb, with out blemish. Knowing no sin, He went to the cross and shed His blood, for only blood can cover sin. Sin that all humans have. It was not the Romans or Jewish people that put Jesus on the Cross it was us. Our sin put Him there, your sin, my sin, all sin ever committed. From Adam to you and I, we all are guilty of placing Him there.

God loves us enough to send His Son to die for us, and anyone who believes on Him will not die (John 3:16). Our sin cover by His blood if we only believe. The prophets of old looked for Him, foretold of Him. They knew that only through His blood was salvation possible. Not the blood of an animal that had to be repeated each year but the permanent blood of Jesus. He was the perfect one the spotless Lamb.

With our every breath we need to praise Him for all He suffered on that cross. Praise Him for taking the keys to death from Satan. Sing glory to God for He has sent His son to over come through His blood the forces of evil. We are to worship Him, seek Him who died for us. Glory to God.

Waiting for His answer

We as Christians pray for one another and for lost souls. We always believe, or should, that these prayers will be answered. Where I think we go wrong is in trying to help God answer our prayers. We for some reason we seem to think He, who made the universe, needs us to help Him. We are impatient, wanting the answer today, so we try to cause the answer our self.

If we let God answer our prayers he always will, in his time and way. We do not know the future, but He does. We do not know His plan for us or the others we are praying for. Sometimes the answer is no. How hard that is for us to accept. But He knows best. We pray for healing for someone who never gets better, and we wonder why. Remember even Paul had a thorn in his side.

The Lord sends people our way in answer to prayer. When we meet new people we never know what God has in plans for them and us. The Lord sends people that have the knowledge of The Gospel to talk to the lost souls. Some that have dealt in other religions need someone with special incite to talk to them. The Lord knows what is needed, what type of personality that can talk to the lost soul in a way that will not turn them off to the message. That connection that is needed.

It is our job to pray, it is the Holy Spirit's to convicted the heart of others. He will work through you, and others around, but let Him who knows all, lead. Just pray and lead the life that you know God wants you to lead. He can use everything for His purpose. Just let Him lead.

Waiting on the Lord

As Christians we are suppose to have turned our lives over to Christ, totally. Most of us find this very hard to do. I include myself in this. I am in the process of reading Madam Jeanne Guyon's book "EXPERIENCING THE DEPTHS OF JESUS CHRIST'. In it she gives steps that help to abandon ourselves to God. Although I am only 1/4 of the way through the book I have found by following her suggestions I have made another step toward total commitment to God.

This book has stood the test of time. The things she wrote about in the 1680's are still needed today. To walk daily in the presence of God should be our goal. To know that He is always there. To be open to His voice and to follow without doubt, knowing that He will never leave us.

One of the first things I have learned from Her is to take the time to listen. Just sit still and listen. Stop your mind from racing. Most of us today find this very difficult. There is so much required of us, Work, taking children to their activities, shopping, helping with homework, etc. Our minds are racing all the time, thinking what else do I have to do today or tomorrow. We are always on the go. We are not taking the time to listen. Just stop sit down and wait on Him. If a though comes into your mind about something you have to do. Stop the though, and wait, say nothing, just wait on the Lord. This will take you to a new height with God. As you grow in this you will find that God will honor this time and talk to you. He is your Father and He wants a relationship with you. Give him the time to talk. Just as with your earthly father give Him the time.

As we read about many of the Great preachers and teachers of Christ we find that they take the time to listen. Even Paul after he saw Jesus had to wait. He was blind. He did wait on the Lord, with fasting and prayer. He waited 3 days before he received his answer (Acts 9:9-11). Ananias was open to the Lord. Yes he was reluctant, (Acts 9:13-14) most of us would also be, some of us would refuse because of fear, but he trusted God and went.

Paul spent 3 years in the desert of Arabia (Gal. 1:18). The Bible does not tell us what he did there. We do know that when he returned he had become the greatest preacher of Christ. Paul waited on the Lord. Many scholars believe that in the desert, Paul learned from The Holy spirit. He could only learn if he waited on the Lord.

The type of faith that this require is not some super faith. It takes a willingness to take the time to listen. We all have the ability to do so. Even if there are days when you hear nothing. Remember Paul waited 3 days, then 3 years. The number 3 is very important to us all. Jesus ministry on earth, his burial time all are 3 something. So we should not expect God to answer on our terms. It maybe 3 seconds, 3 minutes, or 3 days, our part is to wait and listen.