When I was in high school a friend of mine who was a fellow Christian gave me a cross. It was green and made of glass. I loved it, the color was my favorite, the cross felt so nice in my hand.
I wore it every day and everywhere.
One day at the favorite local hang out spot (the arcade) I was playing a game called Dance Dance Revolution. After the game was over, I noticed my cross had fallen from my neck and shattered.
I was heartbroken, there was no fixing the cross. My friend later asked me where the cross was? I had to solemnly tell him the news. You could tell he was disappointed.
He got over it quick because quite frankly his life had one tragedy after the other. It was a hard and cruel life.
Years later he now openly mocks God and faith on Facebook.
The broken cross he gave to me ended up being a metaphor for what was to come, his faith would be broken.
It grieves me to think about and sadly of all my friends from high school I can think of only two who are believers in Christ.
Even worse they’re not just unbelievers but many of them bash God and hate Jesus Christ.
It breaks my heart.
I often times feel hopeless for my high school friends. But then I remember there is hope.
Hope in Jesus Christ.
Because truly in high school, I was broken. That broken cross could serve as a metaphor for me. I was vile, deep in sin. Filled with hatred and pain. I was completely shattered and seemed to be unfixable.
I was once told that a post of mine was the opposite of what my blog was supposed to be. They said I was being judgmental and unloving for telling people the Truth that is found in Christ
In reality Jesus said He was, “The Way, The Truth and the Life” and “That no one comes to the Father except through Me”.
The truth is not judgmental. Telling someone they’re an atheist or a muslim or anything else and then proceeding to tell them about themselves that is judgmental. But telling someone they’re a sinner in need of a savior that is just truth. We are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God.
Now on to the “unloving” part. Since Jesus declared Himself to be the “Truth” not telling someone about Jesus would be unloving because not telling the truth is lying and that in itself is an unloving thing to do.
Most importantly Jesus is the savior of the World. Imagine if you were in a fire and were saved, you now know the way out of the fire, would it be unloving to tell people the way out? Or would that be the most loving thing to do. The least loving thing to do would walk away and say, “well that is my way out of the fire. They’re many different paths to getting saved from the fire”.
That would be awful!
The world right now is trying to tell us Christians to do exactly that. They’re telling us to embrace everyone with “love” but its fake love desired to gratify the flesh.
Do the most loving thing you can do, tell someone about Jesus, He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Scandals are everywhere. They’re covered in the national news and in the local news.
If the person involved in a scandal is not famous, well news travels quickly in communities.
Before you know everyone knows what has gone on.
However personal scandals may only be known to family or close friends but nevertheless they effect people.
Many emotions come when you hear of scandals, anger, sadness, grief. Sometimes maybe positive emotions like relief or happiness to see the truth come to light.
In thinking of many situations like this recently I came to God in prayer and heard in my mind, “All will be revealed”.
I took comfort in that but also there is a lot of weight in that sentence.
All will truly be revealed.
Maybe not to the World but God knows.
You can not hide your sins or transgressions.
No stone will not be overturned, there is no hiding from God.
Your sins will be revealed and you will be judged by God.
But there is good news.
The Good News.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that whoever shall believe in Him will have eternal life.
Jesus can save you from your sins, Jesus is the way the truth and the light.
We have one God but we also have one enemy. It is satan. All those who hurt you or others, those who lash out at our faith or do horrible things it’s not just them it is satan. He is using them as a vessel to bring evil into the world.
I am of course not saying that we people are blameless, unfortunately some allow him to take over their hearts. Some do it unwillingly, satan is cunning, he can trick a good Christian into thinking he is doing right when in fact he is acting against God.
Jesus knew this. That is why in Matthew 16: 23 when Peter rejected what Jesus said about His coming death He told him, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me. For you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
Throwback Thursday from May 2019. This is one of my more controversial posts, in that it attracted some angry attention in the comments. Two comments I had to delete due to profanity. Nevertheless it also received a lot more positivity. I’ve learned a lot about soteriology since I wrote this, so I may have worded a few things different to respect everyone’s theological beliefs but other than that I think the message holds.
I’ve heard many people ask a similar question that often times is hard to answer or even comprehend for some Christians. The question is usually along the lines of, “How can someone who is in jail who did terrible things and repented go to Heaven while I haven’t done horrible things will go to hell for not believing in God?”
For years I struggled with an answer to this question but God showed me the answer through scripture. The reason is that person in prison has now paid twice for their sins.
First through earthly consequences, the person committed crimes, was punished and served their sentence or is serving their sentence. That is their physical judgment.
But what remains is their spiritual judgment and when one truly accepts Jesus Christ as their savior, it is He, Jesus who took on their spiritual punishment. God will know if they truly are…
This is the conclusion to my original blog series “The Journey” from all the way back in 2016. Because the topic of suicide is mentioned in this entry I want to remind everyone that is reading this God loves you and they’re people around you that love you even if doesn’t seem that way. Please don’t give up.
It was Memorial Day and we took Jane’s Dad out to dinner. We had decided to go to Double T Diner and take the back roads home. But at the last minute Jane suggested we go to TGI Fridays, so it made sense just to go the normal way home.
On the way there is a bridge you have to cross, when we arrived at that point we noticed two cars in front of us had come to a stop, the passenger in the second car was outside, talking frantically on his cell phone. Jane saw a young lady standing next to the bridge, peering over the side. Jane yelled at me to “STOP THE CAR!”
Jane rushed out of the car, when she did the young lady began to swing her leg over the bridge. By the time Jane got to her, she was sitting…
There is a question about Evangelism that should be addressed before we move forward.
The question is, what is the motivation for Christians to evangelize?
There of course is many but to me there is three important motivations.
First and foremost, we are told by God to do so. We are called to preach the Gospel to all nations.
Second since we have established before that salvation comes through faith alone we must tell this to people.
No other “god” can save them, no good works, it doesn’t matter if you think you’re a good person. The only way to the Father is through Jesus Christ. The only way to be saved is through faith in God.
We as Christians know this so we must be motivated to urgently spread the Gospel. We must have a desire for others to be saved not just ourselves. So spread the Gospel no matter what. It will take sacrifice and dedication. You may lose friends, loved ones, money, pleasures, you may even risk your life but it is what we must do.
Think of it this way, if you were in a burning building and managed to escape and you knew it was the only way. It would be cruel to just walk away from the building and be content with yourself being saved. You need to do everything in your power to show those in the building how to be saved from the fire. Some may resist, some may not believe you, some may attack you but in the end you have to try and get them out of the flames.
But evangelism is more urgent than a burning building that could kill your body. Eternity is on the line! Stay motivated.
Finally we pray that God’s Kingdom will come on Earth as it is in Heaven, well we must be the Kingdoms representatives on Earth in order to assist in bringing His Kingdom to Earth.
He doesn’t need us to but He wants us to. He is our Lord, He is our King, He is our God.
As we all know or at least hear Evangelism is very important. Today I am going to discuss why that is.
First and foremost, salvation comes through faith alone so it is our job to play our part in bringing the Gospel to the unbeliever.
No man can save themselves it is only Jesus Christ who saves, therefore we must we show this to the world.
No good deeds, no personality traits or even moral beliefs can save you.
Someone can believe that all the things God tells us is righteous is good and they can believe all things that are wicked to be wrong but if they don’t believe in God then they’re just as hell bound as anyone else.
But some might ask why even bother? Can’t God just save who He wants to save?
The answer is simple because it is a direct order from God Himself.
Even if you’re a Five Point Calvinist you would point this out. It is what we are called to do.
So there can be no debate about the importance of Evangelism.
While we debate Holidays and are heretic hunting in the church arguing over petty things like Halloween in October and in December it will be Christmas trees the sick are not being healed, the hungry are not being feed, the cold won’t be clothed, the needy wait for their needs, the widowed are not being comforted, justice is not being fought for and the unsaved wait to hear the Gospel.
How often do we see discussions on politics, theology and other things turn toxic and become an obsession by the Body of Christ?
People end up behaving the opposite of the manner God has taught them.
I am not saying certain topics aren’t important, what I am saying is prioritize what you’re doing and use discernment to see if what you’re doing bares fruit.
I’ll give an example.
If you come home and notice the house is dirty but then see your children are hungry and without food, your brother is cold and without coat, your sister is sick and without medicine, you look outside and your neighbor is drowning in a nearby lake screaming for someone to save them what do you do?
Do you clean the house to make everything appear well while everyone suffers?
What is your priority?
Save your neighbor, give medicine to your sister, warm your brother, feed your children and then you can focus on cleaning the mess which truly when you think about it was a much smaller mess than you realized at first.
The Good Word 