Darkness

Darkness. I used to drive most of my journey into work in darkness, but now that the time has changed the breaking of dawn has started when I am leaving for work. I have to say that I enjoy driving in the light better than I do driving in the dark. It make it so much easier to see up ahead on the road.

I had some interesting conversations with unbelievers through social media this past weekend. They were questioning the legitimacy of Christianity and things I had posted. I wouldn’t say it was an argument, but it definitely was a chance to expose some of their misconceptions. Both conversations ended because darkness was exposed by light.

I find it funny how quickly someone will leave a conversation when their path leads them down a dead end. They quickly end the conversation, and in one instance, ended the Facebook relationship all together. Unfriend, as it may be. But that’s okay, a seed was planted that may get watered later. We can “win” every battle. All we can do is let the Word of God speak for itself.

“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.  For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.  But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God." - John 3:19-21.

“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”- 2 Corinthians 4:6. Let your light shine so that darkness can be exposed.

Have a great day and God bless.

Synagogue

Synagogue. Yesterday there was another terrible attack on a religious center. A month ago there was one at a Muslim mosque in New Zealand, on Easter Sunday there was one at a Christian Church in Sri Lanka and yesterday there was an attach at a Jewish synagogue in San Diego. All crimes against people of faith by someone out of hatred.

As Christians, we are commanded to love our neighbors no matter what their beliefs may be. By showing them love, we extend the love of Christ to them. We may not believe in their belief system, but that does not mean we are to hate them or do anything malicious to them. God loves them too and Christ died in their place as well. We all were once enemies of God.

God still has a plan for His people the Jews. Right now we are in what is called the “church age” but God will come back to focusing on the Jews once again after the Rapture. Our focus should be praying for those that are still lost and without Christ; Muslims, Jews, atheists and every other group of people.

The Apostle Paul, who was once a Jew himself of the highest degree, always started with his Jewish heritage when he came to a new city. “And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "’He is the Son of God.’”  And all who heard him were amazed and said, "Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?’”- Acts 9:20-21.

“When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John to assist them.” - Acts 13:5.

“But they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. And on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down.” - Acts 13:14.

Paul has a deep desire for his people to turn to God like he did. We should have that same desire for the lost to turn to Christ like we have. Pray for those that are terrorized by hatred. Pray that God will turn their hearts towards Him and save them.

Have a great day and God bless.

Construction

Construction. All I wanted to do was get home after being gone for three days. After flight delays and having to wait to get a gate at the airport so we could get off the plane, I was finally in the car and on my way home. It started off just fine until I came to about 30 miles of nighttime construction. We came to a standstill as we went down to just one lane. An hour drive turned into over an hour and a half and it was after midnight when I walked through the door and I was finally home.

If we think about it, we want our Christian life to be just like my expectation after I got off the plane: just a straight smooth shot home without any bumps in the road. Unfortunately, life isn’t like that at all. There are bumps, slow downs, detours and pit stops. Each one of those delays come at just the right time and for specific reasons. God uses them to redirect us, to slow us down or to keep us safe.

James said it this way, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” - James 1:2-4.

Paul said something similar to the Romans, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” - Romans 5:3-5.

When we come to bumps, delays and detours, we can have faith that they are for our good and not for our destruction. We can use these situations to grow in our faith in God by knowing that He is fully aware of our path and the best route for us to get there safely and according to His will.

So, as I sat in line last night waiting to get through the construction zones, I turned up the radio and sang along (I am not a very good singer but by myself I sound just like one of the band) praising God for the fact that He had gotten me back home safely even though it may not have been in my timing.

Have a great day and God bless.

Fellowship

Fellowship. It’s being in harmony with one another. It’s walking hand-in-hand in agreement with someone. Fellowship is based upon being in accord with the other person that we are in a relationship with. Yesterday I wrote about our relationship as unchanging based upon our actions. Our fellowship does change based upon our actions. My children can do nothing about our relationship but their actions can have a serious impact on our fellowship.

The same is true when we become Christians. As I said yesterday, once we accept Christ as our Savior, our relationship with God cannot be changed, we are now His children. However, when we sin against God, our fellowship with Him is impacted. We are no longer in accord with His will. We haven’t lost our relationship, but we have hurt our fellowship.

In the Apostle John’s first epistle, he put it this way, “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” - 1 John 1:6. If we harbor sin in our lives we are no longer walking hand-in-hand with God. We are out of fellowship with the Father.

“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” - 1 John 1:7. If we keep our sins confessed and we are walking according to His will, then we are in fellowship with God.

But what if you are out of fellowship with God right now, how do you get back into fellowship?  John gives us the answer in this same section of scripture, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” - 1 John 1:9. Confession of sin puts us back into fellowship with the Father.

My children will never lose their relationship to me because they have no choice, I am their father. However, they do have a choice of remaining in fellowship with me based upon their actions. The same thing applies to us as Christians, we will always have a relationship with God but we may not always be in fellowship.

Have a great day and God bless.

Relationships

Relationships. Some relationships we decide to get into and some relationships we have no choice in the matter. I chose to be in a relationship with my wife but my children have no choice but to be in a relationship with me. I had no choice in having a relationship with my parents and sister. My children have no option but to be in a relationship with each other, they’re brother and sister and they always will be.

I will always be my children’s father and there is nothing they can do to change that. I will always be my parent’s son and there is nothing I can do to change that. My blood and my DNA will always be connected with my parents and now my children. It is undeniable that they are mine and I am theirs.

The same thing happens when we become Christians, we become a child of God and have a new relationship with Him. When we choose to accept Christ as our Savior, we become joint heirs with Christ to all that belongs to the Father. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs-heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” - Romans 8:16-17.

Nothing can separate us any longer with that relationship we have with the Father through Christ. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” - Romans 8:35. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” - Romans 8:37-39.

Or relationship to God is secure, but our fellowship with Him can be broken by our actions. We will talk more about fellowship in tomorrow’s post.

Have a great day and God bless.

Scars

Scars. We all have them. I have sports related scars, surgery related scars, construction related scars and scars from just being stupid. I have emotional scars as well that people can’t see, but they are there, whether visible or not. All of our scars have stories that go right along with them as well as lessons learned from those same scars. I bet you have your own scars, visible and invisible, that have some pretty interesting stories that go with them.

Scars are nothing to be ashamed of, they mean that at one time we were in a bad situations and they also mean that we survived those very same situations. Scars mean we’ve been hurt and scars mean we’ve been healed. Scars mean that we have gone through battles and came out victorious on the other side. We have no reason to hide our scars because they show the world that we have overcome the worst that has been thrown our way.

Jesus was unashamed of His scars. After His Resurrection, He appeared to the eleven disciples multiple times but one of them still had his doubts until he saw Him for himself. Thomas has been given the nickname “Doubting Thomas” because of his need to see Jesus after the Resurrection with his own eyes. When Jesus appeared to Thomas and the others in the upper room, He proudly showed off His scars.

“Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came.  So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’  But he said to them, ‘Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.’”  - John 20:24-25.

“Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.’  Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’  Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’”  - John 20:27-29.

Our scars are something to be proud of. Our scars make us who we are. Jesus bears the scars of the Cross to remind us of what He did for us and He does so unashamedly. We should not be ashamed of our scars or of our love for our Savior.  By His wounds we are healed.

Have a great day and God bless.

Ashamed

Ashamed. I’ve done many things in my life that I look back on now that I’m ashamed of. Some of you who know me may understand what I’m talking about and those of you who don’t, you’ll just have to trust me. Maybe you may have a past that you’re ashamed of too. It’s okay, our past is our past and does not reflect our future. If we have accepted Christ, our past sins are separated from us as far as the east is from the west.

There is one thing that I will never be ashamed of and that is accepting Jesus Christ as my Savior. I’m not ashamed of my belief in God or in the truth of His Word. I am not ashamed of how my life has changed since He found me. I have nothing to be ashamed of in any of those things I just listed because I know that my future is in His hands.

The Apostle Paul said the same thing, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” - Romans 1:16. The Good News of Jesus’ sacrificial death at Calvary is nothing to be ashamed of. His death is what brings salvation to those who believe.

Paul told Timothy not to be ashamed of the Gospel either, “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began” - 2 Timothy 1:8-9.

And Paul’s final plea to Timothy should be how we feel as well, “But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.” - 2 Timothy 1:12.

Maybe you have done something in your life that you are ashamed of, trust that Christ has forgiven you of your past sins and cleansed you from all unrighteousness. Never be ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; wear it as a badge of honor.

Have a great day and God bless.

Borrowed

Borrowed. We all have times in our lives that we need to borrow something, whether it’s a car, tools or money, we have needs that we can’t meet on our own. I always remember my father’s advice on borrowing something: always give back what you borrowed in better condition than when you received it. That sage advice has always stuck with me when I ask someone if I can borrow something they have.

Jesus Christ borrowed something after His life had come to an end as well: a tomb. “Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God.  This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.  Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid.” - Luke 23:50-53.

There was no need for Jesus to have ownership of the tomb, He wasn’t staying long. He only needed it for three days. “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” - Matthew 12:40. He knew the outcome of His crucifixion long before He ever went to the Cross.

“And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” - Mark 8:31. In order to fulfill the will of God, Christ died on Good Friday and was placed in the borrowed tomb. But that wasn’t the end of the story, Sunday was coming.

We celebrate today, Easter Sunday, in remembrance that we serve a Risen Savior. Our God is not dead, He is alive and still in control today. The Bible says that He is currently sitting at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us. All other leaders of the world’s religions are still dead and in the tomb, but our Savior only needed a borrowed tomb for just three days.

“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.’” - Revelation 1:17-18. He is alive! He is alive indeed!

Have a great Easter Sunday and God bless.

Our Own Terms

Our own terms. We like to do things on our own terms when we want to do them. The last thing we want is for someone else to dictate our lives. Whether it’s parents, teachers, bosses, spouses or the government, we do not like to be told what to do. We have a natural instinct to buck authorities. I have had my share of bucking authority from a very young age and it’s still difficult to control sometimes.

The authorities thought that they were in control of the death of Jesus Christ but they were not. It had nothing to do with the authority of the Pharisees or the authority of Pilate, it was completely in the control of God. This brings us to our seventh and final saying of Christ from the Cross.

“Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’  And having said this he breathed his last.” - Luke 23:46. Christ was in complete control of His own death. I believe if He wanted to stay there any longer He could have, but the time had come and He was “finished” with what He came to do. He decided when it was time to die and He decided to commit His Spirit back to the Father!

Jesus had told His followers that He was the one that would decide to lay down His own life and that He was the one able to take it up again. “‘For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.’” - John 10:17-18.

As Jesus was dying on the Cross, He told the world that “it is finished”, and once it was finished He told the Father that He was coming home!  The seven sayings started with Jesus praying to the Father that He would forgive “them” and now it ends with Jesus addressing the Father once more to tell Him that He is giving His Spirit back to the Father. What a wonderful picture of love.

The definition of love can be summed up in this, “"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” - John 3:16. God loves you. He loves you so much He sent His one and only Son to die in your place!  Have you accepted Him as you Savior?

Have a great Good Friday and God bless.

Finished

Finished. It is the best feeling when we have a task in front of us, that may seem daunting at the start, that finally comes to and end and we can say “it is finished!”  Maybe it’s a home project, or something out in the garden, or a project for work or school; it doesn’t matter because we get the same feeling when it’s done. It is satisfying to know that whatever it was we started out to complete has been finished.

That brings us to the sixth of Christ’s seven saying on the Cross. After He prayed to the Father to forgive mankind for what they were doing, and after He pardoned the thief on the cross next to Him, and after He makes sure His mother is cared for, and after He asks His Father why He was being forsaken, and after He tells the onlookers that He’s thirsty, He says, “When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” - John 19:30.

What was it that He finished?  He finished what He was sent to do. He finished what the Father required of Him. He died a sacrificial death on the Cross of Calvary to pay for the sins of the world, sins He did not commit. That’s what was finished. He finished what He was born to do!

The finished work of Christ on the Cross was only the beginning of what was left. He had told the Pharisees that if they tore down the Temple (meaning Him) that He would raise it up again in three days. They ridiculed Him for His arrogance that He could rebuild the Temple that took decades to build. But they missed what He was saying.

As we celebrate Good Friday tomorrow, it reminds me of a cartoon I once saw. One character asked “if this is the day Christ died, what makes it so good?”  The other character answered, “it’s good because it should have been us!”  Christ’s death means nothing if the Resurrection doesn’t happen three days later. He would be just like all of the other heads of world religions: still dead!  But Christ is alive!  And He is seated at the right hand of the Father right now making intercession for you and me.

We serve a risen Savior, One that came to this earth for the sole purpose to die for our sins. And just like He said, “it is finished”. But Sunday is coming and the tomb is still empty!  Praise God, what a Savior!

Have a great day and God bless.

Thirst

Thirst. That time of the year is coming up when the temperature down south is about to get HOT. When we have to spend time outside in the heat, it is easy to get thirsty. We loose a lot of fluid from sweating and we have the need to drink water to keep ourselves hydrated. This brings us to the fifth saying of Christ on the Cross. “After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’” - John 19:28.

This is the only time out of the seven sayings from the Cross that Christ references His own physical pain and suffering. Out of all the pain that He has endured so far, it seems kind of odd that He would worry about being thirsty. But He said what He did to fulfill what the Scriptures said about the Messiah (Psalm 69:21).

He became thirsty so that we would never have to thirst again. This is what He told the woman at the well: “Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’” - John 4:13-14.

He is the Living Water so that when we accept Him as our Savior we will never have to utter the words “I thirst”. He becomes in us a spring of water that satisfies our every need. Are you thirsty?  Do you have the Living Water?  He wants to quench that thirst you have in your life for truth. Come to the well of Living Water and drink.

Have a great day and God bless.

Forsaken

Forsaken. How many have had someone in your lives forsake you for maybe something you did or maybe even because you became a Christian. We really don’t know what it means to be forsaken like some others might know it. I think of those in the Middle East that choose to leave Islam and become Christians, that’s what it means to be forsaken. Family, friends, even people they don’t really know forsake them because of their new relationship with Christ.

Christ definitely felt forsaken in an earthly sense when almost all of His disciples left Him when He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. But I don’t think being forsaken by them hurt as much as it did to be forsaken by His Father. That brings us to the fourth saying of Christ on the Cross.

“And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” - Mark 15:34. As Jesus nears the point of death, God the Father turns His back on His own Son. At that point, God had laid the sins of the entire world on the body of Jesus. And because God is Holy, He could not look upon His Son in sin. He had to turn from Him and forsake Him for that time.

Since before the foundation of the world, the Father and the Son has always been in perfect fellowship with one another, and now for the first time that fellowship is broken. Jesus is now feeling something He has never felt before and it makes Him cry out in agony.

Because of our sin nature, we often break fellowship with our Heavenly Father. But we have the promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us. Isn’t that a great promise to rely on?

Have a great day and God bless.

Others-Centered

Others-centered. In a world that tells us to “have it our way” and sings about “I did it my way”, there are those that put others before themselves. Mothers usually spend most of their lives putting the needs of their family before their own needs. But that is not how the world would have us think, they would want us to make sure our needs are met and that we are satisfied. That brings us to the third phrase of Christ while He was hanging on the Cross to die.

“When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’  Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.” - John 19:26-27.  As He hung in agony from the torture of being beaten and flogged and nailed to a cross, he was concerned about the wellbeing of His own mother.

It seems as though Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father, may have already died and Jesus, being his mother’s firstborn, had taken over the role of providing for his widowed mother. With His impending death, He makes sure that the well-being of His mother will be settled. He appoints John, the only disciple that was at the Cross, to be a son to His mother and take care of her. He turns to His mother and lets her know that John was now her son.

I cannot imagine being in that position and not being concerned for my own well-being, but Jesus shows us what it means to be others-centered. He shows what the heart of being “like” Him is all about. He put His own needs aside and made sure that the future needs of His mother were secured.

It should make us look at our own lives to see if we are more self-centered than we are others-centered. It’s a hard road to walk, but that is the road Christ asked us to walk. We are to lay down our lives and pick up His Cross and follow Him.

Have a great day and God bless.

Pardon

Pardon. We hear that word a lot at the end of a president’s term in office. They will use their power to pardon certain individuals that may have been targeted for political reason or possibly have been innocent all along. Most of the time the pardon is given because of some relationship the person has with the president. Pardon removes all guilt of the person being pardoned. Christ does the same for us.

The second phrase that Christ spoke while on the Cross dealt with pardon. The first one that He spoke was a prayer to His Father asking for forgiveness of all of us. Today’s phrase deals with the pardon of one particular person; the thief on the other cross. Jesus wasn’t crucified alone, there was a criminal crucified one either side of Him. While He was crucified for the sins of others, the two criminals were being crucified for their own crimes.

As one criminal mocked Christ and taunted Him that if He was God, to get off the Cross Himself and get him down too. The other criminal showed awe and reverence for who He knew was the Messiah. He asked Jesus to remember him when He got to paradise. With that, Jesus spoke His second saying from the Cross, “And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’” - Luke 23:43.

Jesus pardoned the sins of the criminal that truly seeked His forgiveness. The criminal never got his life together before that day, never went to church, wasn’t a good person, didn’t give to charities, and never got baptized. He just confessed his need for a Savior and Christ saved him that day, within hours of his death.

Jesus wants to pardon you too. You don’t need to get your life together first, He’ll meet you right where you are. Then, just like the thief was promised, one day you will be with Him in paradise. Let today be your day. Ask Him to save you from the punishment of your sins. He’s already paid it all.

Have a great day and God bless.

Forgive Them

Forgive them. One of the hardest things to do is to forgive someone who has done something bad to you. We tell ourselves that we will never be able to forgive that person for the harm they have done to us. We usually harbor that unforgiving spirit for the rest of our lives if the act was bad enough. Not being able to forgive does more damage to us than it usually does to the other person.

Over the next seven days, we are going to look at the last seven sayings of Christ before dying on the Cross of Calvary. This will lead us up to Good Friday and His death. These next posts come from a book by Stu Epperson called “The Last Words of Christ”.

As Jesus was nailed to the Cross and the Cross was dropped into the hole in the ground with a painful jolt, the first thing on the mind of the Savior was forgiveness. He goes to the Father in prayer, not for Himself, but for others; for you and me. I can’t imagine the pain that He was in as He hung there, but what is even more unimaginable is that He would ask for forgiveness for those that had put Him there.

He wasn’t just asking God to forgive the people immediately responsible for doing this, He was asking for forgiveness for the sins of every man and woman that He was representing by dying on that Cross. He was paying for the sins of the entire human population, from Adam through those that have not even been born yet as of today. He was our substitute.

The first saying of Christ while He was dying on the Cross was a saying that was wrapped up in a prayer, “And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” - Luke 23:34. If He could forgive us while dying in our place for sins He did not commit, shouldn’t we also have a forgiving spirit and forgive others that have sinned against us. We are never more like our Savior than when we forgive others.

Have a great day and God bless.

Birthdays

Birthday. Well, today officially marks my 47th trip around the sun. My dad used to always say we only had one birthday and all the rest were just the anniversaries of our births. He was right in a way. When I think about birthdays, I think about the fact that I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t decide who my parents were going to be, or at what point in history I was going to be born, or in which country and I didn’t decide on my race or gender. All of those things were decided by God.

Even though I didn’t get to have a say in my physical birth, I do have a say in my spiritual birth. It easy to see that we have all had a physical birth, you wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t, but a spiritual birth is not as easily recognizable. The idea of a spiritual birth can be very confusing, so much so, that even the most educated have a hard time understanding it. Nicodemus is a great example.

In the Gospel of John, chapter 3, we have the story of the exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. He knew that Jesus was from God and Jesus agreed with this statement. Jesus then told Nicodemus that in order to see the kingdom of God, a person must be born again. This statement completely confused Nicodemus. He asked how someone that is old, like himself, be born again. Was he supposed to climb back in his mother’s womb once more?

Jesus’ answer was that a person has to be born of both water (physical) and of the Spirit (spiritual) to enter into the kingdom of God. According to Christ, we need to experience two “birth” in order to get into heaven. The first birth, physical, we have no control over, but the second birth, spiritual, we have the option to choose to put our faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ or not to.

Just as the Bible speaks of two births, it also speaks of two deaths. The first is a physical death that everyone that had a physical birth will experience. The second death is a spiritual one. Those who face a second death are those who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. Those who have, will not experience a second death. So, if your only born once (physical) you will die twice (physical/spiritual). If you were born twice (physical/spiritual) you will only die once (physical).

As I celebrate my physical birth today, I am more thankful for my spiritual birth, knowing I will only die once. Have you experienced two births or are you headed towards two deaths?  I hope you choose two births, you will never regret it.

Have a great day and God bless.

Vanity Plates

Vanity plates. I always get a kick out of trying to figure out why some people have the vanity plates that they have. Sometimes it’s very obvious and sometimes not so much. I drive an hour to work each day and come across so many cars that my chances of seeing vanity plates are probably higher than yours. I saw one yesterday that said “BIGKNTRY” and was attached to a Dodge 2500 Ram pickup truck. As I drove past, the teenager wasn’t as big as I thought he was going to be. I wonder how many guys were called “Big Country” among their friends in rural America?

I still can’t figure out the appeal of owning vanity plates. I guess it may help you make sure you get in the right car if you drive a car similar to everyone else. It’s not like you can see the plates while you’re driving!  People also judge you right away based upon what your plates may say. I guess it’s all just vanity.

Solomon had a lot to say about vanity in Ecclesiastes, “I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.” - Ecclesiastes 1:14.  “Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.” - Ecclesiastes 2:11.

We all have some level of vanity in our lives and I think it differs at different ages. When we are younger we worry about the clothes we wear and the cars we drive. As we get older we start to make sure we have the right house and our cars might still be important. But as we come to the later years in life, like Solomon, we look back and agree that it was all just vanity and chasing of the wind.

If you have vanity plates please don’t take offense, I have nothing against them, they’re just not for me. But we all have some level of vanity in our lives, take a second and reflect if there is anything in your life that seems like you are just chasing the wind.

Have a great day and God bless.

Redemption

Redemption. There is something about redeeming yourself after something goes wrong that is extremely satisfying. Watching the game last night exemplified the thought of redemption. The team that won the championship last night was the same team that suffered a tremendous and humiliating loss last year that had never happened before. They were the punchline to many jokes for the past year and last night they were able to redeem themselves.

Thinking about the idea of redemption got me to wondering how many people think that they have the power and the ability to redeem themselves spiritually. The answer is that no one has the power or the ability to redeem themselves. Redemption has to come from another source. A source that is like us but different from us.

Jesus was born in the likeness of men so that He could redeem man. Up until His coming, sins were covered by the blood of goats and lambs. That was only a temporary fix until the true Redeemer came in the form of Christ. His sacrifice on the Cross with His blood didn’t just cover the sins of man, it removed the punishment for the sins of man. There is a big difference from having them covered (still there) to having them removed.

“He (Jesus Christ) entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.  For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”- Hebrews 9:12-14.

Redemption is a word that is thrown around lightly in today’s day and age, but spiritually speaking, it should be a word that has profound meaning to the believer. It’s a word that means we have been taken out of the humiliation we were once sentenced to face, and instead, placed in heavenly places with our Savior. Have you been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb?

Have a great day and God bless.

Jigsaw Puzzles

Jigsaw puzzles. I love putting together jigsaw puzzles. My love for them comes from my grandmother. She used to have them when I was a kid and I remember going to her house and spending hours sitting at the card table next to the window putting puzzles together with her. She used to be very meticulous in how she laid out all the pieces. I do the same thing now.

Where I work always has a jigsaw puzzle laid out for anyone to work on as just a break from work. I work on them now and again and it brings back such wonderful memories. The last puzzle that was out for us to put together was made more difficult because one of the guys decided we would put it together without the use of the box as our guide. It was much more challenging, but a fun way to put together a puzzle once in a while.

Life is like that too. We don’t get to see the box of the finished picture as we go through this puzzle of a life. We only see brief pieces that somehow fit together to form the entire picture. Sometimes that one piece is missing that keeps us from understanding what that little moment in time was all about. Each event, each moment and each season in our lives brings the puzzle into focus a little clearer.

God sees our whole lives from beginning to end because He is not bound by time. We see what we have already been through and what we are going through in the present, but we have no understanding of what lies ahead in our future. We live by faith that the God of the universe holds our lives in His hands.

“Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” - 1 John 3:2. We don’t know the whole story of our lives. We do know that when He returns and we see Jesus, we will be like Him and all things in our lives will be made clear.

Have a great day and God bless.

I Deserve

I deserve it!!!  You deserve better!!! I hear these words more and more often. Even the legendary Joe Namath is on a commercial to tell you that you deserve something better. When did we become a group of people that somehow “deserves” something?  And when did we “deserve” better?  When we compare what we have now to the generations before us, how do we even dare to demand such a thing?

The Bible is clear that when we do not belong to Christ, we are deserving of the punishment for our own sins. We are deserving of the condemnation of God. We deserve to be the one that hangs on the Cross for our sins. That is truly what we deserve!  But God offers us a way to escape the punishment that we deserve. His name is Jesus Christ.

Mercy is God withholding from us what we deserve to get: punishment. Grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve: salvation. We deserve punishment but instead receive grace, all because of God’s perfect plan of salvation through Jesus Christ.

So the next time you say that you deserve something (a raise, break today, or something else), stop and think about what you really deserve. Then thank God that He withheld from you what you really deserved because of what Jesus Christ did. Have you thanked Him today?

Have a great day and God bless.

Adoption

Adoption. I read a great story the other day that some of you may have seen as well. A nurse adopted a little girl from the hospital that no one had visited during her time there. The little girl was born very premature and addicted to drugs because of the drug use of her mother. The nurse would visit her every day at the end of her shift.

After nine months, the nurse was given foster care rights to the little girl and took her home. Two years later, the nurse was able to legally adopt her and become her legal parent. Amazingly enough, the woman was unable to naturally get pregnant herself and couldn’t afford the treatments to do so. This got me thing about the word “adoption” and what it means to us as Christians.

The Apostle Paul loved the word “adoption” and used it when writing to the church in Rome, to the Ephesians and to the Galatians. When we become Christians, God adopts is into His family. We are given all the same rights that belong to His Son, Jesus Christ. We become joint heirs to all that is His. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs-heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” - Romans 8:16-17.

We are adopted out of the family of Satan and into the family of God. “To redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.  And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’  So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” - Galatians 4:5-7.

Have you been adopted into the family of God?  Just like that little girl that was adopted by the loving nurse, her life was changed forever. You life and eternity can be changed forever by adoption into the family of God.

Have a great day and God bless.

A Thousand Words

A picture can speak a thousand words sometimes. Like the picture that goes along with this post. We come to times in our lives that the road ahead is definitely washed away and God does not want us to go in that direction or maybe He wants us to wait there until the road is ready, but we come up with our own plans on how to keep going. We devise all sorts of ways to keep on the same path because it’s easier than finding another way.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I don’t like change and sometimes it doesn’t bother me at all. We head off on our little plan of life thinking it’s going to be a nice, smooth and relaxing journey and then all of a sudden we come around the bend and the road is gone. It’s a lot of effort to turn back in life and find a new route to take. It’s difficult to sit and wait for that road to be opened back up as well.

So, what do we normally do?  We come up with all sorts of ideas on how we can continue on the same path we were heading even though we have crystal clear evidence that we should not and there are dangerous risks involved if we do. It reminds me of many times in my life that I pushed on and it didn’t work out to well.

We make plans on how our life is supposed to progress and we have dreams that we want to fulfill, but we have to be open to the plan of God for our lives. We need to see that the roadblocks that we come across and the roads that are washed away my be God telling us that this is not the direction He wants us to go. Maybe He wants us to turn back or maybe He wants us to wait. What He doesn’t want is for us to make our own plans on how to get past the situation. He will let us, because He gave us free will, but we will suffer the consequences for not being obedient.

Have a great day and God bless.

Fatherhood

Fatherhood. I don’t know if there is a better word in the English language. I never knew how much being a father would change me. My first child made me a father and my second one made it even better. I was worried about something though when we found out we were having another child so many years after having the first one.

Would my love for my first little girl, Christina, be divided when our little guy, Timothy, came along. That was my biggest fear. For almost eight years all my love for my daughter was all her’s and now I had a second one coming and I was afraid that my love for her would be taken, to some extent, and given to my son. But you know what, my love was not divided, it was multiplied.

The love I had for my daughter stayed exactly the same as it had before the birth of my son and he received his own amount of love that I didn’t know I had inside me. I look at them now, three years later, and I can still say that both of them have 100% of my love. This multiplying of love made me think of God.

Every time someone becomes a new believer and accepts Christ as their Savior, God’s love is multiplied. He doesn’t love those that have been Christians for many years any less than He ever did just because someone else is now His child. His love multiplies, just like mine did for my own children.

Every day my children make be proud to be called their father. Yesterday Christina gave a big presentation at her homeschool group on the life of Ester. This is way out of her comfort zone and my wife said she knocked it out of the park. Timothy (because every Paul must have a Timothy) is learning his days of the week and months of the year and he impresses me every day in how much he is learning. Him and Jen pray together every night before bed and it makes my heart bust with joy. I’m the most blessed father in earth (a little bias there!).

Have a great day and God bless.

Airport People

People. Everywhere. I spent most of my waking hours yesterday in an airport terminal. As I sat in the white rocking chair in the Charlotte airport, I watched people for hours. Some were just taking their time walking from one terminal to another and some looked like they were trying out for the Olympic track and field team. As I watched people, because of the multiple delays of my flight, I got to thinking about a song on the radio by Brandon Heath called “Give Me Your Eyes”.

There were big ones, and there were small ones. There were tall ones, and there were short ones. There were skinny ones, and there were not so skinny ones. There were old ones, and there were young ones. There were some that looked rich and some not-so-much. There were black ones, and there were white ones, and there were ones of every color in between. There were local ones, and there were out-of-town ones. But as I thought about it, they all had one thing in common.

God loves them and He knows each one of them even if they don’t know Him. He wants every single one of them, that fell into every one of those categories (even ones I didn’t mention), to know Him and be counted as one of His children. He longs for each one of them to coming to the saving knowledge of His Son Jesus Christ. It changes everything when we look at people like that.

The song goes:
“Looked down from a broken sky
Traced out by the city of lights
My world from a mile high
Best seat in the house tonight
Touch down on the cold black-top
Hold on for the sudden stop
Breathe in the familiar shock of confusion and chaos
All those people going somewhere, why have I never cared
Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see,
Everything that I keep missing,
Give your love for humanity.
Give me your arms for the broken-hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach.
Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten.
Give me Your eyes so I can see.”

That song took on a whole new meaning to me today as I sat and watched. There is no possible way I could share Christ with all of them, but I can share Christ with the ones that He puts in my path. I can plant a seed or I can water a seed that has already been planted. Give me Your eyes Lord so I can see.

Have a great day and God bless.

Good Person

Good person. We all know people that we would consider “good people”. You know them as “a good dude” or as “the sweetest lady”. We look at their lives and maybe see no flaws. We know they aren’t perfect, but the mistakes they make are so far and few that we overlook them in the face of the entire picture of their lives. We love having them as friends and we trust them in the advice that they give.

However, the “good person” is sometimes the hardest to reach with the Gospel and to show them their need for a Savior. They look at their lives and they say, “in comparison to everyone else, I’m a pretty good person.”  And that is what makes it so hard; they are a pretty good person, but that will not save them from the penalty of their sin. It’s usually the person that has really messed up their lives that understands their need for a Savior. It reminded me of the story from Luke that I read yesterday.

“He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: ‘Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.'  But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!'  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.’” - Luke 18:9-14.

Our works will never save us. Our being a “good person” will never save us. The only thing that can save us is the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary: His death, burial and resurrection. When we put our faith in the fact that He was God and died for our sins, He will save us when we ask Him to. “He who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved!” Have you put your trust in Him or are you trusting that you are “good” enough?

Have a great day and God bless.