Jesus

In John 8:12 it says this, Jesus speaking, “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”

In Jesus’ light sin is exposed and all who love darkness hide from His penetrating light for fear that their evil deeds will be exposed.  When Jesus came into the word He shed his light into everyone’s soul.  Everywhere He went people were convicted in one way or other, and the same thing still happens today, when we come into the presence of the Lord.  Many people don’t want to come to Jesus today because they hate the conviction they feel over their sins.  If you are a believer, I am sure you have noticed how you are rejected and excluded from different venues and how some people shun you when they see you.

Read what Luke says about this in Luke 6:22-23, “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.”

As a believer I have talked to many people over the years and some have been downright hostile towards me and some of these same people claimed to be Christians, or at least had a church affiliation of some kind.  But, on the other hand I am sorry to say that some of this hostility was my own fault because of the way I presented the Word of God.  I have heard it said something like this that new believers can be obnoxious louts and I am afraid that I had fit that description many times.

Read what it says in John 1:1-5, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

It is one thing to be criticized for witnessing but when you bring it on yourself it is quite another.  Now read this in 1 Peter 2:19-20, “For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.”

Jesus said this in John 8:12, “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”

As Christians, we have the light of life.  At this time Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees in the part of the Temple called the treasury, you can find this in chapter 8 verse 20.  This is where they burned candles to symbolize the pillar of fire that led the people through the desert in the book of Exodus.  In this setting Jesus called Himself the light of the world.

Check out Matthew 5:14-16, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

We can choose to light up the darkness in people’s lives or we can choose to allow the darkness to overshadow our light by our actions and the way we speak and what we say.  We need to reach out to people with love and not our condemnation and judgement, because our attitude will make a big difference in the lives of the people we come in contact with.  If we are just obnoxious louts then we can blame no one but ourselves if we are mistreated and shunned, but if it is the truth they reject and get hostile, we are blessed.

So let your light so shine before men that they will see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven, praise the Lord!!  Something to think about!  Have a super day and may the good Lord bless you and yours and remember to thank and praise the Lord!!

Faith

When I come will I find faith on the earth?  Why do you think Jesus would make this statement in this parable?  Read what it says in Luke 18:1-8, “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’ And the Lord said, ‘Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’”

Why do you think Jesus said what He said in verse 8?  What was the difference about this woman in the parable compared to many other people?

1. She was determined so she kept coming back 

2. She was persistent, not going to take no for an answer, she was not giving up

3. She had grit, she had boldness and courage

4. She had faith that she would get her way in the end

This judge wasn’t afraid of God or man.  It doesn’t say this so this is my interjection; I can picture this judge showing his aggravation towards this woman, if this were a real setting but he was not going to discourage this lady even if he showed a disgusted attitude to her.  This reminds me of this saying, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”  Because of all these attributes, the lady got her petition answered and was vindicated.

I think the reason Jesus made the statement He made in verse 8 was that people today seem to get discouraged so easily and give up.  We live in a microwave world, where we are used to getting things very fast.  Remember when we come before the Judge of all the earth that He is loving, merciful and kind and He is also just, unlike the judge in this parable.  Many of us seem to lack the determination, persistence, grit, boldness and faith of this widow in the parable.

It says this in Hebrews 4:16, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

True believers have access to the throne of God through His beloved Son Jesus Christ so we can go to Him boldly with our request and we can be sure He hears us.  Think of how many times you have gone to the Lord with a petition     haphazardly with no faith at all or how many selfish prayers have you prayed.  I don’t think this was the kind of petitioning Jesus was talking about.

Read what it says in Matthew 7:7-13, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.”

Too many times we lay our petitions before the Lord and we don’t receive right away so we give up and say it must not be God’s will for us.  Be careful, that may just be a cop out.  I thought that about my asthma for a long period of time, then one day I was praying in my bedroom by myself about more than one aliment that I had at the time and I heard this voice in my mind say, “Jerry if you were to be healed of one of these things what would you want to be healed of?”  So I picked the asthma.  I haven’t had an asthma attack in about 8 years now, praise the Lord, and I had that disease for more than 60 years, very severely.  I always thought it was God’s will that I had that aliment but it wasn’t.

I want to encourage you to not give up because you next prayer may be the one that God answers.  Something to think about!  May you have a super day and may God bless you and yours with His peace, love and joy!!  Don’t forget to thank and praise the Lord!!

The Consumer Mentality

The more I learn about God the more reasons I have to repent because the closer I get to God and see His righteousness the more I see how undone I really am and how sinful I have become.  Read these words carefully in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “..if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

I know God was talking to the Jews at the time and this is what most people today relate to as the Old Testament and it isn’t for us today, but God does not change, He is the same yesterday, today and forever.  I know people might say we live in the day of grace, and that is true, but God has always extended grace in every generation but sin was sin then and sin is still sin today and God hates it just as much as He did back then.  How many people are there today that call themselves Christians but are straddling the fence, so to speak, half in the world and half in the church?  And how many are calling themselves believers who are not, they are just going through the motions?  And how many in the church are in a backslidden situation?  Have you ever taken the time to examine yourself to see why you are a believer or if you are truly in the faith?

Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”

Have you a growing awareness of God in your life and are you spending more time with Him and growing closer to Him or are you just a Sunday believer?  This is so important!  Have you truly repented of your sins or have you just gone through the motions or have been just emotionally stirred and not truly convicted of your sins?  

It would be so sad to stand before the Lord someday and hear these words in Matthew 7:21-27, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

These are very sobering words that Jesus spoke and we should take them very seriously.  We can build our lives on Jesus or we can just go through the motions and depend on our religiosity without a personal relationship with Jesus at all but in the end we will hear these words, “I never knew you, depart from me.”  

Let me ask you a question, do you really love the Lord or are you a consumer, just using the Lord to get what you want?  If you felt like He has withdrawn from you for a time, would you still trust Him and love and serve Him?  Is your purpose to build your kingdom or His kingdom, drawing closer to Him and learning more about Him or just to use Him for your benefit?  I think everyone who calls themselves a believer should ask themselves these questions and be honest with the answers.  

Question, did God create what He created so that He would have someone to love?  The answer is no, God is love and He is complete in himself and needs nothing because He lacks nothing.  God created us so that we could have a relationship with Him.  Even when sin separated man from God, He loved us and He provided a way that we could be redeemed and be in right standing with Him.

Read what God says in Isaiah 1:18, “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;

though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”

The stain of sin is something we all have in common when we are born but, unlike stains in clothing that may be removed with certain products, the stain on our soul can only be removed through one source and that is the cleansing blood that Jesus shed for us on the cross.  Only when we truly repent of our sins and acknowledge them before the Lord and express our sorrow and ask Him to forgive us, will we ever be forgiven.  This is not just mouthing some words, but this is humbling one’s self before the Lord in true remorse, confessing your sins and asking the Lord for forgiveness.  This is something you don’t want to just rush through but take your time and pray through.  The Lord is seeking the humble and contrite heart, that He will not despise and we can’t fool Him for He knows the thoughts and intents of the heart!!

Enough said, if you need Jesus in your life or you are backslidden, or just not sure where you stand with the Lord, I have given you something to think about.  I pray you will take this Tidbit seriously and respond with a humble and contrite heart.  May the good Lord bless you and yours and may you have a super great day!!

Being Lied To

Who do you trust?  Is there anyone you can truly put your trust in?  In the world we live in it seems like trust is vanishing and people have a hard time trusting in general.  If you think about this problem I guess it has been a problem for many years.  It started out in the book of Genesis when Eve listened to the serpent and was deceived and lied to, and all down through the ages from the time Jesus walked the earth up to our present day lying and deceit have been woven through the pages of time.

Even Jesus made this statement about people in John 2:23-25, “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”

Jesus didn’t trust men because He knew what resided in the heart of man.  This is what God’s Word says about the heart of man in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

Since the beginning of the creation of man when sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, all who have been born were born in sin and have a sin nature, except for Jesus.  With this sin nature we have a hard time trusting ourselves, let alone trusting someone else.  

What happens when you are lied to or deceived by someone?  You lose trust in that person and many times that trust is never restored for that person, even if they ask you to forgive them and you say that they are forgiven, or, if the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, and you lie to someone and you ask them to forgive you.  How can you tell if you have forgiven someone?  When their name comes up, how do you feel or how do you respond?  Or, when you walk into a room and that person is there, that you lied to, how do they respond to you?  It isn’t real hard to know if you have really been forgiven or if you have really forgiven the other person.

I worked with a man that seemed to be a chronic liar and because he did it so often I don’t think he even realized he was doing it.  It had become a part of his identity and no one that knew him very well would trust him.  When we deceive and lie to people, that is how people remember us, unless we have been truly forgiven.  And this usually won’t stop there because most people like to talk and because of that, how many other people have formed their own opinions about you when they hear what other people have to say about you?  The old saying is true, “What an evil web we weave when we practice to deceive.”  We all may have been guilty of this at one time or another; I know I have to my shame.

Lying and deceiving seem to run rampant in our society and the world we live in, and it is easy to say, everyone is doing it, but that is not true, it is a cop out.  If you are a believer and you are into this kind of sin, repent, which means to turn in the other direction and confess and ask the Lord to forgive you and do your very best, with the Lord’s help, not to repeat it again.  This is the reason God hates sin, because of the devastation it causes.  

Pray and ask God to help you hate sin in any form like He does.  Don’t be ashamed to weep and wail over your sin and let God restore you and forgive you and heal you of your sins.  Humble yourself before the Lord and He will lift you up in His time.

Read what it says in James 4:7-10, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”

Read what 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Praise God for His amazing grace and forgiveness when we repent and confess our sins.  Something to think about and act on if you need to!!  May the good Lord bless you and yours and may you have a super, super day!!  PS don’t forget to thank and praise the Lord!!

Basket

Who is in your basket?  I heard this statement from Ravi Zacharias and it made me think about all the babies that have been aborted over the years and who they may have been and what they may have accomplished if they were allowed to live.  But regardless of whom they were or anything about them they all had one thing in common, they were all created in God’s image and likeness.  The question may be asked why God didn’t send someone to warn us of the impending dangers or other things that would have helped if we would have known about them.  The answer could be that He has, but they were not given a chance.

Think about the Apostle Paul for instance, he was a very smart intelligent man who trained under Gamaliel; he couldn’t have gotten any better training.  Paul was trained as a Pharisee and while in that role persecuted the church agreeing with Steven’s death, when Steven was martyred.  He then went trying to destroy the church by arresting all of the people he could find that were believers and having them thrown into prison.  But there was the day when Paul was on his way to Damascus to have the believers arrested, when he found something that he was not expecting and that was an encounter with the Lord himself, and from that day on he was never the same.  You can read about Paul’s conversion in Acts 9:1-19.

Now read what it says in Acts 9:24, “..but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him..”  

How can you know who is in your basket if they are not allowed a hearing by being aborted?  Paul went on to write two-thirds of the New Testament and helped shape Christianity like no other person, outside of the Lord himself.  What if he had been aborted?  

How many of the finest evangelistic voices in the world have been silenced by abortions along with the greatest artists or scientists or even Einstein’s and so forth.  Their voices will never be heard here because they have been silenced before they had a chance to contribute to our society either for good or evil depending on what path they would have chosen.

I can’t, in good conscience, just smooth this over because it is a grave sin with certain consequences but I am not here to judge you or to condemn you but to give you hope.  Jesus loves you and has provided a way for you to be forgiven and put in right standing with God.  He allowed himself to be crucified, to die and be buried for the sins of mankind but on the third day He rose again, a man who had no sin, became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ.  So if you are living with shame and guilt because of an abortion, or maybe more than one abortion, that you had, you can find forgiveness in Him; that is the good news.

Jesus said this in Matthew 12:31-32 to the Pharisees, “Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”

This is what the footnotes in my Bible say about this, “Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is denying that the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin.  Because a person can be saved only through the Holy Spirit’s work, to refuse to repent or even to acknowledge our sin is to refuse God’s forgiveness.  Sometimes believers worry that they have accidently committed this unforgivable sin.  But only those who have turned their backs on God and rejected all faith have any need to worry.  Jesus said they can’t be forgiven – not because their sin is worse than any other, but because they will never ask for forgiveness.  Whoever rejects the prompting of the Holy Spirit removes himself from the only force that can lead him to repentance and restoration to God.” 

                     

If you want to find forgiveness and restoration and God’s peace, love and joy, repent of your sins and confess what you have done.  This may have been done in secret but God knows all things and this is no exception.  He knew it was going to take place before it happened, but He gave of us a free will to choose.  I believe these little aborted babies are with Him in heaven because they were innocent children that had no say one way or other in what happened to them.  

We are all accountable for our own sins, but praise to our God there is forgiveness and restoration through His love and grace.  Read what God’s Word says in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  

Now read what John 3:16-17 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

God is seeking the humble and contrite heart that He will not despise.  So, repent of your sins, which means to turn away from your sins and to go in the other direction, and ask the Lord to forgive you and to come into your heart and be the Lord of your life.  If you are sincere, I believe that He will and you will be born-again, praise the Lord!!  Then you can go forth thanking and praising the Lord!!  I hope this Tidbit is a blessing and a help to you, it is certainly something to think about which I hope you will and that you will make the right choice.  May you have a super day and may the good Lord bless you and yours!!