The Promise of Hope


The promise of God, to those who love him and worship his Holy Son, is eternal life.  Think about it; Eternal Life!

His promise brings to us something that is thoroughly beyond our understanding.  Yet those who believe this, become transformed by the power behind that very thought.

Do you believe?  Have you taken the time to let it sink in?  Do you wake every morning and go to sleep every night, considering the beauty of his promise?

While God’s people consider this with all their might, the world worships zombies, movies about dinosaurs, sex, sports, money, all the trinkets of life, relationships among men, status, and the works of their own hands.  All of these doings done with death looming in their future, and trouble along their way.

Such a vast chasm of living between those who believe and those who refuse! 

As I ponder this I am shocked to realize that the percentage of those who believe compared to those who do not is less than one percent.  And even of that one percent, I find doubt.  Among this number there are many who cannot find the will to continue in that belief.

All he asks is that we believe he cannot lie. 

When we stand before him, will today provide regret?  Or will we bend our will to believe?

By His Grace

Unworthy


A car with a bad engine is unworthy of your money, unless you have the means to fix it.  And if your car behaves poorly, you begin to search for ways to repair it or to get another one.

If a road is closed because there is no bridge, only the true idiot continues undeterred.  The tiniest  modicum of wisdom forces people to find another route.

You can read the signs your car gives you, you can read the signs on the road.  How is it that so many do not read the signs of warning in their dilapidated soul?

The philosopher Plato said, “The unexamined life is not worth living”.  Isn’t it true, the one who ignores signs of warning encourages a bad day.

Your life is broken.  If you don’t know that, you haven’t examined it very closely.  Even according to the man Plato, your life then is not worth living.  What’s your response to all this?

If a mechanic pulls up to a stop sign next to you and tells you he is willing to fix your falling car for free, wouldn’t he get your interest?  Well I’ve pulled up next to you in the body of this message.  I know the one who can fix your broken life.  His name is Jesus.

By His Grace

The Darkness of Perversity


25 “To the holy, you show your gracious love,
to the upright, you show yourself upright;
26 to the pure, you show yourself pure,
and to the morally corrupt, you appear to be perverse.” ( Psalm 18, ISV)

The mind and imagination of Man is kept to the limits of the place he lives.  If all he sees is death and corruption, that is all he is capable of perceiving.  Men may call another man holy, but they give that title to the one who achieves the best of Man’s imagination.

True holiness and purity must come from God.  Man is not capable of achieving that level of cleanliness on his own.  And to add to Man’s difficulty, pride stands at the door.  Because of pride, no man is able to receive this testimony from another man.  It is required that God bless the receiver with understanding.

Do not be amazed when so many reject the Gospel.  They cannot receive it unless they humble themselves before the Living God’s Christ.  If the hearer retains his pride, the Gospel will sound perverse.  But if the man has a willing heart, God will confirm the noise to be true.

Keep The Faith and be faithful; let God be who he is.  The only thing God requires of us is that we are not ashamed or fearful to bring the Message to our fellow brothers of flesh.

I met a man who could not overcome sexual immorality.  I told him that victory over such a sin will not come to him except that God gives it.

A year or two later he complained that he was still embroiled in immorality.  He said he had asked God to take it away, but it was still an active part of his life.

I tried to reason with him, that salvation is a mutual work.  God may well grant freedom.  The question is: does the man have the will to retain it?  In the end, the man admitted that Christ Jesus must be a liar.

Consider the verses above.  God’s Holy Word is true.  It is we who are liars.

By His Grace

Polycarp


It is good to remember, we have not received Christianity as if from a cracked egg 30 years ago.  The blood of hundreds of thousands delivered the message to us.

It is our turn.  Will we be found having delivered The Faith?

By His Grace

Necessary Pain


In the Gospel of Christ Jesus, I bring you life. 

It is painful by reason of necessity.

For you have not moved your limbs since a little while after you had been born.

Now the Gospel tells you to move your limbs.

It tells you to believe and do.

But in the wickedness of desire you have let your soul become lazy.

Spiritual atrophy belongs to you.

Now the message I bring you is of difficult work.

You must let yourself believe.

Endure the pain or die.

By His Grace

To Have, or Not to Have


It is far better to agree with the Holy Lord, than to be able to raise the dead.  It is far better to die of starvation, if that is His will for you, than to be able to make a banquet appear from nowhere.

It is far better to live in isolation and abandoned by every man, then to distort the Gospel and make it say things for the sake of their itchy ears.  It is better to be crucified for the Holy Name of Jesus the Christ of God, than to be loved by every man, woman and child who ever lived.

The Living God will support the one who agrees with his Holy Son.  But the one who desires appreciation from man, will find himself starkly alone.  It is immeasurably better to agree with the Living God, than to have the smallest of desire granted.

“If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”  Miracles do not provide the willing soul that God desires.  Instead, God is looking for those who will love him regardless what comes.  Isn’t that why he loves his Holy Son so dearly?

By His Grace