The Power Of Scripture And A Ring

This Christmas, my wife gave me a ring as a gift. I’m not much of a jewelry person, but I have wanted one with a cross on it for some time now. When I received the ring, I noticed three words inscribed around the cross “JUSTICE MERCY HUMILITY” and the letters “MIC” on one side of the ring and the inscription “6:8” on the opposite. Lisa and I had not noticed this until we picked up the ring, as I had chosen it from several she showed me.

     Intrigued, I realized the “MIC” stood for the book of Micah in the Old Testament, and “6:”8 but I thought I was unfamiliar with it, so I went to my bible to look it up. Much to my surprise, at some time during my bible studies over the years, I had highlighted and underlined that very verse. It reads “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

     How amazing, that unknown to me, the one ring I chose would be bringing that question to my mind whenever I saw it or felt it’s weight on my finger. I never saw the inscription on it at the store, only when I finally received it and opened the box. So did I choose it or did the Holy Spirit? You think what you want, but I believe it was chosen for me, not by me.

     Throughout my life I have seen the good and the bad in this world, the beautiful and the ugly, and for some time I allowed the bad experiences and the ugly sights to make up my mindset. But when I came to Christ, I began to realize this world is not the one God created, but the fallen world Genesis speaks about. A world that needs salvation to set things right with the Creator. Sin came into the world, but God allowed enough of the good to continue to exist for us to see it if we would just stop to look.

     See, even though I’m no longer a public servant, I still serve the public. This time it’s not for a pay check. It’s because Jesus loved me enough to pay for me with His blood. Because He has shown me what is good, I need to know what God requires of me as His servant. It’s basically the same requirement as Jesus said, to love and treat others as you want for yourself and to love God with all your might and soul. My servitude is to tell others about what Christ did and the Gospel of His good news, to always treat everyone justly and mercifully (hence forgiveness) and to be humble to my Creator in all ways and all things.

     Being a new creature in Christ, I know what is right and wrong, what is merciful and what isn’t, and I know that I can do nothing without Christ. Being human in a fallen world, sometimes I fail the tests set before me. But because they are tests, I can ask for forgiveness and learn from those failures. Isn’t that what tests are for, to see what we know or don’t know and are capable to do or not to do?

    Tests show us our faults or lack of understanding so we can correct ourselves and move forward to the next set of instructions and tests. Where do we go for instruction? The Bible! Who is the author and instructor, God! Have I slept in class or not read my text book? Yes! Have I failed a test? Unfortunately many, but each is a learning experience and a message to go back to the Bible and find the answer.

     It’s funny how God will work through many different ways to get our attention and test us. Was I given a ring as a test, or to remind me of something? It took me back to a verse I once thought important enough to mark, which once again does what it’s supposed to do, point me straight to Him.

     What a wonderful gift a test can be!

Wipe The Slate Clean

 As we come into another New Tear, many once again are trying the News Years Resolution thing. Once again 90% will fail. Isn’t that the way it is when we try to become self righteous, instead of remembering Jesus paid the price, and Grace is given to us? We can’t save ourselves, no matter how hard we try, we will fail. We may resolute to never tell a lie again, gossip, pray every day, read our bible more, but if we could look back every December 31^st, we would see our failures time and time again.

     That is the wonderful thing about God’s grace through Jesus, for when we confess our sins and failures, He promises to forgive and forget. as far as the east is from the west. But I have a question for you, is there someone you haven’t forgiven this New Year? Someone who has hurt you, or broke a promise, or otherwise trespassed against you?

     This year, let’s just forget the resolutions and just forgive others fully, wiping the slate clean. Now would be a good time to just take a deep breath, and pray to God, thanking Him for His forgiveness and to release the burden of unforgiveness of others. Then just forgive those who He brings to mind and release them. Believe it or not, unforgiveness of someone holds YOU in bondage, not them.

     Forgiveness in your heart will brighten your day, your outlook, as well as your Christian walk. It is also a command from God that we must obey. Mt 6:14 says “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will forgive you:”

And Mk 11:25 tells us “and when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive your trespasses.”

     Throughout the New Testament it is stressed many times that we must forgive others, because God has forgiven us. Not only is it obedience to God, but it will also help relieve the stress of being angry or hurt, which can be a blessing to our health. Stress causes many ulcers and health problems. What a blessing it would be to not have anything against anyone! Through Jesus Christ, that blessing can be obtained.

     So this year, just make a resolution to forgive, release the bondages and holds that unforgiveness puts on you, and have a Happy and Inner Peaceful New Year!

The Savior Is Born

Preachers will be preaching, singers will be singing and most of the world will be celebrating the birth of a child over two thousand years ago. A child who was born with a special mission, to finally give the human race a chance to overcome sin and the curse it brought to this world.

     That child had to be a sacrifice once and for all, ending the animal sacrifices that were only a symbolic covering of our sin, to a sacrifice that would erase our sins and transgressions completely in God’s eyes.

     But he could not be just any child. He had to be part of the Creator of all things Himself. He had to freely become fully man and fully God. He had to be born of a virgin fulfilling all prophesy. He had to grow and be an example of a sinless man. He had to teach the truth about God and His Kingdom. He had to heal, raise the dead, and do signs and wonders to show God’s power and glory. He still had to face rejection and persecution. Then He had to die the most horribly painful death imaginable.

     This sounds more like a horror story than a glorious tale doesn’t it? But it isn’t a horror story, it is glorious because after being entombed for three days, that man was raised from the dead, the devil and sin defeated, mankind had someone to turn to and repent, returning to the relationship with God that was meant to be in the Garden of Eden. That Sacrificial Lamb was Jesus Christ! He is not just a story, He was, He is, and He will forever be real. God himself said every knee shall bow to Him, everyone must turn to Him if they wish to be saved. He has been given all authority in Heaven and Earth!

     What material present could ever come close to the special gift God the Father gave to us, the gift of eternal life through His only begotten Son Jesus? Maybe the best gift you could give your family this season is to open your bible and read Luke’s account of the miracle story. God bless each of you this Christmas!

God and Thanksgiving

I’m not trying to imitate Andy Rooney, but I have a question to ask. Have you ever really thought about Thanksgiving?

     Oh sure, I know most of those who graduated school before 1985 have read or been taught about the first thanksgiving feast between the pilgrims and the Indians. Some with government studies under their belts can tell you the year and the president who signed in the day of observance. But have you REALLY thought about the meaning?

    To most people today, the Thanksgiving Holiday means a big family meal, followed by a nap and football games. Then before everyone leaves, plans are made for the predawn Christmas shopping spree the next morning. Do you see God in there anywhere? Many don’t even say a blessing before the meal anymore.

     Speaking plainly, without God, we have nothing. We need to give God thanks every day of our lives for what we have, for the trials and tribulations that strengthen us. Thanksgiving allows our spirits to soar the heavens, directly thanking our Creator for His graciousness, for every day is a gift from God.

     1 Timothy 6:6-8 tells us ⁶But godliness with contentment is great gain. ⁷For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. ⁸And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.

     There are no bragging rights on our successes or on the bounty set upon our tables. Paul said to be happy and content with all things God has allowed you to have, and count it all riches. Every one of us, no matter how poor we may think we are, are richer than someone else. The irony is, even a Donald Trump can take nothing to the grave with him, for even his soul belongs to the Lord.

     The blessing is we have the opportunity to thank the One who loves us and provides for us, that allowed us to be born in a blessed country, and gave us Grace to become children in His Kingdom. Thank You my Lord and Savior Jesus for saving my soul, for I am richer than the richest king on earth!

Will God Send A Nahum?

     A few weeks ago, I preached on the radio and in our pulpit about the prophet Jonah. There are so many sermons that can be given from the book named after him. There are lessons about Jonah himself, Nineveh, the ocean voyage, the sailors or the great fish. When I left Jonah, Nineveh had repented and Jonah was setting under a shriveled up bush pouting.

     What I didn’t preach on that day was that Jonah’s prophesy did come true! In the book of Nahum, which some say is the sequel to the book of Jonah, we see where God gave another prophet named Nahum a vision concerning Nineveh. Several decades after Jonah, the city’s fate was sealed. For a moment, let us go back in time to 713 B.C.
     Nineveh has returned to idolatry and wickedness. The Assyrians, repenting when Jonah had preached to them, have relapsed worse than their former state. They are plundering other nations and idolatry is rampant. It seems God has had enough of the debauchery and appears to the prophet in a vision: Na. 1:2a God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; and in verse 1:3a The Lord is slow to anger and great in power,
     God tells Nahum that He (God) will not acquit the wicked; He will take revenge against His enemies. The very mountains quake in His presence and the very earth burns in His presence! God has every right to be angry with the Assyrians and Nineveh. They had been warned before. They had repented and turned from their idols, their immorality, and their brutality. But those days are long gone.
     But inside the Assyrian empire, there are those who still worship the one true God. They have not turned to false gods and continue to put their faith in the Lord. To those who are in the midst of the coming storm God makes this promise in verse 1:7 The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust him. He continues on to warn the faithful that He is going to put an end to this rebellious empire. It is so unholy and against God, the He is giving a commandment that no more of their name will be sown and out of the houses of their gods, He will make their graves, they are so vile!
     God tells Judah to continue performing their solemn feasts, perform their vows, in other words, continue doing what the Lord has commanded them to do, keep faithful for He is going to utterly destroy the Assyrians. And God does just that!

     At the end of the book, God’s vision to Nahum says that there is no healing of their wound for it is critical, and all those that the Assyrians conquered and brutalized would now clap their hands over them. They have become an extinct nation.
    
Jump back to the present and look at the current countries that had turned to God, or were started with God on their lips.

     England, who the sun never set upon, who raised great churches and preachers and the translation called the King James Bible, now has fallen into moral and social decay. They are a mere shadow of what they once were.
     The United States was spawned by the quest for religious freedom, to serve God as they believed and fought for independence from the before mentioned England. Our country, whose very Declaration of Independence and Constitution extol the existence, blessings and glory of the Creator God, now turns its back on Him! Politicians decree Him unworthy of our public worship!
     God sent many preachers to this country, from the Pilgrims through the time of Spurgeon, Whitfield and Moody to Billy Sunday, Billy Graham and so many others of the twentieth century. But those voices are swiftly falling silent in a country that is following the lead of Europe, celebrating immorality, performing child sacrifice with abortions, turning to false idols and gods and shaking their fist at Heaven.
     God has been here in the past my friends. He sent His prophets and people before us, but we as a country inspired by the Almighty are going the way of many civilizations before us. I believe He sent many Jonahs to us, but we repented for only a little while. Will we be the next Assyrians? Will we, as a nation, give ourselves over to the spirit of Nineveh? Will we Christians remember that ….he knoweth them that trust him.?

     We need to pray every day my brothers and sisters, just as the faithful remnant did in Nineveh.

     God may be sending a Nahum………..

Why I Preach (A response to friends questions)

There are times a preacher is asked, “Why do you preach? Do you really believe there is a God? And if there is, why is there so much pain and evil in the world? What makes you think you are right, and the other religions are wrong? After all, all roads lead to the same place anyway!”


The last question is the first reason I preach, because it is just a plain and simple false statement, and in a simpler time, a false statement was just called a lie! What has happened over time is the devil has replaced the millions of false idol statues seen in historical accounts of the Greeks, pharaohs and other societies. They have transformed in our “age of enlightenment” to become Universalist teachings or plain atheism. You see, even atheists have their own Universalist leanings, theirs just lead to
nothingness in death.

There are only two roads in life, one accepts Jesus Christ as a personal Savior and is transformed by the free gift of Grace to a new person in Christ, illuminated by the Truth. The other path is a path of sin and destruction, darkness and a death that does not lead to oblivion, but to judgment and eternal Punishment. My faith, my study of the bible and my common sense tells me there can be no other way.

I preach because I see the evidence of God all around me, not only in miracles I can attest to in my own life, but in the world around me, in the evidence of creation and a creator, and in a knowing that was placed in my heart many years ago, that I cannot rightly explain. Even in my worst days as a sinner, lusting after worldly things, I still knew there was a God, I just rebelled bitterly.

Finally, there are so many false preachers out there, as there have been for centuries, making a mockery of God’s Word and using it to fleece those seeking Him. Weather for personal financial gain, or for fame, it is all an abomination in the eyes of God, for it leads astray those souls looking for something to fill the void in their life.

The bible says in Proverbs 30:5,6 Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. And the Lord spells out the punishment to those teaching or speaking falsely, proclaiming a false doctrine of Prosperity and positive thinking. In Revelation 21:8 we are told But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.


I preach not to only accuse the false teachers, but to help those who are succumbing to the fleshly promises preached by these so called “prophets”. I preach, not because I am “holier than thou” or better than you, I preach because at one time I was most likely worse than you. I was pretty close to Paul in the category of “chief sinner”. Most assuredly, if the abomination or sin is listed in the bible, I am guilty and deserve judgment and punishment. I deserve the wrath of a just God; I expect nothing less than His righteous punishment for my sins and transgressions. But thankfully, He loved me enough to put the price of that sin on another’s back, His only begotten Son, and the debt was paid! By His Grace, we are healed of our unholiness and filthiness, given to the way to once again come before his presence sinless and justified, just as Adam and Eve were in the garden, before the fall.

I preach because I am compelled, because I am thankful, because I love, because I hurt for the lost sheep, because God is Just, because I have seen the light and because I am His. I am the embodiment of Ephesians 6:20 For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. I preach because I am humbled in His presence.

If you ever begin to question your faith from the bombardment of the worldly views, just remember there are only two true religions in this world, the religion of “I” or the religion of the cross. All the others point to the person and what he can do to achieve salvation or Heaven, only true Christianity points to Jesus and the sacrifice of the cross that has already been done, if we would only receive Him.

Now you know why I preach, because I love Jesus because He first loved me, and I can’t idly sit by while others are led astray. If only one is led to Jesus, it is all worthwhile. God Bless.

I Don’t Want To Go Through The Motions

There is a song on contemporary Christian radio stations by Matthew West called “The Motions”. The singer is making a case to Jesus ( I assume, he never actually uses the Name) that he isn’t feeling whatever a true Christian feels and he’s making the statement he doesn’t want to go through his whole life wondering “what if I had given everything, instead of going through the motions?”


I fear there are many people today that are looking for a feeling as evidence that they are saved. There is such a drought of truth concerning what salvation is and what the evidence that one is saved, that today, as in times past, people might be mislead all the way to hell if some of us don’t speak up.

The truth is, none of us can earn, buy, work or give up anything to achieve salvation. You cannot save yourself! Those that teach these things are false teachers and are aiding the enemy. In fact, Paul clearly said in Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God;”.

It took God’s plan, allowing Jesus Christ to become fully God in fully human form to become the sacrifice. We can do nothing, only Christ. Only through Him can we be “Just As If I Haven’t Sinned”, that’s what justification means. By his blood we are washed clean of the impurity of sin each of us was born into.

Dear reader, be careful about feelings when it comes to your Christian walk. As our pastor states many times, people get more emotional at sports events than they do in church! You will feel joy and happiness, but not all the time. We should not judge ourselves or others about how “UP” we feel. I don’t think many Christians in third world countries feel “up” just before their head is lopped off. But I do feel God may give them peace, in the knowledge that they have eternal life waiting on the other side.

We must be careful not to just “go through the motion” of being a Christian either. God gives us guidelines as to what to look for. Do we bear good fruit? Do we love our neighbors? Are we truly repentant of our sins? Do we really put our trust in Jesus Christ and have faith the size of a mustard seed? Do we really, honestly and truly love Jesus, not just because he died on a cross, but because He first loved us? I don’t see a rule that says we must be feeling a certain way all the time.


The truth is, we are still human, and we know that if we are Christians, Satan will attack us every chance he gets. So at times we will be sad, angry, joyful, peaceful, uptight and on and on. We should never give a false appearance by just “going through the motions” and trying to act in a way we don’t feel.

Let me put it this way, how can your fellow brothers and sisters know if you need help, whether spiritually or otherwise, if you appear like it’s all rainbows and sunshine, when clouds and rain have moved in?

What would your testimony say if you put on a false face because you think it is a “Christian” face, but your family knew there was something wrong? Remember the One we put our faith in laughed, wept, became angry, felt compassion, hurt, felt joy and hungered. We must remember our Lord gave us the ultimate example on truthfulness, including our emotions and feelings.

So, in closing, what I’m trying to say is that intentionally “just going through the motions” may be the same as false witness. Our best true witness is to let others know that yes, we still live in the world and experience many of the same things non-Christians do, the difference is we have Jesus to look to for peace. We may feel sad, angry, happy or nothing at any given time, but we have Jesus all the time.

If you have turned your life over to Jesus, truly repented of your sins and walk in the faith of His promise that He is the way, the truth and the life, then my friend you are saved. The Holy Spirit will put your spirit at ease. Assurance of salvation is not dependant on feelings, but of knowing!

If you don’t know what it means to be “SAVED”, or to be “Born Again”, or you want to know what it takes to receive salvation, please turn to the back of this newsletter and read SALVATION. In His own words, Jesus said in John 3: 16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.