Things That Are Unchangeable

Things that Are Unchangeable

 There are certain things that are today for everyone in general and for everyone specifically.

Things that ‘are’ for everyone are planetary locations and rotations, star location, seasons, time, place, and space.  It is a particular day, week, month, year, and season of the year.  There are certain laws that are in effect.  The law of gravity is a well-known law.  If you jump off a cliff, you will fall to the bottom of the cliff and probably kill yourself.  Who can argue with that?

Things that ‘are’ include physical needs.  People need food, water, and shelter from the elements to survive. 

 Individuals are living in a certain place, surviving by specific means, are a particular gender, heights, size, skin color, age, with a particular level of health.

 Measurements are what they are, whether you are measuring time or distance or square feet. 

 Now, what happens when someone decides that things that ‘are’  ‘are not’?  I mean, if you are measuring time and decide that Christmas is on a Tuesday when it is really on a Monday, will your holiday plans turn out ok?

 Or, if someone living in Fairbanks, Alaska, decides it is July when it is December, and dresses accordingly, will they avoid the frostbite the comes to exposed skin in December in Fairbanks?

 If someone who is a size 12 decides to buy clothes that are a size 8, will the clothes fit?

 If an architect decides a foot is 10 inches rather than 12 inches, will a 2000 square foot home really have 2000 square feet?

 It doesn’t work does it?  Things that are just are.  That is the way it is and we cannot change it.  It is called the truth.  And, if anyone has a misconception of the truth of time, distance, measurement, necessities, and so on, they are setting themselves up for a BIG fall.

 Something else that is an unchangeable fact is the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  This is the truth that saves. It tells the truth by which man can be saved from hell and obtain heaven. If it is diluted to the wisdom of man, then it is not the truth that has power to save. 

 Join the task force of true Believes who earnestly contend for the faith.  Take the true Gospel to the lost.  A watered down social gospel has no power to save anyone from anything.  A lesser gospel is sort of like taking rainwater to a sick person and telling them it has the nutritional and healthful benefits of chicken soup.  Even if you throw in a couple of tablespoons of real chicken soup, it will be rainwater.  It also will not have any benefits to the health or recovery of the sick person.

 It is also an unchangeable fact that in order for a Christian to have a faith that is strong enough for the journey, they must be firmly grounded in Bible teachings and truth. A strengthening truth from the Bible is that God deserves our thankfulness, and that thankfulness to God benefits the believer as well.

 It is an unchangeable fact that something crucial to the well-being of Christians is thanksgiving.  God deserves our thanks.  It is wrong to with-hold thanks when it is deserved.  As usual, God gives more than He gets. 

 Thanksgiving DOES have benefits for you personally.  God takes notice of obedience in His children.  A moment of sincere thanks to God will most certainly bless you.  The world tends to look at ‘blessings’ as mountains of material wealth.  This is not the case with believers.  Honestly, the material blessings are wonderful.  However, they do become secondary to other blessings like life, the honest love of family and friends, liberty, freedom of worship, and freedom to follow the dreams that God puts in your heart.  Still, Christians are not to make light of material blessings like a nice wood burning stove on a cold day, a roof that doesn’t leak during a rain storm, or that really neat new refrigerator that makes shaved ice when you hit the right button.  (No, I don’t have such a refrigerator, but I want one.  Of course first I need a house to put it in, but I still want one.)  Specific Thanksgiving to God Almighty for His wonderful blessings to mankind and to you personally brings you closer to God.  The closer to God you are the better your life will be.

 We are approaching the end of 2011.  Thanksgiving is just on the horizon, and then comes the most famous holiday of them all. For Christians Christmas should be a time of even more thanksgiving.  Honestly, I like to start celebrating Christmas on Thanksgiving Day, or a week or two before.  Get into the mood of thanksgiving and let that be your constant thought through the rest of the year.  It is sort of a time of rest from worries.  Thanksgiving to God Almighty has the power to give you rest from whatever worries you have.  A very common worry from now until the end of the year is money.  How are you going to pay for all that holiday cheer?  Meals, travel, present, and even charitable giving all adds up to a lot of extra money.  If you don’t have extra money during the rest of the year, why would you have extra money for the holiday season which includes Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year?  This time of year is either the time to  cave into social pressure to spend spend spend, OR become scrooge like, OR become more thankful.  In becoming more thankful, the other problems do two things.  First they go from being  most important down to being far less important.  Sometimes unexpected solutions present themselves.  Whatever happens you are far better off being thankful than you are worrying about how to get it all done.

 Also, to all my readers, I know some of you aren’t really worried about Christmas presents and expenses.  You are worried about having no job, and how you are going to pay your electric bill in the dead of winter.  I prayed for you just now.  I ask all other readers to take a minute right now to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are hurting financially right now.  Also pray for those who have suffered loss this year such as death of a family member, an unwanted divorce, and other such terrible losses.  And, for the brethren who are without even personal safety, much less a constant way to provide for their families.  God help each of you, and God give each of us the means and a generous heart to help those we meet who are in need.  I want to speak to both  those who have suffered terribly this year as well as to those who have prospered spiritually and materially in this article.  Thanksgiving is the help for everyone, regardless of circumstances.  But, let me speak to those going through rough times just a moment.  An example of thanksgiving in dire circumstances is given to us by the Pilgrims who first came to what would become the United States of America.  During their first year, the Pilgrims suffered approximately 50% casualties.  HALF their number died!  Yet when the opportunity came they offered a huge thanksgiving to God for His goodness to them.  The legacy left by their behavior rocked the world.  So, if you are in dire circumstances, the most effective thing you can do is sincerely thank God for the daily benefits He gives to you.  If things seem to be going your way now, it is an equally good time to give thanks.

 In the Bible we are told five times of the ‘sacrifice of thanksgiving’.  I think the more dreadful the circumstances the people are facing, the more thanksgiving is a sacrifice.  They have to take their thoughts off their problems, or sacrifice the sorrow’s first place in their thoughts, and give thanks to God first place in thoughts. I suppose even sorrow or trials could be a taken as a ‘god before God’ if the trials are getting first place in the believer’s life.  The Pilgrims were certainly an example of a sacrificial time of thanks.  But in the thanksgiving there is rest from which it is hard to turn away.  When you stop thanking God, you have to face the trials alone.  Always remember that while you are thanking God, God is working on solutions for you.  Also remember that among all our worldly goods, though they be great, no one has anything worthy of an offering to God.  Thanking God for His goodness to us is the way to express our thanks properly, AND rest from our sorrow and trials,

AND give God the authority to work out our difficulties on our behalf.

 Take the time to go to a web site like biblegateway and look up thanks, thanksgiving, thankful and read the verses.  Believers are called upon to be thankful in all circumstances.  I don’t think we are supposed to be thankful when tragedy or hard times strike, but rather to be thankful for the goodness of God that continues through whatever circumstances we are facing. 

 The best way to prepare for the coming season of holidays including Thanksgiving and Christmas is to pay strict attention to thankfulness to God.  The best way face the rest of your life is to set a pattern of thanksgiving in all seasons in all circumstances.

 If you are in a dire set of circumstances, faith in God’s ability and willingness to fulfill his promises to His children is the beginning of change.  Have faith.  God is righteous, and God loves His children.  Give thanks.  It takes a lot of faith and determination to set aside sorrows and thank God that His word is true and that He will do all that He has promised.  (Remember that little song ‘Every Promise in the Book is Mine’?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-lqYLoBZqI  )

 If you are in good circumstances now and living the life of which you always dreamed, remember that it is God who has blessed you.  Give thanks.

 I have two songs for this article because thanksgiving seems to be accompanied by music. 

 The first is Amazing Grace because it is a ballad that tells the story of conversion, life, and heaven.  Memorize all the verses.  There is no song like it all creation.  The verse that says, ‘The Lord has promised good to me – His word my hope assures’ – explains the reason we have courage to give thanks in the midst of trials.  The Lord promises us good.  His thoughts toward us are good.  We can’t see the big picture most of the time – but that does not change what the true picture really is.  God had promised good to me personally – and to you personally as well.  Give thanks.

 The second song is ‘Faith is the Victory’.  Hebrews chapter 11 tells of faithful acts of the saints of ages past.  For the individual Christian to take his/her focus off their troubles and focus on giving thanks requires great faith and determination.  God has not changed.  He still takes note of those who go forward by faith, seeing the greatness and power of God instead of the impossibility of their tasks.  By faith, set aside your distractions whether they be good or bad, and make thanksgiving a constant and continual part of your daily thoughts and routine.  Faith and thankfulness are first and foremost an attitude of the heart.  A right attitude has its roots in thanksgiving and faith.  I wish to all of you a blessed time from now through the rest or the year.  I thank God for believers around the world, and pray for His the continued blessings of His help to each of us. 

Faith is the Victory

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/f/a/faithist.htm 

Encamped along the hills of light,

 Ye Christian soldiers, rise.

 And press the battle ere the night

 Shall veil the glowing skies.

 Against the foe in vales below

 Let all our strength be hurled.

 Faith is the victory, we know,

 That overcomes the world.

Refrain

Faith is the victory! Faith is the victory!

 O glorious victory, that overcomes the world.

His banner over us is love,

 Our sword the Word of God.

 We tread the road the saints above

 With shouts of triumph trod.

 By faith, they like a whirlwind’s breath,

 Swept on o’er every field.

 The faith by which they conquered death

 Is still our shining shield.

Refrain

On every hand the foe we find

 Drawn up in dread array.

 Let tents of ease be left behind,

 And onward to the fray.

 Salvation’s helmet on each head,

 With truth all girt about,

 The earth shall tremble ’neath our tread,

 And echo with our shout.

Refrain

To him that overcomes the foe,

 White raiment shall be giv’n.

 Before the angels he shall know

 His name confessed in Heav’n.

 Then onward from the hill of light,

 Our hearts with love aflame,

 We’ll vanquish all the hosts of night,

 In Jesus’ conqu’ring Name.

Refrain

Amazing Grace

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/a/m/a/amazing_grace.htm  OR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUfe_XX8K0I 

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

 That saved a wretch like me!

 I once was lost, but now am found;

 Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

 And grace my fears relieved;

 How precious did that grace appear

 The hour I first believed!

Through many dangers, toils and snares,

 I have already come;

 ’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,

 And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me,

 His Word my hope secures;

 He will my Shield and Portion be,

 As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,

 And mortal life shall cease,

 I shall possess, within the veil,

 A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,

 The sun forbear to shine;

 But God, who called me here below,

 Will be forever mine.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,

 Bright shining as the sun,

 We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

 Than when we’d first begun.

The Image of God - What Does it Look LIke to You?

The Image of God – What Does He Look Like To YOU?

It was a dark night in the souls of the Israelites.  God had brought them through the plague visited on Egypt.  He had brought them through the Red Sea on dry land.  The Egyptian task masters following after them were drowned in the sea.  They marched onward until their leader Moses left them alone for a while.  Then the foolishness in their hearts was shown in what they did.  They decided to make an image of god/God.  I don’t know who decided the God who saved them looked like a golden calf.  And, I also don’t know if they decided fully to dump God altogether and accept Baal as their god.  Anyway, for some rebellious reason, they decided to make an image of god/God so they could worship it.  I don’t know why they wanted an image of god, because they had the presence of God and the power of God with them.  But I do have a guess as to why they wanted an image of God.

An image such as a golden calf was the people’s way of going to God or replacing God with a god who required nothing of them.  It was limiting God’s power to tell them what to do.

 An image of a god is made by mankind.  It is made to suit mankind instead of God.  God made man in His image. When man makes an image of god, he is really promoting himself to god, and demoting God to the created being. 

 This behavior, this conforming God to one’s own image of God, loses God altogether.  The conformed image is not God at all.  It is just an image that cannot do anything.  It may be a mental image or a literal image, but it still can’t do anything for the individual or mankind as a whole.

 God is actually a very complex being to say the least.  He is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient.  That means the God of the Bible really does know everything, He is everywhere, and He is all powerful.   He is the God of love and mercy.  He is ALSO the God of judgment.  He really is continually perfect in every way.  And that is just to name a few of the attributes of God.  Now, how can all those qualities be put into an image?  They answer is they cannot!  The only thing an image might do is capture something like a one dimensional snapshot of God’s eyelash.

 There are many images of God today that are shaping the world as a whole.  Let’s take look at a few.

 Here is a very common image of god running rampant throughout Christianity.  It is the image of God as love.   That’s it.  In the mind of the individual God may be imagined as an elderly grandfather type, or a soft spoken shepherd walking about a mountain meadow playing with the animals.  Regardless, He is seen only as a God of love.  God IS love, but He is also much more.  An image of God without also seeing the God of judgment is incomplete.  It does not give the believer the necessary knowledge to make sound decisions.  Yes God loves His children, but that does not give them a free pass to ignore what the Bible has to say about Christian living.

 Another common image of God is that of judgment only.  God is seen as someone trailing you like a hungry grizzly bear.  He is just waiting for you to slip up so He can punish you.  How unfair is that?  The devil is the hungry lion wanting to destroy you.  God is the Good Shepherd wanting to keep you from harm.  Any parent knows it is far better to give a precious little hand a small spat to keep them from playing with light sockets than it is to let them actually stick their finger into the light socket.  Certainly God does the same for us.

 There is another image of God that shows Him to be a negotiator.  The Bible clearly states there is one way to God the Father and that is through Jesus Christ the Son.  Yet, from the very first family until now, there have been multitudes who try to go to God in a way that suits themselves.  Cain tried it.  He didn’t like the blood sacrifice, so he decided to negotiate with God instead of doing the thing God required.  Cain offered God the produce from his garden.  It wasn’t a case of Cain ‘just offering what he had’.  It was a case of Cain trying to negotiate his way into heaven by his own way. 

 Another image of God is that of a great collectivist.  In the end He is going to ‘collect’ all the souls of mankind and take them to heaven.  He is ultimately going to let everyone into heaven because everyone deserves it as much anyone else.  To the ‘everyone is going to the same place crowd’, God will finally cave in and let all the un-regenerated souls into heaven along with those who followed God’s instructions on how to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. 

 There is also the image of God as the frazzled ineffective parent whose children are out of control.  The world is in a mess, and God is without power to deal with what is going on.  He can’t keep the world running by Himself.  He needs ‘co-saviors’ who come in the form of little children remembering to turn off light bulbs and signing petitions to stop global warming.  Co-saviors are those who preach a social and/or globalist gospel.  Those who get on the ‘save the earth’ bandwagon are little saviors of the world.  The God of their salvation just can’t do it by Himself anymore.

 There are those who have an image of God as ‘The Great Acceptor’.  They are sort of like Cain, in that they want to give to God the work of their own hands, or their own preferences.  You see them taking their music preference to church without regard to what God prefers.  You see them ignoring part of the Bible that cause them to feel uncomfortable, or passages that offend the ungodly.  They do what is right in their own eyes and just ‘know’ God will eventually accept it.  (An aside here to parents – don’t let you kids wear you down into letting them do something you know is not right.  Parents are the first image a child has of God.  If you set aside what you know is right because of their continual pressure, they get the idea that is all it takes to get their own way.  You are free to say no to wrong behaviors and stick to your right decision.)

 The truth is that there are many who would rather have an image of God than God because it is just easier.  God has standards by which His followers are to live.  If someone makes an image of God, they can put into what they want.  If they don’t like some of the boundaries God has set, then leave those out of the image.  If they don’t like the judgment aspect of God, then that can be left out as well. 

 Images always give a small view of a great God.  They also do not have the truth in them.  It is true that:

God loves you.

God is with you.

God has a plan to help you.

It is also true that:

The Lord chastises those He loves.

 Most believers begin their Christian life with an image of God.  He can’t be seen clearly to begin with.  God really can’t be seen clearly this side of heaven.  But, what begins to happen in true believers is that changes begin to occur in their view of the greatness of the God of the Bible.  As they hear the truth preached and as they personally study the Bible for themselves, they begin to get a glimpse of God that cannot be contained in any image the human mind can conceive.  They begin to realize their idea of God, the God of their salvation, is just too small.  And then they begin to dig deeper into the teachings of the Bible.  They begin to desire that be made over again in the image of God.  Their heart desires all that the Lord has to offer them.  They want to be more like God instead of making God more like them.  Transformation begins in the life of the believer when he or she sets out to be more like God. (This is NOT to become God, but to conform to His image.) The Holy Spirit begins to work in such believers and enable them to conform to the image of Christ.  They have stopped MAKING an image. They want to BECOME the image.  They want to no longer conform to the image of the world, but instead be transformed into someone whose life shows other Jesus Christ. 

 Changing one’s life to be more like Christ is hard work.  In fact, without the aid of the Holy Spirit, it is impossible.  Change requires the Holy Spirit’s help, and constant determination on the part of the believer.  Those who have changed the Gospel Message to a social gospel are impatient people, preferring that Christ work on their time table and produce the level of obvious fruit they want.  And, no matter how hard they work, they are ultimately lazy people because it is much harder to work at changing your own life than it is to work at changing the lives of others.

 Is the leading guiding light in your life the Holy Spirit?  You will not be led to create mental images of God that limit Him to one realm by the Holy Spirit.  Neither will the Holy Spirit lead you to try to do things that only God can do.  The Holy Spirit leads believers to be more like Christ.  Through Christian actions, impossible things can be done.   

Emotionally Needy People and Pity Addicts

Emotionally Needy People and Pity Addicts      

Do you have to deal with anyone in particular that you would consider ‘needy’.  I don’t mean they are in need of something physical.  They are just needy.  They need constant assurance.  They need to feel good about themselves, and their need is usually filled at someone else’s expense.  Actually their needs can never really be filled.  They can never have enough assurance or self-esteem.  They can never have enough adoration or encouragement from others. They can never have enough power to make them feel fulfilled. They can never have enough emotional support or things to make them feel secure or satisfied. 

 In the category of emotionally needy people, there are two sub-categories.  The first  

sub-category is made up of the type person who needs other people to look up to them.  They want to be seen as sort of a savior to someone, or a bunch of people, or something.  They are often in the limelight whether they are in a very small group or in a large group.  They are the control freaks who want to control everything.  It doesn’t have to be important.  If it is a reality, they feel they should be in charge of it.  It satisfies their need to be important to someone in some way.  Disgustingly enough, these people don’t confine themselves to the work place and families.  They creep into the public eye, and even worse into public office. 

The second sub-category is filled with people who are fearful, or filled with fear.  They are afraid of life.  The emotionally needy politicians give these fearful emotionally needy people a little.  The poor are told they can never escape the bondage of poverty, but that they will never actually starve to death.  All they have to do is realize just how pitiful they are, and from that point, the needy politician has the emotionally needy poor person trapped.  The needy person becomes not only emotionally needy, they become addicted to pity.  It is a sort of vicious circle.    The emotional need feeds on pity and pity feeds on the emotion.  The emotionally needy leader has the emotionally needy person trapped.  Addiction to pity in an emotionally needy person is something from which it will take a miracle to escape. 

Honestly, everyone is emotionally needy.  We need hope.  We need love.  We need peace of mind.  We need God.  Then those having found God and His companionship have a personal need to serve Him whole heartedly. They don't need to exploit others in order to have feed their own emotional needs.  

Emotionally needy people have a hard time going to God in the way He requires.  The leaders among the emotionally needy have a great deal of trouble doing that because it requires that they give up the emotional control they have over others.  The emotionally needy who are addicted to pity also have a difficult time in giving up their addiction and their emotional instability.  To go to God following His instructions requires that the individual makes changes.  To stay in one’s comfort zone requires nothing except to keep doing the same things. 

When people accept a lesser god over Almighty God, their emotional neediness grows to the point of instability. (There are no gods equal to the Most High God of the Bible.) Emotionally needy people are driven by emotions.  How they feel at the moment is what drives their decisions and their moods.  Solid footing is not in their life.  They are tossed about by whatever they feel like at the moment.  Often they get an emotional high from the pity of others.  Or, the emotionally needy in the public eye get an emotional high from being the emotional savior of others.  The so called elite/celebrity of the emotionally needy may also cast themselves in role of savior of the earth, or the whale, or choosing the direction of a club or group of people, pets, wild animals, or something they consider being led in a wrong path.  It doesn’t matter what is actually going on.  The emotionally needy will invent a cause for which they will become the savior.  They are dreadfully dangerous when given power of even the pencil sharpener in the office supply closet.

We are seeing this today in America and around the world.  The emotionally needy politician/celebrities/saviors of the world are busy saving the world and sucking the life out of the people who depend on them.  They are also causing a great deal of trouble for the rest of the population as well.

Then there are the emotionally needy who are addicted to pity as well.  They are afraid and dissatisfied with the world in which they live, but they are even more afraid of change.  They are afraid of giving up the pity given to them by others.  In their hearts, they know there is a better future possible than living the way they live.  But, they have no clear cut way out of their lifestyle, and they are afraid of an unknown future.  Then there is the addiction problem.  Like an alcoholic or drug addict, they know they need to change, but it is very hard and they don’t really see a way to change without a lot of pain and risk.  So, they crawl back to their pity party and go ahead with their lives the way they are.  It will take a miracle to change their mindset.  It will take the REAL Savior.  (This is not about gaining wealth – it is about gaining a better life which would rely on Christ for help instead of the government.)

And so, as we see the political upheavals going on around the world, the cultural collapse, preachers of the Gospel denied the right to speak and preach the world of God in public, Believers driven from their homes and imprisoned around the world, what should we do?  We, those who have believed on Jesus Christ and follow Him, should work to at least give people a chance to hear the word of God Almighty so they can make a choice based on facts instead of emotion.

We can have compassion on the emotionally needy.  It is true that but for God’s grace it could be one of us sitting in an emotional tornado, afraid of life, and addicted to pity.

More than compassion is needed.  Work is needed.  Support for the full time Christians workers is needed.  A sound mind is needed.  A Biblical world view is needed by believers.  One’s eternal destination is serious!  Those who know the way of salvation need to take it seriously and work to give everyone a chance to clearly hear the truth.  What they do with the truth is up to them, but they at least need to hear it.

It is time that Christians come out from among the people of the world and show themselves to be different.  The things of this world passing for Christian need to be spoken against.  Some wickedness needs to be thrown out of the church. 

First, and most dangerous, the preaching of the world instead of the gospel is in many churches of every denomination.  The church is the place to preach the truth above all else.  It is not the place to greet and get along with the world.  It is not the place to put not offending people above everything else.  It is the place to where the truth should be told above everything else.  It is not the place for accepting all the things of the world in order to make people feel at home. Sadly, many members of the church are more concerned with pleasing themselves.  They are more at home in the world than in the church.  Rather than give up church entirely, they make the church into the world.     They offer what they want to the Lord instead of what the Lord requires.  Eastern mysticism in any form has no place in the church.  Paganism has no place in the church.  Ungodliness has no place in the church.  Here’s a hint – preachers and church workers addicted to pornography need removed from all positions of authority.  They actually need kicked out of the church until they repent.

 As you know, the music of the world is in the church.  People are offering to God as praise what pleases their emotional instability.  They are not offering what God wants to hear.  He is holy.  Make no mistake about it.  Music either praises God or it praises the world.  The purpose of music in the church is to praise and glorify God.  An emotional response is not the first purpose, but it certainly can bring about an emotional response on the part of the congregation.  It is just wrong to put an emotional response or personal preference above pleasing God.

 Even worse than offering personal music to God, churches are offering personal preferences on other things.  If a congregation doesn’t like what the Bible teaches, they go with personal preference over the words in the Bible. If the Bible is compromised on anything, why shouldn’t it be compromised on everything?  The traditions of man are set above God.  People who should know better follow the way of Cain and try to go to God on their own terms.  Repentance is not an issue.  God is likened to a merciful fellow who will eventually allow everyone into heaven because He is merciful.  The perfection and holiness of God is set aside as trivial.  The imperfection of man is set aside as trivial.  The unimaginable horror of hell is trivialized as non-existent or a place where people go to party for eternity.  People could be going to Glocca Morra instead of heaven or hell for all the preaching you hear in some churches on Sunday.

Our church is good.  The preacher does a very fine job.  Because of the distance some people drive, we have two services in the morning and none in the evening.  This breaks tradition, but it doesn’t break any scripture.  It is a good.  But, some people would rather blather about changes in the order of church service than confront unsound theology in the church.

The fundamentals of the faith are still the same.

1.    The Bible is inerrant.

2.     Jesus is eternal – and pre-existent prior to His birth in Bethlehem.

3.     He was born of a Virgin (no big deal for God who created the Adam and Eve from dirt.)

4.    Jesus was crucified and died.  He bodily rose up from the grave in three days.

5.    Jesus is the way into heaven.  God made one very expensive way into heaven and everyone gets a first class invitation.

6.    Jesus is coming again.

People are looking for so many things that God is willing to give us, but they are looking in the wrong places.  All they will ever get is a weak knock off of the true good things God has for those that love Him. 

 People are looking for the peace that passes understanding.  They look to yoga and mindless meditation instead of to the words of wisdom written in the Bible.

 People go the occult for answers.  The Bible has all the answers and it stays the same yesterday, today, and forever.  The unsaved don’t know this.  Would you like to know how many actual Christians know this?  Probablynot very many.

 Christians need to begin to take their faith seriously.  God is the Great Forgiver.  Most Christians know that.  But, they forget God is also the Great Judge.  There is a time of judgment coming.  In that day the emotionally needy people of the world, both the small and great, will see the truth that they need a savior.  But it will be too late then.  As of today, there are some who can come to a realization that they actually need more than the world can give them.  There is hope for those who begin to look for a better way to live.  At that point in time, if they hear the plan of salvation, perhaps they will be strengthened to step out of their comfort zone and accept Jesus Christ as their savior. 

 For Christians to do a good job in telling the lost that Christ died for them, they first need to come to terms with their own neediness.  Christians, those who are truly believers and followers of Christ, need a growing relationship with God.  We need the companionship and provisions He has for us hear on this earth.  We personally have a need deep inside us to please the God of our salvation.  We need to be about the business of spreading the gospel.  The emotional and physical needs of God’s children can be filled on this earth and in eternity as well.  The emotional needs of the children of this world cannot be filled either in this world or the next.

God have mercy on those who need Him

And God strengthen His children to tell those who need Him how to be saved.