How far is too far from God?

How far is too far from God?

Love … bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:7 

Love has no limits. Love never says, “You've gone too far. I can't love you now.” “All things” means everything is included. Christlike love leaves no doubt in the mind of another that you will continue to love steadfastly. Do those close to you know that they can fail and do foolish things, yet you will not falter in your love for them? Are others assured that, even when they hurt you, you still love them, holding nothing against them? Love assumes the best about others. If someone inadvertently offends you, you choose to believe the offense was unintentional. If someone seeks to harm you, you “bear all things,” forgiving unconditionally. If a positive light can be shed on a difficult encounter, you grasp it. If someone continually provokes you, you “endure all things.” You never lose hope in the ones you love. You practice the same unconditional love toward others that Christ gives to you. Paul said that he was nothing if he had the faith to move mountains, the tongue of an angel, and the gift of prophecy to understand all mysteries, yet did not have God's love. It is unacceptable to say, “Well, I just can't love people that way!” When God loves people through you, this is the only kind of love He has! Read I Corinthians 13 with gratitude that God has already expressed this complete and selfless love to you. Pray and ask Him to express it through you now, to others. - Blackaby Experiencing God Day by Day 

We often will believe what we are told about ourselves especially if we see a shred of 'truth' in what is said.  If enough 'evidence' is presented we believe it.

People don't research anymore at libraries because of the internet.  There's a potentially significant flaw in that.  Anyone can digitally change what you read. 

A video isn't even a trustworthy source. 

Suicides believe what they have been told or what they perceive as truth.  They cannot see outside of it. 

God's love, it has been written, is as far as the east is from the west.  As far as His outstretched hands on the cross. 

We believe lies before we consider the truth.  For decades I believed lies said to me by God's enemy.  My own sin nature likes to deceive me.  

People easily can have a sheep mentality because losing brain cells to seriously thinking and rationalizing the truth hurts.  

They can also be fickle.  Believing people about their take on what God's Word says or doesn't say, yet won't believe you about world events.  Or even the opposite. They won't listen to you about God's Word yet take your word, ironically, as Gospel on whatever subject matter is important to them. 

God has shown, clearly, how far He was willing to go to bridge the chasm between your sin cursed soul and Himself. 

It's up to you to believe it. It's up to you to live what you say you believe.  It's not enough to say you came to Christ. Out of obedience and appreciation you are to live for Jesus.  

Are you?  Are you living as if Christ saved you?  Are you living in fear that Jesus is too far away?  Jesus said to simply turn to Him, call out to Him and He WILL be there.  No reason for doubt to remain. 

If you are more worried about your life in this world than where you will spend eternity you have a very big problem.  People who worry seem to forget they can die at any moment.  What did it benefit you to worry? Why live a life of denial about Jesus when you have been on His mind since before you were born?  He is able and ready to save you.  There's still room at the cross for you. Give your worries a direction, up. Come to Christ and give those worries to Jesus. 

Learn today that you are only as far away as a cry for help from Him. 

Is Yours a Spiritual Life that's True to God?

Is Yours a Spiritual Life That is True to God?

“You have left your first love.” Revelation 2:4 NKJV 

We will always remember that best and brightest of hours when first we saw the Lord, lost our burden, received the scroll of promise, rejoiced in full salvation, and went on our way in peace. It was springtime in the soul; the winter was past. The rumbling of Sinai’s thunder was hushed; the flashing of its lightning was no longer noticed. God was seen as reconciled; the law threatened no vengeance, justice demanded no punishment. Flowers appeared in our hearts. Hope, love, peace, and patience sprang from the soil of our lives; the hyacinth of repentance, the snowdrop of pure holiness, the crocus of golden faith, and the daffodil of early love arrayed the garden of the soul. The time of the singing of birds had come, and we rejoiced with thanksgiving; we magnified the holy name of our forgiving God, and our resolve was this: “Lord, I am yours, completely yours. All I am, and all I have, I devote to you. You have bought me with your blood—let me spend myself and be spent in your service. In life and in death, let me be consecrated to you.” How have we kept this resolve? Our newlywed love burned with a holy flame of devotion to Jesus—is it the same now? Can Jesus say to us, “I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first” (Revelation 2:4)? Oh, we have done so little for our Master’s glory! Our winter has lasted too long. We are as cold as ice when we should feel the summer’s glow and bloom with sacred flowers. We give God pennies when He deserves dollars—no, He deserves our heart’s blood to be coined in the service of His church and His truth. Shall we continue like this? Oh, Lord, after you have so richly blessed us, should we be ungrateful and indifferent to your good cause and work? Make us alive, that we may return to our first love and do our first works! Send us a warm, gentle spring, dear Sun of Righteousness.

- C.H. Spurgeon Morning and Evening 

Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. 1 John 3:4 

It is a dangerous thing to live your life without a spiritual “plumb line,” or standard, by which you determine right from wrong. God's Word is that plumb line. Spiritual laws, like physical laws, are meant to protect you, not restrict you. You may exercise your freedom to challenge the laws of electricity, but to do so can bring you death. Likewise, you will not break God's laws, they will break you. God established absolute moral and spiritual laws that we are free to ignore, but we do so at our own peril. These laws are timeless. Culture does not supersede them. Circumstances do not abrogate them. God's laws are eternal, and they will save you from death if you follow them. You may feel that God's laws restrict and bind you. On the contrary, God's Word protects you from death (Rom. 6:23). For example, when God said that you are not to commit adultery He wanted to free you to experience the fullest pleasure of a marriage relationship. Furthermore, He knew the devastating heartache that would come to you, your spouse, your children, your relatives, your friends, and your church family if you broke this law. How important the laws of God are for your life! Without them, you would be robbed of the delights God has in store for you. Sin is choosing a standard other than God's law on which to base your life. If you are measuring your life by that of your neighbors, or society at large, then you are basing your life on lawlessness, and lawlessness is sin. -Blackaby Experiencing God Day by Day 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love. GALATIANS 5:22 

I’m convinced that what we need most in our world today—in our churches, in our homes, and in our personal lives—is a great outpouring of agape love. It is not an accident that God has put love at the top of the list of the fruit of the Spirit, because when that is right, everything else has the greatest potential to fall into place. How can we get this love in our lives? By finding out how much God really loves us. We love Him because He first loved us. If your heart is filled with bitterness, resentment, and hard feelings, God loves you just as you are in spite of that. But when you go to His Word and contemplate His love for you, when you see the price He paid that you might have Him and His love, when you drink deeply of His love and thank Him for loving you, the wonder of it all begins to break in on your consciousness. Then real love, agape love, God’s love, can begin to develop in your life. Get caught up in how God loves you, and watch your life respond. The more we know about God and His love for us, the more that love begins to fill our being until we become like Him. - Dr. David Jeremiah Morning and Evening 

As I was taught about reading Scripture, so I say now about devotionals.  If God is continuing a theme, read it all.  So my Friend, read those 3 again.  

We wonder at the state of this world.  We have a true enemy, should your heart and soul belong to Jesus.  That enemy has plans too.

See if you can follow me around the room.

Look at the first devotional. Spurgeon is talking about our First Love, Jesus Christ.  He begs to ask you and I the question of have we forgotten our first love?

Look at the next devotional.  Blackaby is talking about morals and sin, as well as God's law.  Spiritual laws, like physical laws, are meant to protect you, not restrict you. 

Then as we come back around to Dr. David Jeremiah, he speaks to what Godly love is.

What in this world is happening?  So much of the professing Church has indeed forgotten their first love.  So immersed in comfort they have said it without saying it that they don't need Jesus.  They want to feel good on Sunday's in song but the deep desire that ought to be there isn't there.  Sin has become more and more acceptable because most of the people in the so-called Church have no idea what God's Word says about it.  They haven't taken the time to read it to find out.  They don't know because it's no longer a priority.  They have forgotten their first Love.  It's also been so long that they have lost the ability to remember what that love was like when they first came to Christ. 

The Church at large has never really faced what the early Church had faced in terms of persecution.  The bulk of the people today both in the Church and outside of it view God and Jesus as a myth.  As having the attributes of the genie of the lamp in the story of Aladdin.  There are so few that truly serve, or even serve for the right reasons.  There's a great many people calling themselves Christians who have embraced the world in their theology.  Their love for Christ has grown cold.  The accusation by Jesus in Revelation is for all to take to heart.  God's Word is the plumb line. It's the speed square in carpentry. It's the absolute ruler to the architect. It's no open for personal interpretation. It's there to show us in no uncertain terms what right and wrong is. There is no picking and choosing. 

Look at your life.  Have you forgotten your first love?  Why is the Church so apparently ineffective today?  This would be why.  People want to say they want a revival.  A revival of the person who claims to be a Christian must come first. Those who return to their first love are those who can be used of God in the furthering of the Gospel.  I wasn't useful to Jesus until I was willing to put Him where He needed to be in my heart.  I had all kinds of ideas on how to serve.  But that wasn't His plan for me.  As Jesus said to Peter, so it was for me and is for you. "What is that to you? As for you, You follow Me!"

Write of My Grace

Write of My Grace 

“I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, and like a cloud, your sins.” Isaiah 44:22 NKJV 

Pay attention to the instructive comparison here: our sins are “like a cloud.” As clouds come in many shapes and shades, so do our transgressions. As clouds obscure the light of the sun and darken the landscape below, so our sins hide the light of Jehovah’s face from us, causing us to sit in the shadow of death. Clouds are earthborn things, rising from the miry places of nature; and when they are filled to their measure of moisture, they threaten us with storm and uproar. Sadly, unlike clouds, our sins bring us no helpful showers—rather, they threaten to deluge us with a fiery flood of destruction. How can it be fair weather with our souls while the dark clouds of sin remain? But let your eye dwell upon the notable act of divine mercy in Isaiah 44:22: “I have blotted out.” God himself appears upon the scene in divine gentleness—instead of showing His anger, He reveals His grace. At once and forever, He effectively removes the source of trouble, not by blowing away the cloud, but by blotting it out once for all. Against justified people, no sin remains; the great transaction of the cross has removed their transgressions from them, eternally. On Calvary’s summit the great deed, by which the sin of all the chosen was put away forever, was completely and effectively performed. Let us obey the gracious command, “Return to me” (Isaiah 44:22). Why should pardoned sinners live far from their God? If we have been forgiven of all our sins, we should allow no fear of the law to prevent the boldest access to our Lord. Express regret over your backsliding, but don’t stay in it. Let us strive, in the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, to return to the greatest possible nearness and communion with God. Oh, Lord, restore us tonight! - C.H. Spurgeon Morning and Evening 

It's an awesome thing to me to be reading and to hear the voice of my Savior speak clearly to me.  That's where the title of today's post came from.  Those words are from Him.

Read well what Spurgeon says.  Think on the book of Leviticus next. The do's and don'ts of what the Lord instructed His people on the clean and unclean foods.  On their behavior during even child birth as to what the mother needed to do for the birth of a sin vs the birth of a daughter.  

The analogy of clouds as sins is a good one.  We may have different kinds, shapes and sizes of them in apparent array between us and God.  Yet asking for forgiveness makes them no more.  Poof! They vanish.  The light of Christ shines forth as before the sin, unhindered, to our souls.  

We are often a people who often insist on consequences for our actions when it comes to sin.  I have done it, perhaps you have too. We may have indeed asked Jesus to forgive you but then you brood about finding ways to be angry at you for what you did. You are an uncompromising judge upon yourself. You insist upon a summary judgment upon you for your actions.  But wait a minute. If you asked Jesus to forgive you, and He says that those who do, that He casts the sins as far as the east is from the west, what are you doing?  If Jesus says He remembers them no more, what in the world are you doing?

Grace means unmerited favor. As one saying goes "God's Riches At Christ's Expense".  My Friend, He wipes the slate clean.  The clouds are gone. The light of Christ shines forth in its brilliance. 

Why would you insist upon creating clouds again between you and God?  Grace, forgiveness, removes that punishment. 

You may have CONSEQUENCES to your sin but not the judgment from God concerning a truly repentant heart. 

Consequences are not a punishment for sin that is forgiven.  You created a snowball that rolls down a hill.  It can gain momentum and become a much larger snowball.  You are forgiven when asked from a repentant heart, but that momentum of that now much greater snowball is going to take some doing to bring to a stop. Others might be hurt along the way.  Dabbling in pornography will potentially impact you and those you love.  If you are in it deep enough and are at work, using company computers, it likely will get you fired.  Yes God will forgive you if you truly mean it when asking, but the consequences remain. You likely lost your job. You are impacted, if married, your spouse is impacted. If you have children they are impacted. 

God's grace, His unmerited favor, cleanses unlike any launderer on Earth.  That's what the Bible says.  The white purity of Christ's forgiveness is unparalleled, unmatched, in all of nature.  

But I don't know the kinds of sins that you have done!  There must be a punishment for them!  Are you, my friend, going to say that you, the sinner, knows more, than the Righteous King on what is worthy of punishment and what He has taken care of?  Are you wiser than God?  Are you going to sit or stand there and say that God's cleansing isn't perfect?  Are you going to say that the work of Jesus Christ on the cross wasn't enough?  Because that's what you are saying when you insist that your sins are too great for the forgiveness of Jesus. 

Even in your consequences you are not alone.  Jesus told a parable of the Good Samaritan. While a Levi and a Priest did nothing to help the one in distress.  The Samaritan did.  With no regard to the disastrous state of the person they picked them up an took them to be cared for. 

With no regard to how we think we look, Jesus still wraps His arms around us to care for us.  That's the other part. His mercy.  Not giving us what we do deserve. 

We are promised that we who are in Christ never will walk alone in this life.  Never. 

We easily forget that but that doesn't change the truth of God. 

Thank God for His forgiveness. 

Thank God for His mercy. 

Thanks be to God for His unending love. 

Don't listen to your sin nature about crime and punishment. Don't listen to Satan about it either.  Only the Word of God holds the truth on the matter. 

The Secret to Prosperity?

The Secret to Prosperity?

I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. Philippians 4:12 ESV

There are many who know how to be brought low who have not learned how to abound. When they are set on a pinnacle they grow dizzy, and they are ready to fall. Christians more often disgrace their profession in prosperity than in adversity. It is a dangerous thing to be prosperous. The crucible of adversity is a less severe trial to the Christian than the refining furnace of prosperity. Oh, what a leanness of soul and neglect of spiritual things have been brought on through the very mercies and bounties of God! Yet this is not the way things must be, for the apostle Paul tells us that he knew how to abound. When he had much he knew how to use it. Abundant grace enabled him to bear abundant prosperity. When he had a full sail he was loaded with much ballast, so he floated safely. It requires more than human skill to carry the overflowing cup of earthly joy with a steady hand. But Paul had learned that skill, for he declares, “In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need” (Philippians 4:12 ESV). It is a divine lesson to know how to be full, for the Israelites were full once—but while the quail was still in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them (see Numbers 11:31–34). Many have asked for mercies that they might satisfy the lust of their own hearts. Abundance of bread has often made people careless, and that has led to an undisciplined spirit. When we have much of God’s providential mercy, it often happens that we have little of God’s grace—and little gratitude for the bounties we have received. We are full and we forget God; satisfied with earth, we are content to do without heaven. Rest assured, it is harder to know how to be full than it is to know how to be hungry—the tendency of human nature runs desperately to pride and forgetfulness of God. Take care that you ask in your prayers that God would teach you how to abound. Let not the gifts thy love bestows Estrange our hearts from thee. “Father of Mercies! God of Love!” Ottiwell Heginbotham (18th century) - C.H. Spurgeon Morning and Evening 

Take special note of the things that stood out to me this morning in Spurgeon's devotional.  

I have lost track of how many times I and others that I have come across in my life have desired to be free of debt.  Some actually were praying to win the lottery. 

It's interesting to note that Paul was teaching that there's a secret to prosperity.  Not in the obtaining it but in being wise in it.  It's not for everyone. 

With great wealth in this world comes the need for greater wisdom.  Face it, when a windfall happens the first thought on the minds of most is what can I get?  Not what can I pay off.  Proverbs speaks to the wise and the foolish in regards to the type of man.  It talks of how it should be desirable to owe no man anything.  

We live in a culture that is exponentially growing farther and deeper in debt to companies and governments.  The only recourse is to live within your means.  Not that that itself is in your favor. Companies intentionally degrade product life to ensure you spend more than something is worth to fix it. Hospitals and doctors make sure you are never 100 percent cured to make sure you come back.  Yes that last one is real, especially when you look at the multi-billion dollar a year business it is.  

But getting back to what Paul was saying...not everyone knows how to deal with prosperity.  Oh people pray for it all the time. Those who don't play the lottery weekly for a chance to strike it rich.

Prosperity in this life for a believer is to lay up treasure in Heaven where moth and rust do not destroy.  The only treasure in Heaven is people. 

Nobody's got a U-haul on their casket.  Even if they did, check on it in 5 to 10 years and you will still find their stuff still in the same place.  Untouched. 

Once more...whether or not you can understand it fully now...the mind of the believer and unbeliever isn't at all on what possessions they left.  In Hell their only desires are that God would change His mind concerning them, releasing them, and for those they know never to come there.  For the believer their thoughts are on those left behind that the unbelieving would believe and come to be where they are.  Never at all is it on them to want anything else.  They praise Jesus in person and intercede on behalf of those they know in person to Jesus.  

Nobody who is young gets it but everyone who gets older appreciates it.  That joy doesn't come in an abundance of things. 

The older I get the simpler that I want things.  I am one who prays to be debt free.  My hopeful desire is that some day it will happen in this life.  All who die are already debt free...of worldly things.  I have this hope to be debt free in order to be able to help others.  A noble desire. Yet I also know me.  Temptation lurks at the door of prosperity.  Pray to be debt free yet that dog n squirrel routine happens.  You know the scene. The obedient dog on a leash beside it's Master, walking along peacefully. A squirrel runs across the path and off the dog wants to go. All caution thrown to the wind. All thoughts of obedience lost.  Praying for to be debt free and in time God does provide.  Yet our first inclination is to spend it on self.  Exactly what Scripture says. 

James 4

What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is the source not your pleasures that wage war in your body’s parts? You lust and do not have, so you commit murder. And you are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, so that you may spend what you request on your pleasures.

There is a secret alright. It's called Spiritual maturity.  Toddlers are not given sharp objects because they know not how to use them properly. They will undoubtedly hurt themselves. 

I don't do things now that I once did because of lessons learned through maturity.  We have to learn from God on how to handle even prosperity. 

Joseph began his life as a shepherd. At the end he was just about the highest ruler in Egypt.  God didn't just promote him to that without lessons learned along the way.  Lessons of still leaning on the Lord vs what the culture in Egypt taught. We know this because of his strong desire to hold to his upbringing around the teachings of God.  He even gave orders that when God would save His people and take them from Egypt, they were to take his bones for proper burial in Israel the land they were going to.  God taught Joseph how to handle the prosperity in his life. He wasn't just given prosperity with no instruction. 

Pray for wisdom in your life.  The Bible says that God gives that freely to all who ask.  Pray for you to remember lessons learned so that you don't need to repeat them.  If God should so bless you, remember to only move forward in wisdom with it.  He also says in Scripture of the whys of blessing being that we are so blessed in abundance so that we might help others.  I do not honestly want an overabundance of blessing.  I would that Jesus would help us to be debt free and that we might indeed have it at the forefront of our minds to be sensitive to the Spirit and be ready to help where needed by Him.  Read Ecclesiastes. There is no lasting joy in riches. It's a fools errand to think that riches can make you happy the rest of your life. Howard Hughes died a exceedingly rich man. Lonely and miserable.  It did nothing for him.

Pray for the wisdom to live as you ought in all things.

What does it mean?

What does it mean? Do you know?

“He will save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21 

Many people, if asked what they understand by the term salvation, will reply, “Being saved from hell and taken to heaven.” This is one result of salvation, but it is not one-tenth of what is contained in that blessing. It is true that our Lord Jesus Christ does redeem His people from the wrath to come; He saves them from the fearful condemnation that their sins had brought upon them. But His triumph is far more complete than this. He saves His people “from their sins.” Oh, what a sweet deliverance from our worst enemies. Where Christ performs a saving work, He casts Satan from his throne and will not let him to be master any longer. No person is a true Christian if sin reigns in his or her body. Sin will be in us—it will never be utterly expelled until the spirit enters glory—but it will never have dominion. There will be a striving for dominion, a lusting against the new law and the new spirit which God has implanted—but sin will never get the upper hand so as to be the absolute ruler of our nature. Christ will be master of the heart, and sin must be subdued. The Lion of the tribe of Judah will prevail, and the dragon will be cast out. Professing Christian, is sin subdued in you? If your life is unholy, your heart is unchanged—and if your heart is unchanged, you are an unsaved person. If the Savior has not sanctified you, renewed you, given you a hatred of sin and a love of holiness, then He has done nothing of a saving character in you. The grace which does not make a person better than others is a worthless counterfeit. Christ saves His people not in their sins, but from them. “Without holiness no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity” (2 Timothy 2:19 ESV). If we are not saved from sin, how will we hope to be counted among His people? Lord, save me now from all evil, and enable me to honor my Savior. - C.H. Spurgeon Morning and Evening 

My Dear Reader, please take special note of this portion from Spurgeon:

"If your life is unholy, your heart is unchanged—and if your heart is unchanged, you are an unsaved person. If the Savior has not sanctified you, renewed you, given you a hatred of sin and a love of holiness, then He has done nothing of a saving character in you. The grace which does not make a person better than others is a worthless counterfeit. Christ saves His people not in their sins, but from them."

There, right there, is how you can see and know that you are saved.  If there's no struggle within concerning sin then, my Friend, you have a significant problem. 

If you are so comfortable with the world that sin doesn't bother you, then my Friend, you have a problem. 

If the things of God, the love of God, the Word of God are of little importance to you, then my Friend, you need to reexamine your thoughts on Salvation. In all likelihood you are not saved. 

In the book of Matthew Jesus spoke of the Parable of the talents. One slave was given 10, one 5 and one received 2.  The first two immediately invested and doubled the money in the time their Master was away.  The third, more fearful of loss versus gain, did nothing with what he was given besides burying it in the ground until the Master returned. Didn't even try to invest it.  He was rebuked for his behavior and cast to the outer darkness in judgment.  His money given to another. 

If you claim th ed name of Jesus and have done nothing with what you have been given, you are that last slave in that parable.  When Jesus does come, as Scripture says that He will, you can see what the outcome will be.  Turn and repent!  While a breath remains within you, repent!

I will share something of me in this plea.  Quite a long time ago I really felt like that 3rd slave.  I was afraid of stepping out and doing anything for Jesus.  I still, to this day, remember the cruelty that those other children did towards me when after I came to Christ and I tried to share it.  I shrank back and was living in fear of sharing.  Oh I was serving in the Church but I was afraid to talk to people about Christ. It's taken decades for God to work His miracle in me to get me to where I am today. I no longer remember how many times I have read through my Bible.  But I can tell you there had been a time when I hadn't even read it once.  The Bible is God's love letter to mankind and everyone needs to read it. 

I read it anew each day because I want to not because I have to. 

God has indeed been proving His Word in that I am His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that I might walk in them.  This blog is a significant leap forward in obedience for me to my Savior.  I have always aspired to be a writer, but it wasn't until I was writing for Jesus that what I was writing ever went anywhere.  God told me when this notion of writing something for Him came that writing a book was small potatoes compared to where He would take this blog idea.  It's been read in over 40 countries.  No book, written in my power, would ever reach so many places or people.  That's a God thing. 

Are you a changed life? Is there enough evidence to convict you of being a Christian in God's Court?  Forget the world's court.  In the court of the living God would He proclaim that you are one of His?  

Does the life you live contain more of this world than it does faith and obedience to Jesus Christ?

Do you fear the world more than you fear the confrontation you will have when the Master returns to settle accounts?

Is the idle speech from your lips at all about the things of God?  Is prayer at all important to you as is breathing?  If a stranger were to hear you throughout your day would they at all see Jesus in you or would they only see the world?

Christ saves His people not in their sins, but from them.  A changed life is what happens when a person comes to Christ.  

Sin is acknowledged as sin. It's not to be embraced and accepted. 

Read this again: "If your life is unholy, your heart is unchanged—and if your heart is unchanged, you are an unsaved person. If the Savior has not sanctified you, renewed you, given you a hatred of sin and a love of holiness, then He has done nothing of a saving character in you. The grace which does not make a person better than others is a worthless counterfeit."

My Friend stop with the games. Get serious, while there is still time, and get right with God.  You can fool yourself, you cannot fool Jesus.  Many billions of people will be cast away from Jesus who thought they were saved and were not, no change happened in their hearts and minds.  They said a few words, prayed a prayer, but didn't mean it. Went on living with the world rather than for Jesus.  

Be sure today.  Be sure.  Millions entered into eternity last night and will throughout today who thought they had a today to live.   They missed their chance, you, my Friend still have one.

Will you be Called? Or will you be Here?

Will You be Called? Or will You be Here?

Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” 

Revelation 11:12 Without considering these words in their actual context (that is, of the two prophets of Revelation), let us regard them as the invitation of our great Forerunner to His sanctified people. In time, there will come a loud voice from heaven, saying to every believer, “Come up here.” To saints, this should be the subject of joyful anticipation. Instead of dreading the time when we will leave this world to go to the Father, we should yearn for the hour of our emancipation. Our song should be— My heart is with Him on his throne, And ill can brook delay; Each moment listening for the voice, “Rise up and come away.” “My Soul, Amid This Stormy World,” Robert C. Chapman (1837) We are not called down to the grave, but up to the skies. Our heaven-born spirits should long for their native air. Still, the heavenly summons should be the object of patient waiting. God knows best when to tell us, “Come up here.” We must not wish to rush the time of our departure. I know that strong love will make us cry, O Lord of Hosts, the waves divide, And land us all in heaven. “Come, Let Us Join Our Friends Above,” Charles Wesley (1759) But patience must have her perfect work. God ordains, with His accurate wisdom, the most fitting time for His redeemed to live on earth. Surely, if there could be regrets in heaven, the saints might mourn that they did not live longer here to do more good. Oh, for more harvest for my Lord’s barn! More jewels for his crown! But how, unless there is more work? True, there is the other side of it—that, living so briefly, our sins are fewer. But, oh, when we are fully serving God, and He is giving us precious seed to sow and reap a hundred times more, we would even say it is good for us to stay where we are. Whether our Master says “go” or “stay,” let us be equally well pleased so long as He indulges us with His presence. - C.H. Spurgeon Morning and Evening 

Not everyone will hear that call. 

Not everyone. 

Will you be one of them that hears on that day set by the Father for our time on Earth to be through?

Many are so blinded by the events of today, of the emotional turmoil of this world.  Of the blatant evil that calls itself good.  They can't see yet they try to proclaim truth.

The only truth that is eternally true is that which is found in the Bible. The Word was God the Word is God.  Jesus is the Word. 

Was reading in Matthew 24-25 this morning and Jesus was telling people of the time of His return.  In this devotional here today we read of His return.  My dear Reader, when God repeats Himself...listen. 

There's thousands every day contemplating suicide.  They don't see the hope only found in Christ Jesus.  They don't see the love with which He loved them to the point He died for them. 

In this hopeless world it must be said that you have to look outside this world to find Hope.  The light of Christ shines in the hearts of those who believe. 

If you haven't chosen to receive the free gift of Salvation through Jesus Christ, when that call comes to "Come up here!" You will be left behind with no recourse but to live through 7 of the worst years in human history. 

You think that there is cause for alarm at the dwindling hope that seems difficult to find now...living in a world of judgement continually for 7 years will make now look like a fight in a playground. 

But it won't come to that!  Really? Did anyone really see 2020 coming?  Hmm? 

Did anyone adequately prepare for their rights to be taken from them by the Government?  Some may argue that it was necessary but this isn't a place for that debate.  The fact remains that it happened. In the Tribulation, everyone will have their rights trampled on. Everyone will be forced to worship a world leader. Not jusy like, or admire, worship.  Pledging allegiance to, publicly stating you would die for.  That kind of world is coming. 

But only if...only if...you are not going to ask Jesus to save you...and you are still alive.  Many millions will die as collateral damage to the effect of the Rapture. 

Some world leaders will come up with a lie to cover up the truth of where a billion people or so vanished to.  

Today is the day you must know for sure that you are saved in Christ Jesus. 

Not this afternoon not tonight.  In the right here, right now, you need to settle that. 

You may not make it to work this morning. Thousands will die on the way to work this morning who thought they had today in front of them. 

Thousands are being admitted to hospitals not believing that they are on deaths doorstep.  They thought today was going to be so much different. 

Thousands are situated to commit suicide at this very second.  

Only a foolish person believes that death can be so far away that it can't be seen. 

The percentage of accidents within a mile of home is insane.  People beginning to let their guard down before arriving at what's supposed to be a place of safety.  Nobody expects it.

Nobody expected the skies to open on that day that Jesus told Noah and his family to get in the Ark. People saw the dark clouds and that was their only warning.  The Lord Jesus closed the door Himself. Nobody was getting in.  The dark clouds of evil in our day today are showing all the evidence you need to see that the time is at hand for the Lord Jesus to proclaim "Come up here!". 

Will you hear or will you be wondering what happened?

I implore any who have not chosen to receive Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord to do so today.  

Know today that when that call comes that you will not be here, left behind. 

The dark clouds are forming. 

The skies are about to burst forth in Judgment.  

The dead in Christ will arise first. Rebuilt, glorified bodies. 

Those who remain who are alive in Christ will receive their own glorified bodies and will join Jesus in the air. 

Millions will die because of them who are taken.  

Worlds will be shattered because the life they thought they knew will be over.

Where will you be?

Which are you?

 Matthew 25:

The Judgment

“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left.

“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You as a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of Mine, you did it for Me.’

“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you accursed people, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or as a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’  Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for Me, either.’ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

It is really important to know which you are.  There are those, like myself, who are seeing that it looks very evident that the separation is happening now. 

People are being brought to bear with their conscience. They are choosing either the God of the Bible or the World.  

The news, the Government, the social media giants, corporations, all do not want you to think about the consequences of not choosing Salvation in Christ Jesus. 

They want to shut up and shutdown anyone who speaks contrary to their will and wishes. 

The Sheep are those saved in Christ Jesus.  The Goats are everyone else. 

But did you catch it? Did you see it?

Jesus separates them from one another. Families and Friends will try to hold on together.  He who knows the heart, who can separate bone from marrow, who knows the division of soul and Spirit will separate mankind. 

The people do not have a say in the matter.  Those who thought they were good people will find themselves among the Goats. Those who are sealed in the Spirit will move to be with the Sheep.

I was trying to understand the Biblical reference to a stiffnecked person.  Then I was given an example from Jesus.  It's painful at first. But I can see and understand why it can continue in some people.  They ignore the pain. Insisting on living and doing life their way.  

Don't be a stiffnecked person in the face of the truth of God. 

Read the end of that passage again.  Judgment comes to the Goats.  There's no retrial. No second chances. They get no court time.  They show up. They are judged immediately. 

Know NOW whether you are saved or not. Do not take the chance of finding out too little too late. 

Search online now for the Plan of Salvation. Time is running out.  Families and Friends will be separated on that day to much crying and disbelief. 

Know today.

Know today.