The Good News!

News – Current information and happenings.

I thank God on this Wednesday for the opportunity to share with you the Good News. If you turn on CNN or any other news station this morning, I can guarantee you that you will be bombarded with bad news. When you read the newspaper it's bad news and when you turn on the radio it's bad news. But my friends, I'm here today to tell you that there is light at the end of the tunnel! That light is the Good News, and that Good News is that Jesus left His Holy habitation and came into this mean and cruel world and died so that you and I could live and have the opportunity to spend eternity with Him! In eternity, there won't be any lying, no murders, and no thieves. Everyone in eternity will have found their place on God Tepereith will, where there is no jealousy and no envy. There we will all be one with the Lord - transparent and crystal clear on the inside. Now that's the Good News, but that's not the end of the story...

Until we get back to that place (eternity), we must keep in mind the Good News that God has given to us while we're here on this earth. He said I'm your provider, so whatever you have need of, God's got it! If you need a healing, He's the greatest physician that has ever lived. If you need a lawyer, He's the only one I know that has never lost a case! As David said in Psalms 46:1, He is "...a very present help in trouble" and He is more than enough. If you need a financial blessing, He said everything in Heaven and everything in earth is mine, and the bible tells us that He is able to supply all of our needs according to His riches and glory. Deuteronomy 8:18 tells us, "...for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth." If your children look like they are going totally astray, just keep praying and believing, because He said that He would save your whole household (Acts 16:31). If you need a roof over your head, He said that He would give you houses you didn't have to build, and vineyards you didn't have to plant!

The Good News doesn't stop there! If we need protection, He said in Isaiah 43:2-7, "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee" (That's what He did for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego.) The Good News continues, "Fear not; for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the East and gather thee from the West; I will say to the North, Give up and to the South, keep not back: bring my sons from far and my daughters from the ends of the earth; Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him."

I don't know about you, my friends, but that's what I call Good News! Especially considering that He loves us not because of, but in spite of. He also said that He would never leave us nor forsake us. Let me leave you with one more thing - the word declares, "God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: hath He said, and shall he not do it? Or hath He spoken, and shall he not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19). Now, if that's not Good News - I don't know what is!

With all that said, let the Church say Amen… and AMEN!                 

Growing is a Process that Takes Time!

Growing: to develop naturally, increase
Time: Point in duration; occasion

Spiritual growth, much like natural growth, takes time. It takes at least 18 or more years for us to grow from a baby to an adult (some times a WHOLE LOT longer)! It takes time for plants to grow; and time for fruit to mature and ripen. Likewise, the same principle holds true for growing in God - there are no shortcuts - growing simply takes time. It's a process that we have to go through. Additionally, there is no growth without change. Now, I know that we've heard people say; "I don't like change," but those people are short-sighted, for without change nothing grows naturally or spiritually. And thank goodness for us that God is so merciful that He has allotted time for our growth!

Our growth process is like climbing up a ladder - we must take one step at a time to ensure that we don't trip. If you rush up to the top, you might miss a step and fall back down. Fortunately, God is not concerned with our rate of speed, however, He does command us to grow. 1 Peter 2:1-3 tells us, "Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious."

Of course, with change there will be pains, because struggles and battles are certainly going to come to test us to see if we have grown. Again, the Lord doesn't expect us to be at the top of the ladder overnight (thank goodness!), but He does expect us to be taking steps toward the top.

In today's world, people are obsessed with speed. We want everything right now - we microwave our popcorn and we fly up and down the highway at speeds well above the posted speed limits, just going to the grocery store up the street. Since that's the world we live in and what we are used to, we try to apply that same philosophy to God and we try to rush Him. The thing we tend to forget is that He's more interested in us waiting on Him for directions and He wants us relying on Him for our next move.

The Lord realizes that it takes time to grow, so let's slow down and wait on God.  Remember that the tortoise beat the hare not because he was in a hurry, but because he kept going, one step at a time. Slow and steady wins the race. Let's Thank God for His mercy, for His grace and for His patience that He has toward us. God never gets in a hurry, but He's always right on time!

With all that said, let the Church say Amen... and AMEN!

God Is Looking for People With Faith & a Willingness to Obey!

Faith - trust, belief, belief without proof
Obey - do as ordered, submit to authority

I don't know about your upbringing, but back then when our dad told us to do something, nobody questioned it - we simply did what we were told. Remember that? We all knew there would be consequences to not obeying. Sound familiar?

Now, with that in mind, tell me why we question our heavenly Father? Something to think about, right?? So often we say, “why ME, Lord?? Why do I have to do that?” Not only do we question Him, we have the nerve to get angry and murmur and complain, as if He's an unfair God.

Friends, God is looking for people with confidence in Him who are willing to submit to His authority without asking “why me.” All throughtout the Bible we find some powerful examples of people who trusted God even though they could not see what was coming ahead.

1. Abraham had faith in God to the point where he was willing to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice as God had instructed him to do (Genesis 22-2). He obeyed without question, going to the place where he was told to go, and starting to put into action that which God had told him to do. If you know the story then you know that our faithful God did not allow Abraham to slay his son - He was simply testing Abraham as He tests us. Abraham had so much faith in God, that when he and his son began to go up the mountain, he told his servants to stay there and wait for he and the lad would return (Genesis 22-5). That's what I call true confidence and obedience in God.
2. Noah is another example of one who trusted God and was obedient. When Noah heard God’s warning, he took heed and wasted no time building the Ark - even though there was no sign of a flood. Genesis 7:5 says “And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him.” Not once does the word say that Noah asked “why” or “why me.” The word tells us that the people of Noah’s time were full of evil and wickedness, so you know they probably laughed and talked about him, but Noah completely submitted himself to God’s authority and acted without proof.

Both of those examples had two things in common: 1) both men were men of faith and obedience and 2) God blessed them tremendously as a result. When the Lord asks us to do something or give up something that seems unreasonable to us, we must be obedient and take comfort in knowing that there is a reason why, for our God is too Holy, too Righteous, and too Good to allow anything to cross our path that is not for our good and His Glory.

With all that said, let the Church say Amen... and AMEN!

Live Like This Is Your Last Day!

I heard a Pastor say that if we knew that we only had 30 minutes to live, he said we would do things differently; if we knew that we only had 15 minutes left, we would certainly do things much differently. We should not take life for granted, for as Matthew 24:42 reminds us, "Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour [or day, for that matter] your Lord doth come." With that in mind, wouldn't you agree that it's imperative that we live life each day as if it were our last day?

I also heard about a fatal car accident involving a successful actor. You have to know that he thought that he would return home safely that evening. Again, since we don’t know the day or the hour that our Lord doth come, we must live life as if each day is our last one. And in doing that we have to remember that we can't sweat the small stuff, and that we should not hold on to the things that are not of the Lord - like anger, bad attitudes, blaming others for our actions. We can't allow depression to come in or spend so much time on things that just don't matter.

On the flip side of that, we don’t want to be like the rich fool that Jesus spoke of in Luke 12:19-21, "And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?"

We don’t want to live our lives as if we have it all under control, rather, we need to give credit where credit is due -- for example, this is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. Nothing belongs to us, not even our lives. What we have been commissioned to do is WORSHIP, as the word tells us in John 4:23, "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him;" and in Deuteronomy 6:5, "And thou shall LOVE the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might;" and Psalms 48:1, "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be PRAISED in the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness."

 lets not allow ourselves to get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of this world that we forget to live our life according to the word of God!

With all that said, let the church say amen and... AMEN!            

Embrace and Seize the Day!

This is a recent blog, but I thought it would be good to share it again because it's a great way to start off 2018! Happy New Year All!

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Embrace: To hug, to surround, to take in mentally or visually, to accept

Seize: To grasp, to take possession forcibly

We must embrace today and live life to its fullest by getting the most out of each day. The truth is, we already know the right things to do and the benefits of doing them. The question is - why don't we make more of an effort to do those right things?

Well, I guess it makes us feel better to say, "I'll do the right thing tomorrow" - it's certainly the easier thing to do! My friends, I'm here to tell you - Seize the day today, for tomorrow is not promised to us. Matthew 6:34 in The Living Bible says, "So don't be anxious about tomorrow, God will take care of your tomorrow too. Live one day at a time."

We tend to get so caught up in tomorrow's commitments, problems, and deadlines that we don't take the time to embrace today. By leaving the present to get involved in what we think might happen in the future, we can forget to live today. In some instances, the very things we're so worried will happen in one of our tomorrow may never happen. As long as the Lord allows us to tarry on this earth, we won't run out of tomorrows. So we must learn to make today what today is supposed to be, and not be bound by yesterday and tomorrow. Let's embrace and seize our today!

Let's take blind Bartimaeus, for instance - he didn't know that Jesus was coming through Jericho that very day, but when he heard the noise and realized that Jesus was passing by, he didn't say, "oh well, I'm tired today, I'll wait until tomorrow to go see Jesus." No, Bartimaeus never looked ahead to tomorrow, he seized the day and embraced that moment. He cried out as Jesus was passing by, saying "thou Son of David have mercy on me!" He reacted to what was going on in his life on that very day.  The Bible tells us that "Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called." When Bartimaeus went to Him, "Jesus answered and said unto him, what wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said that I might receive my sight... and immediately he received his sight" (Mark 10:46-52).

Why are we troubling ourselves about what MIGHT happen tomorrow when Jesus will stand still for us TODAY?  We cannot waste our todays - we must seize them! Let's embrace our today and put our faith in Jesus today and trust Him with all our heart - with a knowing that He is in the midst of our today. Remember, Jesus loves us, it was Him that died for us and His grace is more than sufficient.

With all that said, let the Church say Amen... and AMEN!