The Day Has Come!

OH LORD!  Bring about AWAKENING of Your people and great REVIVAL among the lost and wandering!

Lord, bring forth Your word spoken through Joel:

Wake up people of God!
Cry out to the Lord!

"LORD - deliver us from our grieving!  The Day of the Lord is at hand!  Pour out Your Spirit upon Your sons and Your daughters, to declare the Day of the Lord is at hand!  As Your Ambassadors, let us sound the alarm and declare with boldness that we must must turn to the Lord, Who is gracious and compassionate!  There must be a repentance of our sins and a seeking after the righteousness and holiness of God our Creator, Master of all heaven and all earth!  Let the days be filled with proclamations of God's goodness and mercy!  Pray that many will turn from wickedness and be filled with the Holy Spirit of the Living God!"

As I woke this morning, I was pleasantly surprised to discover this very freeing and most glorious thought filling my mind and heart:

It really doesn't matter what is going on in the world AROUND me; it matters only what is going on WITHIN me!

When it isn't about WHAT we trust, but about WHO we put our trust in, and our trust is in the Everlasting God, our minds are filled with peace and our hearts hold right attitude that keeps us joyful and hopeful, in all things and through all things!

If we base our thoughts, attitudes and behaviors on the conditions and actions of the world around us it is no wonder at all that we would be fearful and terribly discouraged!  The god of this world, the devil, has only one mission:  DECEIVE PEOPLE SO THEY WON'T  WORSHIP THE ONE TRUE GOD OR TRUST IN THE SAVIOR, JESUS!

He does this by working through PEOPLE!  He works through religious people to deceive even Gods elect if possible.  John 10:10 tells us the works of religious leaders who have given themselves completely over to the deceit and have set themselves up as something to be adored and worshipped by their foolish pride!  They kill, steal and destroy! They keep the very people God intended them to serve, enslaved to their whims and selfish human desires!

 In Jesus' day, the religious leaders set themselves against the very Savior they claimed they were seeking diligently for, waiting for and hoping for!  When He came, they were so enamored of their own high status and financial prosperity, they continued to "use" the name of God to legitimize their actions, but they no longer worshipped or served God or God's people!  They served themselves - just like their father the devil! (See John 8:44)

Because of this, they were blinded to the truth, even when He stood right in front of them and declared He was the One they had been seeking and waiting for!  Instead of rejoicing, they were afraid of Him, set themselves against Him and ultimately caused His arrest and imprisonment that led to His crucifixion!

Religion can lead you far from the Lord and cannot set you free!  Church attendance, while helpful to your growth (if truth is taught!) cannot set you free! Head knowledge about the Lord cannot and will not set you free from doubts, worries and fears.

There is only ONE who sets truly FREE INDEED and that is Christ the Savior!

In the words of our Savior I implore you today:  REPENT, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!  Ask and receive forgiveness of your sin through the sacrifice Jesus made of His life on the cross to pay every penalty for you!  Trust His work and believe that God raised Him from the dead and you SHALL BE SAVED!  Let today be the last day you face the concerns and evils of this world alone.

BEHOLD NOW IS THE ACCEPTED TIME, BEHOLD NOW IS THE DAY OF SALVATION!

We'd love to pray with you; fill out the prayer request form in the upper left of the screen.  Go to a local church and talk to them about your decision to walk with Christ on your side and living in your heart.

NEVER WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH IN FEAR AGAIN!

Love and Trust the Christian Way

My Dad used to say the sweetest things, to let me know he cared about me and was thinking of me.
He'd tell me he always thought of me once a day, every day, all day long.
I never doubted that he loved me.

Our decision to trust and obey God works like that.  We don't make it once, one time and it stays in place forever.  Our flesh is too fickle for such an easy way as that.

It is a decision we must make daily.

Once a day, every day, all day long; we need to choose to yield to the Holy Spirit.

Once a day, every day, all day long; we must decide we will obey the commands we were given.  To love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.  And to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Many of us think we have the "Love God" part down really well, even if we do struggle with the "love the neighbors" part.

God says if we aren't loving the neighbors, we aren't loving Him.

1 John 4:20

If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?

Jesus put it clearly as well.  

John 14:21

He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me.

To love is to forgive, show mercy, encourage and think the best of others.

Show the Love of God to those around you today.  You'll be amazed at the results. You'll be amazed at the blessings that are showered down on YOU!

Trusting God when all the evidence is to the contrary

Can we always trust what our senses indicate?

Born into this world with several ways to relate, interact and experience life, we learn to rely on what we see, what we hear, what we smell, what we touch and what we taste.  What we trust is built on what we experience through these senses until a pattern develops and our thoughts and feelings begin to follow that pattern.  Sin having entered the world in the Garden of Eden and having successfully severed the spiritual sense we were originally created with (See Genesis 1:26), we learn to rely on the five senses we have left to operate with.  If you've wondered why at times it can be such a struggle to TRUST GOD, now you know.

That sixth sense having been severed from all mankind when an act of sin was committed by Adam and Eve is why Jesus had to sacrifice Himself as the unblemished Lamb.  To reconnect with our Creator required we have this sense of spirit.  This sense is regained when we are born again (John 3:1-3 & Col 1:27), but unlike the other senses, patterns in our thoughts and feelings were not established from birth and haven't developed the needed paths to follow for it to become our normal reaction to the things around us.

Trust is defined by the dictionary as reliance in the integrity, strength, ability of a person or thing; to have confidence in; a confident expectation of something; HOPE.

Now, right here I could easily go into great and lengthy detail about the psychological factors and the scientific evidences and even the Scriptural references of why we should trust God.  Those of you who follow our Sunday Sermons know two things. 

1.  We focus on practical application  

2.  We keep it short and readable.  

We'll do that here.  So why SHOULD we TRUST GOD when all the evidence of our senses indicate we should do the exact opposite?  When our circumstances are hard, or painful, or shameful, or hurtful, or overwhelming and overwhelmingly negative?  Why should we trust and have HOPE that God will work all things together for good for US?!?!?

Simply because our trust and hope isn't built on us, on what our senses tell us, on what the situations and circumstances look like to us.  And this is why it is so vital that we read our Bible every single day of our lives.  Remember the testimony from last week?  Trust comes when we are certain of the integrity and ability of someone outside ourselves.  We may not trust ourselves, what we see, hear, smell, taste or touch, but if we have digested the Word of God then we have a sure knowing that He, GOD, IS TRUSTWORTHY.  And we'll know what His promises to us are because we've read them and remember what we read. Daily we will be reminded what so easily we forget.  We will have an inkling of His integrity. And His word instructs us, so we'll always know just what to do. 

Our trust is built on that 7th sense - His Spirit that lives in us since we were born again!  Our trust must NEVER be about what we want or think is best or selfishly desire.  When we have digested His word and are born again of His Spirit, our trust and hope is built on the truth that HE WILL ALWAYS GIVE US WHAT IS RIGHT AND BEST FOR US, within the realm of understanding that this world is temporary, these bodies are born to decay, but we have Eternal Life through Christ Jesus who died for us and lives evermore making intercession for us. We often talk of Heaven, how wonderful it will be!  Do we believe what we speak of?  (Well, that is a subject for another day.)

I know I have seen amazing things transpire because I held on to who I know God is and let go of the faulty information my senses were feeding me.  I might easily forget, especially right in the midst of troubles, why God is so trustworthy, unless I read about Him and His promises on a daily basis to remind me, over and over that He is Faithful who has promised.  

We encourage you to join us in daily reading the words of life that will absolutely transform your life as you digest them.  Morning, noon and night.  As often as we feed our physical bodies, so we feed our spirit. One Psalm or Proverb each morning.  One chapter from the Old Testament for wisdom. Then one chapter from the New Testament each evening.  We'd love to hear how you progress in this Great Adventure so please be sure to stay in touch!  

Getting started and staying the course until a habit is formed can be difficult.  DON'T GIVE UP!  We're praying for you, and would be honored to pray specifically for your needs.   Drop us a line and let us know how we can pray for you!