Pain causes suffering

How can you do this to me?! These are the words that people think when they are hurt by someone who they care about or love, but it happens. We hurt each other in many ways, sometimes on a daily basis. Sometimes it is intentional but most of the time we hurt each other with words…careless words which cut and bruise deeply and the effect stays with you for a long, long time.

What can you do when the pain is caused by someone who is an addict? Whether it is drugs, prescription or otherwise, or even alcohol it is still an addiction. Yet, the words or actions that they can inflict on families and friends is permanent. Words can hurt you, regardless of what the rhyme says about sticks and stones. Depending upon who says them, they can leave a very lasting scar that never truly heals, no matter what has happened in the mean time.

The thing that you have to remember about addiction and pain is that they are temporary. Even though they may not feel that way at the time! And, they don’t feel temporary for sure, just as the depression and pain that comes after the high are real but they are also temporary. Why am I clinging to the fact that they are temporary? Because…life and what we have to endure in it is also temporary!

Oh, you may live to be 90 or 100, but compared to a millennia or more what is a century or less? Compared to eternity, what is a millennia…just a puff of smoke. The pain and suffering that some of us go through and experience in life doesn’t last long enough to turn toward anyone or anything except God…the True God of the Bible. Not a man-made god, but the real honest to goodness Creator of all.

The love of God toward you is more real and personal than anything that you experience from anyone on Earth, even your spouse or a good friend! He sacrificed His Son so that you can benefit from His pardon of any and all sins that you have committed. All that you have to do is accept it and believe it. No rituals, no amount of money and no special membership fees at all!

Think about it. Comment on it. Ask me questions about Jesus! He loves you more than you can realize and for no other reason except that you are here.

Not depressed but….

I did not feel good yesterday and it affected my body itself, not just my mood. It caused a “nervous stomach” which is what my doctor called it once or twice but it really was diarrhea. Thankfully, it didn’t last very long but it lasted long enough for me to have to cancel the service at my church, which I suppose is what the Adversary had in mind in the first place.

Yes, there really is a devil or Satan as he is referred to in the Bible and he does cause a lot of mental problems in Christians and non-Christians alike. Maybe not him directly, but his demons and spirits which he commands but they do his bidding all over the world. Now, I am not speaking of demon possession, I am talking of diseases, cancers, mental illnesses of all kinds which can be caused by spiritual forces, demons, powers, principalities or whatever you want to refer to them as. All of these are part of the one-third of angelic beings which followed Satan when he rebelled against God and was cast down to Earth.

Many people have the false impression that they are in hell and that is wrong. They live among and around us. Inhabiting places where evil has been or the occult was used, but they can travel anywhere they wish to on or around our world. The problem is that they HATE us with such a deep hatred that the mind of man cannot fathom it!

They know that their time is coming to an end soon and they will do anything to keep the message of God and His Son from being told and believed! If you don’t want to believe me, take a walk somewhere that you know is or has been used by a palm reader or any other occult worship of any kind. If you are or have been a Christian, then you will be fine although you will feel something. If you are not a Christian, and you go to these places, be careful of what you touch and don’t bring anything home with you that has been there.

Anything such as a pentagram or a talisman which has been used in any occult gathering can open a doorway into your home. The reason that I said that Christians will be safe, in a way, is because they have the presence of the Holy Spirit within them and possibly an angel or two accompanying them. They are never alone and that is why I tell anyone who is or has been depressed, they need to turn their lives and their depression over to God. Pray continually, read the Bible, especially Psalms, when you are depressed. The Word of God is powerful and healing in its power but it is also protective too.

Don’t go looking for Satan, if you are not a Christian he knows where you are. If you are a Christian then he is likely keeping tabs on what you are doing and trying to stop or interfere with your witness to others in your ministry. Stay close to Jesus, read and study the Bible, pray early before you start your day so that the day will be better. Look and watch for those who are false prophets and be as close to other Christians as you can be.

Mentality and depression

Many times in the past few months, I have thought of suicide. Just thought, mind you, I don’t think I have been low enough to go quite that far. I have felt that bad on some days, but when I see my son or my wife then I realize that life is not so bad. Besides, I love Jesus and He loves me too, so why would I want to do that?

Then, a dark day comes at me again. I try not to pay attention to it, I try to pray it away as best as I know how, I even read the Bible in Psalms and pray that the darkness will go away. But, sometimes…some days it just won’t go away. I home school my son, and I try to hide my depression from him but he has come to know my moody days well enough to be able to pick out when dad is “faking it”.

I am supposed to be better than this because I am the pastor of a church! But, you know, it doesn’t matter what your position in life is, depression can make you feel like…shit. Yep, I said it but the point is that when you are depressed that is the best way to describe it, whether you call it that or just crap, it still means the same thing! The mentality of people in my profession is that we are above those things, those lapses in judgement and that is not true!

Acting that way, having that sort of attitude toward life and things which happen in everyday life is wrong! We are not better than the people anywhere else, or the ones that come to church on Sunday that we bring God’s message to. We are the same with all of the warts and faults and sins that everyone else has! There is nothing different about me or you if you are a Christian except that we have been forgiven and sanctified by the sacrifice of Jesus. That is it!

That is the only difference in my way of life and living everyday. Jesus and His life, allows me to come to God and ask for His grace everyday of my life because I am under the blood of Jesus and His sacrifice for me. Repenting of my sins is a good start, but following Jesus every day is the journey that I am on and the one that you need to be on with me. Living your life to the fullest that you can and be happy doing it is the best revenge on those that bullied you in school or ignored you while you were there.

Mental issues

We all have them, whether we admit to having them or not. In our society, there are many people who don’t have much sympathy for those of us who, for lack of a better way to say it, are mentally challenged. I am not speaking of people who need to have special classes for education though, I am just speaking of normal looking folks who have “issues”.

Depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc. affect many more of the population than most even know about or care about. Which is exactly why the suicide rate among actors, young people, military veterans, and others is on the rise, because it seems that no one cares in our society. We need to care, but those who are tasked with “caring for the mentally ill” are told not to get too close, don’t really care about them…just talk to them and find out everything that you can.

What good is that doing for anyone? If you don’t show love to a dog or a child, eventually it will die because of the lack of bonding with you. So, ignoring the fact that most of those who are in an institution are usually adults, don’t you think that they deserve some actual caring from you? Don’t they deserve to feel love from those who are supposed to care for them? I believe that it would go a long way toward actually healing them which might put some “treatment centers” out of business, wouldn’t that be wonderful?

When you are down

The Living Message of Christ

The times that I have been down in my life and not realized what I was going through, I don’t think that I could count them. I was very likely depressed more than I thought but I just thought that I was having a bad day. In truth, I was having a bad day but it also involved being at school or being with my family which really didn’t help much and sometimes made it worse.

They tried to help cheer me up or make me laugh. It worked sometimes, but more often than not it didn’t and it just compounded the problem. Family members, Mom, grandmother and grandfather and friends from school all would try to “help” in their own ways but the depression was still there, sometimes it was less cumbersome than before but often I would just lie and tell them that I was OK, and we…

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Problems today

What kind of problems are we experiencing today? At home, in the good old USA, it’s the same old stuff. Nobody is satisfied with their lives and they want something that everyone around them has, only they don’t want to work for it or have to pay for it. The rest of the world seems to be, at least in the Middle East, trying to kill everyone around them because they don’t have the same religious beliefs. Still, not much new. So, what can we do to make things better? Individually, not much actually, but if we combine our efforts with prayer and some help from God then maybe the world just might change a little.

It won’t happen overnight, but eventually it will. After all, it seems that everyone has been waiting for decades for the so-called “age of Aquarius” to begin, what is a few more days or weeks? For all of the astrology buffs out there, I am not talking about our planet or solar system moving through the constellation of Aquarius, I am talking of an age of peace and tranquillity.

Many of you, and you know who you are, don’t believe in God and that is fine. But, don’t jump on my site just because I do if you don’t want to read about Him, that is fine. I won’t twist your arm to read this and be saved if you don’t or won’t believe in the Savior. He is the answer and the solution to the world’s problems and one day, it will be crystal clear to all of those on Earth, but by then it may be too late for many.

Yes, I do have days that I am easy to get along with, but some days I just don’t feel that way. God is the One who loves you, I only care that you get it and realize that you need Him and I can only do that because of His love inside me. I don’t know you and I have never met most of you who come here and read what I have written, for those that I do know please accept my apology for being a bit snappy today.

It is true that God loves each of you. It is why He sent His Son (yes, God has a Son) Jesus to die for our sins. He is the ONLY way to get to Heaven, regardless of what you might have heard. Just as the directions to my house or your house are specific and cannot be changed, the way to Heaven is set too. Jesus is the only Way to Heaven. You can’t manufacture your own path or your own forgiveness and salvation, it is only provided by Jesus. Please, seek Him in the Scriptures and learn of Him. Don’t go looking for things that suit someone else’s agenda, pray that God would reveal His True redemption for you through His Word because it can be found there and nowhere else.

 

 

Do you want to live?

This is a question that is hardly asked of us in our daily lives. It is one you hear occasionally in movies, which makes it mildly entertaining. What does “life” mean to you? What does “living” mean to you?

Life and living should have the same meaning in our lives every day. But, exactly what kind of life should we all have? The kind that super-star athletes live? The kind that celebrities have with money and fame and all that goes with them? Absolutely not!!

I don’t want a life with all of the problems that fame and that kind of “fortune” brings into your home and your life. Yes, I would like to have a little more money than I have today, but if I were to win a lottery or something like that…I would give most of it away. I would pay bills, build a house with no payments and take care of my aging father in law, but beyond that I would not spend and buy my way into being broke again. I would just give most of the money to worthy causes and to my church.

Living is a process that we all go through. How we live is a reflection of our character. It is that which defines us and makes us who we are. Things and money and houses and cars don’t add anything to your life except stress and more stress. Some of it may bring you a bit of prestige in someone’s viewpoint, but once the money is gone…what then?

Living involves much more than many of us admit to knowing, let alone doing. Living with an eternal goal in mind is real living! This life here will be over far sooner than many people realize and at that point, there won’t be any way of getting back any of what you have lost. The things that you have said or done can’t be undone or unsaid. Just as these words on the Internet are here to stay unless someone creates a worm or program of some kind which wipes out certain undesirable content, the words and actions in your life can’t be fixed just because you want to.

So, how can we live with eternity in mind? By looking forward to a reward which will come when this fleshly shell dies away to reveal the eternal, immortal soul within that will carry on. What reward will your soul receive? Will it be one which welcomes you with love into a life prepared for you in God’s presence? Or, will you refuse the gift which He prepared and offered to you during your life only to be pushed away until next time, until your heart has grown so hard and cold that He isn’t heard from again in your lifetime? Your good deeds, if any, will not help. Neither will sitting in church, refusing to go and ask forgiveness but believing that you are doing your part and God would surely let you in.

If you haven’t accepted Jesus as your Savior and asked His forgiveness for those sins which kept you away from church and from Him, then nothing has changed. You are still a sinner and one who is unrepentant in their sins, thinking themselves to be holy and good but only to the point that the teachers of Jesus’ time were. Clinging to their “law of Moses” and their favored status as God’s chosen people, and yet denying that their Messiah had come to offer them forgiveness and salvation. Dead “life” is what they had, the same as what exists in the church today. Many sit in the pews today all across the world, thinking that they are right with God and that nothing is wrong. Satan has them all fooled into thinking that they are good enough without Jesus and they will end up in hell just as he does one day and wonder what went wrong.

Living with and through Jesus is the only real living, anything other than that is just a false life, one that is temporary and destined to go to the pit of hell.

Are you involved?

By this I mean are you involved in life? Are you living your life because it is something that you have to do? Are you working at your business or your job because you HAVE to?

Being involved in life is more than just living and more than working every day. Involvement in everyday life is something that we all take for granted just because we are alive and we are able to get up and do something, regardless of what it is that we are doing.

It is hard to understand why others in the world don’t like it when we are involved in life because Christians tend to step on people’s toes, whether we intend to or not. Why? Because of what we have and they don’t like it, they want us to be tolerant of everything that they do, but they can’t or won’t be tolerant of our beliefs!

In 1 John chapter three, he wrote: “See what an incredible quality of love the Father has given to us, that we should be permitted to be named and called and counted the children of God! And so we are! The reason that the world does not know us is that it does not know (recognize, acknowledge) Him.”

This is the reason that others don’t want us around expressing our opinions because our opinions always involve our faith in God, regardless of what we are doing or saying. God is the center of my life and if you are a Christian, He should be in the center of your daily life too!

I am not writing this to brag or to say that I am better than you. I am writing it to tell you that God wants a relationship with you. He has always wanted a relationship with each person on the Earth, but many won’t give Him the time or the opportunity to come inside and be there when and where we live. If you live your life daily with something or someone as the focus of your energy for the day, then you have the wrong focus…the wrong priority in your life.

God does love you because He sent Jesus to die in your place to pay the price for all of your sins so that you can come to Him in repentance and ask Him to come into your life, forgiving you of those sins and work through you so that you can be useful to Him for the rest of your life. It is a simple thing to do, but many of you won’t do it because of pride or selfishness. You won’t give your life to God because you don’t want to admit that without Him in the world, available to the world, there would be no recognition of the evil in the world.

Childish nonsense

“God is great, God is good; let us thank Him for our food. By His hands we all are fed. Thank you Lord for our daily bread, Amen.”

Many of us have grown up learning this and then either forgetting it later in life or just moving away from it entirely as we get older. But, isn’t it said in the Bible that we are to come to Him as little children?

Jesus told His disciples: 14 Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14

The truths in His teachings cannot be explained away by science and theory. Truth is truth and there is no way of getting around it any more than you can nullify gravity or the speed of light.

Is it possible for us to look at the world in such a way that there is no logical reason for anything that we do? I don’t think so. The same could be said of living life without truth or even a moral compass. We all know right from wrong whether we are atheists or Christians or Muslims. Choosing what to believe for each of us is our right and that right was given to us, not by natural selection but by God.

Yes, you can argue that there is so much evil in the world so why does God allow it? Or that there have been so many innocent people killed by disease or wars or even drunk drivers, why does God allow all of this too? I cannot answer these questions for you except to say that war was created by man. A person who drinks to excess and then drives a car is a drunk driver, again man-made. Much of the atrocious behaviour that goes on in the world is the direct result of a decision made by a human being. Whether you believe this or not is not up to me, it just is and it happens every day.

God allows us to have choices because if we didn’t, then our lives would be meaningless. If we didn’t have a choice in our lives about believing in Him or not then what would’ve been the point of Jesus dying on the cross? God gave Adam and Eve a choice in the garden about living by God’s rules and not eating from the tree of knowledge or not. We all know what they chose, but without that choice life would truly be meaningless. We would be little more than robots in a sense, and yet God even gave the angels a choice and some of them chose to rebel against Him.

If, for instance, there is no God and no morality in our world..what kind of world would we have? Utopian living and being good are not possible without God. Mankind cannot live the way that is depicted in “Star Trek”, our future would be more like “Mad Max” or “Water World”. It would be every man for himself with no laws being enforced. How would you like to live in a world like that?

Think about it.

The existence of God

Many are questioning His very existence today? Is He real or is God just someone who was made up by mankind many years ago? In spite of what you may have heard or thought, God’s not dead! We have many proofs and instances in scripture as well as everyday life that prove that His alive and He is in control.

Atheistic thought aside, the existence of God is not in question. We are here, the Earth and all of the life that inhabit it is here, this couldn’t have come from some random puddle of protein! And regardless of any nod toward science that you want to give, evolution is just a theory and nothing more. I will not discuss it because that is all that it is, period.

I have a clinical science degree so, yes, I have studied cells and microbiology and evolution and it doesn’t add up. In four and a half-billion years it is not a proven fact that you can go from a protein ooze to all the variety of life on Earth. God created life on this planet the way that He created life, period. By His Word the grass grew, flowering trees with fruit, and all other trees with their own seeds were created. The birds of the air and the fish and sea creatures were created. The record of this is in Genesis. The only part of creation that God put His hands to while creating was mankind, because we are made in His image.

Life may exist elsewhere, but God chose not to give that information to us, and we will likely not find it out until we are in our eternal home. Please consider the alternative with an open mind, God loves you more than you can possibly imagine. Learn of Him, seek Him out while you can. Read the Bible and ask Him to show you His wisdom for your life through it and what He can do for you.

The life that God can give you is better by far than you can provide for yourself, mentally or spiritually. Why? Because He is God!