The Lord Hates Lies!

 

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When your ancestors made me angry, I decided to punish you with disasters, and I didn't hold back.  Now you no longer need to be afraid. I have decided to treat Jerusalem and Judah with kindness.   But you must be truthful with each other, and in court you must give fair decisions that lead to peace.  Don't ever plan evil things against others or tell lies under oath. I, the Lord, hate such things.

Zechariah 8:14-17

I remember when lying was a very bad thing!  Truth was the "life-blood" of liberty, peace, and security in the country where I live.  When a man or woman was found out to be a liar the social consequences were pretty severe.  Having a reputation as a "truth teller" was extremely valuable.  But sadly, things have changed dramatically. Today, lying is part of the normal course of life for many, if not most people.

God hates lying, but in our rush to rebel against God we have made lying a norm in the Western world.  That Bible says that Satan is the father of lies, so those who would live their lives according to Satan's rules would naturally tell lies!

Remember, even a "little white lie" is still part of the "kingdom of Satan" and is not appropriate in the "kingdom of God!"  Telling the truth is not just a good thing, it is essential if you are a follower of Jesus Christ!  Watch everything you say today to make sure that you are not being used by Satan!  There are consequences for not telling the truth!

"Lord Jesus, I know that You hate lies.  Help me today to cling on to the truth in everything I think and say.  May there be no room in my heart for lies!  Praise Your name forever.  Amen."

One Love!

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Don't love the world or anything that belongs to the world. If you love the world, you cannot love the Father.  Our foolish pride comes from this world, and so do our selfish desires and our desire to have everything we see. None of this comes from the Father.   The world and the desires it causes are disappearing. But if we obey God, we will live forever.

1 John 2:15-17

Loving the world and loving God are mutually exclusive. If you love one you will not love the other! At least one of the reasons that God says marriage should be between one man and one woman for life is that their love is an earthly type of the love we have for God. The world and the Lord compete for your heart! You can only give your heart to one or the other.

How can I tell if I love the world or the Lord? What are the ways of identifying where you have given your allegiance? Spending time is perhaps the simplest test. How much time do you spend with the Lord and how much time with the things of the world? The one you love will have more of your time than the other.

Also when you love someone you will focus your mind and heart on knowing their desires. When you love the world you will know the trends, fashions and fads. When you love God you will know what He has said in His Word, not because it is God's command, but because it is God's desire!

Remember, as beautiful as the world is, it will pass away in the fires of Judgment. True eternal beauty is in knowing Jesus Christ.

"Lord Jesus, help me today to spend more time with You than I do with the things of this world. Invade my mind, heart, thoughts and even my dreams so that You will overwhelm me with Your Love! And may You be praised forever. Amen."

Understanding or Love?

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The message about the cross doesn't make any sense to lost people. But for those of us who are being saved, it is God's power at work.  As God says in the Scriptures,

“I will destroy the wisdom

of all who claim

to be wise.

I will confuse those

who think they know

so much.”

What happened to those wise people? What happened to those experts in the Scriptures? What happened to the ones who think they have all the answers? Didn't God show that the wisdom of this world is foolish?  God was wise and decided not to let the people of this world use their wisdom to learn about him.

Instead, God chose to save only those who believe the foolish message we preach.

1 Corinthians 1:18-21

The deep thinking of men and women we call "Theologians" may mean much to those who don't know Jesus Christ. But for simple minded believers who walk daily in the shadow of the Almighty and listen to the Holy Spirit, applying the human disciplines of education to the Word of God may seem at least curious and maybe even irrelevant.

When my brain is fully spent on the understanding of God I only touch a water droplet in a mighty rain storm! But when my heart embraces the Love of God and begins to radiate that same love to others I am experiencing the Essence of God Himself in my heart!

The Bible makes no educational or I.Q. requirement to be a follower of Jesus! There is no need even to be able to read or write. Simple faith and a daily walk with Jesus is all that is needed. Truthfully, even as a lot of money can make it hard to enter the Kingdom of Heaven an education can war against simple faith in God!

Don't substitute your education for your daily communion with Jesus!

A "great theologian" once said that the greatest truth of all is this: "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so!"

"Lord Jesus, help me not to try to impress the world with my understanding of You. But help me Lord to melt their hearts with Your love for me and Your love for them working through me! Praise be to Your Name forever! Amen."

Must I Obey the King?

 

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Obey the rulers who have authority over you. Only God can give authority to anyone, and he puts these rulers in their places of power.  People who oppose the authorities are opposing what God has done, and they will be punished.  Rulers are a threat to evil people, not to good people. There is no need to be afraid of the authorities. Just do right, and they will praise you for it.  After all, they are God's servants, and it is their duty to help you.

If you do something wrong, you ought to be afraid, because these rulers have the right to punish you. They are God's servants who punish criminals to show how angry God is.

Romans 13:1-4 (CEV)

"God established" rulers are to be obeyed and they are a threat to evil people, not to good people! When God puts a ruler in power evil people are afraid because that ruler will punish evil and encourage right living!

So what do you do if a man calls himself a "ruler" but he is a threat to good people and he encourages evil? There are many who disagree with me on this, but I believe a man calling himself a ruler and exercising power ruthlessly is evidence that he was not put in power by God. God created all squirrels, but calling yourself a squirrel does not make you one!

Does God use evil men to accomplish His ultimate purposes? Of course, He does, but that does not mean that we must obey the unrighteous demands of an unrighteous impostor!

A God appointed leader will reflect the anger of God as he punishes criminals for their wrong doings. A God ordained ruler will not be feared by good men.

When the government makes laws that violate the clear Word of God we are obligated to refuse to obey those laws! It is not about the violation of our conscience and religious freedom. It is about the authority of God's Word and anyone who would oppose it! Obedience to God must come first in our lives.

Remember, on the Day of Judgment you will not stand before the President of your country or even the Supreme Court. On that Day you will stand before God Almighty and be judged by His Word alone!

"Lord Jesus, You are the only one to be obeyed and You are the only one to be feared! Give me the courage today to be true to Your Word no matter what the consequences. And may You be praised forever! Amen."

Prince of Peace Agreement!

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Do I mean that the people of Israel fell, never to get up again? Certainly not! Their failure made it possible for the Gentiles to be saved, and this will make the people of Israel jealous.   But if the rest of the world's people were helped so much by their sin and loss, they will be helped even more by their full return.

Romans 11:11-12 (CEV)

Jesus was a Jew and He was subject to the law of Moses! No one before or since Jesus ever kept the law of God perfectly, but Jesus did. Jesus never needed to ask God for forgiveness. He never sinned! But in spite of Jesus doing everything that God required of a Jew His fellow Israelites rejected Him. But God worked, even through that for the ultimate salvation of those who would accept Jesus!

Many believe that these verses in Romans 11 are saying that there will be a time when the Jews will accept Jesus as the Messiah and turn their hearts to Him. It is well documented that hundreds of thousands of Muslims are accepting Christ, can the Jews be far behind?

Sometimes it is hard to see the true greatness of a man if you know him very well. Many Jews are still looking for the Messiah to come! Pray that God will open the eyes of the people of Israel to see that Jesus is the Messiah for whom they have been looking!

When Muslims and Jews both turn their hearts to Jesus there will be no more need for war! Pray for and trust God for the "PRINCE OF PEACE AGREEMENT" in the Middle East! Jesus brings peace to all our hearts!

"Lord Jesus, where there is war, bring peace. Where there is hatred bring love. Where there is sin bring righteousness and where there is despair bring hope! Come quickly Lord Jesus! Amen."

Ebola and the Blood of Jesus!

 
The Lord told Moses to get up early the next morning and say to the king:
The Lord God of the Hebrews commands you to let his people go, so they can worship him!   If you don't, he will send his worst plagues to strike you, your officials, and everyone else in your country. Then you will find out that no one can oppose the Lord.  In fact, he could already have sent a terrible disease and wiped you from the face of the earth.   But he has kept you alive, just to show you his power and to bring honor to himself everywhere in the world.
Exodus 9:13-16 (CEV)

The world is being confronted with what appears to be the largest Ebola outbreak since the disease was first identified in 1976 when more than 400 people died. The current report of Ebola deaths in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria is more than 700. So we all wait to see if the spread of the disease, which is fatal in at least half of the cases will be contained or will reach other parts of the world.

All disease comes as a result of the decision of man to rebel against God. If Adam and Eve had not sinned there would be no sickness. But as we live in this fallen world, God also provides wisdom for doctors to know how to use some of the substances He created as medicines to fight disease. All healing either comes from the miraculous intervention of God or the application of God's wisdom to man's sicknesses by doctors!

At this point we have not discovered a "medicine" that God created which will stop the Ebola Virus!

The prospect of a worldwide Ebola outbreak is frightening! Hundreds of millions could die and leave the rest in a world that has been pushed back to the Dark Ages!

But the world has already returned to the Dark Ages because of an OUTBREAK OF SIN! Unlike Ebola, Sin is always fatal unless the one sure cure is applied to the patient! The Blood of Jesus Christ is the only cure for Sin. And that cure works every time!

If you knew the cure for Ebola, you would be mobilized right now to spread the word! If you know Jesus Christ, then you know the cure for SIN! Spread the Word today about the Blood of Jesus!

"Lord Jesus, I do pray for those infected with the Ebola virus. Lord show us how You would have us put a halt to this deadly disease. But Lord, I also pray for those infected with Sin. Thank You Lord that Your Blood cures our SIN SICK lives! May You be praised forever. Amen."

You Remind Me of Jesus!

 

My two witnesses will wear sackcloth, while I let them preach for 1,260 days.

These two witnesses are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand in the presence of the Lord who rules the earth.  Any enemy who tries to harm them will be destroyed by the fire that comes out of their mouths.   They have the power to lock up the sky and to keep rain from falling while they are prophesying. And whenever they want to, they can turn water to blood and cause all kinds of terrible troubles on earth.

After the two witnesses have finished preaching God's message, the beast that lives in the deep pit will come up and fight against them. It will win the battle and kill them.  Their bodies will be left lying in the streets of the same great city where their Lord was nailed to a cross. And this city is spiritually like the city of Sodom or the country of Egypt.

For three and a half days the people of every nation, tribe, language, and race will stare at the bodies of these two witnesses and refuse to let them be buried.  Everyone on earth will celebrate and be happy. They will give gifts to each other, because of what happened to the two prophets who caused them so much trouble.  But three and a half days later, God will breathe life into their bodies. They will stand up, and everyone who sees them will be terrified.

The witnesses then heard a loud voice from heaven, saying, “Come up here.” And while their enemies were watching, they were taken up to heaven in a cloud.   At that same moment there was a terrible earthquake that destroyed a tenth of the city. Seven thousand people were killed, and the rest were frightened and praised the God who rules in heaven.

Revelation 11:3-13

No, I don't know who these two witnesses are but I do know this: Their time on this earth has amazing parallels with the life of Jesus.  They are killed in Jerusalem and are dead a little more than three days before rising from the dead and being taken up to heaven in a cloud.  I suppose when this happens those who know the Book of Revelation will clearly identify the fulfillment of this prophecy.

But what about me?  How does my life parallel the life of Jesus Christ?  What can others see in me that reminds them of the experiences of Jesus?  Do others hear me asking God to forgive those who are persecuting, even crucifying me?  Do I depend on God for everything I need like Jesus did?  Am I  willing to offend all men as long as I don't offend the Father? 

Remember, without the life that Jesus lived His Words would just be a proclamation from Heaven.  But the life that Jesus lived shows us the truth of His Words.  Your life as well will show the world that what you say about Jesus is Truth! 

Don't forget that it was the physical body of Jesus that was crucified.  Our salvation was purchased with a physical body not by a theological understanding!  What Jesus did with His body made all the difference for all of us.  If you are a follower of Jesus others will be reminded of the life of Jesus when they see what you do each day!

"Lord Jesus, help me today to remind others of You.  Show me how to walk like You did as I face the problems of this day!  And may You be praised forever.  Amen."