Based on devotions by Max Lucado, Charles Stanley and Alice
" Behind the curtains of Christmas"
Christmas songs, Santa' s world, gifts and presents, Christmas cards, Christmas tree and decoration- one of the nicest seasons in the year.
Why do we celebrate Christmas? There is a saying 'Christ is a reason for a season' and that is right! The greatest gift God gave to us was Jesus. But do we have a room for Him or we celebrate His birthday without Him?
Jesus was still in Mary’s womb when the innkeeper said, “We don’t have room for you.” (Luke 2:7)
And when He was hung on the cross, wasn’t the message one of utter rejection? “We don’t have room for you in our world.”
For those who fond a room for Him and accepted Him into their life, the life brought completely a new meaning! Christmas time became a different marvelous celebration of His coming to earth.
A few days I read a Bible verse talking about the past and how God was disappointed with the mankind wickedness and regretted that He created everything; "When the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts in his heart was only evil continually ....And the Lord said " I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land ....for I am sorry I have made them" Genesis 6;5-7
It sounded sad, God could have wiped us out completely, nobody would stay alive. The reason we are all hear still existing on this earth is thanks to Jesus. Christ is our 'second chance'! And that is a great news!
God decided to spare the human race. He was determined, however, not to leave things in the chaotic state they were in. His ultimate goal was to restore man and his world to its original state. But there was still the problem of sin and the curse it brought upon all creation. What resulted was a two- part plan by which sin and its consequences could be dealt with once and for all. And the plan was...Jesus- the Redeemer promised from the very beginning.
God could have wiped out every creature and just forget, but in His love He didn't. Jesus coming to the world was the greatest expression of His love, to come and wipe away our sin, reconciling us with God. That's the greatest gift to the world. But the gift must be accepted, it is not enough to know about it.
"The New Testament writers were calling people to place their trust in the person of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and the promise of eternal life.
It was more than acknowledging that Christ was from God. It was more than hoping that what He said was true. It was a personal commitment to dependency upon Him for forgiveness.It was a matter of casting hopes for eternity upon the claims and promises of Jesus Christ. God's gift of forgiveness must be accepted on an individual basis. Although it is an universal offer, it has no effect on the sin debt of a man or a woman who has not personally put trust in Christ. It is like a paycheck that is never picked up. Christ creatively communicated his concept of "put your trust in Me' through the use of word pictures and parables.
He told the woman at the well to ask for 'living water'. ( John 4;10) He instructed the Jews to come to Him and receive 'life'. ( John 5;40)
He told one group that they would have to 'eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood'
( John 6;53) which meant to feed on His words. To the leaders of Jews He said " If anyone keeps my word, he shall never see death" ( John 8;51) He presented Himself to the Pharisees in this way; " I am the door, if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture. ( John 10;9) He used every conceivable illustration to show His audience that they needed to personally and individually respond to God's gift of eternal life for themselves. Most people want to avoid the subject of accountability to God. Hearing the gospel might be bearable but making the decision to place their trust in Christ to be the payment for their sin is going a step too far. It is easy to focus on Christmas time as a nice tradition without going into its meaning. But that means to 'overlook' the greatest gift, never opening it! It is to ignore 'the second chance ' God gave us.
" For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given and the government will be upon His shoulder . And His name will be called; Wonderful Counselor , Might God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" Isaiah 9;6
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Monday, December 17, 2012
Christmas night
"Dear Jesus,
It’s a good thing you were born at night. This world sure seems dark. I have a good eye for silver linings. But they seem dimmer lately.
These killings, Lord. These children, Lord. Innocence violated. Raw evil demonstrated.
The whole world seems on edge. Trigger-happy. Ticked off. We hear threats of chemical weapons and nuclear bombs. Are we one button-push away from annihilation?
It’s a good thing you were born at night. This world sure seems dark. I have a good eye for silver linings. But they seem dimmer lately.
These killings, Lord. These children, Lord. Innocence violated. Raw evil demonstrated.
The whole world seems on edge. Trigger-happy. Ticked off. We hear threats of chemical weapons and nuclear bombs. Are we one button-push away from annihilation?
Your
world seems a bit darker this Christmas. But you were born in the dark,
right? You came at night. The shepherds were nightshift workers. The
Wise Men followed a star. Your first cries were heard in the shadows. To
see your face, Mary and Joseph needed a candle flame. It was dark. Dark
with Herod’s jealousy. Dark with Roman oppression. Dark with poverty.
Dark with violence.
Herod went on a rampage, killing babies. Joseph took you and your mom into Egypt. You were an immigrant before you were a Nazarene.
Oh, Lord Jesus, you entered the dark world of your day. Won’t you enter ours? We are weary of bloodshed. We, like the wise men, are looking for a star. We, like the shepherds, are kneeling at a manger.
This Christmas, we ask you, heal us, help us, be born anew in us.
Hopefully,
Your Children"
2012 Max Lucado
Herod went on a rampage, killing babies. Joseph took you and your mom into Egypt. You were an immigrant before you were a Nazarene.
Oh, Lord Jesus, you entered the dark world of your day. Won’t you enter ours? We are weary of bloodshed. We, like the wise men, are looking for a star. We, like the shepherds, are kneeling at a manger.
This Christmas, we ask you, heal us, help us, be born anew in us.
Hopefully,
Your Children"
2012 Max Lucado
Sometimes we wonder where is God when all the bad things happen.Then let us think what happened to Jesus when He came? Was He welcomed into everybody's life because He came from God? No, instead of He was killed. We would say, oh, but I wasn't there, I didn't kill Him, but is He in your life now or you keep Him away? The only peace and safety that you can have is in Jesus." Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you . Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." John 14;27
Saturday, December 1, 2012
God's gift - eternal life
“For a closer look at the gift, God has for man, we must turn to an
ageless literary miracle, the Bible. People throughout the history
have died to keep this book in their possession and centuries of critics
have failed to remove it from the best -seller list. Why? Because
the Bible has a power of its own, it transforms lives. Lots of
skeptics trying to disprove it’s content end up on their knees in
awe of the treasure they find. They uncover the gift. The overriding
theme of the Bible from beginning to the end is the gift God has for
man. That it is itself a miracle that 60 individual books would
produce a unified system of information when written over a period
of more than 1600 years by more than 40 different man.
Inspired by the One who operates outside of our time domain, the Bible books reveals history before it takes place. Almost one-fourth scripture is prophetic.
Accurate predictive prophecy sets this book apart from all others in the world. Although most people are aware of the Bible and may own many copies, majority have no idea what its pages contain. Not too many notice the scarlet thread which runs from one end of Scripture to the other, leading one to God’s gift. This book is designed to reveal this scarlet thread , woven throughout the Scripture, that seeking hearts might grasp what God desires to bestow.”
“the free gift of God is eternal life(…) Romans 6;23
To understand what this gift is about is in the words of Christ as He prayed for those who would receive this gift.
” And this is eternal life , that they might know Thee, the only true God, and your Son Jesus Christ.” John 17;3
Reading that verse carefully it says that eternal life will bring an individual to the place wherein he or she will know
“the only true God.” Eternal life- is to know and experience personally the Creator of the universe. God’s gift of eternal life is is to accept in this life. It is received this side of grave or not at all.
God says that knowing Him is the only thing we can boast about in this life;
“Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts , boast of this, that he understands and knows Me.” Jeremiah 9;23-24a
God would not make that declaration if it was not possible for us to experience Him. The innermost self, by design, finds rest and true fulfillment only in relationship with Him.
God’s plan -scarlet thread-leading to His Son.
In the prophetic book of Isaiah we read that His Son would be;
v.5 “wounded for our transgressions, crushed because of our sins,
the punishment that brought us peace was upon HIM and by HIS wound we are healed“
v.11. ” My righteous Servant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities“
As the verse 10 says; He made HIS soul offering for sin .He made HIS life a quilt offering,
Left on our own everybody of us is destined to receive God’s wrath, which is the just response of a Holy God toward sin but God has devised the way to spare us that wrath. In His mercy and love for man there can be forgiveness for every one of our failures because HIS SON DIED IN OUR PLACE.
He took the wrath- we would have incurred -upon Himself.
Would people throughout the centuries die for a lie or for hope they put in God’s promise of forgiveness and everlasting life?
The Vail of the temple torn.
As`Jesus died, the 20 foot high and 60 foot long curtain covering the Holy of Holies in the temple was split supernaturally from top to bottom .
Woven of dense linen fiber as thick as a man’s palm, this massive curtain has served as a barrier, separating man from God’s presence for centuries. It was now taken down by God Himself, revealing to all the world that His presence was open to those who would come to Him through faith in the finished work of His Son. The book of Hebrews10;19 tells us;
“Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is His flesh..”
“But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, set down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool.
For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” Hebrew 10;12-14
Reconciliation between God and all mankind became possible that day on the cross.The door is open into God’s presence for any individual who will enter.
A decision set before every man.
Foretold hundreds of years before His birth, was the fact that His mother would be a Jewish young woman, and He would be born in the city of Bethlehem. He would be one of the tribe of Judah and of the seed of Abraham. King David would be His ancestor . He would be called out of Egypt and known as a Nazarene. The miracles ; the lame, blind, deaf and dumb would be healed by His touch. He would be light to the Gentiles . He would raise the dead. He would be revealed as the Messiah 483 years after a decree was issued to rebuild Jerusalem following the Babylonian captivity. He would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey . He would be betrayed by a friend for thirty pieces of silver, and that money would be used to purchase a potter’s field. He would be beaten, spat upon, and disfigured through cruelty. Tormenters would pluck out His beard. He would be forsaken by His disciples. He would be rendered up as a guilt offering. He was to give His body as a ransom for others. The details of His death by crucifixion were described hundreds of years before this form of death was ever devised. His hands and feet would be pierced. Not one of His bone would be broken. Men would gamble for His clothing as He died . He would be raised from the dead. He would be ascended into heaven. More than 300 prophecies were recorded by men about Him before He was born. The details are in Psalms, book of Isaiah, Zachariah, Daniel, Ezekiel. Today the majority of prophecies concerning the Messiah have been fulfilled as foretold. Others have yet to be fulfilled. It is mathematically impossible for one-tenth of these specific prophecies concerning a single individual to be fulfilled apart from a miracle. Irrefutable evidence beyond human explanation. Only God would bring it to pass.
The entire Old Testament was written to let man know that help was on the way.In one sentence God is saying to us;
” You and I are separated, but I am going to do something about it.”
The books of New Testament were written to let us know that help has arrived;and it is a proclamation of His good news to us;
” It is finished! I opened the way through my Son Jesus Christ .You and I don’t have to be separated any more.”
Inspired by the One who operates outside of our time domain, the Bible books reveals history before it takes place. Almost one-fourth scripture is prophetic.
Accurate predictive prophecy sets this book apart from all others in the world. Although most people are aware of the Bible and may own many copies, majority have no idea what its pages contain. Not too many notice the scarlet thread which runs from one end of Scripture to the other, leading one to God’s gift. This book is designed to reveal this scarlet thread , woven throughout the Scripture, that seeking hearts might grasp what God desires to bestow.”
“the free gift of God is eternal life(…) Romans 6;23
To understand what this gift is about is in the words of Christ as He prayed for those who would receive this gift.
” And this is eternal life , that they might know Thee, the only true God, and your Son Jesus Christ.” John 17;3
Reading that verse carefully it says that eternal life will bring an individual to the place wherein he or she will know
“the only true God.” Eternal life- is to know and experience personally the Creator of the universe. God’s gift of eternal life is is to accept in this life. It is received this side of grave or not at all.
God says that knowing Him is the only thing we can boast about in this life;
“Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts , boast of this, that he understands and knows Me.” Jeremiah 9;23-24a
God would not make that declaration if it was not possible for us to experience Him. The innermost self, by design, finds rest and true fulfillment only in relationship with Him.
God’s plan -scarlet thread-leading to His Son.
In the prophetic book of Isaiah we read that His Son would be;
v.5 “wounded for our transgressions, crushed because of our sins,
the punishment that brought us peace was upon HIM and by HIS wound we are healed“
v.11. ” My righteous Servant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities“
As the verse 10 says; He made HIS soul offering for sin .He made HIS life a quilt offering,
Left on our own everybody of us is destined to receive God’s wrath, which is the just response of a Holy God toward sin but God has devised the way to spare us that wrath. In His mercy and love for man there can be forgiveness for every one of our failures because HIS SON DIED IN OUR PLACE.
He took the wrath- we would have incurred -upon Himself.
Would people throughout the centuries die for a lie or for hope they put in God’s promise of forgiveness and everlasting life?
The Vail of the temple torn.
As`Jesus died, the 20 foot high and 60 foot long curtain covering the Holy of Holies in the temple was split supernaturally from top to bottom .
Woven of dense linen fiber as thick as a man’s palm, this massive curtain has served as a barrier, separating man from God’s presence for centuries. It was now taken down by God Himself, revealing to all the world that His presence was open to those who would come to Him through faith in the finished work of His Son. The book of Hebrews10;19 tells us;
“Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is His flesh..”
“But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, set down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool.
For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” Hebrew 10;12-14
Reconciliation between God and all mankind became possible that day on the cross.The door is open into God’s presence for any individual who will enter.
A decision set before every man.
Foretold hundreds of years before His birth, was the fact that His mother would be a Jewish young woman, and He would be born in the city of Bethlehem. He would be one of the tribe of Judah and of the seed of Abraham. King David would be His ancestor . He would be called out of Egypt and known as a Nazarene. The miracles ; the lame, blind, deaf and dumb would be healed by His touch. He would be light to the Gentiles . He would raise the dead. He would be revealed as the Messiah 483 years after a decree was issued to rebuild Jerusalem following the Babylonian captivity. He would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey . He would be betrayed by a friend for thirty pieces of silver, and that money would be used to purchase a potter’s field. He would be beaten, spat upon, and disfigured through cruelty. Tormenters would pluck out His beard. He would be forsaken by His disciples. He would be rendered up as a guilt offering. He was to give His body as a ransom for others. The details of His death by crucifixion were described hundreds of years before this form of death was ever devised. His hands and feet would be pierced. Not one of His bone would be broken. Men would gamble for His clothing as He died . He would be raised from the dead. He would be ascended into heaven. More than 300 prophecies were recorded by men about Him before He was born. The details are in Psalms, book of Isaiah, Zachariah, Daniel, Ezekiel. Today the majority of prophecies concerning the Messiah have been fulfilled as foretold. Others have yet to be fulfilled. It is mathematically impossible for one-tenth of these specific prophecies concerning a single individual to be fulfilled apart from a miracle. Irrefutable evidence beyond human explanation. Only God would bring it to pass.
The entire Old Testament was written to let man know that help was on the way.In one sentence God is saying to us;
” You and I are separated, but I am going to do something about it.”
The books of New Testament were written to let us know that help has arrived;and it is a proclamation of His good news to us;
” It is finished! I opened the way through my Son Jesus Christ .You and I don’t have to be separated any more.”
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Mike Evans in Lebanon ministering to soldiers
I read this testimony and I thought I would share this since it is so great!!
Mike Evans in Lebanon ministering to soldiers ,
Jerusalem Prayer Team
"On October 23, 1983, twenty-nine years ago today, I was sleeping on the beach a stone’s throw away from the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. That morning the building was blown up, killing 221 Marines, 18 sailors, and thee soldiers. It was the deadliest single-day death toll for the US Marine Corps since the battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.
In 1983, United States citizens were taken hostage in Lebanon and terrorists were crossing the Lebanese border and killing Jews. The Lord spoke to me to go there and preach the Gospel to them, delivering them from the spirit of murder—knowing that their only hope was Jesus. When I arrived in Jerusalem, my traveling companion received a call from Israeli intelligence telling him that Sidon, the town that we had planned to visit first as we made our way to Beirut, was targeted for an attack at the time we would be there. He was told that we could not go.
When I got back to the hotel that evening, he was asleep. I woke him and said, “Get packed. We have to leave early in the morning.” He said, “No, I’m not going. Israeli intelligence called and said if we do, we’ll be killed. I can’t take the risk because my insurance would be cancelled. I’m not covered for a war zone.”
I smiled at him and asked, “Insurance or assurance? You need some blessed assurance.” I took a trash can, emptied it on the floor, and filled it with water. I then told him to get out of bed and place his feet in the can. He thought I had lost my mind as I washed his feet as Jesus washed the feet of the disciples. I believed that the spirit of fear would be broken. He wept and rejoiced as he said, “I’ll go with you. I’m not afraid.”
The attack happened minutes before we arrived in Sidon. We were there to minister life and grace to suffering souls, and God protected us. I went into Beirut with a team of three. I was determined not only to preach to the terrorists, but also to the Marines who were stationed there. I filled the trunk of the car with Bibles, passed those out, and shared the Gospel. I will never forget one young Marine who I led to Christ. I had a television camera with me, and we decided to let the Marines record Christmas messages to their families since they would not be home for the holidays.
The eighteen-year-old Hispanic man was from Wooster, Massachusetts. He said, “Mom, I’ve got great news for you. I know you’ve been praying I would find the Lord. Today I accepted Jesus as my personal Savior!” That was on October 22nd.
Early the next morning, I was jolted awake by one of the loudest sounds I’ve ever heard. A suicide bomber drove a truck onto the airport where the Marines were headquartered. He had hijacked the truck for the water delivery the Marines were expecting. He drove into the building and detonated the equivalent of 12,000 pounds of TNT. I experienced the shock wave and saw the fireball of the explosion.
Every terrorist in the city opened up with gunfire targeting anything that moved. I had rented an Avis vehicle in Jerusalem and had to get back to Nahariyya on the Israel border. It was inconceivable that anyone could get down that road. That night as I drove and prayed with the team, I took a wrong turn into the middle of a Hezbollah funeral. I could see the body being carried over their heads of the crowd and guns waving. Had they looked at our car and realized it had Jerusalem license plates, we all would have died on the spot.
As I sped away, I had no idea where we were going. I had followed the sea to Beirut, and now it was too dark to see. After taking another wrong turn, we began to pass UN checkpoints on the road to Damascus. We were being targeted by 135 mm shells being fired at us as spotlights swept over the car. We felt like the balloon targets in a dart-throwing contest at a carnival. Then—horror of horrors—we ran out of fuel. Charlie Weston and L.W. Dollar (one of my board members) looked at me and said, “We’re dead!” They knew there was no hope of survival.
I stepped outside with a screwdriver and removed the light from the license plate so no one would be able to see the distinctive Jerusalem plate. As we sat in the vehicle and prayed, suddenly an Arab came to the window. In the natural, it seemed he was about to blow our heads off. He lifted his hand which I thought held a gun but instead held a can fuel. He walked back to the gas tank and poured the gasoline into the vehicle. He came back and pointed to the button that would unlock the car door.
For some reason, I felt this was God and opened the door. He climbed into the passenger seat, and without saying a word, pointed in the direction we were to go. For thirty-two kilometers, our guide rode with us. When he saw the lights of Nahariyya in the distance, our guide held up his hand and indicated that I was to stop. He opened the door and stepped out, never uttering a word. We drove a few yards, where a lieutenant colonel stopped our car and looked at me with complete shock. He said, “I thought you were dead. I notified the prime minister’s office that you had been killed. There is no possibility that you could have gotten down this road alive, especially in an Israeli vehicle.”
I pointed behind us and said, “That man saved our lives.” There was no one standing there. There is no doubt in my mind that twenty-nine years ago today, an angel of the Lord divinely intervened and saved my life. Let me encourage you today to keep your eyes on Jesus and keep doing what God has put on your heart to do. God will protect you, no matter what you see or what the circumstances!"
Mike Evans in Lebanon ministering to soldiers ,
Jerusalem Prayer Team
"On October 23, 1983, twenty-nine years ago today, I was sleeping on the beach a stone’s throw away from the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. That morning the building was blown up, killing 221 Marines, 18 sailors, and thee soldiers. It was the deadliest single-day death toll for the US Marine Corps since the battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.
In 1983, United States citizens were taken hostage in Lebanon and terrorists were crossing the Lebanese border and killing Jews. The Lord spoke to me to go there and preach the Gospel to them, delivering them from the spirit of murder—knowing that their only hope was Jesus. When I arrived in Jerusalem, my traveling companion received a call from Israeli intelligence telling him that Sidon, the town that we had planned to visit first as we made our way to Beirut, was targeted for an attack at the time we would be there. He was told that we could not go.
When I got back to the hotel that evening, he was asleep. I woke him and said, “Get packed. We have to leave early in the morning.” He said, “No, I’m not going. Israeli intelligence called and said if we do, we’ll be killed. I can’t take the risk because my insurance would be cancelled. I’m not covered for a war zone.”
I smiled at him and asked, “Insurance or assurance? You need some blessed assurance.” I took a trash can, emptied it on the floor, and filled it with water. I then told him to get out of bed and place his feet in the can. He thought I had lost my mind as I washed his feet as Jesus washed the feet of the disciples. I believed that the spirit of fear would be broken. He wept and rejoiced as he said, “I’ll go with you. I’m not afraid.”
The attack happened minutes before we arrived in Sidon. We were there to minister life and grace to suffering souls, and God protected us. I went into Beirut with a team of three. I was determined not only to preach to the terrorists, but also to the Marines who were stationed there. I filled the trunk of the car with Bibles, passed those out, and shared the Gospel. I will never forget one young Marine who I led to Christ. I had a television camera with me, and we decided to let the Marines record Christmas messages to their families since they would not be home for the holidays.
The eighteen-year-old Hispanic man was from Wooster, Massachusetts. He said, “Mom, I’ve got great news for you. I know you’ve been praying I would find the Lord. Today I accepted Jesus as my personal Savior!” That was on October 22nd.
Early the next morning, I was jolted awake by one of the loudest sounds I’ve ever heard. A suicide bomber drove a truck onto the airport where the Marines were headquartered. He had hijacked the truck for the water delivery the Marines were expecting. He drove into the building and detonated the equivalent of 12,000 pounds of TNT. I experienced the shock wave and saw the fireball of the explosion.
Every terrorist in the city opened up with gunfire targeting anything that moved. I had rented an Avis vehicle in Jerusalem and had to get back to Nahariyya on the Israel border. It was inconceivable that anyone could get down that road. That night as I drove and prayed with the team, I took a wrong turn into the middle of a Hezbollah funeral. I could see the body being carried over their heads of the crowd and guns waving. Had they looked at our car and realized it had Jerusalem license plates, we all would have died on the spot.
As I sped away, I had no idea where we were going. I had followed the sea to Beirut, and now it was too dark to see. After taking another wrong turn, we began to pass UN checkpoints on the road to Damascus. We were being targeted by 135 mm shells being fired at us as spotlights swept over the car. We felt like the balloon targets in a dart-throwing contest at a carnival. Then—horror of horrors—we ran out of fuel. Charlie Weston and L.W. Dollar (one of my board members) looked at me and said, “We’re dead!” They knew there was no hope of survival.
I stepped outside with a screwdriver and removed the light from the license plate so no one would be able to see the distinctive Jerusalem plate. As we sat in the vehicle and prayed, suddenly an Arab came to the window. In the natural, it seemed he was about to blow our heads off. He lifted his hand which I thought held a gun but instead held a can fuel. He walked back to the gas tank and poured the gasoline into the vehicle. He came back and pointed to the button that would unlock the car door.
For some reason, I felt this was God and opened the door. He climbed into the passenger seat, and without saying a word, pointed in the direction we were to go. For thirty-two kilometers, our guide rode with us. When he saw the lights of Nahariyya in the distance, our guide held up his hand and indicated that I was to stop. He opened the door and stepped out, never uttering a word. We drove a few yards, where a lieutenant colonel stopped our car and looked at me with complete shock. He said, “I thought you were dead. I notified the prime minister’s office that you had been killed. There is no possibility that you could have gotten down this road alive, especially in an Israeli vehicle.”
I pointed behind us and said, “That man saved our lives.” There was no one standing there. There is no doubt in my mind that twenty-nine years ago today, an angel of the Lord divinely intervened and saved my life. Let me encourage you today to keep your eyes on Jesus and keep doing what God has put on your heart to do. God will protect you, no matter what you see or what the circumstances!"
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Second coming of Christ
"The prophecy about Messiah, based on books of Daniel, Isaiah, Zachariah"
"The One coming back"
Prophet Daniel had a vision "I kept looking into the night visions, and behold with the clouds of heaven One like a son of man was coming and he came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations and men of every language might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed."
But then we also know from the prophets that the Messiah will have to meet the other requirements ;he will be the descendant of David, born from a woman, one from among his brothers, born in Bethlehem. How is that all possible, prophet Daniel showing him coming in the clouds of heaven to conquer and rule , as the one to whom was given everlasting dominion and a kingdom. Prophet Isaiah talks about the one who will be born of a woman ( Isaiah 7;14), having the earthly life like ours, coming in a gentle and humble way to suffer (Isaiah 53) . The only way for all these verses to be true is that there would have to be two separate comings. The first followers of Jesus didn't understand that either, until after Jesus' death and resurrection when he told them that the Messiah came to suffer first before entering his glory.
Isaiah 53 talks about a servant who had to suffer and die before he was glorified and gives a purpose for that;
v.3 " the one despised and rejected by men" v.5 “wounded for our transgressions, crushed because of our sins, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wound we are healed“
The verse .6 explains ; ” We all like sheep went astray, we turned each one to his own way, yet Adonai laid on him the guilt of all of us."v.7 "led as a lamb to the slaughter....he opened NOT his mouth"
v.8. "cut off from the land of living, for transgressions of my people he was stricken”,
v.11. ” My righteous Servant shall justify many , for he shall bear their iniquities“
As the verse 10 says; He made his soul offering for sin .He made his life a quilt offering, sacrificed for us so that we may have God's forgiveness and life. Forgiveness of sins that we have in his blood shed for us.
Isaiah talks about him having his life back; " He shall see the labor of his soul, and be satisfied."
In the verse 12 Isaiah said; ” Therefore I will assign him a share with the great, he will divide the spoil with the strong for having exposed himself to death and being counted among the sinners."
Some Jews saw that the Messiah would have to suffer but they did not see his death and resurrection. Just before what we now clearly see as a classic prophecy about his suffering and death, comes Isaiah 52;13 which speaks of the exaltation of the Messiah " See my servant will act wisely, he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted"
While Daniel 7;13 speaks of 'son of man' coming in the clouds of heaven to bring justice, Isaiah also talks about the same suffering servant who will bring justice (verse 42;1 ) says; "Behold my Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom my soul delights! I have put my Spirit upon Him, He will bring justice to the gentiles. He will not cry out, nor raise his voice to be heard in the street (...) He will bring justice for truth."
We will read later about why all the scriptures haven't been fulfilled yet. All the great promises are still to come.
Old Testament scriptures talk about Messiah' glorious time in the future to come. Why couldn't it all together be accomplished at once? Had he come to bring justice right away, nobody would stay alive!
For it says; "all have sinned and fell short of the glory of God." We had to be justified by him to have clean heart, he had to die in our place, by that sacrifice we are saved from God's wrath. Restoration of hearts by forgiveness of sin comes first. He said himself " This is my body given for you ...this cup is a new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you" Luke 22;19-20
We can rejoice in the hope and peace we have in his salvation, many people are lacking living without Christ.
Ignoring that fact, we wonder why ALL the prophecy about Christ hasn't been fulfilled yet . Even Jesus' disciples asked him the same question;" When they had come together, they asked him saying "Lord will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?' And He said to them ' It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth." Acts 1;6-8
So 'Now' it is time of salvation. He took upon himself the sins of us freeing all who would accept His payment.
Who would be just enough to live forever? Without the Savior, nobody would!
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that
whoever believes in Him shall never perish but have everlasting life" John 3;16
His promise about everlasting life to those who trusted in Him was supported by his authority to give life; apart from healing others, he raised Lazarus and Jairus' daughter back to life. He was risen back to life after his death on the cross.
" John 10;17-18 "Therefore my father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again."
The roots for our beliefs are the same ; God's promise about the Messiah to come who would 'save ' their people. We can choose to see only one side of the whole picture skipping the suffering part, and expect only the glorious future or we choose to see the whole picture- all scriptures put together like a big puzzle. The first followers of Jesus were Jews who watching Jesus' life were able to see in him the lamb of God. They saw him being ascended to heaven on clouds, and angels coming down saying; " Man of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into the heaven? This same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will so come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven." Acts 1;11 " Behold he is coming with clouds and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him.Even so, Amen." Revelation 1;7
Look also how does Zachariah talk about the Messiah coming as the deliverer of Israel.
Zachariah 12-8-11
" In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the Angel of the Lord before them. It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son and grieve for him as one grieves for a firstborn. In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem."
The question is 'why would they cry and mourn? Who was pierced??? Who suffered like the Isaiah 53 talks about? Who justified many by suffering for our sin? (Isaiah 53;11) By whose wounds we are healed?? Based on Isaiah 53;5, who would have to be "raised and lifted up and highly exalted " ? If the only one thing the Messiah was to accomplish was to come as the glorious deliverer of the nations, why it talks about him first raised and lifted up?
All scriptures in the Old Testament are pointing to Christ, all events relate to Him, all stories written have a meaning so that we would recognize Him; Abraham willing to offer his only Son as the sacrifice, Joseph' life in affliction, rejection by his own, saving their family and people when they came to him in need in the 'trouble years' and at the end he revealed himself to his family that he was one of their own.
The same it says about the Messiah; before he comes there will be really bad times, nations gathering around Jerusalem, his own people will finally recognize Him; Zachariah 12;10 " They will look on Me , whom they pierced..."
He is like an Noah's ark -in Him everybody can hide before the coming wrath of God.He is our Passover lamb, his shed blood for us keeps us from eternal death. The Jewish feast of Bikkurim ( first-fruits) points to Him. Paul tells the Corinthians that Jesus raised from the dead is the 'first-fruits' of those who have fallen asleep." 1 Cor 15;20
Feast of Unleavened Bread points to Him as Jesus called Himself " the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever." John 6;50 "Eating" as the symbol of trusting in him.
"The One coming back"
Prophet Daniel had a vision "I kept looking into the night visions, and behold with the clouds of heaven One like a son of man was coming and he came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations and men of every language might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed."
But then we also know from the prophets that the Messiah will have to meet the other requirements ;he will be the descendant of David, born from a woman, one from among his brothers, born in Bethlehem. How is that all possible, prophet Daniel showing him coming in the clouds of heaven to conquer and rule , as the one to whom was given everlasting dominion and a kingdom. Prophet Isaiah talks about the one who will be born of a woman ( Isaiah 7;14), having the earthly life like ours, coming in a gentle and humble way to suffer (Isaiah 53) . The only way for all these verses to be true is that there would have to be two separate comings. The first followers of Jesus didn't understand that either, until after Jesus' death and resurrection when he told them that the Messiah came to suffer first before entering his glory.
Isaiah 53 talks about a servant who had to suffer and die before he was glorified and gives a purpose for that;
v.3 " the one despised and rejected by men" v.5 “wounded for our transgressions, crushed because of our sins, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wound we are healed“
The verse .6 explains ; ” We all like sheep went astray, we turned each one to his own way, yet Adonai laid on him the guilt of all of us."v.7 "led as a lamb to the slaughter....he opened NOT his mouth"
v.8. "cut off from the land of living, for transgressions of my people he was stricken”,
v.11. ” My righteous Servant shall justify many , for he shall bear their iniquities“
As the verse 10 says; He made his soul offering for sin .He made his life a quilt offering, sacrificed for us so that we may have God's forgiveness and life. Forgiveness of sins that we have in his blood shed for us.
Isaiah talks about him having his life back; " He shall see the labor of his soul, and be satisfied."
In the verse 12 Isaiah said; ” Therefore I will assign him a share with the great, he will divide the spoil with the strong for having exposed himself to death and being counted among the sinners."
Some Jews saw that the Messiah would have to suffer but they did not see his death and resurrection. Just before what we now clearly see as a classic prophecy about his suffering and death, comes Isaiah 52;13 which speaks of the exaltation of the Messiah " See my servant will act wisely, he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted"
While Daniel 7;13 speaks of 'son of man' coming in the clouds of heaven to bring justice, Isaiah also talks about the same suffering servant who will bring justice (verse 42;1 ) says; "Behold my Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom my soul delights! I have put my Spirit upon Him, He will bring justice to the gentiles. He will not cry out, nor raise his voice to be heard in the street (...) He will bring justice for truth."
We will read later about why all the scriptures haven't been fulfilled yet. All the great promises are still to come.
Old Testament scriptures talk about Messiah' glorious time in the future to come. Why couldn't it all together be accomplished at once? Had he come to bring justice right away, nobody would stay alive!
For it says; "all have sinned and fell short of the glory of God." We had to be justified by him to have clean heart, he had to die in our place, by that sacrifice we are saved from God's wrath. Restoration of hearts by forgiveness of sin comes first. He said himself " This is my body given for you ...this cup is a new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you" Luke 22;19-20
We can rejoice in the hope and peace we have in his salvation, many people are lacking living without Christ.
Ignoring that fact, we wonder why ALL the prophecy about Christ hasn't been fulfilled yet . Even Jesus' disciples asked him the same question;" When they had come together, they asked him saying "Lord will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?' And He said to them ' It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth." Acts 1;6-8
So 'Now' it is time of salvation. He took upon himself the sins of us freeing all who would accept His payment.
Who would be just enough to live forever? Without the Savior, nobody would!
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that
whoever believes in Him shall never perish but have everlasting life" John 3;16
His promise about everlasting life to those who trusted in Him was supported by his authority to give life; apart from healing others, he raised Lazarus and Jairus' daughter back to life. He was risen back to life after his death on the cross.
" John 10;17-18 "Therefore my father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again."
The roots for our beliefs are the same ; God's promise about the Messiah to come who would 'save ' their people. We can choose to see only one side of the whole picture skipping the suffering part, and expect only the glorious future or we choose to see the whole picture- all scriptures put together like a big puzzle. The first followers of Jesus were Jews who watching Jesus' life were able to see in him the lamb of God. They saw him being ascended to heaven on clouds, and angels coming down saying; " Man of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into the heaven? This same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will so come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven." Acts 1;11 " Behold he is coming with clouds and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him.Even so, Amen." Revelation 1;7
Look also how does Zachariah talk about the Messiah coming as the deliverer of Israel.
Zachariah 12-8-11
" In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the Angel of the Lord before them. It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son and grieve for him as one grieves for a firstborn. In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem."
The question is 'why would they cry and mourn? Who was pierced??? Who suffered like the Isaiah 53 talks about? Who justified many by suffering for our sin? (Isaiah 53;11) By whose wounds we are healed?? Based on Isaiah 53;5, who would have to be "raised and lifted up and highly exalted " ? If the only one thing the Messiah was to accomplish was to come as the glorious deliverer of the nations, why it talks about him first raised and lifted up?
All scriptures in the Old Testament are pointing to Christ, all events relate to Him, all stories written have a meaning so that we would recognize Him; Abraham willing to offer his only Son as the sacrifice, Joseph' life in affliction, rejection by his own, saving their family and people when they came to him in need in the 'trouble years' and at the end he revealed himself to his family that he was one of their own.
The same it says about the Messiah; before he comes there will be really bad times, nations gathering around Jerusalem, his own people will finally recognize Him; Zachariah 12;10 " They will look on Me , whom they pierced..."
He is like an Noah's ark -in Him everybody can hide before the coming wrath of God.He is our Passover lamb, his shed blood for us keeps us from eternal death. The Jewish feast of Bikkurim ( first-fruits) points to Him. Paul tells the Corinthians that Jesus raised from the dead is the 'first-fruits' of those who have fallen asleep." 1 Cor 15;20
Feast of Unleavened Bread points to Him as Jesus called Himself " the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever." John 6;50 "Eating" as the symbol of trusting in him.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Authority of Jesus Christ in Heaven and on Earth
"The great authority of Christ"
How many of us think about real purpose of life? The questions about the purpose and our destiny are in so many of our minds. Most people are just satisfied in achieving their own goals and enjoy only the present time. Did God have any purpose in creating us if our goal was just to live that short life on earth and then die and be forgotten? Are we all scrod up? The answer is surely no.
The Bible tells us clearly more about much greater things . It talks about our restoration, about the restoration of all things.
The creative purpose of God to redeem the mankind was in the very beginning.
It was all planned with wisdom before this present creation. Jesus as the redeemer was God's plan and all things came into being through him.
He is the ultimate expression of God and His love for us. His plan was expressed in pieces and parts in history, as people acted and in prophecy, as people spoke. The plan was being expressed as Abraham set off to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, about which we read in the Old Testament. In John 3;16 we read that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him, shall not perish but have everlasting life." Then as Moses lifted up the serpent on the desert Old Testament) - so is the Son of Man (Jesus) lifted up by God so whoever believes in Him has everlasting life.
We read in the prophecy in the Isaiah that the Servant of God would be pierced for our transgressions, we read in Psalms about all he faced on the cross. No coincidence, coming of Jesus was planned by God and He foretold him in so many ways throughout Old Testament scriptures. God wasn't to surprise anybody with sending the savior as if He made up His mind to redeem us from our sin in the middle of our life' history. He clearly foretold him to us. Christ is a real person with a real meaning. We can understand this important meaning in our lives by studying the scriptures about the authority given him by God both in heaven and on earth.
He said " all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth" Matthew 28;18
"The Father judges no one but has given all judgement to the Son. So that all many honor the Son just as they honor the Father who sent him." John5;22-23
"The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand." John 3;35
In the above verse "He has given all judgement to the Son" , we see that it will be Jesus Christ who will judge all men and that thereby all men will honor the Son even as they honor the Father.
That is what we saw in Philippians 2;10-11
"Every knee will bow down and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord , to the glory of God the Father."
Jesus Christ the one who was judged, condemned and executed by men, raised from the dead seated at the right hand of God-will be the one to finally judge all men.
.Every person who has ever lived will be judged by him. But there are 2 different 'finals'. Believers in Christ will be judged for what they have done in the body, but they are not the subject to God's condemnation.
"For we must all appear before judgement seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad." 2 Cor 5;10
For those who trusted Jesus, the judgement is not for death and condemnation;
"Very truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life, and will not be condemned, he has crossed over from death to life." John 5;24
Those who listen to Him and trusted him, those who are born again are justified.
God didn't sent Jesus to die on the cross just in vain. He offered you and me the way out, to avoid God's wrath.
So all unrepentant people, all who don't want to know him, who rejected Him,they will be subject to God's wrath.
"(...) he who does not believe the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abides on him. " John 3;36
John 12;48 " He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him- the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day."
More about Jesus as the judge we read in John 5;27-29;
v.25." I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live."
We see that it is Jesus Christ who will call people to new and everlasting life.
v.26." For as the father has life in himself , so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself."
v.27 " And He has given Him authority to execute judgement , because He is the Son of Man."
It will be Jesus Christ's voice all people will hear in their graves and it will be Him to decide who is to live and who is to die;
v.21." For just as the father raises the dead and gives them life , even so the Son gives life to whom He is pleased to give it."
v.28 " Do not be astonished at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice."
v.29 " and will come out -those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation."
This is what is commonly known as the resurrections of "the just" and "the unjust". The Bible clearly says that all people who have ever lived will get up from the dead.
We can be sure His judgement is just as He is always doing God's will;
John 5;30 " I can do nothing on my own, as I hear I judge, and my judgement is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of Him who sent me."
Because Jesus Christ works in perfect harmony with his heavenly Father, there will be justice for all.
v.19." Jesus said to them;'Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on His own, but only what He sees the Father doing, for what ever the Father does, the Son does likewise."
"Who do you say I am"?
Jesus of Nazareth put this question to His followers nearly 2000 years ago, and the question still hangs in the air, requesting the answer from every person living now. But is it not just to know who He is in general but who He is for you. Your time on earth, your life now is to accept Him as your Lord and savior. This the the only way out given by God to avoid His judgement and not to be condemned but have new life.
It is not the life of limitations but the life of abundance. " I have come that they may have life,, and that they may have it more abundantly." John 10;10
How many of us think about real purpose of life? The questions about the purpose and our destiny are in so many of our minds. Most people are just satisfied in achieving their own goals and enjoy only the present time. Did God have any purpose in creating us if our goal was just to live that short life on earth and then die and be forgotten? Are we all scrod up? The answer is surely no.
The Bible tells us clearly more about much greater things . It talks about our restoration, about the restoration of all things.
The creative purpose of God to redeem the mankind was in the very beginning.
It was all planned with wisdom before this present creation. Jesus as the redeemer was God's plan and all things came into being through him.
He is the ultimate expression of God and His love for us. His plan was expressed in pieces and parts in history, as people acted and in prophecy, as people spoke. The plan was being expressed as Abraham set off to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, about which we read in the Old Testament. In John 3;16 we read that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him, shall not perish but have everlasting life." Then as Moses lifted up the serpent on the desert Old Testament) - so is the Son of Man (Jesus) lifted up by God so whoever believes in Him has everlasting life.
We read in the prophecy in the Isaiah that the Servant of God would be pierced for our transgressions, we read in Psalms about all he faced on the cross. No coincidence, coming of Jesus was planned by God and He foretold him in so many ways throughout Old Testament scriptures. God wasn't to surprise anybody with sending the savior as if He made up His mind to redeem us from our sin in the middle of our life' history. He clearly foretold him to us. Christ is a real person with a real meaning. We can understand this important meaning in our lives by studying the scriptures about the authority given him by God both in heaven and on earth.
He said " all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth" Matthew 28;18
"The Father judges no one but has given all judgement to the Son. So that all many honor the Son just as they honor the Father who sent him." John5;22-23
"The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand." John 3;35
In the above verse "He has given all judgement to the Son" , we see that it will be Jesus Christ who will judge all men and that thereby all men will honor the Son even as they honor the Father.
That is what we saw in Philippians 2;10-11
"Every knee will bow down and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord , to the glory of God the Father."
Jesus Christ the one who was judged, condemned and executed by men, raised from the dead seated at the right hand of God-will be the one to finally judge all men.
.Every person who has ever lived will be judged by him. But there are 2 different 'finals'. Believers in Christ will be judged for what they have done in the body, but they are not the subject to God's condemnation.
"For we must all appear before judgement seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad." 2 Cor 5;10
For those who trusted Jesus, the judgement is not for death and condemnation;
"Very truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life, and will not be condemned, he has crossed over from death to life." John 5;24
Those who listen to Him and trusted him, those who are born again are justified.
God didn't sent Jesus to die on the cross just in vain. He offered you and me the way out, to avoid God's wrath.
So all unrepentant people, all who don't want to know him, who rejected Him,they will be subject to God's wrath.
"(...) he who does not believe the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abides on him. " John 3;36
John 12;48 " He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him- the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day."
More about Jesus as the judge we read in John 5;27-29;
v.25." I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live."
We see that it is Jesus Christ who will call people to new and everlasting life.
v.26." For as the father has life in himself , so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself."
v.27 " And He has given Him authority to execute judgement , because He is the Son of Man."
It will be Jesus Christ's voice all people will hear in their graves and it will be Him to decide who is to live and who is to die;
v.21." For just as the father raises the dead and gives them life , even so the Son gives life to whom He is pleased to give it."
v.28 " Do not be astonished at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice."
v.29 " and will come out -those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation."
This is what is commonly known as the resurrections of "the just" and "the unjust". The Bible clearly says that all people who have ever lived will get up from the dead.
We can be sure His judgement is just as He is always doing God's will;
John 5;30 " I can do nothing on my own, as I hear I judge, and my judgement is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of Him who sent me."
Because Jesus Christ works in perfect harmony with his heavenly Father, there will be justice for all.
v.19." Jesus said to them;'Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on His own, but only what He sees the Father doing, for what ever the Father does, the Son does likewise."
"Who do you say I am"?
Jesus of Nazareth put this question to His followers nearly 2000 years ago, and the question still hangs in the air, requesting the answer from every person living now. But is it not just to know who He is in general but who He is for you. Your time on earth, your life now is to accept Him as your Lord and savior. This the the only way out given by God to avoid His judgement and not to be condemned but have new life.
It is not the life of limitations but the life of abundance. " I have come that they may have life,, and that they may have it more abundantly." John 10;10
Saturday, October 6, 2012
" I was found by those who did not seek Me"
"I was found by those who did not seek Me"
This time I thought it would be good to write down my testimony. How did I came to know the Lord?
It all started about 18 years ago. All my high school I was mainly interested in sport and science that was my favorite thing to do, jogging, javelin throwing and all that fun that had to do with light athletics. At that time no interest for God, besides knowing that some God exists but I wasn't really thinking about Him. So I did athletics in my free time and I decided I will be PE teacher. Physics seemed to hard to study but doing sport all your life seemed fun. But when it came to applying to the college in that specific area of sport- I wasn't accepted because I did not do to well in swimming and gymnastics. I remember I got C in that while there were people who got A in all the parts of the exam. I had to find somebody to blame for that...I wondered why God wouldn't let me do something I really liked. I wasn't happy at all at that time I thought I would have to wait one more year to apply again to that school, but meanwhile a friend told me about a new German college to which exams were in September.Then a thought came to me; let's study German for a year - to 'kill' the waiting time-and then I will go back to my sport!
And my journey started. On the first day at the new college we were all waiting to take the German exam.
You would see the nervous students reading their notes and a girl next to me reading the Bible...! Well, I was reading my notes all stressed up, while that girl completely relaxed reading her book...I asked her
'Does it help?' Then I heard all the lecture about Jesus. I though I had never met in my life a person that religious! All her story didn't seem to be interesting to me- I even thought she was really weird- crazy religious! Then she shared with me two Bible verses, I have never heard before.
They completely disturbed my peace!
"Not everyone who says to Me;Lord Lord shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven but he who does the will of my Father in heaven." Matthew 7;21
First of all I realized I might be one of those people since I had no clue whether I was doing the will of the Father in heaven or not.
I heard the right words to notice that a Christian is not about only attending a church once a while.
It is about doing God's will which is believing in the One He sent ( Jesus) and trusting His words. But because God seemed so unknown to me at that time I thought that living for Him was good when you are old but not as a student who has completely different things on mind ..'How do you know when you will die?' I heard the question. Then it will be too late. I imagined myself when God is recalling that day when I could hear His words from the Bible and I was rejecting them, I was rejecting Him and the life!
Then we read the following verse;"He who rejects Me, and does not receive my words, has that which judges him,the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day." John 12;48
I realized the words were telling the truth and if God says something it must be true.
How shocking it was for me to hear all these words, that I had to change my life, that Christian is a follower of Christ. It didn't seem easy 'jumping' into ' following Christ' right away.
I didn't want to. I had some other dreams and thinking too much about God didn't seem too comfortable. I thought God was too distant like in church, with lots of pictures, statues, you pray but they never speak to you. Because I imagined God like that, I didn't have interest in thinking about Him
What was left it was struggling with the thoughts 'I have to do God's will to be saved'
'Is reading the Bible for 15 minutes a day quite enough"? I wandered. I was struggling like that for half of the year, those 2 Bible verses were following me everywhere.... my mind couldn't get rid of them. The only 'relief ' was giving lessons to the kids when I had to focus on teaching the language, but as soon as the lesson was over, the words from the Bible came back and the question' Have you made up your mind?"
This became a really heavy burden on my heart; how much is it enough to be a Christian? What is His will every day? How can I be sure I am saved? How much of reading the Bible is enough to be called a Christian? Then I spontaneously prayed to God simply saying that I was tired of that burden that I didn't know what His will was but I wanted to do it and that and that I wanted Him to be my Lord!
That was very unusual because after that simple prayer at home I started to have peace in my heart that I haven't had for a long time. Such a relief as if somebody took of a big load of something from my heart. It seemed to me like Somebody there above heard me!
I started testing myself, even saying that I was not interested in reading ' boring Bible' didn't take away my peace. Then I realized I actually have an interest to read it. As I read that day I came across these words; John 14;27 " Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." Wow, that's exactly as if I was reading about myself; I just experienced that peace! I knew the Bible is true, the words are telling the truth! God is real!
I felt like being born again, seeing everything in a new light, God didn't seem distant and unknown any more. My heart wasn't accusing me .Each time I read the Bible it was confirming everything what I experienced. Jesus said;" You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they that testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life." John 5;39-40
So it was the same with me, reading the Bible without coming to God didn't mean anything, I thought that just by reading I would be a real believer but that wasn't giving me any peace until I prayed. I decided to come to God like the above verse says. That is when God responded and I knew I was saved. My favorite verse became John 5;24 " Most assuredly I say to you , he who hears my word and and believes in Him who sent Me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgement, but has passed from death into life." We have forgiveness of sin in Jesus, that's why by trusting Him we can have peace in our heart.
Now it is hard to imagine living without God. "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." John 10;10 That is what it means to live with God and have Him as your Lord. Second you have promise that you have eternal life. " I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live." John 11;25
The Bible is full of so many great promises but if we don't have any access to them or we decide to ignore them,we choose to live a hopeless life. As it is said;" Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."
I finished my German college, I didn't care too much about coming back to sport, my interests changed and I went to the Bible school in Hungary for 2 years. I remember my friends saying' I would find no job if I didn't finish my German degree( because I went to the Bible school) and then after I finished my Bible school - the job 'called me' offering the job as a teacher in one of the private language schools. So meanwhile I also finished my last 2 years of German to get my final degree. My worries weren't needed, God was in control;
" Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all the things shall be added unto you." I 'experience' it all the time.
This time I thought it would be good to write down my testimony. How did I came to know the Lord?
It all started about 18 years ago. All my high school I was mainly interested in sport and science that was my favorite thing to do, jogging, javelin throwing and all that fun that had to do with light athletics. At that time no interest for God, besides knowing that some God exists but I wasn't really thinking about Him. So I did athletics in my free time and I decided I will be PE teacher. Physics seemed to hard to study but doing sport all your life seemed fun. But when it came to applying to the college in that specific area of sport- I wasn't accepted because I did not do to well in swimming and gymnastics. I remember I got C in that while there were people who got A in all the parts of the exam. I had to find somebody to blame for that...I wondered why God wouldn't let me do something I really liked. I wasn't happy at all at that time I thought I would have to wait one more year to apply again to that school, but meanwhile a friend told me about a new German college to which exams were in September.Then a thought came to me; let's study German for a year - to 'kill' the waiting time-and then I will go back to my sport!
And my journey started. On the first day at the new college we were all waiting to take the German exam.
You would see the nervous students reading their notes and a girl next to me reading the Bible...! Well, I was reading my notes all stressed up, while that girl completely relaxed reading her book...I asked her
'Does it help?' Then I heard all the lecture about Jesus. I though I had never met in my life a person that religious! All her story didn't seem to be interesting to me- I even thought she was really weird- crazy religious! Then she shared with me two Bible verses, I have never heard before.
They completely disturbed my peace!
"Not everyone who says to Me;Lord Lord shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven but he who does the will of my Father in heaven." Matthew 7;21
First of all I realized I might be one of those people since I had no clue whether I was doing the will of the Father in heaven or not.
I heard the right words to notice that a Christian is not about only attending a church once a while.
It is about doing God's will which is believing in the One He sent ( Jesus) and trusting His words. But because God seemed so unknown to me at that time I thought that living for Him was good when you are old but not as a student who has completely different things on mind ..'How do you know when you will die?' I heard the question. Then it will be too late. I imagined myself when God is recalling that day when I could hear His words from the Bible and I was rejecting them, I was rejecting Him and the life!
Then we read the following verse;"He who rejects Me, and does not receive my words, has that which judges him,the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day." John 12;48
I realized the words were telling the truth and if God says something it must be true.
How shocking it was for me to hear all these words, that I had to change my life, that Christian is a follower of Christ. It didn't seem easy 'jumping' into ' following Christ' right away.
I didn't want to. I had some other dreams and thinking too much about God didn't seem too comfortable. I thought God was too distant like in church, with lots of pictures, statues, you pray but they never speak to you. Because I imagined God like that, I didn't have interest in thinking about Him
What was left it was struggling with the thoughts 'I have to do God's will to be saved'
'Is reading the Bible for 15 minutes a day quite enough"? I wandered. I was struggling like that for half of the year, those 2 Bible verses were following me everywhere.... my mind couldn't get rid of them. The only 'relief ' was giving lessons to the kids when I had to focus on teaching the language, but as soon as the lesson was over, the words from the Bible came back and the question' Have you made up your mind?"
This became a really heavy burden on my heart; how much is it enough to be a Christian? What is His will every day? How can I be sure I am saved? How much of reading the Bible is enough to be called a Christian? Then I spontaneously prayed to God simply saying that I was tired of that burden that I didn't know what His will was but I wanted to do it and that and that I wanted Him to be my Lord!
That was very unusual because after that simple prayer at home I started to have peace in my heart that I haven't had for a long time. Such a relief as if somebody took of a big load of something from my heart. It seemed to me like Somebody there above heard me!
I started testing myself, even saying that I was not interested in reading ' boring Bible' didn't take away my peace. Then I realized I actually have an interest to read it. As I read that day I came across these words; John 14;27 " Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." Wow, that's exactly as if I was reading about myself; I just experienced that peace! I knew the Bible is true, the words are telling the truth! God is real!
I felt like being born again, seeing everything in a new light, God didn't seem distant and unknown any more. My heart wasn't accusing me .Each time I read the Bible it was confirming everything what I experienced. Jesus said;" You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they that testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life." John 5;39-40
So it was the same with me, reading the Bible without coming to God didn't mean anything, I thought that just by reading I would be a real believer but that wasn't giving me any peace until I prayed. I decided to come to God like the above verse says. That is when God responded and I knew I was saved. My favorite verse became John 5;24 " Most assuredly I say to you , he who hears my word and and believes in Him who sent Me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgement, but has passed from death into life." We have forgiveness of sin in Jesus, that's why by trusting Him we can have peace in our heart.
Now it is hard to imagine living without God. "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." John 10;10 That is what it means to live with God and have Him as your Lord. Second you have promise that you have eternal life. " I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live." John 11;25
The Bible is full of so many great promises but if we don't have any access to them or we decide to ignore them,we choose to live a hopeless life. As it is said;" Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."
I finished my German college, I didn't care too much about coming back to sport, my interests changed and I went to the Bible school in Hungary for 2 years. I remember my friends saying' I would find no job if I didn't finish my German degree( because I went to the Bible school) and then after I finished my Bible school - the job 'called me' offering the job as a teacher in one of the private language schools. So meanwhile I also finished my last 2 years of German to get my final degree. My worries weren't needed, God was in control;
" Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all the things shall be added unto you." I 'experience' it all the time.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Christ- the One in charge
- “Christ- the One in charge”
As` we study the Bible we read that Jesus Christ is the subject of this book from Genesis 3;15 to Revelation 22;21
This Jesus of Nazareth has been the object of more speculation than any other person in the history of man. The name of Jesus Christ springs spontaneously from the lips of all kind of people, from the priest to the any upset person that is using His name to curse. “Even when Jesus is rejected as an object of faith, he is chosen as an object of derision.”
Why it is like that?
The battle is truly spiritual – it is about discovering or suppressing His true identity. The battle with high stakes for mankind. Finding His true identity allows us to come to Him and trust Him and acknowledge Him as our Lord, which results in being saved from God’s judgement. Having His false identity -will keep us away from Him and His word and from trusting Him It will keep us away from receiving His forgiveness and the truth that we can be saved. ” Most assuredly I say to you , he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgement , but has passed from death into life.”
It is a great promise but by many Jesus is still under appreciated. A man that died on the cross and that is the end of the story. No power no meaning for your life. But He is much more than this. We will find out in this study- what the Bible says He is and what does it mean to know His true identity. How much do we know Him and realize all the greatness? Are you able to see Him for whom he is? Let your knowledge about Jesus Christ not limit itself only to His earthly life. We should also be aware of His glorious exaltation by God and the authority over all things that Father gave Him.
Let’s have a quick Bible’s overlook;
Jesus Christ as the One in charge over everything;
“Jesus came and spoke to them; All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” Matthew 28;18
The Bible says that Father put Jesus in charge over everything. That means all what the Father would be doing, Jesus is in charge doing.
He gave Him authority as a judge;
John 5;22 ” For the Father judges no one but committed all judgement to the Son.” v.27 “ And has given Him authority to execute judgement also because He is the Son of Man.”
The only mediator to God, the way of communication with God; ultimate representative of God;
Hebrews 1;1-2a “God spoke at various times and in various ways to the fathers by the prophets, has in the last days spoken to us by His Son.”
People wish they would see God, but it is not about seeing how He looks like, the same way it is not enough to know somebody by seeing only his/her picture. God wants us to know His character, His heart and nature, and that nature was manifested all in His Son. God’s heart and will was manifested in his Son’s life in everything that He said and did. He was saying and doing what God himself would be saying or doing, that way ( when one of his disciples said; ‘show us the Father’) Jesus could say; ‘ Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father.” John 14;9
He could also say the following;
” The Father who dwells in Me does His works” John 14;10
” All that the Father has is mine” John 12;45
” Most assuredly I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself , but what He sees the Father doing, for whatever He does, the Son also does in likewise.” John 5;19
He has the authority to be honored as the Father; John 5;23
” That all should honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son, does not honor the Father.”
The One who has the power to raise the dead ones; John 5; 21
“For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.”
v.28 ” (…) for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice.”
John 6.44 “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
John 6;47″ Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in Me, has everlasting life.”
The only way to God: John 6;45
“It is written in the prophets ‘ And they shall all be taught by God’ . Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.”
John 14;6 ” I am the way, the true and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me.”
The One with the authority to forgive sin; Luke 5;24
“But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, He said to the man who was paralyzed ; ‘ I say to you , arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.”
The One as the image of the invisible God; Colossians 1;15
Hebrews 1;3a ” The Son is reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being and He sustains all things by his powerful word.”
Exalted above all name;
Philippians 2;9 “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name.”
Authority to be worshiped ” That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth, and of those under the earth,and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”
Heir of all things, all things created through Him and for Him;
(..) whom He has appointed as heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds.” Hebrews 1;2
“For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.
All things were created through Him and for Him.” Colossians1;16
Jesus wanted people to find His true identity by coming to God. He wasn’t yelling out; Do you know who I am? I am a Son of God! This was not the way to know Him. To truly know Him always depended on coming to God, so that God Himself would reveal Jesus to us.
One time Jesus asked His disciples; “And who do believe I am?” and Peter said ” You are the Son of the living God.” Not only was it a correct answer but Jesus also said that it is the Father in heaven who revealed it to Peter.”
And who is Jesus for you?
And if you think that people can use His name as a curse and keep rejecting Him and get away with it; the Bible has the answer to that.
John 12;48 ” He who rejects Me, and does nor receive my words, has that which judges him, the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.”
You can choose to serve the great Lord and have everlasting life in Him. The battle is spiritual, you can win it- by accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior! He doesn’t have to be an unknown historical hero but your real mighty Lord.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Off guilt
"Off guilt"
Imagine yourself having somebody who payed off all your debt. That mainly includes your high house credit and whatever we bought on credit and owe to the seller every month. Imagine a person sending you a note that everything has been paid off and you don't owe anything to anybody, nothing you need to pay back, nothing to worry about. How great that would be? That sounds like a fairy tale if it ever happened to somebody. A reach dad may be paying off his son's or daughter's debt but that is not all.
There is some other debt no human can ever pay off. The real debt we all have is present in our spiritual life. It relates to our life with God before whom we all are guilty of sin ( smaller or bigger) for which we are awaiting high payment which is death. And the Bible says no human can pay God any price to pay off our sinful and ignorant life except Son of God who paid for us with His own blood. How is that important? That means with accepting Jesus as our savior we are free of guilt before God, but rejecting Jesus we are under God's wrath.
Doesn't it sound foolish to not to accept that great payment? It is available to us while we are alive and if somebody thinks they don't need Jesus they are loosing their 'rescue plan'. There is nothing else that can save us, no good deeds, no religious life, no other person, no communion, no rituals- it is only one Person Jesus Christ that God sent us for that reason. But some people still struggle with accepting Him, why? Problems in believing the gospel is true? Jesus said, you can believe Him even for the sake of the works He was doing, because nobody has ever done any works like He did. They testify that He is the Son of God. You could worry and say, oh, we all will die no matter what, but let's look at Jesus. Was anything impossible for Him to do? Can't you trust the one who was able to raise Lazarus from the dead after 4 days being in the grave? The one who rose again after being crucified?
Is anything difficult for God to do? Jesus said that eternal life is only in Him, that He is the one who can wipe off any of your sin, that He is the light of the world, He is the way, the truth and the life, the only way to God. The only mediator, the only bread of life the only living water. Coming to Him your life gets the new meaning and by understanding that He died for you, you know you have eternal life and forgiveness of sin. Your debt is paid off! What a great thing! Don't pick up a misery by rejecting Him!
Try Him out, He said
"I am the bread of life . He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst." John 6;35, v. 47 " Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life."
Imagine yourself having somebody who payed off all your debt. That mainly includes your high house credit and whatever we bought on credit and owe to the seller every month. Imagine a person sending you a note that everything has been paid off and you don't owe anything to anybody, nothing you need to pay back, nothing to worry about. How great that would be? That sounds like a fairy tale if it ever happened to somebody. A reach dad may be paying off his son's or daughter's debt but that is not all.
There is some other debt no human can ever pay off. The real debt we all have is present in our spiritual life. It relates to our life with God before whom we all are guilty of sin ( smaller or bigger) for which we are awaiting high payment which is death. And the Bible says no human can pay God any price to pay off our sinful and ignorant life except Son of God who paid for us with His own blood. How is that important? That means with accepting Jesus as our savior we are free of guilt before God, but rejecting Jesus we are under God's wrath.
Doesn't it sound foolish to not to accept that great payment? It is available to us while we are alive and if somebody thinks they don't need Jesus they are loosing their 'rescue plan'. There is nothing else that can save us, no good deeds, no religious life, no other person, no communion, no rituals- it is only one Person Jesus Christ that God sent us for that reason. But some people still struggle with accepting Him, why? Problems in believing the gospel is true? Jesus said, you can believe Him even for the sake of the works He was doing, because nobody has ever done any works like He did. They testify that He is the Son of God. You could worry and say, oh, we all will die no matter what, but let's look at Jesus. Was anything impossible for Him to do? Can't you trust the one who was able to raise Lazarus from the dead after 4 days being in the grave? The one who rose again after being crucified?
Is anything difficult for God to do? Jesus said that eternal life is only in Him, that He is the one who can wipe off any of your sin, that He is the light of the world, He is the way, the truth and the life, the only way to God. The only mediator, the only bread of life the only living water. Coming to Him your life gets the new meaning and by understanding that He died for you, you know you have eternal life and forgiveness of sin. Your debt is paid off! What a great thing! Don't pick up a misery by rejecting Him!
Try Him out, He said
"I am the bread of life . He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst." John 6;35, v. 47 " Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life."
Friday, August 31, 2012
Creation contra evolution
Creation contra evolution
Someone once said' " If you believe in the evolution , you have to accept that your great , great , great.......grandpa was a ...ROCK!! or a piece of DUST"- that is based on the belief that everything came out of dust. You would say that it is weird, but that is what evolution actually allows to believe!
According to evolutionary theory, all matter came into existence by itself. At a later time on our planet' living creatures quite literally " made themselves". Such views sound like Greek myths. And nobody is asking the question where did all the laws of nature come from? There are variety of very complicated natural laws.How did these come into existence? People assume that they too just sprung up spontaneously.Common sense combined with scientific
facts will always tear the theory of evolution to pieces.
Evolutionary theory is built on two foundational pillars. But there are two laws that crush those pillars to powder.
Evolution teaches that matter is not conservative but self- originating, it can arise from nothing and increase. The First Law of Thermodynamics annihilates this error.
Evolution teaches that matter and living things keep becoming more complex and continually evolve toward greater perfection. The Second Law of Thermodynamics devastates this theory..
In our civilizations, we find that it is highly intelligent people who design the machinery and make laws that govern the nation. Because of our limitations, we spend so much time and research to improve man-made mechanical designs and rewriting human laws. But in nature we find the perfection in design
and laws which human cannot achieve! How is that possible? Every bird and animal is perfectly designed and fossil evidence indicates that each one has had the same design all the way back to its first appearance in the fossil record. The laws of nature are perfect also. If we need evidence about the perfection of natural laws, now and in the past, all we need do is gaze upon the planets , moons, stars, and galactic systems. The perfect balancing of their rotations on their axes and orbits around still larger spheres or star complexes is astounding.The laws are operating with total precision.
We don't realize that any aberration of those laws in the past would have brought the suns and the stars and systems- and our own world- crashing in upon each other. The evidence is clear that, from the most distant past, the laws of nature have operated accurately.
There is no way that universe would just come into existence and found a complete system of physical laws waiting to be obeyed.
We`all can agree with the saying that every product has to have a maker. Imagine I am leading you into my room with lots of robots and computers sitting around. You ask me where did you get it from ? I would say, from nowhere. They all just evolved. The room was had been closed here for billions of years with all the metal scrapes, a bit of water, some explosives and just decided so organize itself. It took them billions of years and here we have perfectly working computers and robots. You would say that' s
nonsense. You would never believe the scrapes of metal would get together to make an use of themselves even over a billion of years. But you would believe the whole universe with all the living creatures did?
It is so obvious that every product needs a makes and a designer. And designer and the maker has to be more intelligent than a product and far more intelligent than the production methods used to make it.
Let's look now at the two main laws that are completely in contradiction with what the evolution is teaching.
The First Law of Thermodynamics says that 'the energy cannot by itself be created nor destroyed. Energy may be changed from one form into another, but the total amount remains unchanged.'
Einstein showed that matter is but another form of energy, as expressed in the equation ;
E= MC{ square}
This is the most important and best proved laws in science. Countless experiments have verified this. A corollary of the First Law is that natural processes cannot create energy. Consequently energy must have been created in the past by some power outside of and independent of the natural universe.. Furthermore, if natural processes cannot produce the relatively simple inorganic portion of the universe
(cannot produce energy) then it is even less likely that natural processes can explain the much more complex living portion of the universe and its.
perfection that testify about a very advanced mathematics and intelligence in order to come into being.
Now, let's see the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It predicts that a system left to itself will, in the course of time, go toward greater disorder, become totally random and disorganized.
All science ' bows low' before the Second Law which points mankind to its Creator.
The Second Law testifies that to the fact that there was a beginning to everything, and therefore the Beginner.
You would see that the evolution is actually a variant form of atheism. It doesn't want to acknowledge the Creator as a Beginner, it would rather acknowledge Nothing as a Beginner, the Big Bang out of Nothing.Big explosion out of Nothing!
It would believe that energy or matter is self-originating ( contradicting First and Second Law of physics).
The belief that cannot accept God because it has no explanation how is God originating, but instead of would accept self-originating matter, self organizing perfection of the laws and all the life!
It does not want to accept the One who stands above and beyond all of this. One who made it all, who is thoughtful of the needs of the universe and cares for His own.
If you are looking for the truth, you will surely find it. Don't be satisfied with what others say or claim that they know unless you have a close look into it yourself. If you open a typical science book on astronomy, you will be bombarded with paintings of gas clouds and protostars, here you will find theories about the origin of the universe and stars stated with great certainty.
But if you attend a closed -door conference, such as the Nice-Symposium, you will find worried men, desperate theories, scientific facts which condemn those theories, a lack of alternative explanations, an atmosphere of hopeless despair in the face of unproven and unprovable ideas, and no solutions or scientific experiments able to alleviate the situation.
Just to list all the things the evolutionists have no answer to, would fill many books.
How it is that Uranus and Venus are rotating backwards? How to explain origin of such complex DNA working as a computer? How to explain the perfect balance in forces keeping the atoms together, or the fact that our world would not be 'visible' to us if our brain would not know how to 'read' the specific light frequencies. You can amaze at the thing how is the whole world seen in colors- which are the different frequencies of light that the object is reflecting and then that specific frequency is going through our eye and is 'red' by your brain as a specific color? Could that all just simply happen????? How did our brain 'learn' to 'translate' it as a red or green color?
Look at all the tropical fish' variety and see how they are colorful. Lots of them have a specific patters like stripes along the edges of their fins as if somebody colored them. No chaos of colors, the light is not reflected in a chaos so we don't see a mixture of colors as if a kid took all paints and messed it up. Instead of we see perfectly designed patterns. Would the fish just decide 'let me have my fins striped at the edges so that I look nice so these human beings who are watching me in an aquarium would be amazed by my beauty?'
Even though you might reject that there is a Creator and still believe that all the world just happened, you are giving the 'nature' the attributes of a person or creator. People would rather say;" nature made it so perfectly".. instead of saying God made it, they would say; "nature has got some intelligence and wisdom in creating this" instead of saying it needed God with all the wisdom and high intelligence to create such thing.
All the 'universe perfection' should point us to the one living God who made it all so we could learn to trust Him by seeing that all His works are so excellent
It should point you to the Bible so that you could read about His plan for you. It should point you to the Savior in Jesus Christ in which you have forgiveness of sin and promise of eternal life rather than dying in your sin.
John 6;47 Jesus said ; " Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, has everlasting life."
Someone once said' " If you believe in the evolution , you have to accept that your great , great , great.......grandpa was a ...ROCK!! or a piece of DUST"- that is based on the belief that everything came out of dust. You would say that it is weird, but that is what evolution actually allows to believe!
According to evolutionary theory, all matter came into existence by itself. At a later time on our planet' living creatures quite literally " made themselves". Such views sound like Greek myths. And nobody is asking the question where did all the laws of nature come from? There are variety of very complicated natural laws.How did these come into existence? People assume that they too just sprung up spontaneously.Common sense combined with scientific
facts will always tear the theory of evolution to pieces.
Evolutionary theory is built on two foundational pillars. But there are two laws that crush those pillars to powder.
Evolution teaches that matter is not conservative but self- originating, it can arise from nothing and increase. The First Law of Thermodynamics annihilates this error.
Evolution teaches that matter and living things keep becoming more complex and continually evolve toward greater perfection. The Second Law of Thermodynamics devastates this theory..
In our civilizations, we find that it is highly intelligent people who design the machinery and make laws that govern the nation. Because of our limitations, we spend so much time and research to improve man-made mechanical designs and rewriting human laws. But in nature we find the perfection in design
and laws which human cannot achieve! How is that possible? Every bird and animal is perfectly designed and fossil evidence indicates that each one has had the same design all the way back to its first appearance in the fossil record. The laws of nature are perfect also. If we need evidence about the perfection of natural laws, now and in the past, all we need do is gaze upon the planets , moons, stars, and galactic systems. The perfect balancing of their rotations on their axes and orbits around still larger spheres or star complexes is astounding.The laws are operating with total precision.
We don't realize that any aberration of those laws in the past would have brought the suns and the stars and systems- and our own world- crashing in upon each other. The evidence is clear that, from the most distant past, the laws of nature have operated accurately.
There is no way that universe would just come into existence and found a complete system of physical laws waiting to be obeyed.
We`all can agree with the saying that every product has to have a maker. Imagine I am leading you into my room with lots of robots and computers sitting around. You ask me where did you get it from ? I would say, from nowhere. They all just evolved. The room was had been closed here for billions of years with all the metal scrapes, a bit of water, some explosives and just decided so organize itself. It took them billions of years and here we have perfectly working computers and robots. You would say that' s
nonsense. You would never believe the scrapes of metal would get together to make an use of themselves even over a billion of years. But you would believe the whole universe with all the living creatures did?
It is so obvious that every product needs a makes and a designer. And designer and the maker has to be more intelligent than a product and far more intelligent than the production methods used to make it.
Let's look now at the two main laws that are completely in contradiction with what the evolution is teaching.
The First Law of Thermodynamics says that 'the energy cannot by itself be created nor destroyed. Energy may be changed from one form into another, but the total amount remains unchanged.'
Einstein showed that matter is but another form of energy, as expressed in the equation ;
E= MC{ square}
This is the most important and best proved laws in science. Countless experiments have verified this. A corollary of the First Law is that natural processes cannot create energy. Consequently energy must have been created in the past by some power outside of and independent of the natural universe.. Furthermore, if natural processes cannot produce the relatively simple inorganic portion of the universe
(cannot produce energy) then it is even less likely that natural processes can explain the much more complex living portion of the universe and its.
perfection that testify about a very advanced mathematics and intelligence in order to come into being.
Now, let's see the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It predicts that a system left to itself will, in the course of time, go toward greater disorder, become totally random and disorganized.
All science ' bows low' before the Second Law which points mankind to its Creator.
The Second Law testifies that to the fact that there was a beginning to everything, and therefore the Beginner.
You would see that the evolution is actually a variant form of atheism. It doesn't want to acknowledge the Creator as a Beginner, it would rather acknowledge Nothing as a Beginner, the Big Bang out of Nothing.Big explosion out of Nothing!
It would believe that energy or matter is self-originating ( contradicting First and Second Law of physics).
The belief that cannot accept God because it has no explanation how is God originating, but instead of would accept self-originating matter, self organizing perfection of the laws and all the life!
It does not want to accept the One who stands above and beyond all of this. One who made it all, who is thoughtful of the needs of the universe and cares for His own.
If you are looking for the truth, you will surely find it. Don't be satisfied with what others say or claim that they know unless you have a close look into it yourself. If you open a typical science book on astronomy, you will be bombarded with paintings of gas clouds and protostars, here you will find theories about the origin of the universe and stars stated with great certainty.
But if you attend a closed -door conference, such as the Nice-Symposium, you will find worried men, desperate theories, scientific facts which condemn those theories, a lack of alternative explanations, an atmosphere of hopeless despair in the face of unproven and unprovable ideas, and no solutions or scientific experiments able to alleviate the situation.
Just to list all the things the evolutionists have no answer to, would fill many books.
How it is that Uranus and Venus are rotating backwards? How to explain origin of such complex DNA working as a computer? How to explain the perfect balance in forces keeping the atoms together, or the fact that our world would not be 'visible' to us if our brain would not know how to 'read' the specific light frequencies. You can amaze at the thing how is the whole world seen in colors- which are the different frequencies of light that the object is reflecting and then that specific frequency is going through our eye and is 'red' by your brain as a specific color? Could that all just simply happen????? How did our brain 'learn' to 'translate' it as a red or green color?
Look at all the tropical fish' variety and see how they are colorful. Lots of them have a specific patters like stripes along the edges of their fins as if somebody colored them. No chaos of colors, the light is not reflected in a chaos so we don't see a mixture of colors as if a kid took all paints and messed it up. Instead of we see perfectly designed patterns. Would the fish just decide 'let me have my fins striped at the edges so that I look nice so these human beings who are watching me in an aquarium would be amazed by my beauty?'
Even though you might reject that there is a Creator and still believe that all the world just happened, you are giving the 'nature' the attributes of a person or creator. People would rather say;" nature made it so perfectly".. instead of saying God made it, they would say; "nature has got some intelligence and wisdom in creating this" instead of saying it needed God with all the wisdom and high intelligence to create such thing.
All the 'universe perfection' should point us to the one living God who made it all so we could learn to trust Him by seeing that all His works are so excellent
It should point you to the Bible so that you could read about His plan for you. It should point you to the Savior in Jesus Christ in which you have forgiveness of sin and promise of eternal life rather than dying in your sin.
John 6;47 Jesus said ; " Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, has everlasting life."
Friday, August 24, 2012
" A better way to live"
"A better way to live"
Our TV news became a series of bad accidents and if we are feeding only on them it is easy to feel hopeless.
How many times we hear about somebody's death ? There isn't even one day of a tragic accident happening somewhere in which a person or group of people gets killed. When we hear about natural disasters like an earthquake. or a flood which can kill thousands of people at once we are terrified by the number of deaths. But imagine how many people live around the world today. The number is estimated for 7 billions of people and, if we heard on the news that one billion died one day- these news would be terribly shocking to everybody. But do we realize that in 100 years every person that is alive today will be dead? That means the number of 7 billions of people. There is nothing surprising that everybody will die one day. Can we change anything about that? Yes we can when we realize that we are not created to live for ourselves but that there is a Creator we are accountable to. God gave everything in His Son's hands and even the immortality is available to us in Him. There is no miracle pill for escaping death but everlasting life with God. The choice belongs to us by whether we want to come to Him or not. Why not to trust Jesus who is promising the way out?
Reading about Jesus' life we are witnessing great works God only is able to do. By Jesus' word everything was happening what He wanted to happen. Like God who created the world by saying 'let it be the sun' and the sun appeared. The miracles of creating things by the power of His word are manifestation of Jesus' divine nature. Who can bring the dead person to life if not God Himself? Jesus was the one who could say to the dead Lazarus -come out! - and the Lazarus would come alive. By Jesus' word water turned into vine, bread and fish was multiplied, the sea and the wind would calm down, the fig tree would dry out immediately, demons would run away, the paralyzed person would walk again, the blind one would regain his sight, the sick would be healed. Here we can see how easy God could create this world by the power of His word. The same way whatever is He promising in Jesus Christ to us, is real.
The things that God has for us are far above the things we can imagine in this world.. We are not created to just finish our life and die in our sin without any purpose of our earthly existence. You would say, ok, but I don't see God , I know nothing about Him.
First of all the thing is that we can't 'sense' God unless we are born again spiritually.
Jesus said; " Most assuredly I say to you,unless one is born again, he can not see the Kingdom of God."
John 3;3
Our spiritual death is caused by our sinful nature that destroyed the connection with him. But God is more present in our lives than you can imagine. He provided the new way to Himself through Jesus Christ.
The Son of God was sent to us to restore our lost relationship with God. If we believe in Him that He was sent by God and trust His words our spiritual eyes get open . Then we can call upon His name He will hear us and answer.
Jesus was sent by God to die in your place so that we might have eternal life with Him.
He made Himself a sacrifice to God so that we would have the access to Him. His words are full of promises so that we could hold on to them and have hope.
Jesus said; John 6;47
"Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in Me, has everlasting life." Jesus becomes our 'bread from heaven' v.48-51. " This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."
If you believe Jesus died for you, that's how He becomes the bread that feeds your spirit. All His words are becoming spiritual food to you and fill you with peace and new hope. Then you realize that life is more that you think, it is not only what you see with your eyes but also what you can 'see' with your spirit.
Jesus said; " I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." John 10;10
In Jesus we have eternal life because we have forgiveness of our sin. And the result of that we won't come into judgement.
Jesus said;" Most assuredly I say to you; he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me, has everlasting life and shall not come into judgement, but has passed from death to life."
There is another promise;
In John 4;14 Jesus talks about that your soul finds complete fulfillment;
" Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him, will never thirst."
Walking with Jesus you start understanding what is the truth.
"For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice." John 18;37
You can choose to believe and trust Jesus words and all His promises will become real in your life. Or you may choose to reject Him and by that you are rejecting His forgiveness and everlasting life available for you . By rejecting Jesus you choose death and judgement.
God gave up everything to save you through His Son, who suffered for you so that you wouldn't have to go to hell. That is a great work to be ignored.
Our TV news became a series of bad accidents and if we are feeding only on them it is easy to feel hopeless.
How many times we hear about somebody's death ? There isn't even one day of a tragic accident happening somewhere in which a person or group of people gets killed. When we hear about natural disasters like an earthquake. or a flood which can kill thousands of people at once we are terrified by the number of deaths. But imagine how many people live around the world today. The number is estimated for 7 billions of people and, if we heard on the news that one billion died one day- these news would be terribly shocking to everybody. But do we realize that in 100 years every person that is alive today will be dead? That means the number of 7 billions of people. There is nothing surprising that everybody will die one day. Can we change anything about that? Yes we can when we realize that we are not created to live for ourselves but that there is a Creator we are accountable to. God gave everything in His Son's hands and even the immortality is available to us in Him. There is no miracle pill for escaping death but everlasting life with God. The choice belongs to us by whether we want to come to Him or not. Why not to trust Jesus who is promising the way out?
Reading about Jesus' life we are witnessing great works God only is able to do. By Jesus' word everything was happening what He wanted to happen. Like God who created the world by saying 'let it be the sun' and the sun appeared. The miracles of creating things by the power of His word are manifestation of Jesus' divine nature. Who can bring the dead person to life if not God Himself? Jesus was the one who could say to the dead Lazarus -come out! - and the Lazarus would come alive. By Jesus' word water turned into vine, bread and fish was multiplied, the sea and the wind would calm down, the fig tree would dry out immediately, demons would run away, the paralyzed person would walk again, the blind one would regain his sight, the sick would be healed. Here we can see how easy God could create this world by the power of His word. The same way whatever is He promising in Jesus Christ to us, is real.
The things that God has for us are far above the things we can imagine in this world.. We are not created to just finish our life and die in our sin without any purpose of our earthly existence. You would say, ok, but I don't see God , I know nothing about Him.
First of all the thing is that we can't 'sense' God unless we are born again spiritually.
Jesus said; " Most assuredly I say to you,unless one is born again, he can not see the Kingdom of God."
John 3;3
Our spiritual death is caused by our sinful nature that destroyed the connection with him. But God is more present in our lives than you can imagine. He provided the new way to Himself through Jesus Christ.
The Son of God was sent to us to restore our lost relationship with God. If we believe in Him that He was sent by God and trust His words our spiritual eyes get open . Then we can call upon His name He will hear us and answer.
Jesus was sent by God to die in your place so that we might have eternal life with Him.
He made Himself a sacrifice to God so that we would have the access to Him. His words are full of promises so that we could hold on to them and have hope.
Jesus said; John 6;47
"Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in Me, has everlasting life." Jesus becomes our 'bread from heaven' v.48-51. " This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."
If you believe Jesus died for you, that's how He becomes the bread that feeds your spirit. All His words are becoming spiritual food to you and fill you with peace and new hope. Then you realize that life is more that you think, it is not only what you see with your eyes but also what you can 'see' with your spirit.
Jesus said; " I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." John 10;10
In Jesus we have eternal life because we have forgiveness of our sin. And the result of that we won't come into judgement.
Jesus said;" Most assuredly I say to you; he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me, has everlasting life and shall not come into judgement, but has passed from death to life."
There is another promise;
In John 4;14 Jesus talks about that your soul finds complete fulfillment;
" Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him, will never thirst."
Walking with Jesus you start understanding what is the truth.
"For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice." John 18;37
You can choose to believe and trust Jesus words and all His promises will become real in your life. Or you may choose to reject Him and by that you are rejecting His forgiveness and everlasting life available for you . By rejecting Jesus you choose death and judgement.
God gave up everything to save you through His Son, who suffered for you so that you wouldn't have to go to hell. That is a great work to be ignored.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
How much are you worth?
“How much are you worth?”
based on the book ” Discover His character’ by Bill Bright
Can you imagine the magnificent knowledge of God who already knew you before you were born? Do you ever wonder when did you show up in his mind?
You might think it started some time in your life or it will start one day but the truth is that
God saw us already in eternity past as well as His sacrifice planned for our salvation! He knew from the beginning of times that we would ‘cost’ Him everything and yet He never gave up with us.
” He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ”
There was never a moment when God did not purpose in His love to make the ultimate sacrifice for us. You and I, who are not even worthy to call His name, are so loved that we were always on His mind.
Just before His betrayal, Jesus enjoyed the Passover meal with His disciples. They were about to experience incredible trauma when they saw their Master led away by soldiers, put on trial and crucified. The book of John explains lots of facts during that Last Supper.
”Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”
First Jesus had a meal of fellowship, then He washed his disciples’ feet. We can learn something important from that.
When He approached Peter, this one said; “You shall never wash my feet! “ That was too intimidating to Peter. But what did Jesus answer?
” If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.”
One important thing comes to our mind, that it doesn’t matter how long you have been watching Jesus, or you have known about Him
” you have no part with him, if you don’t allow Him to be washed from your sin. It’s not about knowing about Jesus but believing in Him and being ‘washed’ from all our guilt. No fellowship with God unless you are clean. There is no way we could enter God’s holy place with sin. Peter didn’t understand what was that washing all about , Jesus said; ” What I am doing now, you don’t understand , but you will know after this.” Eventually Peter allowed himself to be washed. Now we know it was all referring to what Jesus did for us on the cross. Only those who want to be washed by his blood, have forgiveness and are free from sin and can have fellowship with God.
What else happened at that time?
As`the Lord washed Peters’ feet, Peter proclaimed ; ” I will lay down my life for you.”
Jesus responded: ” Will you really lay down your life for Me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown Me three times.”
That is exactly what Peter did. During Christ darkest hours, Peter turned his back on his Lord. Did Jesus reject Peter because of his betrayal? As`the soldiers bound and dragged Jesus through the crowd, Jesus caught Peter’s eye. The look of forgiveness in the Lord’s eyes made the difference. Peter was feeling broken deep in his heart but he knew from Jesus’ look that His Master still loved him and was able to forgive him.
God’s everlasting love was expressed at that time so much. Knowing that soon He would be betrayed and handed over to those who hated Him, He wasn’t focusing on Himself nor showing any self pity. Instead of that He was telling His discpiles about what great things they should expect in his promise.
” When everything is ready I will come and get you so that you will always be with Me where I am.” Then, just before Him being handed over to the soldiers He prayed
” Father I desire that they also whom you gave me, may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.” John 17;24
What a great promise for those who trust Jesus! We know that His promise about everlasting life with Him is as real as He was real Himself. And if you think your life on earth is so hard and meaningless, you can trust Jesus’ words as He is giving you hope about something better to come. That’s the whole reason he came to die for us. If you believe that there is nothing after you die, then His death was completely useless. But we read in the Bible that it was the highest price God payed for us. If He was willing to give for us something the most precious to Him, we can imagine how much is He concerned about us. At the same time we know that His justice is the most perfect and regardless of the person He will execute it.
The truth about it is deeply manifested in what Jesus experienced on the cross; Matthew 27;46
Crying out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
As he took on all our sin upon Himself, He experienced death as a sinner- when God is turning away from a sinful person, when your soul is crying for God but He ‘doesn’t hear, He is not there for you. Jesus who was in a form of God himself ( Philippians 2;6) coming in the likeness of men, went through separation from God He came from.
That fact is considered for the deepest display of his love toward men!
If that great love of God is rejected by you, there is nothing else He can pay for you to ‘buy you out’ from your sin.
We`are reminded to call upon His name before is not to late so that we don’t die as sinners but as children of God with the hope of new life.
If we are not interested in finding relationship with God in this life, He won’t be interested in having it with us after we died.
Matthew 10;33 ” Whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.”
based on the book ” Discover His character’ by Bill Bright
Can you imagine the magnificent knowledge of God who already knew you before you were born? Do you ever wonder when did you show up in his mind?
You might think it started some time in your life or it will start one day but the truth is that
God saw us already in eternity past as well as His sacrifice planned for our salvation! He knew from the beginning of times that we would ‘cost’ Him everything and yet He never gave up with us.
” He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ”
There was never a moment when God did not purpose in His love to make the ultimate sacrifice for us. You and I, who are not even worthy to call His name, are so loved that we were always on His mind.
Just before His betrayal, Jesus enjoyed the Passover meal with His disciples. They were about to experience incredible trauma when they saw their Master led away by soldiers, put on trial and crucified. The book of John explains lots of facts during that Last Supper.
”Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”
First Jesus had a meal of fellowship, then He washed his disciples’ feet. We can learn something important from that.
When He approached Peter, this one said; “You shall never wash my feet! “ That was too intimidating to Peter. But what did Jesus answer?
” If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.”
One important thing comes to our mind, that it doesn’t matter how long you have been watching Jesus, or you have known about Him
” you have no part with him, if you don’t allow Him to be washed from your sin. It’s not about knowing about Jesus but believing in Him and being ‘washed’ from all our guilt. No fellowship with God unless you are clean. There is no way we could enter God’s holy place with sin. Peter didn’t understand what was that washing all about , Jesus said; ” What I am doing now, you don’t understand , but you will know after this.” Eventually Peter allowed himself to be washed. Now we know it was all referring to what Jesus did for us on the cross. Only those who want to be washed by his blood, have forgiveness and are free from sin and can have fellowship with God.
What else happened at that time?
As`the Lord washed Peters’ feet, Peter proclaimed ; ” I will lay down my life for you.”
Jesus responded: ” Will you really lay down your life for Me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown Me three times.”
That is exactly what Peter did. During Christ darkest hours, Peter turned his back on his Lord. Did Jesus reject Peter because of his betrayal? As`the soldiers bound and dragged Jesus through the crowd, Jesus caught Peter’s eye. The look of forgiveness in the Lord’s eyes made the difference. Peter was feeling broken deep in his heart but he knew from Jesus’ look that His Master still loved him and was able to forgive him.
God’s everlasting love was expressed at that time so much. Knowing that soon He would be betrayed and handed over to those who hated Him, He wasn’t focusing on Himself nor showing any self pity. Instead of that He was telling His discpiles about what great things they should expect in his promise.
” When everything is ready I will come and get you so that you will always be with Me where I am.” Then, just before Him being handed over to the soldiers He prayed
” Father I desire that they also whom you gave me, may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.” John 17;24
What a great promise for those who trust Jesus! We know that His promise about everlasting life with Him is as real as He was real Himself. And if you think your life on earth is so hard and meaningless, you can trust Jesus’ words as He is giving you hope about something better to come. That’s the whole reason he came to die for us. If you believe that there is nothing after you die, then His death was completely useless. But we read in the Bible that it was the highest price God payed for us. If He was willing to give for us something the most precious to Him, we can imagine how much is He concerned about us. At the same time we know that His justice is the most perfect and regardless of the person He will execute it.
The truth about it is deeply manifested in what Jesus experienced on the cross; Matthew 27;46
Crying out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
As he took on all our sin upon Himself, He experienced death as a sinner- when God is turning away from a sinful person, when your soul is crying for God but He ‘doesn’t hear, He is not there for you. Jesus who was in a form of God himself ( Philippians 2;6) coming in the likeness of men, went through separation from God He came from.
That fact is considered for the deepest display of his love toward men!
If that great love of God is rejected by you, there is nothing else He can pay for you to ‘buy you out’ from your sin.
We`are reminded to call upon His name before is not to late so that we don’t die as sinners but as children of God with the hope of new life.
If we are not interested in finding relationship with God in this life, He won’t be interested in having it with us after we died.
Matthew 10;33 ” Whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.”
Thursday, August 16, 2012
God and His time of grace
God and His time of grace
The entire gospel is a great story and a great promise. It is a book of hope in our 'hopeless society' . It is not only because people like to hold on to things that are giving them hope but because the gospel it is true!
If it contains God's word we can be sure it is true. Sooner or later God will fulfill his promises; like He has already done about coming of Christ. In Ephesians Paul says; that God's secret plan has now been revealed to us, it is a plan centered on Christ, designed long ago according to His good pleasure. And this is His plan; at the right time He will bring everything together under the authority of Christ, everything in heaven and on earth. You would ask how?
Everything by the forgiveness in Jesus. That was God's secret plan from the beginning of times. Let's look at that.
God used the fact that religious leaders couldn't stand Jesus' words. They didn't believe He came from God. For them leading their religious life was more important than what Jesus was saying so they thought they would kill Him. First they tried to do everything to humiliate Him . The soldiers beat Jesus and crowned Him with a crown of thorns. They were following the evil orders of their superiors. The rabble in front of the cross ridiculed Jesus as He was dying . Their purpose was to make Him look weak and insignificant. Then the government assigned soldiers to guard Jesus' tomb to thwart any claims that He had risen from the dead .
But nothing could stop Jesus from rising again. In John 10;17-18 Jesus says; " Therefore my Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself, I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from my Father." So, God's plan succeeded as Jesus became a prefect sacrifice for our sin. His given life became a ransom for many.
Since then ( for the last 2000 years ) there is no other sacrifice needed in order to come to the living God. Jesus is enough, that is why He says that He is the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Him. John 14;6
Throughout the ages people needed sacrifice in order to come to God. Jesus' death changed everything, now He is your only way to God.
Imagine yourself in the court accused about something that you need to be punished about. The judge says the final verdict; death penalty. That sounds terrifying but we all are like that in God's eyes- because of our sinful nature we are to die one day. But God gives us the way out. Somebody is coming to the court to say he is taking all your guilt upon himself and takes the death punishment for you and you are declared not guilty . This is what exactly Jesus did for you on the cross so that you can be free of guilt before God.
He is the main person in your life that can change your final course.
No matter who we are or what we have done, we all need to come to Him. While you come to Jesus you are in His hands.. He says; " I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand." John 10;28 "Paul wrote to Titus that now we live "in the faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time." Paul knew that way back in eternity God had promised the salvation for those who believe in Him. That promise became reality in Paul's life as it will for all of us who accept the message of Jesus' death on the cross for sin.
Although God's mercy toward His own people extends throughout eternity, His mercy toward the unrepentant, ignorant people does not last forever. The time of grace will come to the end one day. God does not want us to be destroyed by our sinfulness, so He offers us mercy, but we must be willing to accept it before we run out of time. Those who feel they can wait until later to receive God's offer of mercy can never be sure that they will have the time and opportunity to do that.
"The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hands. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. John 3;35-36
The entire gospel is a great story and a great promise. It is a book of hope in our 'hopeless society' . It is not only because people like to hold on to things that are giving them hope but because the gospel it is true!
If it contains God's word we can be sure it is true. Sooner or later God will fulfill his promises; like He has already done about coming of Christ. In Ephesians Paul says; that God's secret plan has now been revealed to us, it is a plan centered on Christ, designed long ago according to His good pleasure. And this is His plan; at the right time He will bring everything together under the authority of Christ, everything in heaven and on earth. You would ask how?
Everything by the forgiveness in Jesus. That was God's secret plan from the beginning of times. Let's look at that.
God used the fact that religious leaders couldn't stand Jesus' words. They didn't believe He came from God. For them leading their religious life was more important than what Jesus was saying so they thought they would kill Him. First they tried to do everything to humiliate Him . The soldiers beat Jesus and crowned Him with a crown of thorns. They were following the evil orders of their superiors. The rabble in front of the cross ridiculed Jesus as He was dying . Their purpose was to make Him look weak and insignificant. Then the government assigned soldiers to guard Jesus' tomb to thwart any claims that He had risen from the dead .
But nothing could stop Jesus from rising again. In John 10;17-18 Jesus says; " Therefore my Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself, I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from my Father." So, God's plan succeeded as Jesus became a prefect sacrifice for our sin. His given life became a ransom for many.
Since then ( for the last 2000 years ) there is no other sacrifice needed in order to come to the living God. Jesus is enough, that is why He says that He is the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Him. John 14;6
Throughout the ages people needed sacrifice in order to come to God. Jesus' death changed everything, now He is your only way to God.
Imagine yourself in the court accused about something that you need to be punished about. The judge says the final verdict; death penalty. That sounds terrifying but we all are like that in God's eyes- because of our sinful nature we are to die one day. But God gives us the way out. Somebody is coming to the court to say he is taking all your guilt upon himself and takes the death punishment for you and you are declared not guilty . This is what exactly Jesus did for you on the cross so that you can be free of guilt before God.
He is the main person in your life that can change your final course.
No matter who we are or what we have done, we all need to come to Him. While you come to Jesus you are in His hands.. He says; " I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand." John 10;28 "Paul wrote to Titus that now we live "in the faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time." Paul knew that way back in eternity God had promised the salvation for those who believe in Him. That promise became reality in Paul's life as it will for all of us who accept the message of Jesus' death on the cross for sin.
Although God's mercy toward His own people extends throughout eternity, His mercy toward the unrepentant, ignorant people does not last forever. The time of grace will come to the end one day. God does not want us to be destroyed by our sinfulness, so He offers us mercy, but we must be willing to accept it before we run out of time. Those who feel they can wait until later to receive God's offer of mercy can never be sure that they will have the time and opportunity to do that.
"The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hands. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. John 3;35-36
Friday, August 10, 2012
Healing hands and beyond
Healing hands and beyond
Every day there are some thoughts coming to my mind regarding God. What do we know about Son of God Jesus Christ?
Most churches show his pictured body on the cross as if he was still there and that his ministry finished there and nothing else more happened.
Do we realize he is not there any more? He was risen about 2000 years ago, witnessed by so many alive after his death. The only one person that experienced supernatural coming back to life after being killed and dead for 3 days. Ok, there was also one more man named Lazarus who experienced resurrection but risen by whom? exactly by Jesus Christ!
Well, let’s look at this; if any pharmaceutic company announced that they came up with a miracle pill to keep people from dying, let me guess, everybody would be crazy to get it! Wouldn’t they? If there came a doctor skilled in any possible healing abilities, including healing all existing birth defects; blindness, deafness, any possible skin disease, mental retardation with also ‘ magic’ abilities of raising people who died to life, wouldn’t he be known and looked for by all the people? What’s different about Jesus? That’s what the people were able to witness about 2000 years ago.
Luke 13;32 says ” Pay attention; Today and tomorrow I am driving out the demons and healing people and on the third day I will reach my goal.”
What did Jesus mean by “On the third day I will reach my goal”? The main purpose of him wasn’t just to come as a doctor but to die for many to pay the death penalty for us, who, according to God, would be awaiting it.
Romans 6;23 says; ” For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
For many people Jesus’ life is limited only to dying on the cross and they don’t realize what is it all about. No hope, no understanding of the magnificiant event that took place there. The whole history of mankind is changed by that event. There is forgiveness of sin, there is a promise of eternal life as real as Jesus showing up alive after being killed! If not the cross , the whole world would be subject to God’s judgment, there would be no hope, no forgiveness, no promise about eternal life. John 6;47 says; “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me, has everlasting life.”
If you only perceive Jesus as a famous historical person or a ‘victim’ of bad people, see his majesty described in Revelation 1;12-18
” I turned around to see who was speaking to me, and when I had turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks,and in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to foot and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hair were white like a wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were as a flame of fire. And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnance; and his voice as the sound of many waters.”(…)
V. 17 ” And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me;
‘Fear not,I am the first and the last. I am he that lives and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of hell and death.”
You can see his power when he stopped Saul on the way to Damascus;
Acts 9;3 “ As`he ( Saul) journeyed , he came near Damascus and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven, and he fell to the ground and heard voice saying unto him;” Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me? And he said; ‘ Who are you, Lord? Then, the Lord said; ‘I am Jesus who you are persecuting.” In verse 9. we read that afterwards Saul was three days without sight.
You can also imagine Jesus calming down the rough sea and the wind, and the wind and sea did what he said. You can imagine him walking on water and see his majesty in his second coming; Matthew 24; 30-34
” Then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
You can see Jesus as the one before whom all knee will bow down { Philippians 2;10}
Picture Him as the one who is in authority of judging all man. John 5;22 says ” For the Father judges no-one but has committed all judgement to the Son.”
Imagine Jesus as the one who is given all authority on earth and heaven { Matthew 28;18}
The one before whom all angels bow down { Hebrews 1;6}
The one who will deny you before His Father in heaven, if you deny Him before men. The one who will confess you before His Father who is in heaven, if you confess Him before man. { Matthew 10;32-33}
He is the one who knows all your thoughts, knows your past, the one before whom you can’t hide.
What an authority!
He is the one by whom you can ‘escape’ God’s judgement by accepting Him as your Lord.
The one in whose hands lays your destiny.
His promise is real. In John 5;24 He says : “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent me, has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.”
Every day there are some thoughts coming to my mind regarding God. What do we know about Son of God Jesus Christ?
Most churches show his pictured body on the cross as if he was still there and that his ministry finished there and nothing else more happened.
Do we realize he is not there any more? He was risen about 2000 years ago, witnessed by so many alive after his death. The only one person that experienced supernatural coming back to life after being killed and dead for 3 days. Ok, there was also one more man named Lazarus who experienced resurrection but risen by whom? exactly by Jesus Christ!
Well, let’s look at this; if any pharmaceutic company announced that they came up with a miracle pill to keep people from dying, let me guess, everybody would be crazy to get it! Wouldn’t they? If there came a doctor skilled in any possible healing abilities, including healing all existing birth defects; blindness, deafness, any possible skin disease, mental retardation with also ‘ magic’ abilities of raising people who died to life, wouldn’t he be known and looked for by all the people? What’s different about Jesus? That’s what the people were able to witness about 2000 years ago.
Luke 13;32 says ” Pay attention; Today and tomorrow I am driving out the demons and healing people and on the third day I will reach my goal.”
What did Jesus mean by “On the third day I will reach my goal”? The main purpose of him wasn’t just to come as a doctor but to die for many to pay the death penalty for us, who, according to God, would be awaiting it.
Romans 6;23 says; ” For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
For many people Jesus’ life is limited only to dying on the cross and they don’t realize what is it all about. No hope, no understanding of the magnificiant event that took place there. The whole history of mankind is changed by that event. There is forgiveness of sin, there is a promise of eternal life as real as Jesus showing up alive after being killed! If not the cross , the whole world would be subject to God’s judgment, there would be no hope, no forgiveness, no promise about eternal life. John 6;47 says; “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me, has everlasting life.”
If you only perceive Jesus as a famous historical person or a ‘victim’ of bad people, see his majesty described in Revelation 1;12-18
” I turned around to see who was speaking to me, and when I had turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks,and in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to foot and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hair were white like a wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were as a flame of fire. And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnance; and his voice as the sound of many waters.”(…)
V. 17 ” And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me;
‘Fear not,I am the first and the last. I am he that lives and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of hell and death.”
You can see his power when he stopped Saul on the way to Damascus;
Acts 9;3 “ As`he ( Saul) journeyed , he came near Damascus and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven, and he fell to the ground and heard voice saying unto him;” Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me? And he said; ‘ Who are you, Lord? Then, the Lord said; ‘I am Jesus who you are persecuting.” In verse 9. we read that afterwards Saul was three days without sight.
You can also imagine Jesus calming down the rough sea and the wind, and the wind and sea did what he said. You can imagine him walking on water and see his majesty in his second coming; Matthew 24; 30-34
” Then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
You can see Jesus as the one before whom all knee will bow down { Philippians 2;10}
Picture Him as the one who is in authority of judging all man. John 5;22 says ” For the Father judges no-one but has committed all judgement to the Son.”
Imagine Jesus as the one who is given all authority on earth and heaven { Matthew 28;18}
The one before whom all angels bow down { Hebrews 1;6}
The one who will deny you before His Father in heaven, if you deny Him before men. The one who will confess you before His Father who is in heaven, if you confess Him before man. { Matthew 10;32-33}
He is the one who knows all your thoughts, knows your past, the one before whom you can’t hide.
What an authority!
He is the one by whom you can ‘escape’ God’s judgement by accepting Him as your Lord.
The one in whose hands lays your destiny.
His promise is real. In John 5;24 He says : “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent me, has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.”
Thursday, August 9, 2012
A Master Designer of our universe
Taking any book about how our universe came to life, we would find typical explanation;
"Long time ago there was completely nothing. Nothing was for such a long time that it finally decided to become ‘something’ and exploded.." of course it sounds ridiculous. But that is what the evolutionary theory offers us to believe. Isn’t it foolish? All what we have around is even older that the beginnings, but somehow nothing explodes to create any other form of matter. Second,the explosion is usually chemicals transforming into the other and we tend to believe that nothing + time = matter ( that came from a massive explosion called BIG BANG)
But this is what some people believe about our vast and orderly universe .All of the energy and matter was crammed together into a big ball. Somehow this huge ball exploded, which caused the planets, stars and galaxies to emerge. Yet even renowned scientists admit that no one really knows how stars originated. Abraham Loeb of the Harward University Center for Astrophysics says ” The truth is that we don’t understand star formation at a fundamental level.”
How can we explain that both Uranus and Venus rotate backward compared to all the other planets?!! If we go deeper into details we will see that all the BIG BANG theory violates natural laws including the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics.
Why are the disk galaxies shaped like a disk? Astronomers say there is no explanation for what could place stars into that galactic structural pattern. It surely is beautiful with the globular clusters outside the disk, hanging in space like chandeliers, but how could random motions produce such balanced artistic harmony? Each galaxy, with all its stars, is moving together in a certain direction, yet the corporate velocities within the galaxy should gravitationally unbind the stars within it, yet it does not happen.
We see so much perfection and sign of ‘design’ in all the universe. Saturn has 17 moons yet non of them ever collide with the rings. The farthest out is Phoebe, which revolves in a motion opposite to Saturn and its rings. How could that happen? Talking about big things and the small ones that we can’t even see with our eyes, yet still on a excellent level of perfection; like atoms that would fall apart if the mass of the neutron didn’t exceed that of the proton. If the mass of the proton were only slightly larger, the added weight could cause it to quickly become unstable and decay into a neutron, positron and neutrino. This would destroy hydrogen the dominant element in the universe. A Master Designer planned that the proton’s mass would be slightly smaller than that of the neutron. Otherwise the universe would collapse.
How foolish is it to believe that this perfect universe created itself. Truth and knowledge about creation can only originate with God.
No-one would believe that your perfect computer created itself- it was just a matter of billions of years and bum…here it is, first as smoke then millions of years after – a piece of a wire, then more millions of years a keyboard and the screen and then more billions of years after that we have a finger touch tablet! Of course it sounds ridiculous but what about our brain that is like a computer? Evolutionary theory claims it was evolving and evolving …first from the single cell…ok,we better stop. Every perfect creation needs a designer, needs a maker!!! But we may chose to believe in a fairy telly. A green frog turning into a prince? That is actually ‘possible’….just wait billions and billions of years till the frog goes through all the stages of evolutionary development and the final outcome will be a human being! A prince!
Part 1
A Designer who created the past, holds the present and knows the future.
So if all the works point you to the Maker of this world, why are we so reluctant getting to know him?
We would rather put our trust in human unsupported theories or philosophies and ignore the witness of Him shown in all the perfect creation. Evidence of the all knowing Master is also in the Bible. It contains hundreds of prophecies to show you that the Creator of this universe knows everything that has ever happened and knows the future. One fascinating prophecy is that the Jewish people would be called together as a nation. The temple of Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70 and the Jewish people scattered from their homeland. What were the chances that the people without the country could survive as a nation? Every other nation since then has disappeared into oblivion. But in 1948 the Jewish people reestablished their homeland in Israel. The odds are astronomical of that happening after nearly two millennium. God’s prophecies are 100 percent accurate because he not only knows the future, he also controls it. Other great prophecies are about Jesus which all came true within the smallest detail; see more in the post” The greatest work done in Jerusalem.”
Why would we believe in the ‘nothingness’ rather than in God? Some claim that because they have no answer where God came from. But do we have the answer where the ‘nothing’ came from to become something? This is not the answer.
The reason we run away from Him is because we don’t like the truth. By acknowledging God we realize we are accountable to him.
We can try to hide behind our own philosophies which do not give us hope, no explanation or use the Bible to look for the truth. It will tell you that because of our sin we died spiritually and need to be born again in order to have fellowship with God. And the reliable source which is the Bible tells you that it is through Jesus and believing in him. We have evidence of God in a perfect creation, we have evidence of God in his word fulfilled about the things that he said before, we can keep him at his word regarding our future!!
” I tell you that whoever hears what I am saying and trusts the One who sent me, has eternal life, that is, he will not come up for judgement but has already crossed over from death to life” John 5;24
The other thing is; if we are rejecting Jesus- we are rejecting life; John 3;36
“Whoever trusts in the Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not see that life but remains subject to God’s wrath.”
This is the simple truth, yet ignored by many. You can chose to believe in unsupported human theories regarding the past, or hold on to the reliable source in the Bible regarding your future. The choice is yours, to believe in nothingness or acknowledging
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