commitment

May 15, 2020

“…Decided to Kill Lazarus, Too”

10 Then the leading priests decided to kill Lazarus, too, – John 12:10 NLT

John 12:9-11 NLT

Sin always takes us further than we want to go. The leaders had planned to kill Jesus and now they would have to kill Lazarus as well. How many others would have to die before the movement was stopped? We don’t know because Christians are still being killed today for their faithfulness to Jesus. The persecuted church of today will tell you that it is much harder to live for Jesus than it is to die for Him. Would we suffer and die for Jesus? Jesus said that we must be willing to do that.

34 Then Jesus called the crowd to him, along with his followers. He said, “If people want to follow me, they must give up the things they want. They must be willing even to give up their lives to follow me. 35 Those who want to save their lives will give up true life. But those who give up their lives for me and for the Good News will have true life.–Mark 8:34-35 (NCV)

Have we made that commitment? Can we say along with Paul:

10 I want to know Christ and the power that raised him from the dead. I want to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death.11 Then I have hope that I myself will be raised from the dead.–Philippians 3:10, 11 (NCV)

The great thing is that for us, it is a win-win situation. Paul put it this way:

21 For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.–Philippians 1: 21 (NLT)

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June 1, 2019

“Great and Mighty Things”

15 “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other!  –Revelation 3:15 NLT 

Revelation 3:15-19 NLT

God wants each of us to be totally committed to Him. Our lifestyles should reflect that commitment.  We have to look inside ourselves and allow God’s Holy Spirit to show us where the problem lies.  What is keeping us from being totally committed to Jesus?  Are temporary physical pleasures more important than eternal life in heaven?  Eternal life with Jesus is a free gift, so earning more money is not going to get you there.  The only true peace and contentment we have is in Jesus.  He knows our hearts and He knows the solution to not only the sins we try to hide, but to any situation we are facing. He is waiting to share that information with You.

Stop!  Listen!

If you do, He will speak to You.

3 ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’   — Jeremiah 33:3 NKJV

The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” – Anonymous

Post 06-01-2019

December 9, 2018

Keep Your Promises to God

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4 When you make a promise to God, don’t delay in following through, for God takes no pleasure in fools. Keep all the promises you make to him. — Ecclesiastes 5:4 NLT

Eccl. 5:1-7
When we are having problems in our lives, we often make statements to God that we will do such and such if He will answer our prayers with a “yes”.  Then, when He has fulfilled His commitment and the seas are calm, we often forget to perform our part of the contract.  Perhaps, we have said that if God would bless us financially, we would increase our tithe and we haven’t done that yet. Or, perhaps we have felt that we were in physical danger and God delivered us in answer to our prayer but we have yet to fulfill the contract.. This puts our very lives and souls in danger. When we make a vow to do this or that for God, we must be careful to fulfill this vow as quickly as possible. Take the case of Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts.  They sold a piece of property for an amount of money, how much we don’t know.  Ananias and his wife had agreed to keep part of the money but to tell the apostles they were giving the full amount. Ananias brought some money to the apostles and told them that it was the full amount of the purchase price. This was not true and when Peter pointed out that Ananias had not only lied to them but to the Holy Spirit, Ananias was struck dead immediately. The same thing happened when Sapphira came in and told the same story.  
Acts 5:1-10
We must be very careful when we make vows and promises to God. He is not a man that He should lie and we cannot keep secrets from Him.  If we have made a commitment to Him, whether the commitment is financial, more time spent with Him or a change in our lifestyles, we must be careful to make sure that our actions are consistent with our promises.

“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” – Anonymous

Post 12-09-2018

October 23, 2018

His Blessings Are Still Flowing

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19  God is not a man, so he does not lie.  He is not human, so he does not change his mind.  Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?  20  Listen, I received a command to bless;   God has blessed, and I cannot reverse it! — Numbers 23:19, 20 NLT

God is the Creator, we are the created.  We are bought and paid for with the blood of His Son, Jesus.  He has every right, legal and anywise, to do with us as He pleases.  He can, and does pour out blessings on those He chooses to bless and curses on those He chooses to curse. However, being a just God, He does not make random decisions out of anger or fits of jealousy.  His decisions were made before the foundations of the earth were laid ​and they are based on His foreknowledge of our actions. He is never taken by surprise by any thoughts that we have or any actions that we commit. ​ He can only reveal those decisions to us after the fact, so they often seem to be made in haste, but nothing could be further from the truth.  ​Because of His​ great love for all of His creation, He has and still does warn us over and over about the consequences of unbelief and disobedience.  The fact that He has complete foreknowledge of how we will respond has never and will never keep Him from warning us over and over and weeping over our disobedience.  Recall what Jesus said about Jerusalem, how God had sent all the prophets to warn them and yet, they refused to be obedient and even murdered the prophets. Jesus wept bitter tears over Jerusalem saying “how often I have wanted to gather your children as a hen gathers her chicks, but you would not” (Matt. 23:37).  He still gives us those warnings about grieving, bringing sorrow or rejecting the Holy Spirit. 
 
30 And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption. — Ephesians 4:30 NLT​
So, let each of us today, make a new commitment to listening to and following the leadership of the Holy Spirit so that God will be pleased with us.
 
“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” – Anonymous
Post 10-23-2018
January 8, 2018

Giving Our All to Jesus

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17 “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. 18 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.”–John 10:17,18 (NIV)
The Holy Spirit has been given to us as our guide, but He will never make us do anything against our own will. We have the power and the authority to make the same decision that Jesus made. We can decide to hold onto our earthly, physical lives if that is what we want or we can decide to put our lives on the cross that Jesus gives us to bear. We will never do this as long as our own pride and other people’s opinions of us are more important than pleasing God. There is one funeral that we all need to attend and that is the death and burial of our fleshly desires. Anything that we put above our love and obedience for God has to be removed. It is a decision that Jesus had to make and so must we. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus ended His prayer with “not My will but thine be done”. So should our prayer be as well.
44 Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. 45 Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. 46 And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’” Having said this, He breathed His last.–Luke 23:44-46 (NIV)
​Are we ready to commit our whole lives, mind, soul, body, and spirit into the hands of God? The way of the cross leads home, but we have to go through the cross, the blood and the darkness to get there.

“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” – Anonymous

Post 01-08-2018

October 18, 2017

Dying is Better

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10 Then the leading priests decided to kill Lazarus, too,
– John 12:10 NLT
John 12:9-11 NLT
Sin always takes us further than we want to go. The leaders had planned to kill Jesus and now they would have to kill Lazarus as well. How many others would have to die before the movement was stopped? We don’t know because Christians are still being killed today for their faithfulness to Jesus. The persecuted church of today will tell you that it is much harder to live for Jesus than it is to die for Him. Would we suffer and die for Jesus? Jesus said that we must be willing to do that.
34 Then Jesus called the crowd to him, along with his followers. He said, “If people want to follow me, they must give up the things they want. They must be willing even to give up their lives to follow me. 35 Those who want to save their lives will give up true life. But those who give up their lives for me and for the Good News will have true life.–Mark 8:34-35 (NCV)
Have we made that commitment? Can we say along with Paul:
10 I want to know Christ and the power that raised him from the dead. I want to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death.11 Then I have hope that I myself will be raised from the dead.–Philippians 3:10, 11 (NCV)
The great thing is that for us, it is a win-win situation. Paul put it this way:
21 For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.–Philippians 1: 21 (NLT)

“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” -Anonymous

Post 10-18-2017

December 25, 2016

The Prophecy Fulfilled

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16 They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. — Luke 2:16 NLT
All  the things had happened just as Gabriel had told Mary.  Having never known a man, she conceived a child fathered by the Holy Spirit.  A fleshly Mother and a Spiritual Father, so it was that He became fully man and fully God in the flesh.  Just as God had promised hundreds of years earlier, He sent a Redeemer to save us who would also one day reign as our King. He had to live as a human to experience all the temptations we experience and never fail the test.  He had to choose and mentor men to carry on His message to a lost world. Through the Holy Spirit, He is still choosing and mentoring people to carry that message to their families, neighbors, friends and people around the world.  Today, on the day that we celebrate as His birthday, let each of us give Him the only thing we can give to our King. Our souls and our commitment to accept the plan He has for each of us.  Then it will truly be “Joy to the World, the King has come.” 
May each of you have a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!

“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” -Anonymous

Post 12-25-2016

January 14, 2015

To Live Or To Die, Which Would Be Better?

God is waiting to show you the Way.

God is waiting to show you the Way.

9 A large crowd of Jews heard that Jesus was in Bethany. So they went there to see not only Jesus but Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. 10 So the leading priests made plans to kill Lazarus, too. 11 Because of Lazarus many of the Jews were leaving them and believing in Jesus. —John 12:9-​11​ (NCV)
​Sin always takes us further than we want to go. The leaders had planned to kill Jesus and now they would have to kill Lazarus as well. How many others would have to die before the movement was stopped? We don’t know because Christians are still being killed today for their faithfulness to Jesus. The persecuted church of today will tell you that it is much harder to live for Jesus than it is to die for Him. Would we suffer and die for Jesus? Jesus said that we must be willing to do that.
34 Then Jesus called the crowd to him, along with his followers. He said, “If people want to follow me, they must give up the things they want. They must be willing even to give up their lives to follow me. 35 Those who want to save their lives will give up true life. But those who give up their lives for me and for the Good News will have true life.–Mark 8:34-35 (NCV)
Have we made that commitment? ​ Can we say along with Paul:
10 I want to know Christ and the power that raised him from the dead. I want to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death.11 Then I have hope that I myself will be raised from the dead.–Philippians 3:10, 11 (NCV)
The great thing is that for us, it is a win-win situation. Paul put it this way:
21 For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.–Philippians 1: 21 (NLT)
Post 01-14-2015

October 1, 2013

The First Gift is Salvation, but it is not the last.

God is waiting to show you the way.

God is waiting to show you the way.


Ephesians 2:8-10 (NLT) 8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Our salvation is a gift from God, we didn’t earn it by works and we didn’t purchase it with favor or money. It was God’s plan from before the foundations of the earth were laid. As Paul said, if we boast, we must boast in Christ Jesus alone. Does this negate works? Not at all, we are saved to work, not by our works. Just as it was God’s plan to send Jesus to purchase our redemption with His blood, it was always God’s plan that we would have a part in His kingdom work here on earth. God has gifted each of us with a spiritual gift to be used in His work. Some of us are preachers, others are teachers, others encourage, others have gifts of helps, The list of gifts is lengthy, because we all have a part in God’s plan and purpose. Make a commitment today to ask God about your gift and how to use it in His plan.
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