His Love endures forever
In the book of Psalms we read,
"Give thanks to the LORD,
for he is good; his love endures forever.
Let Israel say:
"His love endures forever."
Let the house of Aaron say:
"His love endures forever."
Let those who fear the LORD say:
"His love endures forever."
Psalm 118:1-4.
Simple question, do you fear the LORD?
Do you give thanks to the LORD,
Do you believe Gods love endures forever?
Please think about it.
Worship the Lord alone
Jesus when tempted by Satan said,
“...“It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’’” Luke 4:8.
In the book of Exodus we read,
"You shall have no other gods before me."Exodus 20:3.
You may say in the twenty first century we don’t have other gods but we do. Our gods may not be carved idols. But people today around the world worship every thing from trees and animals to money to men and women, and things they believe to be true on the internet.
God however makes it clear we are to have only one God. That being The LORD God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.
Joshua speaking to the Israelite said,
"Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:14,15.
Be coming a Christian a follower of Christ Jesus and true believer in God means a complete breaking away of those things that you, even without noticing it, are your gods.
Are you willing to do this?
Please think about it,
What will God Say?
The apostle Paul wrote,
"Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil
but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails....
And now these three remain:
faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love."
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a,13.
Without a doubt this is the definition of true Christian love. The kind of Love we as believers in God. As believers in Christ Jesus are asked to show.
Do you show this kind of Love in your daily life?
On the day you pass on into eternity will the people who knew you say you loved as Christ did.
Will God say it also?
Please think about it.
What God Requires of the believer
In the book of Micah we read.
"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8.
This is about as clear as it can be. The believer is required to...
Act justly.
Love Mercy.
Walk humbly with your God.
Do you do this?
Please think about it.
The reason Jesus came
"But he was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." Isaiah 53:5.
It is universally believed by Christians that Isaiah the prophet here is speaking about Jesus. His words giving us the purpose of Christ’s ministry.
Jesus speaking of himself stating,
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16,17.
The apostle Paul stating,
"That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” Romans 10:9,10.
Do you believe this?
Please think about it.
Come listen
The Psalmist states,
"Come, my children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days,
keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from speaking lies.
Turn from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it."
Psalm 34:11-14.
Do you love life and desire many good days?
Do you keep your lips from lying?
Do you turn from evil?
Do you seek Peace and Pursue it?
Please think about it.
Faith deeds and the Christian
The apostle John writes,
"This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another....
"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." 1John 3:11,17,18.
The Bible is full of admonitions to the believer to help those in need.
In the book of James we read,
"What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?
Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.
If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?
In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.
You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?" James 2:14-20
Please think about it.
If you are a Christian
In the book of Chronicles we read,
“Give thanks to the LORD, call on His name; make known among the nations what He has done.
Sing to Him, sing praise to Him; tell of all His wonderful acts.
Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice.
Look to the LORD and His strength; seek His face always.
Remember the wonders He has done, His miracles, and the judgments He pronounced,...” 1 Chronicles 16:8-12.
If you claim to be a Christian
Do you do what the writer of Chronicles is saying to do?
Do you sing praises to The Lord?
Do you tell those around you what God has done?
Do you rejoice in knowing The Lord and all He has done for you?
Do you remember wonders, miracles and judgements He has pronounced?
Please think about it.
Either believe or don't
The apostle Peter speaking about Jesus said,
“He is " ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.'
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Acts 4:11,12.
This is what Christians believe. Jesus is the way to heaven. You either believe it or you don’t.
Blaise Pascal wrote,
“Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.” Blaise Pascal.
So it’s up to you dear reader. You can either believe in Christ Jesus and the Salvation He offers or you don’t.
Please think about it.
From Paul in Athens to you.
The apostle Paul while in Athens gave this sermon,
“So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.
A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?
You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.”
(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.
For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill.
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”
When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”
At that, Paul left the Council.
A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others” Acts 17:17-34.
This message is as true today as it was when Paul spoke it. And it has the same results. Many hearing it sneer. Many want to hear more. And many believe.
What about you dear reader? Which group are you in?
Please think about it.
The greatest of all romances
Jeremiah the prophet wrote,
“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:12,13.
The trouble in twenty-first century North America at least is that many if not most people are not seeking God.
God to many is irrelevant in modern society. Making it worse are high profile preachers and evangelist claiming to be Christians who are not.
For those of us who truly do love God however no greater love could we have. Raphael Simon wrote,
"To fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances; to seek him, the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement." Raphael Simon.
Thus the challenge to those of us who truly love and serve God is to reach out to a lost and dying world with the life changing love of Christ Jesus.
If you truly love God. If you truly love Christ Jesus, are you reaching out to those around you with the Love of Christ?
Are people around you seeing God’s love in action in your life without you saying a word?
Please think about it.
Foolishness to the perishing
The apostle Paul wrote,
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." 1 Corinthians 1:18.
On the day Jesus was crucified Luke’s gospel records,
"The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One." Luke 23:35.
To a people looking for liberation from the Roman boot. Looking for a saviour to get them from under Roman oppression. Jesus hanging on the cross didn’t fit the bill.
The Jews of Jesus’ day were looking for a conquering Messiah to lead them, victory over their oppressors, not a suffering Messiah.
What they, and people today fail to see is that God does not work the way man works. Lets face it most people living under oppression long for the day a leader arises to free them. Usually by force of arms.
Jesus was totally the opposite of this. He died to make us free. Not necessarily in physical way. But rather spiritually.
Jesus is God reaching down to man.
The apostle Paul writing,
"But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit" Titus 3:4,5.
The apostle Paul writing to Timothy states,
"Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing." 2 Timothy 4:8.
Jesus speaking of Himself said,
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." John 3:16,17
Thus the question becomes; Do you believe in Jesus?
Please before you answer that question take time to not just read the New Testament but study it. Taking time to Pray and ask God to show you the truth about Jesus.
Please think about it.
