Month: August 2012

Why is there so much violence?

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

Is it because we can’t stand to be around each other? Do we really hate other people that much, regardless of their race or religion? Is it because of their race or religion? I know that these questions are hard to answer but it seems that no one is asking the questions to seek the answer.

The violence that we see and hear about on the news everyday is part of the world-view. The world itself and the people in it are just being human and following their own wisdom and feelings in the way that they conduct themselves. Just as the Israelites did during the time after they went into Canaan, after Joshua died. They followed the gods of the people around them and did exactly as they pleased. They did not follow the commands that Moses or God had given them before entering into the land of promise.

What can be done about the way people are living in our world? From a human standpoint, not much actually. We can’t fix it on our own and yet people try to do just that all the time. We usually exhaust all of our personal ways that we can think of and when we come to the “end of our rope”, that is when we consult or look for God’s help. The One which can handle everything that we ask of Him and yet we wait until all of our efforts are exhausted before turning to Him, it doesn’t make sense. But, that is human nature and the way that we are.

We cannot change on our own but some people seem to be too proud to ask for God or Jesus to intervene in their lives. Some people even try sending up a small prayer with little faith behind it and then get angry when that doesn’t work. If your heart doesn’t belong to God, the only prayer that He hears at first is a repentant prayer that calls to Him and asks for Him to save, once that happens He hears them all.

We cannot look at this as God being unconcerned about us because He loves each of us, whether we have come and invited Him into our lives or not. The reason behind His reluctance to hear your prayer prior to your salvation is that you are a sinner and until your heart and your soul is cleansed by accepting Christ, He can’t look at you because of His Holiness. It says in the Bible that “our righteousness is as filthy rags” to Him, so our self-righteous attitude doesn’t make us good enough in any way to come before Him to ask anything except for forgiveness and to request that our life be changed by Jesus.

When you have done that, the whole of your life will change forever! At that point you will have an immortal life because death will have no real meaning, other than the physical body dying. You will continue on with Jesus and all of the others who have gone before you. Even the thief who died on the cross next to Jesus will be there.

To live and work along with others who love God and are eternally available to teach and show you how to do the things which are needed will be wonderful! Yet, while we are here in this life we will need the strength that only God and Jesus can impart to us. The only way to live through the violence of this world is by showing the world that God loves them so that they will want to know that love in return.

When someone comes to know Christ as their Lord and Savior, there is joy in Heaven! We should be joyful over it as well because the witness that we have given has saved someone from hell and the second death of separation from God. I cannot imagine being separated from anything good or cool (temperature) or wet like water for eternity, but that is what hell is going to be and eternity never ends!

Think about these things and your response should be to get on your knees and ask Jesus into your life right now! We are not guaranteed the next minute of life so don’t put it off, do it now before it is too late.

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What about atheism?

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

Is is possible to believe in nothing or no one but yourself? It seems that it is in the culture that we live in today.

The number of books on the rejection of religion and God has exploded in the past few years. Is this something which could have been foreseen? Yes and it was foretold but there are many who have refused to teach or preach on this subject.

Your life and mine would never have happened if God did not exist. Chance and accidental combinations of chemicals can produce nothing. If that were possible, Europe and all of the countries and towns that were bombed during WWII would have never had to rebuild. The pieces would have flown apart and rearranged themselves and all would have been as it was.

Chaos does not create order, it destroys it by rearranging order into disorder. It seems that it would take an awful lot of faith in accidental order causing what we see in the universe. Is it possible that all of the whole cosmos came from an explosion with no intelligence directing it? According to scientists in our day and time, it is possible because natural forces would take all the matter from that explosion and arrange it where it needed to be. But..what about you, the fish in the ocean, the bacteria that live in total darkness at the scalding vents in the ocean, the redwood trees? These did not come about by accident and they did not evolve over millions or billions of years. The Creator, God, created those and many more. He is the “director” of the universe.

He is the one who put you together in your mother’s womb to be the person that He knows that you can be. Not what society says or dictates but what God knows you can do and be in His kingdom! Since the world that we live in is part of His kingdom and everything in it belongs to Him, why not accept it? A belief in the existence of something does not dictate whether it exists or not. If it exists then your belief in it or not has no effect on its existence. We can’t change the way the universe is or the order of things just by our thoughts and feelings.

If that were the way that things worked, then we could choose not to believe in the tax code and just not pay our taxes and everything would be fine, right? No, because as rational people we have to go along with the laws in the country that we live in and belief in those laws has nothing to do with the consequences or whether we think they may be right or not.

The world that we live in was created by God and the laws of the universe were too. Regardless of your belief or unbelief in the existence of God, He is there and always has been. His love for each of us has been there from the beginning as well and your belief or not doesn’t change that. God did not trouble Himself when He created you or this universe because it was no trouble for Him at all! He spoke and the universe and most everything in it came into being. The only created being that He took time with was man and He didn’t have to do that, but He did. God used His hands and formed mankind out of the clay of the earth and blew into his nostrils the breath of Life. We hold a special place in creation because of that.

Belief or not doesn’t change it and never will. God sent His Son, Jesus, into the world to take the sins and the punishment for them on Himself so that we could find grace in Him and put on His righteousness. He died and then rose again so that we will be able to have eternal life through Him, if we will just ask Him into our lives. Being saved by God’s grace through Jesus is our choice, just as believing in God or Jesus is a choice. The choice that you make will determine your place in eternity. Which choice will you make?

Do you know Jesus?

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

Many people today need to but there are also many who either by choice or by fear, they do not know their true Savior. He came into this world to die for your sins so that you can be redeemed, sanctified and clothed in His righteousness.

These concepts are foreign to many people and completely unknown to some. In our world today there are billions of people living, working and going about their lives without a clue regarding the fate which awaits them after they die. Many people don’t believe that there is an eternity, the just look at death as the end and nothing more.

We are made for eternity and our soul is the part of us that is bound for it. The time that we have here is microscopic compared to an eternity, so why don’t we investigate our options? Many people don’t think that they have an option, but you do!

Jesus is the answer for your life both now and into eternity! He is the Messiah that the Bible foretells in the prophecies of the Old Testament. He came to give His life for our sins so that we could come to the throne of God clothed in His righteousness because our own righteousness is as “filthy rags” before God’s holiness!

Can we truly know Him? Yes we can!! He stands before the door to your heart and knocks all you have to do is ask Him to come in. Your life will never be the same, it will be better! Because you will always have Him with you and you will never be alone again!

To many people the concept of having Jesus with them everywhere they go is just too much to handle. Think about this, He knows what you are doing and where you are anyway, whether you have asked Him into your life or not. Turn your life around and follow Jesus and let Him show you what you can really do with your life! He knows what you are capable of and the best part is yet to come.

The pain that you have experienced in your life can be healed by Him whether it is emotional, physical or spiritual. Jesus knows all about you and your life, all you have to do is let Him make it a better life than it is now!