Month: April 2014

The mouth can get you into a LOT of trouble

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

The problem with this is that the words which come from the mouth, regardless of who it is that is saying something, come from the heart. It shows exactly who that person is in reality. Words are windows into a man’s soul because they are a reflection of his character. Whatever is inside a man will ultimately come out when they open their mouth. It may not happen today or tomorrow, but at some point it will. People, whether they are politicians, news people, owners of athletic teams, or celebrities get into trouble by what they say all of the time. Some of it may have been said when they thought they were “off the mike”, or it may have been said in an angry outburst which they regret later, but the point is that their character shows through regardless in every word that they say.

It, whether it is their words or the attitude which accompany those words, will convict them either in a court of law or in front of God and man. The proof will be what they do about their attitude and the words which proceeded from their lips. If they are cut to the core and ask forgiveness or if they just shrug it off and act as if it isn’t important, these actions will tell the world exactly who this person really is.

What about the force which is shown in the media against them? Is it righteous indignation that drives it or is it just political correctness? I am all for being politically correct, but we as people have driven it to a level which goes beyond understanding. PC as it is called, can and has been taken to the point of absurdity in our culture and it needs to be backed up with a true belief in God and the Bible, and not the anxiety of offending someone in some way or another. God’s Word is absolute and the Truth contained in it is too and we don’t need to apologize for it at all! It has been used in ways that have likely made God cry over the past two thousand years, but that was because of the people who used it not because there was anything wrong with God’s Word!

Get into the Word of God and study it to be approved as a person who knows the Truth, not just his or her own version of the truth but God’s Truth. Because if we, as Christians and as children of God, don’t begin acting like His children then we will be punished for it. He reproves those who claim Him and yet do not do His commandments just as much as we would our own children (at least I hope that you discipline your kids)!

If more people would come back to the Bible and believe in the One Who inspired it and the wisdom contained in it, our world would be a very different place and a much more peaceful place too. Look to the One Who created everything with a word, until He came to mankind. We are special to God because He took the care to create us in His image with His hands. He didn’t just speak us into existence, He blew the breath of Life into mankind and he became a living soul. That is why we are hated by Satan and why he has never stopped trying to take us away from God, to keep us turned away from the One, the only One, Who can help in any and all situations.

Your character, just as you are, is important to God because it reflects Him if you are His but it also reflects Satan and his influence on you if you don’t believe and trust in God

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Easter celebration

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

We are really celebrating the resurrection of our Lord, not the spring equinox and the rebirth of the world! Our Lord is at the right hand of the Father and is waiting for the time to open the seals. The time of the Tribulation of the saints is nearly at hand.

But aren’t we supposed to be gone when all of that happens? What happened to the “rapture of the Church”? There are many different interpretations of Scripture and all of them don’t point in the same direction. Some have been taught that we will be “taken” prior to the Tribulation even beginning, others think that we will endure part of the Tribulation but be taken before the final 3 1/2 years begins. Actually, I have seen credible evidence for both scenarios so, I am just going to keep working for the Lord until I wake one day in His presence, whenever that may be.

The celebration of Easter was instituted by the early church in order to attract pagan worshippers into their services and since it falls near the time of the Resurrection it was given a name that would follow the world’s own celebration and hopefully allow the world to follow and come to know Jesus. In the past hundred years or so, Easter has become more like Christmas in that it is so commercialized until it seems that we have lost the meaning of the celebration. Its true meaning at least.

Why would you think that the celebration of Easter was anything less than it is? It is not a celebration of fertility or of rebirth, but of the Resurrection of the Son of God, our Saviour and Lord, Jesus the Christ! He died and shed His blood in order to pay the price for us that sin exacts. Death is the price for sin, regardless of the sin or its earthly consequences. It is true that we don’t die physically when we sin against God, but if we haven’t accepted Jesus as our Savior and repented of our life of sinful behaviour then we will die a spiritual death of being separated from God forever. Jesus was the only Perfect Lamb that could shoulder the burden and pay the price for the sins of the entire world, from the past up to the time of the end of the age.

We can’t do these things on our own and everyone knows this. When you were growing up, if your parents were religious at all, you may have felt an emptiness in your life at one point or another. Even if you have never been to church of any kind, you have felt that there is something more at one time or another…that something was missing, but you couldn’t put your finger on it exactly. The “need” that we have all felt is the need for Christ in our lives. Until we ask Him to come in and fill that empty spot, it will never be filled because nothing fits in that place except Him.

Study, read and pray about what you read from God’s Word and ask Him to show you what He wants you to get from His Word. Believe it or not, He will do just that! You will not be kept in the dark, God will show you exactly what you need, when you need it and give you the wisdom to understand it in the process.

Faith and Hollywood

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

Is faith, real faith present in Hollywood today? Yes, there are many actors who believe in Jesus in the industry but what about the products that they “sell” to us? The movies that come from Hollywood seem to have references to the Bible at times, but nothing much follows these references. Why? Mainly because the people in Hollywood are in the business of making movies to make money! That is the driving force behind their scripts and the content of the movies that they sell to us through theatres and other channels.

But, what about the message contained in those movies? Does the producer or director care what is portrayed in the movies that they claim to base upon events in the Bible? The current offering from them seems to tell me that, no they don’t care about the message just the money to be made from it. Some claim that the movie in theatres now is “just a representation” and that it will get people discussing the story in the Bible and maybe even reading the story. I do agree that it is a representation of the story of Noah but it is not accurate to the story contained in the Bible.

I understand that they, the producers, had to take creative license with the story because of the brevity of it in the Bible. It doesn’t contain many clear details of how the world was or many details about Noah’s family but it does tell us that he was a righteous man in the sight of God and that is not how he is portrayed in this movie. Granted, I have not seen it and will not pay money to go see it, but if you are going to create a movie based on a story in the Bible then you should at least try to research as much as possible the history behind the story that Jewish scholars have.

Try to at least get the main character right, especially that he is a righteous man and not a murderer and a drunkard. God’s message in the Bible covers much more ground than could ever be put together into a movie, though it has been tried before. The story of the flood is just one story but it teaches so much about the righteousness of one man and his family and the world that they lived in. It is true that the narrative in the Bible doesn’t really cover much about Noah and his family or the world that they lived in except where it says: “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5) We don’t really get a picture of what that involved, but it must have been pretty bad for God to regret that He had ever made mankind!

Our world is approaching that level even now, although most of the world doesn’t think that it is so bad. One day, the whole world will know and some will repent of their ways but others will not. They will curse God for what is coming on them because of their actions and blame Him for everything, when it is actually their own fault that their lives are spinning out of control.

Please consider reading the Bible and learning of how good God is, give your life to Him and eternity will be yours. An eternity that you will enjoy with others, not one which humanity was created for in the first place. Think about it and one day we might get to know one another in Heaven!