Month: August 2016

Words and meaning

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

Our world seems to be hung up on these two things, at times at least. Some words have the same meaning and some mean something different depending upon the context that they are used in. The word “life” means something to everyone in one way or another. It is that which we live every day from the moment we wake up until we sleep again at night. To parents it is their child inside the mother until the moment of birth, then it is that baby as it grows and develops into a person.

In religion, life can mean many different things. It can be eternal and forgiven and since we all have souls it can also be eternal and under judgement. Life is meant to be..was meant to be lived in the presence of our Creator and our God. Disobedience brought that to an end many years ago, but God provided a way for us to return to His Presence through accepting Jesus as our Savior and repenting of our life before He came into it.

Life after the acceptance of the grace of God through Jesus can be wonderful and it can be stressful. Wonderful in the sense that we look forward to eternity with Him and we have the chance to tell others about Him while we live today. Stressful because of the trials that we will face during our lifetime brought on by our disobedience and by our Adversary who tries to stop us from telling or showing others the way to be saved from eternal punishment.

What gives your life meaning? Is it just your profession? Is it your family or your accomplishments? Is it your relationship to God? It is the last one of those which gives my life meaning because without that relationship, I wouldn’t have been able to keep these sites going for so long. Without His wisdom and His Spirit giving me the ideas and the words, this site wouldn’t have nearly as much as it has. The Living Message wouldn’t exist either, so my relationship with God is important to me.

I pray that many of you who come here will get to know Jesus as your Savior, if you don’t already. Please use any of my sites to give people more information about their life apart from and with Jesus as well. Today’s post is a bit short but I hope that you find it useful. Thank you for reading.

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Manna

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

The word above means “what is it?”. In truth it is angel food or bread from Heaven. The Israelites were fed by God for forty years with this and it sustained them for that time. Many of them did not like it and asked for meat, so He sent millions of quail into the camp and they feasted on that until they could stand it no more!

God knew that His bread would sustain them for the time that they needed it as long as they would follow His direction for using it. Some of them hated it, but it sustained them for the travels that they had before them.

Why am I speaking about this today? Because, our Lord and Messiah, Jesus the Christ IS THE BREAD OF LIFE! He provides the way to become adopted into God’s family. God sent Him to be the sacrifice for ALL of humanity. If you believe in Him and the atonement which He provided for us, then you can be and will be saved! Amen.

The bread of life is also the Word of God. It teaches you about God and His principles and His laws and the way to come to salvation. The Bible and the words in it will NOT save you and cannot save you! Sitting in church for forty years or more doesn’t make you a Christian. Getting baptized when you feel an urge to do what your friends are doing does NOT save you!

Only a broken and contrite heart and repentance from your sins will bring you to your knees and you will say, “God, I’m sorry for the way that I have lived. Please forgive me and cleanse my heart and my life. I ask Jesus to come into my heart and save me from myself so that I can be a servant of yours. Thank you, Lord. Amen.”

I am not saying that you have to recite this word for word, but a conviction from the Holy Spirit will break your heart and if you don’t respond to it…if you walk away from Him in that moment, then you may not get another chance. The Bible says that “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Matthew 7:22, 23.” Many who think that they are saved have felt a feeling of relief and hope when they are baptized and for a while they read the Bible and pray. Then, after a while, they go back to their life, their sins, their way of doing things and some never return to the Word or to church…but they believe they are saved.

Not so. A truly changed heart, broken and reformed by the Holy Spirit cannot go back to sin without being convicted of that sin’s consequences. If you are a child of God changed by the Spirit you cannot go back to the mud and the mire of sin that you were in. It will be distasteful and you will know it. Yes, you can go back if you ignore the conviction over and over, but you will have quenched the Spirit’s work in your life. You may be saved, but your reward will be eternal life without reward or crown and if you live in the time when man is given a choice of taking the mark of the Beast and you choose it, then your salvation is forfeit.

God loves you and He has given you the manna of Jesus and the manna of the Bible. Eat of them, take them into your life and your heart so that you can and will be changed into the child of God that you were meant to be. The food for eternity is there, all that you have to do is choose to take it and make it yours…or not. It is your choice.