Celebrating Easter without a bunny

The idea that a rabbit has anything to do with Jesus’ resurrection came from a pagan ritual. The truth and the reason that we celebrate Easter is the resurrection of Jesus after His crucifixion! It has nothing to do with the spring of the year or eggs or rabbits but it has everything to do with your salvation!

Jesus died to ransom you from the penalty of your sins, regardless of what those sins are! It doesn’t matter if it is a lie that you told your Mom or your boss or your wife/husband, even that is a sin. It may be considered a small sin but in God’s eyes and in His universe this is no different from murder. Sins are just that, sins, regardless of the severity or consequences in our world! To a holy God, our God, sins are all the same regardless of the effect they have in this world.

This is a hard message to hear and to learn but it must be said because there is an eternity at stake and it is yours and mine! Think about what God might feel. He created all of us as His children, to learn about Him, to decide on our own to love Him because of what He does for us on a daily basis. Then, when we decide not to love Him and sin against Him, He feels it like a knife every time. Not just from one of us at a time but from everyone on earth!

We won’t be perfect even after we accept Christ as our Savior but we will have His righteousness to cover those sins that we do commit! We will still sin but we will know it, the Holy Spirit will let us know and we will want to follow Jesus’ footsteps toward the Father. If you haven’t allowed Him to change your heart and your life, please consider this…the fires of hell never go out and after your life on earth is over you will live forever regardless of where you are.

The eternal life that you live will have much more meaning and purpose if you serve Him now so you can serve Him then. If you choose not to allow Him into your life while you have this time on earth, (since we don’t know when our time ends we may not have another chance), your eternity will be very different from what it could have been!

Satan doesn’t care about you or your life other than getting you to choose not to follow Christ, as long as he can accomplish that he feels that he has hurt God more each time one of us chooses our own way instead of God’s way!

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Heaven is better than hell

I saw something tonight which upset my whole world, I saw a post on someone’s site which said exactly the opposite of my title. How could someone, even an atheist, believe that hell could possibly be better than Heaven?

The absence of God and light, other than from the fires of hell. The absence of anything of beauty or of anything which is living other than the creatures which inhabit hell. The people and the demons (fallen angels that followed Satan) which are there have no souls, and yet they will never die, even if they wish to. There are no parties, no laughter, no joy, no peace, no water, nothing good other than what you may wish you had done in your life on earth.

This is what is waiting for those who reject God and His grace through Christ. God does not wish that any should experience this place. It was created for Satan and his followers, not for humans. And yet, if you choose to reject God and the truth told in the Bible, you are at enmity with Him just like those who followed Satan and rebelled against God.

God loves us all and doesn’t want anyone to go to this place. Give Christ your life and your heart. Ask Him to show you how to be a follower of His and what you need to do to serve Him in this life so that you will have a real life after this one. Jesus loves us all and wants us all to be there with Him. Please give Him a chance in your life today, right now!  You don’t know if you have tomorrow or next week. Don’t wait because waiting may be too late.

Life and how we live it

Life, a ponderous time of work and worry and more work. Stress and all the trappings of “success” that go with it. This is our view of life. It is not and was not supposed to be this way. And yet, it is. Why is that?

It is because of the adversary and the ruler of this world. The one who has dominion over the earth and its “religions”, Satan himself. Even if you are a Christian, the world and its ruler has some measure of control over your life. Unless, you are walking by faith on a daily basis and claiming God‘s promises.

Those are prerequisites for a changed and powerful life. I am not saying that your life has no meaning if you have or have not given your life to Christ, what I am saying is that the world always has some measure of control over you and your choices if you have not given your life to Jesus and walk daily with Him. God Himself can empower you to live for Him when you give your heart to Him in such a way that life before will seem to be just a shadow of what you will do once you truly give your heart to Jesus.

Our life here is but a shadow of what it will be in the Kingdom of God. Serving Him in whatever position you are placed in at that time. Right now, you have the chance to serve Him in ways that you never imagined that you would or could do if you will allow Him to work through you daily. Your business can be more successful, your marriage will be more fulfilling and your family will be more focused on serving Him. God needs us as His eyes and hands and feet to do and say things to people today the same way that the prophets did in times past. No one seems to believe that the Bible is relevant, so people don’t read it or pay attention to what it says.

God doesn’t make mistakes,especially with his Creation. Our life and the life we are given to live is given to each of us for a purpose and many people search for this purpose all of their lives without success. Our purpose in life is to do God’s will and to perform the service that He has for each of us to do, not just what we want to do. It may be something that we may not want to do but if you are following Christ truly, you must do the Father‘s will and not your own. When you find that purpose and do His will in your life, you will be rewarded and your life will be enriched beyond your wildest dreams.

Along those lines, I don’t mean that you will be wealthy or powerful or famous, but you will be doing the will of the Creator. Isn’t that wonderful! It amazes me everyday to think that I am serving the Creator of the entire Universe, not just going to work but in doing so while following Christ I am serving Him as well. I fail at times just like everyone else, but God knows that and He knows that it is going to happen because I am human. I can’t serve Him perfectly day in and day out, no one has done that except Jesus. When those failures happen, I go to Him and ask for forgiveness and for more strength from Him for the next time. God loves us all and wants us to come to Him for everything, not just when someone is sick or has an accident. Give Him a chance in your life and give your life a chance with Him, you won’t regret that decision ever!

Our life in Him, His Life in us!

Some people think that Christianity is just like other religions. That there is no difference other than the person that we believe in. We still have to try hard to be good enough to “get saved” before Jesus will accept us as His. This view of doctrine is not from God’s Word.

Jesus’ words were “I will abide in you and you abide in Me”. The word translated as “abide” can mean many things like “walk, live with, or trust”. Our responsibility as Christians is to daily live as Christ would have us live. Follow Him daily or as scripture puts it “pick up your cross daily and follow Me”.

God expects us to be holy as He is holy but He knows that we cannot do this without Him. We are not able to be holy on our own, our righteousness is as “filthy rags” before a holy God. Without Jesus in your heart, nothing that you do or say can ever be “worthy” enough.

Other religions of the world try to get us to work our way toward heaven so that it is our accomplishment and our way which brings us to heaven. These religions have been and are being deceived by the ruler of this world, Satan, the adversary of God. He can and has done this for many thousands of years and is still doing it. The world doesn’t like Christians or our message because our message is against their way of life. It makes everything that they do or say look foolish because it is when judged by God’s Word.

Before the troubled times come at the end of this age, please read the Bible! Ask someone to explain it to you, pray about it and ask God to show you what you should know and what you need to know. He will if you ask.

A refute of Wicca

Below is a copy of the Wicca creed as described on their website. It is included so that anyone who reads this will know that I am speaking against the beliefs of the Wicca “church”. This is not an endorsement of their belief. It is my testimony to the Creator of the universe, God .

Not until recently have so many different religions been practiced side-by-side, and never before have the teachings of all religions been so easily accessed through the Web and mass media. However, if you look at the recently released American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), the trend is that the percentage of Christians in America is shrinking and the percentage of those with no religious belief at all is growing. Even the pagan religion of “The Craft” or Wicca is growing, especially among young people

Deity: In the center of everything is the Goddess (This is our shorthand for the deity construct and should not be mistaken to mean a specifically female or male deity construct.). Like Gravity, Goddess is impersonal. It treats everyone alike. It transcends gender and human emotions. Certain ideas cluster around the Deity. We, here, are syncretic monotheists.
Reincarnation: We define Reincarnation as an orderly system of learning through which a being progresses. This is not a tally of "sins" and punishments, nor is it a tally of good deeds. Compare human experiences to academic term papers, eg. a way of learning and improving.
Law of Attraction: What I do to other living creatures, I will draw to myself. Shakespeare called this Measure for Measure. It can also be expressed as "birds of a feather flock together." We do not, however, ascribe to the commonly called Law of Three where what I do comes back to me three times. We have had too much science in our backgrounds as one might think every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
The "Law of Three" that is so commonly touted, as a possible punishment when you are seen to be doing "bad" follows this concept: When you point your finger at another in judgment, anger, etc., you have three fingers pointing back at you. Where is the opportunity for spiritual growth? Your judgment of the person you are pointing one finger at? Or in reflecting upon the three fingers pointing back at you? Worth a moment to consider, eh?
Power Through Knowledge: Power (energy) resides within each living creature. One can learn how to direct power. Whether energy or power feels "good" or "evil" depends upon the sender’s intention. In our more enlightened times (remember these tenets have been with us for many, many years), we like to say that this also means self-empowerment through knowledge. The place to grow and learn is, again, within you. The more wisdom you gain, the more you will find self-empowerment.
Harmony: One can perceive rhythms in the patterns of the sun, moon, and seasons. It makes sense to learn those rhythms and to live in harmony with them. This can balance out our lives and help us identify one’s personal sense of harmony. Harmony and balance encourage to neither be too good nor too bad, but to find the balance in our lives.

In a country which was founded because of people seeking religious freedom, the fact that there are so many religions here is not surprising. But, the evangelical past of our nation should have shown many the way of their belief should be in the direction of Christianity and not the way that our young people seem to be going.

I suppose that this is the result of Darwinian teaching in schools and the removal of prayer and God and creation from the textbooks. The study of Wicca or “The Craft” is disturbing. It is a neo-pagan, earth-centered religion based on the teachings and practice of the English Wiccan, Gerald Gardner (1884-1964). Today it is experiencing a dramatic growth due to teens rejecting Christian paternalism, homophobia and perceived insensitivity to the environment.

Wicca holds that all reality is divine. Therefore, they revere the natural world as a living organism, and they revere people as “gods” and “goddesses.” It is a distinctly feminist form of paganism and Wiccans often consider the supreme deity to be a “nature goddess”. This is a “religion” which has been brought about simply by Satan. I am not saying that they are worshiping him but he instigated this religion to draw people away from God, period. As long as people are taken in by this and other religions like it, they will not look for the one true God.

Our time, the time of the church, is coming to an end. This world will be judged by its Creator whether they like it or not. God will not be mocked nor will He be ignored. Look to Revelation in the Bible. Read and study it and ask questions of a credible, Christian pastor. Jesus came to the world to save it and He did this by taking all of our sins on Himself at the cross. All that remains is your acceptance of that gift by asking Him into your life and believing that He was and is the Son of God. Please do this before it is too late.

Can you know the Father and the Son?

Is it possible to know both the Creator and His Son? Yes it is, in fact it is part of being a Christian to know them both. They know us more deeply than we can ever imagine, down to the DNA which makes us who we are. Doesn’t it make sense that the creation would want to know the Creator intimately too? This is a relationship which the ruler of this world does not want to happen and will do anything to keep it from becoming the relationship we were meant to have with God and His Son, Jesus.

Satan loves to entice people into doing things which he knows that they want to do. He knows your weaknesses and how to tempt anyone into doing that which they know to be wrong. He even can entice us into doubting God’s love for us. He has been doing this for a very long time so he is very good at it. Jesus called him the “Father of lies”, and he knows how to make them sound so convincing, even using scripture in a twisted way to make it sound good.

The only way that we can withstand his assault on us on a daily basis is to submit to the Lord daily. Ask for Jesus to come into your heart and to give you the strength and faith to be able to say to Satan, “Get behind me,Satan, I have the Lord on my side”. Although I wouldn’t want him behind me and by quoting scripture he will leave you alone, for a time. But, you have to have Jesus in your heart otherwise he will come back stronger and possibly meaner than before.

When you are making a difference for God you are fighting him and he doesn’t like it, especially when, by the power of Jesus’ name and our faith in Him, we are winning the fight. I fully expect him to come after me in the days to come, but I know that in the end he has already lost regardless of what may happen to me.

Give Jesus a chance in your life and then go out and let others know what He has done for you. He will work through you and bring others to Him and the result will be even greater than you can imagine. Think about it this way, you comfort someone and pray for them in their time of need. When they come to Jesus, then they speak to someone else about Him and what He did for them. Then that person tells a couple of their friends about Jesus. Later, they tell someone else what Christ has done for them. In a few months or years, one act of kindness from you has spread out to hundreds or maybe thousands. I pray for all who read these pages in His Holy name so that He will call you to Him.