Jesus loves you

Do you believe?

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

Jesus said, “those who believe in Me will live even if they die“! This is what makes it so hard for some people to become Christians. Not because it is so easy when you feel His touch on your heart and soul, but because they believe that they need to help Him in their salvation!

There is nothing that you can add to His sacrifice which will help in any way to bring salvation to yourself. Just believe in Him and what He did for you, then determine that you will live for Him and leave your old way of life behind. Some people may see that as a hard thing to do, but if you compare living for Him in this life to an eternity without God in hell I think that putting up with being a Christian is a much better way to live!

God sent Jesus to the Earth so that we could come to know Him and be saved from our own sinful ways. But if your heart hasn’t changed and your life has stayed the same as it was before, did you really accept Him as your Savior or did you just say a few words and get wet in the baptistry?

Please, seek Jesus for your salvation before your life is over because there are no second chances after you die.

ABelieverInJesus

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Do you hear what I hear?

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

This is part of a wonderful song for Christmas which I have loved for years. These days, there isn’t much that you hear about Christ on a daily basis, sometimes even a weekly one. People don’t want to hear the Truth of God’s Word unless they are in need of God’s help. The problem with this is that God is not a genie! We are not supposed to treat our relationship with Jesus as one where we seek His help when we need it, but when things are going well we don’t want Him around!

God loves each one of us far more than we can even understand, and yet we don’t seem to give that love back to Him. Jesus came to Earth as a baby, born to a virgin long ago. He also came to pay the price for ALL of our sins and be our Savior if we will only believe in Him. So…what is the problem that many of us seem to have with Jesus? Is it that He was born Jewish? He preached long ago and we don’t think that His message is relevant today? Could it be that we don’t want to offend anyone with our faith so we don’t tell anyone about Him or our belief in Him?

The message and the lessons which Jesus taught have more to do with today than at any time before now! We are to love each other as we are loved! Why can’t we look past our perceived differences in skin color and culture and just see another person in need of Jesus? Why is it so hard to get past our genetic differences and just see the similarities?

I mean, we all have two arms and legs, most of us have hair (some more, some less), all of us have two ears, two eyes, and one mouth (even if that last one gets us into more trouble than it should)! That is why the Bible says that we should be quick to listen and slow to speak.

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It doesn’t matter what you are speaking about or who you may be listening to, make sure to measure your words before you speak and listen to what is being said, carefully seeking the truth in what you are hearing. As one wise person said, “Taste your words before you spit them out”; in that way, you will know if they are good or not. People will think you are wise or smart depending on your speech. If your speech is full of big words but not much substance then you will seem to be smart but like a politician you aren’t saying much at all.

Consider your words and your speech because God hears every word, whether you are His or not.

Why do relationships go wrong?

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

Truly the reason that this happens is because of the foundation. Many marriages begin on the wrong foot and certainly on sand or loose gravel for a foundation. Why do we pursue a relationship that ultimately will fail?

IAM-JesusWe do this because we haven’t found the Relationship which can’t fail. We are born searching for something or Someone but for years we search and look for things and people to fill that void, that empty place which always feels as if it needs…to be filled. It is a scientific principle which states quite accurately that “nature abhors a vacuum”. At some point, something will fill that space whether it is good or bad, God or Satan, it doesn’t matter which, but it will be filled.

If we try to fill it with a career or a family, that can work for a while but it isn’t permanent. If we try to fill it with drugs or alcohol, our life and our relationships are doomed to fail because those things are designed to destroy whatever they come in contact with! But…if we will seek out our Savior, Jesus the Christ, and repent of the attempts which we have tried before, and ask Him to come in and clean our heart up, then our life will be placed on the right path.

Following Him, learning about Him by reading and studying the Bible, praying about your family and your problems, all of these will begin to fix your pathway and your life in such a way that your foundation will become complete and solid. When this happens, your relationship with your spouse and your family will begin to level out and become less bumpy and more smooth. This is the foundation which should guide our lives today but we tend to follow along with the rest of the crowd at school or church, if we go at all.

If everyone at school or at church is just going along to get along for the sake of being thought of as a “pillar of the community”, that is the wrong reason. Trying to earn a place in the eyes of people and “fair weather friends”, no matter how you earn it, doesn’t help you in the long run. Why? Because it isn’t built on God’s foundation which is Jesus.

You can decide to ignore this advice if you wish or just don’t read this at all, it doesn’t hurt my feelings one way or the other. But…what if I am right. When your life is going to hell on a slippery slope, which of your friends could possibly pull you out of it? A rich kid that you went to school with? No, they are likely off enjoying life just as they think they should. What about your dear friend from work? Not likely, they come home feeling even more tired than they did last year.

The only One Who can get your life back on the right path and give you strength enough to make it through all of your trouble is Jesus. No other religion or “holy man” or prophet can do that because all of them are dead! He is alive at the Father’s right hand and He is able to help you in your time of need. Seek Him out and make sure that He is your foundation and your Solid Rock, your Savior. Because without Him, we can do nothing.

Do you believe?

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

Faith_in_GodDo you believe that God is our Creator? Do you believe that Jesus is the Savior of all who believe in Him?

These are questions which should be asked, but are you seeking the answers for these questions? Do you truly want the answers to these questions? Your eternity, your life after this life, depends upon the answers that you find and believe in!

So, are you seeking the answers or do you want to just forget about it until you feel the time is right?

When will the “right”time be? Will you know it when it gets here? If it gets here? Are you certain that you have until next week or next month to make this decision?

Quite frankly, none of us can be sure of tomorrow let alone next week or next month! Making plans for next year seems foolish to me actually, because there is no way to be sure that far ahead into your life.

If you don’t believe in Jesus as your Savior, then who can take His place? You? Or maybe you think that after you die your body will just return to dust and there is no life after the death of your physical body? What a shame. It is true that God said that “man is made from the dust and to dust he will return“, but you have an eternal soul that doesn’t turn to dust so what happens to it?

According to Jesus there are two places where your soul will go after your body dies, paradise or Heaven and outer darkness or hell. No purgatory or waiting to be prayed up, no immediate burn up if you don’t believe. It is said in Scripture that the smoke of their punishment rises forever. This is not just a flash burn and your gone for good, you will pay for your own sins and unbelief for eternity just as Satan will pay for his rebellion against God.

Yes, forever is a very long time, yet if you will believe in Jesus and His atonement for you then your eternity will be to serve Him in Heaven and in His Kingdom. I can’t imagine a better future than to serve the Creator. Why? Because doing His will for eternity will never be boring!

So much bitterness…

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

We are beginning a new year and this topic seems to show up in the news quite often. Actually, it has been in the news for a while in one form or another. Can we do anything about it, really? Sometimes we can but unfortunately much of the bitterness in the world is brought on by Satan and his influence in it. Oh, there are many who don’t believe that he exists but since he has been around since the beginning, he really does exist. If he tempted Jesus in the wilderness, then you know he has had plenty of practice over the millennia!

Truly, the bitterness that is rampant in our world today is because of our sinfulness. We can’t be civil and understanding of people that we don’t agree with in all aspects. Every person on the planet has a different opinion of things, that is something that we shouldn’t be stressing over. But, we do it all the time.

God loves each of us whether we give Him our heart or not, He still loves us and has provided a way of salvation. All we need to do is believe in Jesus and in the atonement provided, then when we feel His call on our life and in our heart…answer it! Just as you do when your phone rings, unless it is someone you don’t want to talk to. If it is God calling your heart and your life into His service please, don’t ignore it and DO answer it! You won’t be disappointed and it will be the greatest trip that you have ever taken, even if you never go anywhere until you are called home to Heaven!

 

Too busy?

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

It has been a while since I posted anything here and I apologize for that. God is still in control even when the world seems to be out of control.

Some people think that God is too busy to worry with us, but that is not so. He cares for this little world and the people on it. He wouldn’t have sent His Son to die on a cross for us if He didn’t!!

Some don’t want to believe that the Bible, God’s Word, is true but it is. Think of it this way, during the forty days that Moses spent on the mountain with God is when God gave him the content for the book of beginnings or Genesis. Which tells all of the history prior to the slavery of the Israelites and how God made everything too. God cannot lie, so if one part of the Bible is true then it is all true. In two thousand years there has never been an untrue statement proven to come from the Bible, so it is all true.

Your life and mine may be too busy to go to church on Sunday or whenever you go to church, but God is always available. He is everywhere and He can take care of all things in your life and mine, no matter how BIG they may seem to us. Our problems are easy for God to help us with, regardless of their size or importance to us. The problem that we have is God’s time-table. It doesn’t match with how we look at things, because we want the money to pay the bill today!! Not next month!

Sometimes, even with our busy lives, each of us has to learn to step back and let Him have the problem, regardless of the size of the problem to us. We also have to learn to let go of the it and leave it in His hands. Don’t take it back like you don’t trust God to handle it or maybe you don’t believe it is big enough for Him to notice. If nothing was working in your life to fix it before you gave it to God, what makes you think it will work if you take it back and try to fix it yourself…again?

No matter what the problem is, give it to God to fix and let Him fix it His way and in His time! I know, it is hard to do at times. He doesn’t work on things immediately like we want Him to or God doesn’t fix it the way we want it fixed, so let me ask a question: Are your ideas better than those of God, the Creator of the universe? Are your solutions easier and quicker when you try to fix things on your own? Do they always work like they should?

I would guess that the answer to those last three questions would be no, no, and no. We are not capable of doing things better than God because He can see the outcome before the solution is in place. Consider God’s answer to your problem, seek His answer before you resort to “fixing” it yourself.

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.

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.

Life and time

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

Each of us is given these from the moment we are born. How much of either we will enjoy is up to God. Life is our daily walk through our time here, sometimes it is easy, sometimes it is hard, at other times it is a blend of the two whether we enjoy it or not.

Why we live and learn the way we do is a question for God alone, not the doctors or even your parents. Life teaches us wisdom with enough time. Sometimes we learn from it and sometimes we need a refresher, but eventually we do get it.

Why am I writing a short piece on this topic today? I just felt reflective this morning, so feel free to use these words to inspire your own journey, your own learning. If, that is, you can spare the time to learn about Life.

The Life which I speak of here is the giver and sustainer of Life, Jesus Christ. Your life and mine depend upon Him or at least they should. Give Him a bit of your day each day and you will learn of the ways that He can teach you and the wisdom contained within His Words in the Bible. Whether you believe in Him or not, He is the One Who woke you this morning, gives you the strength to go through your day and the ability to interact with your world.

No part of our world or the universe could exist without Him, without His strength and His guidance because it is all under His direction and control! He is the Creator and sustainer of it all. Look up the protein which exists in your cells which is the “glue” which holds them together, it is called laminin and here is a picture of it.

I knowlaminin.jpg that it looks like a cross, but I think that He designed it just that way so that scientists will see His hand in our world and in each one of us. God loves each of us enough that we will never understand His love until we are in His Presence. There is no evolutionary reason that this molecule, this protein should look this way. It is this way because He designed it this way!

Your life and mine as well as the time that we have to enjoy it are given to each of us in order to allow us the opportunity to learn about Him and that we truly need Him. You can ignore Him if you wish, you can say that He is not real and that there is no hell or Heaven. New age believers think this way and they think that they are god but they are going to find Someone different when their life ends.

Seek Jesus out while you have the time to do so, because it is only while you live that you are given the chance to ask Him into your life. Once this life…this time is over, there is no second chance.

An image of Jesus

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

jesus2

Our image of Jesus is distorted from the way painters have portrayed Him as a weak, feminine type of man. In the time that He lived, and the vocation that He worked with His earthly father as a carpenter, weakness was not an option. A carpenter had to lift wooden doors, chairs, beams, and whatever else without a whole lot of help except for his muscles. The image that I have of Jesus shows a kind, gentle man but one with strength, not only from His spirit but from the work that He did before He started His ministry on earth.

Our Lord loved all of us and still does with a love that cannot be understood by today’s culture. He truly was and is the Messiah, the Savior of us all, not just some prophet whose body was hidden after He was crucified. One day He will come back and all will see who the Prince of Peace and the King of kings really is. On that day every knee will bow to Him and those who accepted Him in life will go on to their reward for eternity. Those who did not accept Him and His message, will be cast into the lake of fire and eternal punishment which was meant only for Satan and his minions.

Please, regardless of what you think of my site or its message, read the Bible. Pray that Jesus will forgive you of your sins and come into your heart and cleanse you of all unrighteousness. The smallest sin, like telling a lie to someone or even the sin of being a murderer or even a rapist are all equal in God’s sight. The only sin which will send anyone to hell is that of rejecting Jesus and His gift of forgiveness, that’s it! The love of Christ to you all and His peace too.