Justified by the Precious Blood
Oh, the precious blood
that flowed from Mercy’s side,
Washed away my sin,
When Christ my Savior died.
Oh the precious blood
of Christ the crucified,
speaks for me before your throne
where I stand justified.
It is interesting how we spend much time justifying sin. We like to think the little white lies we tell are okay because they are justifiable. We also may believe it okay to steal food when we are starving.
We know that lying and stealing are wrong. However, we want to be justified. If then we long for this justification, how is it obtained?
Do we bring out a scale and weigh the perceived good and bad, and then make a decision?
If so, and we proceed with “justified” sin, is it still not sin?
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that we all have to work for justification. However, we know that we need it. Romans 3:20 tells us that if we try to be good enough to always do the right thing, it will not be good enough!
As the lyric in the song above… if we have put our faith in Jesus, we ALREADY are justified! It is by Jesus’ blood alone. It testifies to God the Father as we stand before His throne.
Hey, don’t believe me! Read it here in Romans 5:9.
We cannot justify ourselves, yet it is there readily available for all! Abundant enough that all can, in Christ, stand before the throne of a holy God! (Romans 4:5)
Oh, it is precious blood indeed!
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You Thought I was One Like Yourself
Psalm 50:16-21 “But to the wicked God says: “What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. If you see a thief, you are pleased with him, land you keep company with adulterers. “You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.”
How careful are we in our perception of Who God is?
Do we make Him out to be like us, or do we conform ourselves to Who He is?
These are interesting questions. To some extent, we are all guilty of the charges in these verses. What I find haunting and curious is the penultimate sentence. God’s longsuffering is extended to those who do not repent.
Yet, He is not like us. He is holy, and as such He requires us to be holy and sinless. He knows that we cannot, however, the charge is still laid at our feet, and we must bear the consequences.
Unless, in His love for us, He has provided a way in which we can stand before Him blameless!
It is Jesus, His Son Who bore the consequences some 2,000 years ago. He was put to death, and rose again the third day in triumph over death. Those that put their faith in Him, like putting on a parachute… have His righteousness and holiness imputed to them, making them acceptable to stand before a Holy God.
Romans 3:23-25 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.”
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Stephen Hawking: Abandon the Earth
Stephen Hawking in Abandon the Earth says…
“It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years,”
Yessirree… I will almost say it will be darn near impossible! We can both agree this, however, the particulars of the cause and solution are very different.
My outlook is taken from yet future events as they are recorded in the books of Daniel and the book of the Revelation. In these, is written a detailed description of coming events in a future time of great tribulation on Earth. It was also spoken of by Jesus, at length, in Matthew 13. It will be terrible to behold, let alone live through.
The escape, though, will not be on space ships… it will be a call by Jesus Himself!
You want to make sure you can hear the escape call? Check out this from Wretched Radio.
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The Danger of Sincrety
Today, many are given to this air of reconciliation. Political apologists would have you believe it is centrism or really, being moderate or better, progressive, somewhere between the political extremes of liberalism and conservatism. The real essence of the problem, is that capitalism without morality tends to the anarchy of lust and greed. This is dangerous enough, having liberty requires exercising self-discipline and responsibility. They call it the Third Way. The Third Way is sincrety, simply stated, trying to unite two irreconcilable things. These irreconcilable things are not what they would have you believe, let me explain.
As a society we are encourage to forget God. In so doing we have driven morality out of our schools, our homes, our entertainment and even our government. In return, there is a lack of self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) and personal responsibility, lawlessness grows. Consequently, this requires more of an external control and temperance, usually in the form of government.
This governmental control attempts to dictate morality and communal behavioral standards that apply to institutions and individuals alike. As personal self-control wanes, the reigns of government control must become tighter. This is the tipping the other end of the scale, and the centralized, command-and-control tyrannies of socialism, communism and Marxism. This type of government become dangerous because morality is rooted in the heart of the individual by God and is exercised in relationship to and knowledge of God. When the individual forgets God, and his responsibility to God, and the government then has to dictate morality, it becomes the arbiter of morality, deciding what is right and what is wrong. This is extremely dangerous.
The genius of our founding fathers, was finding a middle ground between these two extemes of anarchy and tyranny. One where the morality of the individual was recognized as God given. And with that personal morality, came sovereignty. This sovereignty required liberty, such that came from God and the government could not take away! They established a ance of power in governmental structure and prohibited the government from infringement on individual rights. This form of government recognized that sovereignty is bestowed upon the individual and not the government!
In the history of the world, this had not been done. As most governments place sovereignty in a person or particular group of rulers, not so in the United States.
The Third Way is not some reconciliation between partisan political extremes, but it is a way to reconcile these two forms of sovereignty. One that requires the individual to cede his control to that of another, transferring sovereignty to the government. Eventually, the government will be the arbiter of freedom, providing the individual with choices. This is just another version of the lie… the one Satan told in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:1-7. In essence, he took the freedom Eve had to eat of every tree of the garden, and gave her choices; she could remain as she was, or she could be like God.
Look around, we see it everywhere… corporations are bad, yet they pay our wages. Government is good, yet it dips its hand in your pocket to steal your sweat. Becoming a parasite on government largess is good, working hard to provide for your family is not.
Marriage is seen as a restrictive covenant, not as to only benefit the furtherance of a society through procreation. But its very essence must be bended and twisted to satisfy individual whims of indulgence, relegating the ability of marriage as the primary vehicle to sustain society to obscurity. Eventually, that very society shall end up on the refuse heap of history. (That can be the only logical conclusion!)
This sincrety can be non-sensical , as in the claim that carbon-dioxide is a pollutant, when it is necessary for plants to grow and thrive.
Oftentimes it is subtle, as when we are told pregnancy is not always a human carrying another individual human being. Instead we are asked to believe it is really a lump of tissue, or worse, a parasite! We know, without the benefit of science it is another INDIVIDUAL human being.
The problem with sincrety, is the same as Paul asked in 1 Corinthians 5:6 “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?”
Think about it, we let a little error cloud our thought processes, will the preponderance of right thinking win out, or will that little bit of error, pollute all of our thinking?
The battle for control of the church has begun… the weapon of choice is SINCRETY! It is even predicted by John in Revelation 3:15-16, Jesus is speaking and says of the church of Laodicea “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”
Is this not a warning from the Savior Himself to be very wary about coupling irreconcilable things?
Why do we accept Yoga in the Christian church?
Yoga at best is against Christianity. It is a system of works based on merging with God. Though some of the language sounds the same, it is a system of works. The poses in Yoga are meant to teach the body how to die! Just peering at the five basic truths of Yoga is enough to make me run!
Why do we accept the peace sign in the Christian Church?
Take the time to find out why. It is not simply a symbol to bring about peace, but is being used to sincretize all of society. It has many different stories of its creation. However, some every citation couples some nefarious meaning to it. One cites its creation to a group with communist and Marxist sympathies. Regardless, it is a symbol of rebellion… and we attempt to reconcile it with our Christianity. That is precisely what it was used for in the 1960s, to rebel against the church and society Curiously, it is accepted and adored by many Christians today!
Why do we celebrate movies like Harry Potter and New Moon in the Christian Church?
They are really good moral stories, but that evil stuff is thrown in just for fun. Come on, incantations and vampires, are not true, yes, but some are carried away unawares. I mean seriously, we are to take character lessons from Edward (a vampire) and proclaim his testimony?
Is Jesus Christ not good enough?
And most dangerous of all, why do we accept the emergent church movement in the Christian Church?
With its focus on the here and now, social justice and sustainability… this is the near end-game of seduction. As Christians, we are encouraged to pray for God’s kingdom to come… it will be a Earthly kingdom, yes. However, it is not our home, or even our hope. Our hope is eternal, as it is written in Revelation 22:14 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.”
There is a war being waged… it is spiritual. It is being waged for individual hearts! It is both overt and subtle, through using subterfuge and Hegelian dialectic it reaches deep into the church snaring elders and pastors. The powers-that-be may just be useful pawns, however they serve the father of lies. He is hard at work, knowing as we, that his time is fleeting. These leaders are moving us to the place we are warned to stay away from… medicority. Jesus Himself warned us of His reaction to mediocrity in Revelation 3:16… “I will spit you out of my mouth.”
I would even point to a hint of this prediction in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, recorded in the Daniel 2:31-45. The image Nebuchadnezzar saw in his sleep was impressive… and it is easily explained by Daniel with revelation from God.
The image is sort of “timeline” of world empires, with the gold head representing the Babylonian empire. Each empire deteriorates, as is evident in its movement from the more prominent position of the head on the body and composition of better materials. As each succesive empire appears, it occupies a less prominent place in the body and the material is of slightly inferior value and density. We find ourselves somewhere close to the feet and toes of the statue… the toes being the final empire. Here is where it is stated in Daniel 2:41-43 as follows:
And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.
Here you see sincrety described in the form of iron mixing with clay… but they do not hold together, because iron does not mix with clay.
Christian be wary of everything you are taught… even from your own church leaders. As is written in 1 John 4:1-6:
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
Christian… you can be taught another Jesus. The enemy is working out the last pieces of his dominion. This is his lie, dominion theology taught by the emergent church, to realize Utopia in the here and now. He is using the language of the Christian to lure away captives unaware. Words like justice, hope, kingdom, conversion and salvation arer being used to connect concepts that are biblical with a concepts that are extra-biblical and prideful.
The emergent church is calling for “conversions that can change lives, neighborhoods and this world,” that is meant for the community. It is a gospel of communitariansim (better communism,) and relativism. It is not the true Gospel of the shocking individual recognition of personal sin that leads to responsibility, repentance and service to a holy and loving God through salvation in Jesus Christ.
So let’s be clear: sincretism… in other words is oxy-moronic!
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What Are Your Thoughts?
Think about it… we live in a physical world, that we know. We can see it and touch it. But there is a hint that there is some place that exists outside of this physical world. Perhaps, we can even KNOW that some other place exists!
Have you ever pondered your thoughts… What are they, simply neurons firing in a chemical soup?
Allow me to pose another question to you… Can you show me your thoughts?
You may say they are in your head, but what I want to see are the thoughts themselves! We know they exist and are REAL, however, they do not exist spatially. In other words, they do not exist physically in our dimensional universe. Our universe is usually considered to be three dimensions, but it has a fourth PHYSICAL dimension we do not readily consider, it is time.
According to the laws of our universe, if something does not have physical properties, it would also not be constrained by time! Can you GRASP that?
If your thoughts are not constrained by time, a case could be made that they then transcend our physical universe. That means that they can travel readily through all the dimensions of our universe! Since by definition, we are limited to only knowing about the things inside of our universe, the only way to know something exists outside of our universe is that it transcends this universe.
I like to think that this tells me that we are indeed eternal spiritual beings inside temporal bodies constrained by time in a fallen universe. That the Creator outside of the universe can indeed transcend our universe at will and let us KNOW He exists.
If that is the case, we better know Who He is!
He has provided us clues, everywhere. But specifically, the Bible says in Romans 1:18-20 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
If the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, then we must take heed. We must understand our obligations to God, since we are without excuse. If we truly are unrighteous, we then willingly ingore the truth. In other words, we are more apt to believe a lie. Further, the verse indicates that HIS eternal power is clearly perceived! Yet, could we be deluded to accept a lie easier than the truth?
Paul declares, we are without excuse! Let us read further in Romans 1:21-23 “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”
You see, it is not good enough to just KNOW God, but you must glorify Him and give Him thanks… otherwise, you suffer the consequences of folly and futility. In futility, our hearts are darkened, by our own choices! This indicates a kind of subtle self-delusion… could it be, that we being unrighteous have a natural proclivity to be deceived by our own mind and heart?
You and I, all of mankind are created in the image of God, yet the wisdom of man tells you different. That all of humanity was descended from apes, and further back creeping things. This is the tree of evolution. Is it then that we have exchanged the glory of God, and if so, for what?
If you are descended from monkeys and other animals, logically, there is nothing but survival of the fittest… in essence, might makes right! But you know there is something wrong with that, it is written into your very being. It makes you want to scream that “It’s not fair!” Is this survival of the fittest really wisdom or foolishness?
The final part of this section may answer it for you, Romans 1:24-25 “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”
Honestly, we live in a society where it is very diffcult to not see the consequences of sexual impurity. We may even hotly deny it, but the simple truth of the matter is borne on the evidence all around us! The message of sexual immorality bombards us daily… it screams at you from television, magazines and billboards. There must be something wrong when we need to have 100,000 condoms on hand for the recent Vancouver olympics, with around 7,000 athletes attending… well, you do the math. Even with all this, sexually transmitted diseases are rampant!
If we as a society have exchanged the truth for a lie and with this curse upon us what do we do?
In the book of John, Jesus Himself has a conversation with Nicodemus that provides the answer. Let’s read it… John 3:10-21 ““Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.””
Jesus Himself declares He has physically transcended this world, teaching us of heavenly things, or those things that exist outside our fallen universe. We do not even believe the truths that are physically evident, if we willingly reject them, how then can we know spiritual truths?
We are already condemned in this world, Jesus came to redeem it and us. He was lifted up on the tree. He is the one who took all of our punishment. In taking our death upon Himself, He gave us His life, freely. And we must look upon Him in faith, that He has finished the work in our stead.
This is where you take your darkened, deluded heart, to the Light of the world. This is truth, you already know this is right, it is imparted to you.
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Expelled Movie – The Ruse
From the mouth of a “smart” “scientist,” he’s basically saying man comes from rocks!
And because of the seeming necessary need for a designer, a conclusion of the field of science known as intelligent design, there are scientists who now push for the idea of panspermia. Panspermia is a belief, yes belief, that life came from spores in space… or some other race made us.
It is my firm conviction, that atheism is a rejection of God and morality, and therefore an act of the will.
Paul described this very well in Romans 1:18-23:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
This is the rallying cry for the powers of darkness… “Where is your God?” Notice the voice in the “song?” Scary, huh?
Paul ended with a warning, sorta, Romans 1:28-33:
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
Oh, the scoffers have arrived as in 2 Peter 3:3. And people are asking the question in 2 Peter 3:4. But Peter explains it further in 2 Peter 3:5-8, thus:
For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
He is not slow, but very patient!
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Theologian: Most Christians Infected with Prosperity Gospel
Whilst we must all be Bereans and be very careful that what we are taught is what is written in scripture… this article is very poignant.
This false prosperity gospel borders on heretical… In this country we have comfort, and people are urged to expect that from God as some sort of birthright. Does this not eventually produce the signs Paul warned us about in 2 Timothy 3:1-5?
This danger is so prevalent in our society and our churches… where there is a prevalence of this shallow Christianity. It is a symptom of a baby Christianity sustained on a diet of milk. These people never grow, and eventually demand teachers who dilute the milk of the gospel. They look for teachers that tickle their ears, telling them what they want to hear. Not necessarily providing truth, but a sort of feel good thing with a tiny bit of truth.
What then shall we do?
It means digging out our Bible and feeding for ourselves. We all must learn the deeper truths of what God is telling us on our own… For we cannot learn that from the pulpit of even the most gifted speaker!
Thankfully, God provides the true prosperity gospel in 2 Peter 1:5-11. It starts with yielding to the Spirit within, and with His help reading the Bible for ourselves! We must seek the true prosperity offered there, and add to our faith. We must grow!
And we shall find God is faithful… faithful in all that He says. He will give to us true joy. A joy that transcends all.
But, there is only one catch… Since it is freely given to us, we must therefore, give it away. If we do not it stagnates!
Theologian: Most Christians Infected with Prosperity Gospel | Christianpost.com
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Rev 6:8 Critters
When God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, God released ten “plagues” on the Egyptians to convince them to release the Hebrews. The plagues were specifically targeted at ten of the gods worshiped by the Egyptians.
In a similar fashion, the various “plagues” released during the seal, bowl and vial judgments in the Revelation are similar to what we are doing to corrupt the earth, only magnified. For an example, let’s look at Revelation 6:8.
Rev 6:8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
We have great ingenuity creating weapons and systems for so people can “kill with sword”. Between religious practices that make certain animals sacred, causing food to be wasted to the point where humans starve and political acts that result in famines, we kill with hunger today. I am not sure what killing with death is, but we probably do it. The last method is killing with the beasts of the earth. Some of what is happening with beasts today may surprise you.
Apparently bears are becoming more aggressive because of acclimation to the presence of humans and human encroachment on their habitat. It is on the History Channel and in the newspapers. According to one resident of Alaska there used to be maybe one bear attack on humans every ten years. Nowadays there are at least 2 attacks every year.
For some smaller beasts, just look to the hybrid Killer Africanized Bees. There was a geneticist in Brazil in the 50′s that tried to create a bee that produced like African bees and was gentle like European bees. Oops! Before the work was finished an assistant removed the guards that kept the queens inside the hives. A bunch of queens left for the wild with their colonies right behind them. The swarms have made it as far north as Flagstaff Arizona, breeding with local honeybees and picking up traits that allow them to survive in high altitudes and cold temps. Swarms hit people and sometimes kill them, others survive as many as 4000 stings and end up in ICU.
There are even smaller beasties we have killing people. Besides weaponized versions of anthrax bacteria and smallpox and ebola viruses, we have some nasty critters in the wild, such as MRSA and “flesh eating bacteria” or necrotizing fasciitis. These are bacteria that have adapted to the insane measures taken to sanitize facilities and equipment in hospitals.
Of course, the judgments of Revelation have not started yet. What we see in terms of what will be seen is just a foretaste. If you think it is bad now, dealing with a hostile environment that is just going to get worse, you do not want to be here when the seals get broken, the trumpets sounded and vials get dumped.
Accepting the free gift of salvation that Jesus provides now will keep you from having to navigate through the worst living conditions man has ever seen. If you wait until the meat grinder starts up to ask Jesus to forgive your sins, chances are good you will end up with your head cut off. That might actually be a good thing according to Revelation 7, to die during the seven year period of rule by the man of evil. The biggest problem with that strategy is the lying wonders that could deceive even those that belong to Jesus. If you wait, you might just miss the whole thing and end up on the wrong side of history.
Me personally, I do not want to see any of it. I would much rather spend that seven years in heaven with Jesus, getting ready for the second coming and the start of the 1000 year kingdom to come.
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Why are we stuck with two parties?
Republicans.
Democrats.
Is that all we can possibly elect?
The bad thing is, they are really not two parties? They are almost the same. One likes to give charity to corporations and get bigger and tax the people to death. The other one likes to give charity to weird people and get bigger and tax people to death.
Only now we have a party that likes to give charity to corporations and weird people and get bigger and bigger and bigger and print money to make all the money we had worthless and call the other party names and call the people that call them out and tell about their evil lies “not worthy news reporters” or some such, and it lies and lies and lies.
We need to get out of this mess. Both parties are the same — they both want to become totalitarian regimes and destroy the freedom the people are supposed to have. The only problem is, if both parties are horribly evil and all the rules are set up to only allow those two parties, how do We, The People fix this mess??? It is really obvious they are not going to fix the problem. They ARE the problem!!!!
Can We The People agree that BOTH parties are broken, BOTH parties need to be booted out of power and WE the People have to vote for people of integrity that will dismantle the monstrosity we allowed to grow around us, to suck our freedom and ability to be great right out of us, the monstrosity that has dumbed down our children, denied our God, destroyed our heritage and made us vulnerable to our enemies?
We The People have to get our act together and fix all the horribleness that We The People in our apathy and greed and selfishness allowed to grow like a malignant tumor on the world.
Are We The People ready???
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How GREAT is your God?
I heard something interesting today and I have to share…
Science has amassed great knowledge, and a particular piece of this knowledge is estimating the number of stars we know about. There are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1 sextillion) stars in our universe. This number is astronomical (yeah, I know, pun intended,) let me try to make it a little simpler…
There are enough stars for every one of the over 6 billion people on earth to have 160 billion of their own!
That is an amazing thing to know! The number of stars you can call “your own” is probably even more, since light has not reached us from the edge of the universe yet, these are the probable number of stars we know about.
But, can I tell you something even more astounding?
God, yes the God of the Bible created it all. Everything you see in nature is here because of His handiwork. He has named ALL of them. And yet He knows you so well, He can count the number of hairs on your head. Think about it… the distance between the Earth and Moon takes us days to travel, yet in the entire universe, God can tell you right now, how many hairs are on your head. My jaw drops open just thinking about it!
Psalms 8:3-4 says: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”
Truly, I am in awe of this God Who knows us all, and wants us to agree with Him. And I often ponder this verse knowing my own condition and the things that I have done and do to offend Him. I often ask why… but the only answer I can come up with is because He chose me, just as He has also chosen you. Did you know that?
He chose us first, and then sent His Son to show us. You all know the verse in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” But have you read the verses that follow, John 3:17-19? “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”
See, Jesus came to give life, eternal life. He does not condemn, because we are condemned already by OUR CHOICE, because we have not believed. The last sentence says it all, we love darkness rather than light because what we do is evil! The flesh does love evil… but it is the choices we make condemn us! SO what do you do about that?
Well… let’s just step back to two verses right before this section, John 3:14. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,” you might be asking what that means. I will refer you to the story this refers to in Numbers 21:4-9. It is a short story click, here to read it.
You see, the people who did not look to the serpent died. It was too simple for some, too simple because it was foolish. Too foolish, because it required faith! How silly to look at some bronze snake on a pole to be cured of a fatal snake bite! Why was this old story recorded and why was it referred to by Jesus Himself?
The answer lies in the next verse, John 3:15. I will put both verse 14 and verse 15 together, John 3:14-15 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (Emphasis mine)
That is all that is required, you must look to the Son of Man lifted up, that is Jesus on the cross who carried the penalty for all the sins in the entire world, ever… past, present and future! Matthew 27:45-46 says “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is the precise moment in ALL OF ETERNITY, that He took your punishment, my punishment… the entire punishment for all sin, ever! Then He cried “It is finished!” This declaration is the exact same phrase in Greek that is written on a debt note when it is paid in full! Our sin debt was paid in full!
But…. remember John 3:14-15, to get the benefit of this escape, you must look to Jesus, and Him alone. John 14:6 makes it perfectly clear there is only one way… and in Jesus’ own words in John 10:1, ”Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.”
If you choose to look at Jesus as your only Way to salvation… here is what you need to do. Romans 10:9 says “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” A few verse later, in Romans 10:13 it says, “For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Yes, it is that simple!
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