When God mades something happen, it is going to happen! The angel Gabriel was God's great messenger in announcing the birth of John the Baptist to his father, Zacharias, and the birth of Jesus to Mary. In both cases, Gabriel named them. He told Zacharias that his son would be named John and made him mute until the baby was born, so he could share that name with the people. Gabriel also told Mary the name of the child we was going to bear, and that He is the Son of the Mos

With so many high-profile people falling into moral sin, and many of them are professing Christians, it makes me wonder how that kind of sin can overtake your life. Keep in mind, if we are not growing more in God's grace, we are going backward. Our faith walk is a forward motion that is powered and perfected in Jesus Christ. If you have received Jesus by faith, then you are totally equipped and responsible for living a Godly life. No excuses. If you can see that something

When we are bound together in Jesus, that binding is so strong that satan cannot break the bond. In Ecclesiastes, the writer writes the following words. Ecclesiastes 4: 9 Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor; 10 for if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up! 11 Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? 12

Sometimes I take this life for granted and forget that I get to meet with Almighty God, and He desires to hear my voice, as I acknowledge I am nothing without Him and His unfailing love. I turn my face to the one who is looking deep in my heart and ready to minister to me with that unfailing love. I compare it to a time when I was working hard on a hot day baling hay in the good ole Missouri sunshine, when the temperature was a little over a hundred degrees. At the close o

Complete (def) - to the greatest extent or degree; total. 1 John 1: 8 If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. 9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts. What do you do with your sin? We need to realize first what God does with our

When man-made religion is mixed with the Word of God, things really go awry. Pure truth becomes compromised truth, and what seems so clear in the Bible becomes out of focus and very worldly. Proverbs 4:23 says Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. There is a reason we need to guard our hearts from impure religion that is flawed in every detail. The reason is that when it gets into our heart and is funneled down from our mind, it chang

Believing the Word of God, really believing the Word of God, is a lot tougher than just reading it. That's why I usually say, "It's one thing to believe it and another thing to ignite it. Ignite it? You may say, ' What is igniting it?" We can quote all the scripture we want, but unless we have faith it is from God, our "faith" will fall well short. This isn't just a religious exercise I am talking about. I am talking about releasing the Word of God into my life by letting

The hymn Victory in Jesus says a lot about living in the victory of what Jesus did by defeating death, hell, and the grave. The resurrected life of Jesus also gives us victory in every area of our lives. Sin is defeated, and righteousness replaces a dead life with an abundant life that lives in the power of that resurrection. 2 Corinthians 5:17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! What does this

Today we remember, and think in our hearts about the suffering of Jesus. Isaiah 53:1 Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? 2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. 3 He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the

When Jesus and the disciples were in the upper room, there was a sequence of events that shaped what was to come after that last supper. Matthew 26: 17 On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?” 18 He replied, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disc

Where are you going? Time to find out. When we think about Jesus being a bridge, I want to qualify that there is a time and place coming where we will end up, and it is either heaven or hell. Scripture speaks to this in Matthew 25. Matthew 25: 1 “Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 The five who were foolish didn’t take enough olive oil for their l

Sustain (def) - to strengthen or support physically or mentally . Jesus is the sustaining force in our lives, and not just to help us "get by" but to soar as eagles do. Eagles take on storms that scare others, and they use that wind to soar higher and higher. They do not fear the storm, but use that storm to learn to fly in the more difficult storms that come up out of nowhere. There are many lessons that show us how God is the sustaining force in our lives, and they are

I hear of more and more Christians who are questioning their faith in the midst of an ever-changing world. Some are wondering," Is Jesus God?, and is He still at work in His followers' lives? The answer to both questions is yes. Jesus is God, and He is still at work in His followers, but His followers are compelled by Jesus to ask, seek, and knock and never stop doing those three. The writer of Hebrews spoke of Jesus in the following verses in Hebrews 1:1 Long ago God spok

Romans 5: 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. When I think of who would be willing to die for me, it is a short list, or an empty list. To give up your life for someone else would surely mean that person needs to be extra special to you, as they will go on l

As we approach the final lap for Jesus in His journey to the cross, we realize just how faithful He is to follow through. Jesus came into the world to seek and save that which was lost, and the realization and the weight of The effort by Jesus, who was fully God and fully man, is staggering. Staggering, but followed through by Jesus, our faithful Savior. The writer of Hebrews speaks to this point in Hebrews 10:1. The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a d

Are the waves growing stronger in your life? Are you on a tempestuous sea of hurt and heartache? Jesus, our rescuer, is the one who controls those waves and even walks on them in the midst of the storm. All we need to do is step out of the boat and walk to Him and with Him, and He will quiet the storms because He is the God of all comfort. Paul wrote this to the church believers in Corinth, and it helps us today. 2 Corinthians 1: 3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lo

Redeem (def) - gain or regain possession of (something) in exchange for payment. Paul wrote the following to the Christians who lived in Ephesus. Ephesians 1: 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He lavished on us. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and the shedding of His blood bought our freedom from the penalty of our sin. Jesus redeemed us, and all who come to Him in faith rec

There may be times in your life when you have the unexpected happen to you, and your faith is really stretched. I have found that this is the time to bear down in your belief in the Lord and His faithfulness. Great men and women of the faith had to do this on a regular basis because of the persecution they were experiencing as they continued on their faith walk. If you feel distant right now from the Lord, Jesus has not moved!! Jesus is so reliable, and He is the strong t

As I wrote in my last blog, scripture says there were two trees in the middle of the garden. One was the tree of life, and the other the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Because of what Jesus did on the cross, our lives are rooted in Jesus, His salvation, and His wisdom to walk correctly in our faith walk. Today I want to speak to the necessity to follow Jesus' knowledge and apply His wisdom to that knowledge per the Word of God. In John 14, Jesus says something so prof

When we think about eternity in heaven, we think of paradise. My impression is that it is a place much like Eden, and that really encourages me as I live my faith walk. Jesus died on the cross to save me from my sin and reverse the penalty of the original sin of Adam and Eve. In Genesis two the scripture shows us God's intent in Eden and the eternity promised to Adam and Eve, but.... Genesis 2: 8 Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed