Nothing

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 8:38-39

 

The morning sun was just peaking over the horizon as he rolled over.   The first thing he noticed was that he was not in his bedroom.  It took a moment or two for him to recall what had happened and how he had ended up in this place.  His vision was very blurred, and breathing was difficult because a tube was coming from his mouth and taped to his cheek.  Despite his attempts to move his body, he couldn’t.  It’s as if his muscles couldn’t react to his brain's commands.  Through his squinting eyes, he saw the IV bag hanging and tubes connected to his arm, wires connected to his forehead, and a myriad of machines with numbers, making beeping sounds.  He noticed that his chest and abdomen were wrapped in white bandages, and there was a large circle of red and black right in the center of the bandages.  Suddenly, his mind began recalling what happened.  As the memories began to fill his mind from the night before, a pain overtook him, and he felt himself drifting back into a state of unconsciousness.

His mind did not stop, though.  He felt as if he were floating above his physical body and looking down upon himself.  He saw the hospital bed, the equipment and monitors, the blood-stained bandages, and his mother in the corner crying.  Then his eyes were captured by the tattoos covering his arms and shoulders.  The naked nymph that he had gotten in Mexico, the skull and crossbones, the knife blade dripping blood, the snake wrapping around the shoulder, the tattoo of the gun and bullet entering through the eye of a child.  The tattoos caused his mind to roll through his life history.  Small glimpses from his youth through today began to fill his vision in his unconscious state.  The life of partying, drugs, and violence; the people he had hurt, the pain he had caused others, all began to be revealed to him.  He saw all the women he had used and abused.  He saw the children now addicted to crack cocaine because he sold them their first joint.  He saw his mother’s tears as he slapped her and slammed his bedroom door in her face when he was just a boy himself.  He saw his dad taking his own life in their bathroom at home.  Then he saw himself as a small boy playing baseball and riding his new bicycle after school.  He saw his best friend, and he was laughing and playing with Hot Wheels and GI Joes.  The sky was blue, the sun was bright, and the grass was green as he saw himself learning how to ride a tricycle.

Suddenly, his eyes moved to the machine in the corner the beeps were slowing and the line had very few bars on the screen.  Something was happening as he looked at his body in that bed.  His chest was barely rising and falling any longer.  A bright flash of light and he was back in his dream like state.  He saw himself as a twelve year old boy walking down the aisle in church.  He recalled the large cross with Jesus hanging at the front of the sanctuary as he made his way down the long aisle toward the minister standing by his dad’s coffin.  As he touched the hard cold wood, he felt a hand on his shoulder.  Looking up it was Jesus Christ looking down into his eyes, with more love than he had ever felt before.  He said four simple words, “I’ll always love you.” 

A blur flashed before the man’s eyes and he was now standing in the same church, except the church was empty, dark and cold.  His eyes lifted to see the cross on the wall, Christ hanging there still.  In his vision, the man began weeping bitterly at the choices he had made in life since the last time he knelt on these steps.  Then a hand was on his shoulder and looking up, Christ stood before him, looking down upon him with incredible love.  “I’ll always love you.”, He whispered.  The man raised his arms showing his tattoos and scars from the needles and from the time he tried to take his life.  “But Jesus you don’t understand the things I’ve done, and people I’ve hurt”, the man cried out.  “I LOVE YOU.”, Jesus replied.  “No.  I raped that girl and I stole that woman’s purse.  I was in prison for shooting that kid in a fight.  I robbed the liquor store and beat that old man.  I haven’t stepped foot in this church in 20 years.”, the man argued back.  “I LOVE YOU.”, Jesus replied, and then raised the man to his feet and embraced him.  The man saw his own arms as Jesus lifted him and they were wiped clean, the tattoos were gone as was the bandages. 

“Nothing you do can separate you from Me and My love for you.”, Jesus said as He placed a kiss upon the man’s forehead.  He was swept away through the blurry darkness back to the hospital room and then total darkness.  His eyes opened once again, blurry looking up at the ceiling and the tubes and wires coming from his body.  Shifting his eyes to the side, he saw the monitors and the line was normal once again.  There were two doctors saying he’s stable now.  He saw his mother standing by his bed.  Her hand touching his face as tears flowed from her eyes, she smiled and said, “Welcome back.  We thought we lost you.”

---------------------------

You may feel that you have done terrible things in your life up to this point.  I want you to know that despite those choices, those actions, God’s love for you has never changed.  He loved you when you were born just as much as He loves you now.  His love is unchanging and just when you think you’re beyond His grace, He will lift you up, clean off the past and carry you forward to a new day.  Perhaps today is that day for you to receive His offering of grace and love.  If so, please pray this prayer with me, and invite Jesus into your heart as your Lord and Savior today.


Prayer:
Heavenly Father,
I come before you this day as a sinner.  I ask Your forgiveness for my sinful ways and I turn away from that life.  I lay my sins at Your feet and acknowledge that You are my salvation.  I accept Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord of my life.  I recognize that He lived, He died and He rose again on the 3^rd day, to take away my sins and by His blood my sins are washed clean.  I give my life to You to use and bring glory and honor to You in all that I do.  Transform me from my sinful ways and cover me with Your grace forever more.  Thank You for dying for me to receive eternal life with You one day.  Amen 

If you prayed this prayer, I believe you are born again as a new creation in Jesus Christ.  Please seek out and join a church in your local community to continue your growth as a child of God Almighty.






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Managing Your Time

“ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” – James 4:14

What are you doing this weekend?  Going to the beach, taking Mom out for a nice dinner (don’t forget Mother’s day is Sunday), going to the kids soccer game, mowing the lawn, working, studying for finals or just relaxing with a good book.  These are typical answers you might get if you went out onto the street today and asked this question to random people passing by.  All of us have plans for tomorrow, the next day and even out through the next few weeks.  Some plan a year in advance or multiple years in advance when big things are coming on the horizon.  Yet, few of us will acknowledge the fact that we truly don’t control any of it.  We can lay out plans and even put them into our day-timer, but what happens when something unexpected happens. 

You plan a weekend birthday party at the park, invite 20 kids, hire a clown and setup a bouncy house and even pony rides.  Everything is ready and the excitement is building.  Your 5 year old is thrilled out of her mind to have such an awesome party.  You wake up on Saturday morning to a heavy fog.  By 9 AM it has turned to a light mist and the clouds are getting darker.  The wind is getting more fierce and the heavy rain starts around 10:30 just as you were planning to head to the park.  Gail force winds begin to blow, trees are actually falling in the front yard and one falls right across the drive way, blocking your ability to leave.  Your child comes bounding down the stairs, dressed in her favorite party dress.  What are you going to say to her? 

This is an extreme, of course, but a demonstration that we are not in control.  As organized, scheduled and dedicated we are to making sure that things run smoothly in our life, it truly is something we manage, not something we control.  In all of time, the 90 to 120 years you spend on this planet are but a blip on the radar.  I use this analogy.  Stretch a rope from Houston, Texas to the moon and back again.  As you look down at the beginning end of the rope you see an ant crawling from the dirt onto the rope.  The length of that ant’s body represents the amount of time you are alive on this earth.  The rest of the length of rope represents the amount of time you will spend in eternity – either hell or heaven. 

You see the comparison?  We focus so much on our time here, when in reality it is nothing compared to our time in the here-after.  We should be living every moment of every day on this earth focusing on where we are going, rather than where we are.  This means reaching the world for God and enhancing His Kingdom on this earth through our actions and spreading His love, peace, mercy and grace.  We know the things that God asks, yet we choose not to do these things, because we are focused on our plans and not His.  Face it, we allow our schedule to determine our ability to do the will of God.  In essence we are putting Him second or third in our priority list in life, except on Sunday mornings – right?  God’s rightful place is at the top of the list and if we indeed planned our day, week, month and year around His plan first and then our plan, don’t you believe your life would be very different than it is today?  Think this through today, and ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing with your time.

ACTION: 86,400 seconds in a day.  That’s all you get.  How many will you give to God’s work? Even if you followed the biblical principal of tithing you would give 2 hrs and 24 mins (8,620 seconds) to God.  Are you?  Will you?  Could you squeeze Him in there each day somehow?  If not, what is more important in your daily schedule than God?  Perhaps that is the problem.






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Is Anyone There?

“But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.” – Micah 7:7

There are times when I look at my son and ask myself if indeed he is deaf.  He will be playing with his phone or Xbox, when his mother or I ask him to do something.  He doesn’t move or even acknowledge our comment.  He’s so into his game that our voices simply become background noise.  It’s not that he’s ignoring us, or doesn’t hear us, but he is intent on where he is and what he is doing.  The opposite is just as true though.  There are times when I am on the phone and he will come up to me and ask me a simple question or want to tell me something that he has accomplished.  If the call happens to be a business related conversation, my initial reaction is to double my focus on the phone call at hand rather than the request from my son.

How many times do you lift your prayers to God the Father and feel that He is just not hearing you?  There are times when I am pleading with the Lord for an answer to something in my life, and it seems as though the phone is off the hook and He’s just not hearing me.  It couldn’t be farther from the truth though.  God hears every word that comes from my mouth, my mind and my heart.  He knows it before I have said it.  My pain, my anguish, my disappointment and my joy are all known to God without me uttering a single word.  For you see God is omniscient (all-knowing).  This is not something we can grasp, but it is something we must be able to trust.

There are times when for one reason or another God, in His glory and sovereignty chooses to allow us to struggle despite our cries for help.  In these times we have the opportunity to draw closer to God, rely even more on Him and come to realize just how much we need Him in this life.  God, if He so chooses, could answer every prayer, every request with the answer we want to hear.  In doing so though, we find ourselves directing the path of our life.  This is contradictory to what God is looking for.  He wants us to give up our plan and follow His plan for life.  We have no ability to see the complete impact of the things we ask for in prayer.  There are times when we want God to solve a problem for us, but in doing so it may cause other problems or other circumstances as a chain reaction.  God sees the whole picture.  From the day of conception to the day of resurrection to our eternal life with Him in heaven, He sees the entire spectrum.  We look at life one day at a time, perhaps a week or a month at a time in our day planner, while He looks at our earthly life as a small spec on the eternal life He has planned for us.

When you are in the quiet period and it seems as though God has placed you in time out, you need to step back and realize that He is God and He knows all things.  He hears your cry and understands your situation more than even you do.  We must have faith that He will work it out in due time to His plan not to ours.  The closer we are too God, the more aligned these paths become.  We must remain focused on the end game and less on the day to day worries.  Jesus Christ will return and in that day all of our prayers will be answered.  Life will be new and God will be glorified in heaven and on earth.

I strongly recommend this Michael W. Smith song: Agnus Dei
“Alleluia, Alleluia – for the Lord God Almighty Reigns
Alleluia – Holy, Holy – Are You Lord God Almighty
Worthy is the Lamb, Worthy is the Lamb
You are Holy.”


Prayer:
Heavenly Father,
You are our King and our Lord.  Through You all things come to pass and all things work for Your good.  We lift up our worries, concerns and transgressions to You to feel Your grace upon our heart.  Thank You for Your mercy and Your love through all of my struggles.  I trust in You and I believe that You will see me through the valley’s of my life. Praise be to You in all things.  In Your name we pray – Amen



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Looking into the Crystal Ball

“Through the offspring the LORD gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.”  So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son” – Ruth 4:12-13

Throughout time God has been involved in the little things of romance and love.  If you have experienced love in your life, consider where God’s hand has been in it?  What brought the two of you together?  I look at my own love story and see the patience of the Lord in it.  I first met my wife after a high school dance.  She was the date of my best friend (Paul) and after the dance a group of us went to a local restaurant for cokes and to hang out.  During that event, Lisa spilled an entire coke down the front of my only suit.  Unbelievably apologetic she and I had our first real conversation, after all she was there with Paul.

Our second encounter came during a Volleyball game.  My girlfriend was on the high school team, and they were playing at another school about 30 minutes from our home town.  I called up Paul to go with me.  He showed up and Lisa was with him, so I piled into the back seat.  We made it to the game late and had missed the first set of the match, in which my girlfriend was playing.  She didn’t play in the second set, and as the third set was beginning I watched as she took the floor with her team.  Just then Paul leaned down and whispered in my ear, “We gotta leave, Lisa has a curfew of 9 o’clock and she can’t be late.”  Seriously?  I’m just about to watch my girlfriend play volleyball and we have to leave because his girlfriend has a curfew.  Imagine the look I got from my girlfriend as she watched me and my best friend walk out of the gymnasium that night.

Skip ahead 2 years.  Paul swings by to hang out on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in June, 1985.  We hop in his car and cruise through town a few times listening to Credence Clearwater Revival and the Beachboys cassette tapes, when he pulls into Lisa’s driveway.  I give him a curious look, “What’s up?” He and Lisa hadn’t been dating for a few years, but had remained friends all along.  “I just want to stop in and say hi.  No big deal.”   Well, he was my ride and I had nothing better going on that day.  We went inside and exchanged hello’s with Lisa and her friend, before they proceeded down the hall, leaving Paul and I sitting at the kitchen table drinking Mountain Dew.  When they came out, you could say the rest is history.  Lisa was stunning when she came back down the hallway.  Paul recommended we all pile in his car and hang out for the day. 

From that night; June 29, 1985, Lisa and I have been together.  We were married 2 years later, and God has blessed us with 5 incredible children, two awesome sons-in-law and 5 beautiful grand children over the last 34 years.  Did God have all of this in mind when Lisa spilled coke on my new suit after that Christmas dance in 1982?  Does Paul realize that he was part of God’s incredible plan of creating this wonderful family who live for the Lord? 

God’s hand was definitely in the marriage of Boaz and Ruth.  Ruth was born a Moabite, a natural enemy to the Israelites of that time.  She married into the Israeli family of Naomi.  An accident took the lives of her husband, as well as her Father-in-law (Naomi’s husband).  This left Naomi and Ruth widows together.  Tragic as this was, God had a plan.  Because she was not Israeli, Ruth was not obligated to remain with Naomi.  She chose to though, out of love and compassion for this woman who had become like a mother to her.  Ruth traveled with Naomi back to Bethlehem, her home-town.  There, through the work of God’s hand and Namoi’s persuasion Ruth meets Boaz.  In due time they receive the blessing to be married and God’s plan begins to take shape.  For you see, from this couple came a son named Obed.  In Matthew 1 and in Luke 3 we see the following lineage laid out for us: “Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.”

From a Moabite woman, widowed at a young age, with a heart and compassion for serving the needs of her mother-in-law; God brought forth the grand-father of King David.  From King David we are unbelievably blessed as a people who serve God the Father.  Through his lineage came the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and our eternal salvation.  As a widow, she felt lost and alone and needed the companionship of Naomi.  As a mother, she set in motion the events that would forever change the world.  All unbeknownst to her, but all within the Sovereign planning of the Lord.  As you look at the one you love today, realize that God brought you together for a purpose to change the world.  You may not ever live to see the result, but great things will happen for those that are within His will.

 

Prayer:
Heavenly Father,
We do not always see Your ways unfold before us.  We are blind by emotions and feelings that cloud our perspective.  Yet in the midst of our confusion and chaos or emotion, Your finger is at work.  You bring two people together for Your purpose and change the world, because it is within Your will to do so.  Bless us in our relationships and bless the Mothers as they raise strong Godly children in today’s world.  In Your name we pray – Amen

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Fighting for Freedom

Read It, Learn It, Live It, Share It with your friends

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”  – Galatians 5:1

What than are you doing with this freedom?  We look around ourselves and claim that we are free from slavery and the bondage of being controlled by another, but are you really convinced that this is true?  There is no doubt that we enjoy freedom’s in this life that were not available to our ancestors, but the opposite is also true.  We are led to believe that we are free to do what we want, say what we want, act the way we want and live the way we want as long as we do not hurt others in doing so.  If

you ask most people on the street, they would say they are completely free to choose their path in life.  I would agree with them, by this world’s terminology we experience freedom in the eyes of those around us, based on our actions and words.  But, having said this, you must also then agree that in this societal freedom we have allowed ourselves to become enslaved by the world’s desires and thereby relinquished the freedom that was given to us through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.

Before the internet era, the digital era, or the communication era we were a society built on trust, integrity and the good of all mankind.  We have become a society focused on self interests, open tolerance and blurred priorities as we claim more freedom.  We have lowered our standards to the least common denominator and accept it as freedom of choice.  The boundaries of truth and justice have become so weak that freedom has no real meaning any longer.  What are you free from?  Yes, we are free from the control of other individuals on your choices in life, but where is that in line with the freedom that God promises in His word.

Let’s reflect for a moment on the quality of a person’s spiritual life in today’s society verse the quality of spiritual life in say 1959.  Sixty years have passed by, and based on man’s freedom of choice and tolerance: homosexuality is at an all-time high, pornography is rampant throughout all forms of media, abortions are commonplace, divorce is no longer the last resort, but has become one of the first options when strife enters a marriage, violent crimes and hate crimes are on the rise, respect for one's elders has become a thing of the past and the most harmful of all – those that claim Jesus Christ as the One and only way to eternal life have decreased  dramatically.  As we claim our freedom from the control of others we have also separated ourselves from the control of the Father.

Christ’s death on the cross was to provide you spiritual freedom from this world.  To give you the strength, a purpose and meaning beyond the evil that exists in life.  The freedom of knowing that there is One greater than this world, greater than the evil that tempts us daily to succumb to the freedom of self-centeredness.  The addictions we suffer when we are bound by societies open tolerance are actually enslaving us from experiencing the love, grace, and freedom promised by God alone.  You cannot have both the truth of God and the tolerance lauded by this world.  There is a benchmark that we are to be held accountable too, and it is not the least common denominator of tolerating everything and everyone’s choices in life.  The benchmark is the life of Jesus Christ, and the righteousness that is granted through His death.  Strive for truth, resist the tolerance that society has claimed as freedom of choice, for it is not free at all in the end when justice will reign from above.  Every choice, every decision has an impact on the eternal soul of each of us.  You should seek the freedom from this world’s control and fully embrace the freedom found in allowing God to control your choices.

Here Comes the Judge

"For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” – Matthew 7:2
In this society we are all fixated on a live and let live mentality.  If another person’s actions do not directly impact me, no harm.  This feeling of tolerance has engrained in our thinking that we are not to challenge someone on their actions.  The word teaches us not to judge others, for we will also be judged (Matthew 7:1; Luke 6:37; Romans 14:10), but it is important that we look below the words on the page and understand the meaning in the usage of the words.

The word judge is one of those words that has so many definitions it can be confusing to the context by which it is used.  There are at least 15 different definitions for the single word judge.  From the Greek word, krino, we are led to multiple definitions as well which range from decision, discernment, to approve, to call into question, to rule or govern, to be of opinion and to separate as in judgment.  We are often times quick to jump to the final 3 definitions when we feel others are condemning our actions.  Yet there are several instances in the scriptures where it actually calls Christians to judge one another with grace and love to help each other on the path of righteousness.

In this way we are not judging for salvation’s sake, or in an attempt to replace God’s judgment on mankind.  The Bible is clear that God the Father, and His Son, are the only rightful judge of man’s eternal destination.  We are not to apply judgment on one another’s eternity, for we have not authority in doing so.  This does not mean though that we are not to apply discernment in others actions, and form opinions on the righteousness of others actions according to His Word.  It is not within our place to chastise, correct or condemn another’s actions, but I believe it is certainly appropriate to confront someone when necessary.

In this manner the Bible is also clear.  In Matthew 7:3-5, we find Jesus explaining to us that we are not in a position to confront another in any specific area of unrighteousness if we likewise are guilty in this same area.  We must look within ourselves, and be under self-control before we can effectively help a brother or sister through their struggles.  The Holy Spirit will act, within each of us, as judge on the righteousness of our own behavior.  As a part of God the Father, He has the full authority to do this.  You know right from wrong inherently, not just because the law tells you so.  This self awareness of your righteous behavior is your own methodology of judging yourself.  You need to be aware of your unrighteous behavior and deal with that in resolving it between you and God.  Then, and only then do you have the right to bring forth an opinion on other’s in this area. 

Tolerance in today’s world has become the norm, but it is not Biblical.  We are called to abide in Him and help one another.  Providing guidance and advice to another must be done cautiously with the love and grace of the Father, not with condemnation.  The intent should be to help them become stronger followers of Jesus Christ and in doing so strengthen the overall Kingdom.  There is a delicate line between providing loving support and advice and chastising condemnation.  I strongly suggest that you are fully within God’s direction and leadership when you choose to confront another individual on a situation.  The Word of the Lord is your strength and must be used as the checks and balance during these encounters.

Walk with the Lord and learn to apply loving advice to His children, as you would to your own.

Prayer:
Father Almighty,
Thank You for Your Word.  Thank You that it might live within our hearts and minds, and that it may become alive through us.  Help us to be discerning in this world of ours and to stand up for the truth we find in Your Word.  Strengthen us, oh Lord, to overcome our unrighteousness that we might in turn be used by You for helping others.  Give us Your peace and understanding to deal with the backlash from society when we have offended.  We seek Your glory and give all honor to You.  In Your name we pray – Amen


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Heaven or Hell – You Choose?

“Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth” – 2 Timothy 2:25

It has been said that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” but I am going to change on of those words and state, “Truth is in the eye of the beholder.”  Some research (The Bible Society) indicates that over 6 Billion copies of the Holy Bible have been sold since 1816, and that was when their study was completed in the 1990’s.  This doesn’t include any instances of online bibles or software bibles that have been purchased.  As two people on different sides of the world read the bible in their native language are they discovering the same truth that is intended to be revealed?

Imagine you came upon a railroad crossing. The gate came down just as you come up to the tracks.  Stopping before the gate you looked to see the lights of the train in the distance, approaching at a relatively slow state.  As it proceeded through the intersection, the rumbling and wind could be felt, even though it was going so slow.  All of you in the car start counting the number of train cars that passed through the intersection.  Some in the car were bored with the counting and after 35 or so dropped off, but your daughter and you keep counting to yourselves quietly as the train seemed to go on forever.  As the last car was pulled through the intersection, she blurts out 114 cars – to which you answer “No, 112 cars”.  Both of you just observed the exact same train pass by less than 15 feet in front of you, yet come away with different answers.  Both undoubtedly believe your answer to be the correct one.  After all, both had carefully counted every single car that passed by.  Each thought carefully, avoided distractions and stuck with it, only to end with different results.

People are reading the same bible today, cover to cover, and walking away with different conclusions.  Each believing without a doubt that their opinion is the truth and that the others must be wrong.  We attempt to avoid distractions and focus on learning from God, yet still in many cases our answers are wrong.  Nothing in the Bible is wrong.  I believe it to be the Holy inspired word of God laid down on paper and printed for me to use as a tool to learn from and draw closer to Him.  Others look at the same book and think it is a history book, a fairy tale and a nice read.  Some look at the Holy Bible as a set of rules for those that lived thousands of years ago and irrelevant in today’s world.  Then there are those that believe it is a door stop, or nothing more than another book in their library right next to the Quran, The Book of Mormon, Bhagavad-Gita, Jonathon Livingston Seagull and books on spells and incantations.  Everyone has an opinion on what is written upon the pages of the Holy Bible and those opinions differ significantly from person to person.

One truth I draw from the Bible is that God’s love is available to everyone.  It is not restricted or hidden away from some, but freely given for all men to partake in.  Yet there are those who vehemently despise this love and what it stands for and without reserve seek out the opportunities to destroy the belief in this God of love.  The question must then be asked, does God love those who hate and despise Him, as much as He loves those who love Him in return?  I can only answer this in the manner by which I have learned from His scriptures, (2 Peter 3:9); “…He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance”. 

Jesus Christ came and took the sins of ALL mankind upon the cross and to the grave.  This alone tells us that every single soul, every single person ever born has the ability to choose Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, despite their unrighteousness and hateful acts.  Those who do not believe in the Bible, or Jesus Christ are given this same opportunity, but refuse it to be the truth.  In doing so, have set their path for eternal separation from God the Father.  There is evil in this world and those that conduct themselves in evil have chosen to remain blind to the truth revealed in God’s scriptures.  They have chosen to pursue other means by which to achieve eternal life rather than believing in the Word of God as that truth.  These are people that we should be praying for.  Pray that God might remove the scales from their eyes, just as He did with Saul on the road to Damascus.  Join me today in lifting up the lost in this world, that they should find Jesus Christ before their time has drawn to a close.

Prayer:
Heavenly Father,
We lift up the lost and broken to You today.  We ask that Your hand of salvation be upon their heart and that Your wisdom be placed within their mind so that they might come to know You in a personal way.  Pour out Your love upon this world in a manner which exemplifies Your greatness amongst all of the universe and Your glory for all to see.  You are our Lord and Savior and in You only, do we trust for our eternal salvation.  In Your name we pray – Amen.





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