New Years Resolutions ...

New Years resolutions: "If you don't write them down you won't do them"!

"No... If you don't do them you won't do them".   lol... 

My New Years resolutions are many. And since I'm depending on The Lord to see me through them according to His will, it is within my closet in prayer, that I hope to find the grace from God to help me see them through.  

In Jesus' Name. 

Peace in 2016

The Gospel Of Jesus Christ in 2016..

May the Gospel continue to go forth in 2016 throughout the whole world, as is the will of God.   Here is the Gospel (as borrowed by a brethren in the Lord on FB).

Many resolutions will be made tonight; most will be unfulfilled. Praying the Lord will change hearts for eternity, as He is the only everlasting hope for mankind. May the gospel of Jesus Christ and the salvation He offers to those who repent and trust in Him go forth tonight.

What Is The Gospel?

(Adapted from The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever, p. 43)

The gospel is the good news about what Jesus Christ has done to reconcile sinners to God. Here’s the whole story:

The one and only God, who is holy, made us in his image to know him (Gen. 1:26-28).

But we sinned and cut ourselves off from him (Gen. 3; Rom. 3:23).

In his great love, God sent his Son Jesus to come as king and rescue his people from their enemies—most significantly their own sin (Ps. 2; Luke 1:67-79).

Jesus established his kingdom by acting as both a mediating priest and a priestly sacrifice—he live a perfect life and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law himself and taking on himself the punishment for the sins of many (Mark 10:45; John 1:14; Heb. 7:26; Rom. 3:21-26, 5:12-21); then he rose again from the dead, showing that God accepted his sacrifice and that God’s wrath against us had been exhausted (Acts 2:24, Rom. 4:25).

He now calls us to repent of our sins and trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness (Acts 17:30, John 1:12). If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, we are born again into a new life, an eternal life with God (John 3:16).

Now that’s good news.

A good way to summarize this good news is to biblically unpack the words God, Man, Christ, Response.

God. God is the creator of all things (Gen. 1:1). He is perfectly holy, worthy of all worship, and will punish sin (1 John 1:5, Rev. 4:11, Rom. 2:5-8).

Man. All people, though created good, have become sinful by nature (Gen. 1:26-28, Ps. 51:5, Rom. 3:23). From birth, all people are alienated from God, hostile to God, and subject to the wrath of God (Eph. 2:1-3).

Christ. Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man, lived a sinless life, died on the cross to bear God’s wrath in the place of all who would believe in him, and rose from the grave in order to give his people eternal life (John 1:1, 1 Tim. 2:5, Heb. 7:26, Rom. 3:21-26, 2 Cor. 5:21, 1 Cor. 15:20-22).

Response. God calls everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and trust in Christ in order to be saved (Mark 1:15, Acts 20:21, Rom. 10:9-10).

THE WORD FOR TODAY- 1 John Chapt. 5

THE WORD FOR TODAY:

1 JOHN 5:

-Jesus has overcome the world and thus YOU can overcome the world also.
-Jesus is The Son of GOD
-Assurance of Salvation
-The Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit


Overcoming the World


Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

Jesus is the Son of God

If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.


Purpose and Concluding Remarks


These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.

If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.
We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.

Secularism = Death...

Why would anyone raised knowing that there are immediate and eternal consequences to their actions damn themselves if not because they have an ideology void of these fears?

Ugly ideologies that depletes the heart and mind of guilt, fear, self respect, judgment and eternal consequences.  

When they're taught and convinced that there are NO inherent consequences either while they live nor after they die, ... what is there to lose??

If the most they can fear is 3 hot meals a day, shelter, a bed, at other people's expense, and sharing a prison life with people just like them is all they'll have to endure... what's to stop anyone from committing evil acts w/in a community that already doesn't know or care whether they exist??  

There is something to our outlaw-renegade, violent and narcissistic culture mixed w/ the new secularist ideology that teaches that there is no higher accountability and  creates the type of things that plague our nation in these mass shooting - murder/suicides.  

While we see the degrading of our historical Christian principles, we also see the increase of a higher depravity.


This is what is happening in our culture.  The separation of God from our consciousness early on in our lives creates this Frankenstein monster within our society. 


It's NOT the increase of Guns in our homes but the increase of guns in our hearts that is the problem.  If we keep our guns where they belong - stored away safely, but get them out of our music, movies and entertainment, we're surely not to create that angry, lustful and selfish ogre we're seeing more and more these days. 


But it starts very early on w/in the conscience of every individual. 


Many will say, "Why do you have to feed people religion in order to teach and foster responsibility and a moral conscience"??...

Well, as we know most people won't turn into that ogre and will actually learn respect for humanity, their neighbors, etc.
because it's common sense and the moral understanding floats around separate from its original source of origin to people's benefit when practiced.  


But the increase of these terrible cases only demonstrates that teaching and knowing "why" these principles are needed is of utmost importance.  


And just singing kumbaya and playing John Lennon songs won't do it.  

An army of Mother Theresas and Ghandis won't either! 

Bottom line, people need to know and truly believe in what they're being taught and why.  There has to be a foundation to any belief system, and if you can plug a hole into it, it can all come tumbling down and create a void.  


People need the Truth.


But today, instead of using a Biblical template for morality, justice, education, responsibility and service we're using a template that isn't grounded on anything other than man's lustful impulses of greed, anger, laziness, fornication, self gratification and pride, etc.  

If there isn't something to harness those already ugly impulses that exist in every human being, then they're free to grow and increase to the peril of any community.


So how can we question the occurrences of these things happening within our culture??


Naturally, where a culture rejects those former principles, they become even more aggressive in the pull away from it, and its results all the more extreme. 


Yet we see more and more that where Godly principles have been attacked the most is within our schools and within our families. Keeping our children from learning God's moral laws as absolute, pushing secularism further into philosophy in the universities, and even accountability within our courthouses and government.

It's a recipe for disaster. 
Thus, look at us now.   


To top it off, depravity then hides the smoking gun behind its back, and denies the true cause of the problem.  It tries to deny the obvious by relying on flawed statistics that enters "lies in, and gets more lies coming out".   Just like Romans Chapt. 1 speaks about the "suppressing of Truth", denial sets in.


As always, certain extreme political elements of the media want to divert the attention of the real problem we're having in our country by desperately grabbing at straws, and point the blame somewhere else.   The recent mass shooting at a SC abortuary, was blamed on a man who they're trying to call a "Christian terrorist".  It's embarrassing for them because it demonstrates how desperate they are at trying to take the attention away from the mass murders that take place every within those abortuaries by blaming the event on a religious ideology that almost doesn't exist anymore.  A religious ideology that #1, hasn't been seen since perhaps the Crusades of the Catholic faith, and #2, can never be (by definition nor actions) "Christian".   

Christianity is defined by a standard set apart by Jesus Christ Himself, and if you don't meet His standard (clearly seen in the Bible), it's utter foolishness to define it as Christian.  

In fact, the term, "Christian terrorism" is an oxy moron unless of coarse, you're referring to the "terrorizing the EVIL out of someone to pure love and forgiveness".... 

He he he.... But that's definitely not what the God haters are referring to.  :)


The man in that recent case, was known to have a huge criminal record, was not registered as a conservative/ Republican, and had no affiliation to the Pro-Life cause. 

But of coarse, God haters waste themselves in their efforts to commit the sin of baring false witness on God's people, and for that - they'll have their reward. 




 
How further down hill can we go before we recognize, there's no going back up??


We pray for our country and that God raise REAL leaders with personal conviction to get us going in the right direction before it's ultimately, too late.  

 "But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death."
 - Proverbs 8:36