A Lazy Christian

Greetings My Friends;
Just a few comments about being a lazy Christian. I am writing about me, and not judging someone else. You may recognize a little of yourself. Dare to face the truth if you do.
For the last number of years, I have had some occasions when I was feeling like I was not a very good Christian. I felt condemned, and useless, and was convinced that there was no way, God could use me.
I followed the old tried and true words to rebuke satan. I didn't have very much success. I prayed and felt better, but it didn't last. I would be tormented for days at a time.
One day I felt like I got an answer in my heart. satan didn't have to condemn me, I was doing it to myself. I was listening to his lies about my faith. He was telling me that I don't measure up to what a real Christian is. He was telling me that whatever I did, really didn't matter much. I was wasting my time.
The truth, as I discovered later, was quite different. He was causing my lazy streak to exercise itself by planting all that negativity. He knows that if you get a little lazy about your faith, he has a chance to bring you down the rest of the way. Remember as I did finally, he can only do what you allow him to do.
I believe one of his favorite tools, is to try to plant doubt about prayers that have not manifested yet. Once he can convince you of that, he invites you to a pity party with you as guest of honor. While this is going on, you get even lazier about your faith, and sink deeper.
I have been there. Praise the Lord, the Holy Spirit told me to read the Word. It seems that as soon as I opened that precious book, peace came over me like an impenetrable blanket. Nothing could touch me except the word of God.
I was reminded of a couple of things. God does not see things the way we do. He sees our hearts and forgives. The other thing is, God says we are not to judge anyone. That my friends, includes judging ourselves. We are to do what we know to be right, and leave the results to Him.
Now, any time I feel any negativity, I pick up the word, and soak in the peace. If you have trouble rebuking satan, remember, just read the word. He will run in terror.
Be in peace my friends.
Remember Jesus Loves You
Yahweh bless you and keep you
Yahweh causes face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you
Yahweh lift up his face onto you and appoint unto you peace.

Look To Jesus

Greetings My Friends;
Have you ever really noticed what you are bombarded with on TV or in junk mail?
Commercials are telling you about all types of miracle solutions to problems you didn't even know you had. It kind of reminds me of stories about the old snake oil peddlers from years ago.
Advertisers prey on people's problems. If no problem exists, they will create one in your mind. One product will take care of a memory problem you didn't even know you had until  they told you that you had one. Improve your eyesight, sleep better, cure all your ailments, etc.
It seems a favorite target is the people who are overweight. A number of companies peddle what amounts to a magic bullet. Take their pills and lose as much weight as you want. You don't even have to change your lifestyle.
As with all of the sure cures, the only thing that gets better is the company's bottom line. A few people do get better in their own minds, because they believe the product works, and that eliminates the fear that caused the problem in the first place.
Well my friends, I am here to tell you about a real cure for any problem you have. It won't even cost you a penny. That solution is Jesus Christ. You see, God created you absolutely perfect in every way. satan messed everything up, when he caused Adam and Eve to sin.
God was not very happy where that left man, so He sent His only son to make everything right again. Jesus paid a heavy price to redeem us. He suffered, died and rose again in order to make us right with God.
Many of us don't realize what that meant to us. Through Jesus suffering and death, we again became what God created us to be. However, satan still operates in this world. He is trying to sell you things that he says will solve all your problems. The cost for what he sells is eternal damnation.
Jesus on the other hand can and will take care of all your problems. The cost? Believe and trust in Him. Besides receiving all He has for you, He also includes eternal life.
Jesus Christ is the real deal. Don't fall for a cheap imitation. It is your choice, how you live, and where you spend eternity.
Remember Jesus Loves You
Yahweh bless you and keep you
Yahweh cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you
Yahweh lift up His face up to you, and appoint unto you peace.

Treasure In Heaven

Greetings My Friends;
In Matthew 6:19 – 24 it tells us about storing treasure in heaven rather than on Earth. These verses are like many others in the Bible. When you see them you really have to think about them. If you meditate on them, the truth will come out.
In that same set of verses it tells you that you cannot serve two masters, God and money. Where your riches are so will your heart be.
A typical meditation might be like the following. It is written in Matthew 19:24 Jesus speaking "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God".
In pursuing wealth, almost without exception you must dedicate your life to it. God and family are usually left in the shadows. Wealth by itself is subject to laws of one kind or another. Wealth gives you no peace, because you worry about keeping it, or making more. It does not fill the emptiness you feel in your heart. What it usually costs you is eternal life when you die, your family while you are alive, and a life without peace.
This subject is so much bigger than a page or two, and requires someone much more knowledgeable than me. Read Ecclesiastes to get a much better picture of what I am trying to say.
Let's go on with the treasures in heaven part. The treasures naturally start with being there. When you pursue the kingdom of God first, with all your heart, you will be there.
As far as the other treasures you store in heaven, here are some of what I think they are. Love for your fellow man: feed the hungry, help the poor , pray for the sick, the generous to those in need, witness for Jesus. Any and all unselfish acts on your part add to the treasure pile.
Kind, thoughtful acts toward another person, also add to the pile. To put it in its simplest terms, love the Lord with all your heart, and follow and do what Jesus taught us to do to the best of your ability.
You may fall short a number of times, but unlike treasure on earth, treasure in heaven will not diminish because you made a mistake. On earth value can drop, but in the Lord's kingdom, his exchange rate never goes down.
When you dedicate your life to piling up treasure in heaven, you are also serving God. You are a rich man, that does enter the kingdom of heaven.
Remember Jesus Loves You
Yahweh bless you and keep you
Yahweh cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you
Yahweh lift up his face unto you, and appoint unto you peace.

What Bible Heroes Did

Greetings My Friends;
Many of us condemn ourselves at one time or another. In spite of being under grace, our thinking sometimes reverts to the law. We feel guilty about all kinds of things. Sometimes we create more serious problems, just because we worry so much. Worry blocks prayer, and causes even more doubt and condemnation that we put on ourselves.
I believe that God is grieved by these actions. He gave us His son for our forgiveness. When we carry on the way I just described, it is like telling God that we don't trust Him, and it makes it look like what Jesus did had no value. Time to rethink and trust.
Old Testament heroes had all sorts of problems. Being under the law didn't help them very much. When we look at some of the things they did, and were forgiven for, we should realize even more  how blessed we are being under grace. I name a few of the problems they had, as an illustration,and is not as a condemnation of them.
Abraham was a liar, and had a child with Hagar because he didn't trust God completely.
Isaac was a deceiver and a cheat.
Jacob was a deceiver and a cheat.
Moses was a murderer.
David was an adulterer and a murderer.
Solomon allowed idols in spite of what God said.
They were quite a group, but God did look at them with carnal eyes. They paid for their sins, and God forgave them. If you get technical about it, if they went by God's standards of sin, they were probably pretty horrible.
If we look at ourselves, we are probably as guilty or worse than they were. We however are under grace not the law. Jesus died and rose again to forgive all our sins and make salvation possible. In many ways, we have a real advantage over them, because after Jesus, we became a lot more aware of God.
Grace is not a license to sin, but a reflection of God's love for us. Treasure it, and make praise and thanksgiving, a big part of your life.
Remember Jesus Loves You
Yahweh bless the and keep thee
Yahweh causes face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee
Yahweh lift up his face unto thee, and appoint unto thee peace.

Stretch Your Faith

Greetings My Friends;
Faith is quite a subject to meditate on. Let's look at a couple of ways people deal with it.
Quite a few people will tell you that they don't have faith. These same people will worry about every little thing. They will tell you that they don't know how to meditate.
As you probably noticed by now, worry is negative meditation. Being so sure everything will go wrong, is faith in the negative. Same effort, different results.
As usual I have a theory. This concerns negative faith. It is much easier in many people's minds to have no faith. You don't have to read and trust the word. You don't have to be disappointed if your prayers are not answered. You think miracles don't happen anymore. Negativity becomes like a security blanket, very comfortable.
In some ways, having real faith is like being adventurous. You read the Word, and believe what it says. You start to exercise your faith with little things, such as a parking space. I did.
As you study more and expand your prayers, you start getting bigger results.You might consider a prayer unanswered if it doesn't turn out the way you expected. When you think about it, you can see it makes sense that it turned out the way it did. So your faith does not go into a tailspin.
No sincere prayer goes unanswered. You will get to the point where you can write down a prayer that is so detailed that most people would say it is impossible. They probably don't know, that nothing is impossible with God.
I find that writing a prayer down, in detail, and quoting a couple of Scriptures that fit the situation brings a prayer to life. After you write it, pray it out loud, and you put it into the spirit world where it can work. Immediately thank God that you have received your answer, and just believe. Thank God every day for the answer to prayer, and speak only positive words. Faith is made to be stretched, because that Is the way, God made it.
Yahweh bless you and keep you
Yahweh cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you
Yahweh lift up His face unto you, and appoint unto you peace

Plant Seeds In Your Heart

Greetings My Friends;
I watch about a dozen preachers regularly. I have boosted Amazon's book business. I am  on a quest to learn as much as I can about everything connected with the Bible, such as faith, and prayer.
As you can imagine it takes a little bit of sorting out. I stick to the old-time preachers for most of the books. People like, Bosworth, Wigglesworth, Lake, Spurgeon, plus newer ones like Hagan, and Copeland.
I managed to get quite a bit that has really helped me personally. My personal faith has really grown since I have been doing this. I have come out of my comfort zone, and into something incredibly exciting. As I said recently, I thought I had faith. That was nothing compared to now. Now when I pray, I have so much faith that you could not not talk me out of it.
With help from the Holy Spirit for understanding, you can read something a man of faith wrote, and something clicks in your head. You can see how what you just read applies so well to what you are learning.
Even if only one thing in the entire book has that kind of an impact on you, it is well worth it. Having your faith blossom is worth whatever price you pay. I honestly believe that when you really make the effort to put the kingdom of God first, the Holy Spirit has much more to work with, and makes you much more receptive.
Faith in prayers can become pretty easy. Forget what your carnal mind thinks, and just put your faith and trust in what the Bible says. Instead of just reading that Jesus loves you, you will begin to feel it.
Jesus loves you
Yahweh bless you and keep you
Yahweh cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you
Yahweh lift up His face unto you, and appoint unto you peace

Say Only What You Believe

Greetings My Friends;
We have had several messages on the power of words. The importance of the right words cannot be exaggerated.
Many times you get negative thoughts in your mind. They were probably put there by satan trying to get you to accept those words. Don't say anything except, satan, those words are your words not mine. If you say his words anyway, even as a joke, they open the door for him.
It is a fact that if you hear your self say something, it will make a big impression on you. It all boils down to what I call the spiritual world. Doctors might call it your subconscious.
You are a spirit. Your spirit operates in the spiritual world. The spirit world operates in a very precise way, kind of like a computer, only better. The spirit must be trained in order to bring results. The spiritual  world acts on your words to make things happen in the natural world. It takes every word you say and starts to act on it.
The big problem comes up when the spirit world gets words that can cause harm to you in some way. What I mean is, it cannot separate real words from unreal words an example is "my job is killing me" or "this makes me sick". The spirit tries to act on everything, because it cannot judge if you are serious or not.
You can get the spirit so confused with constant junk talk, that it cannot act effectively on prayer words. The best results will come if you train the spirit only with words you believe. You will find prayers answered much sooner, and a lot more peace and joy in your life.
Jesus Loves You
Yahweh bless you and keep you
Yahweh cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you
Yahweh lift up His face onto you, and appoint unto you peace