Holy Spirit Baptism

It Is Written, Acts 2:38, then Peter said to them, repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

There seems to be some confusion, or lack of knowledge about the Holy Spirit as far as baptism is concerned. Many do not understand, or were not taught the difference between receiving the Holy Spirit at salvation, and baptism in the Holy Spirit.

When we are saved, we automatically received the fruits of the Holy Spirit as written in Galatians 5:22-23. These are evidences of the renewed inner  man, and a sign to others that Jesus is in our lives.

The baptism in the Holy Spirit is a separate thing. This baptism is by choice.. You must want to be baptized. The baptism may be performed by a pastor, or any spirit filled Christian for that matter, by a simple prayer, such as, I baptize you in the Holy Spirit in Jesus name.1 Corinthians 12:7-11 explains the gifts of the Holy Spirit, when you are baptized in Him.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit are what I call power gifts. The Holy Spirit was the power that enabled Jesus to do the same thing. In other words as Jesus Himself said, and John 14:12, most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to my father.

Faith built and maintained by reading and meditating on the Word of God, unlocks the power of the Holy Spirit in a believer's life. Do yourself a big favor, and read 1 Corinthians 12:7-11. God bless you and your family. Praise the Lord!

Remember Jesus Loves You

Prayer of Salvation

Lord Jesus, I thank you for what you did on the cross for me. Your blood washed away all my sins, by your stripes I was healed, your death and resurrection brought me salvation. Please forgive my sins, and come into my heart as my personal Savior. 

Thank You Lord

Amen

Kind Act = Praise God

It Is Written, Luke 10:27, so he answered and said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

When you ask someone how to praise God, you may get a blank stare. Most people believe it is too big and too difficult for anyone to be able to do.

Let's take a realistic look at it. In the first place, if you have not accepted salvation, praising God would never into your mind. Since that is the case, how difficult is it to praise God? Impossible.

Read Galatians 5:22-23, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against such there is no law. If you follow these verses as guidelines, you will see that this set of guidelines, is the way Christians should live.  When you live by these ideas as much as possible, you are following the Word of God and you are indeed praising God.

Let's take a step further. As you go through your day, you can thank God for all of the blessings. Be sure to include things like, your sight, your hearing, your breathing, and countless other things most people do not even think of as blessings.

By our very existence, living according to God's Word, and being thankful, we are praising Him. One more thing. Prayer is better when we just talk to God from our hearts, rather than reading someone else's words.

That wasn't so complicated, was it?  God bless you and your family.      Praise the Lord!

Remember Jesus Loves You

Prayer of Salvation

Lord Jesus, I thank you for what you did on the cross for me. Your blood washed away all my sins, by your stripes I was healed, your death and resurrection brought me salvation. Please forgive my sins, and come into my heart as my personal Savior. 

Thank You Lord

Amen

Waiting

2 Peter 3:8- 9, 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 shall perish, but that all should reach repentance.

From my own experience, and from talking to others, waiting on God is near the top of the list, of very difficult things a Christian must do.

Each of us has something we are waiting for. The higher it is on our priority list, the harder it is to wait. Waiting can be a real test of faith. Remember our prayers  will never come back empty. God hears the heart, and does what is best for us. God’s timing is faultless.

 A couple of things to think about. How often does God wait for us? Our verse today is just one  example about God waiting for us to get serious about our faith. There is exercising the fruits of the Spirit, that we received at salvation, and have still not used. How about reading the Bible. Do we take everything to God, or just talk to Him when we are desperate. The more we prepare as Christians, the faster we will see the power of sincere prayer. Get the idea?

Psalm 27:14, Wait for the Lord; be strong, and Let Your Heart Take courage; wait for the Lord!

There are some things we forget because we are anxious for an answer. It could be that God is giving us a chance to think it over. It takes a little time for God to arrange the probable dozens of people and hundreds of pieces to make things happen. The part that none of us likes, the answer could be no. It is always for our good, but it sometimes takes a long time before we realize it.

One more thing to keep in mind. It occurred to me a long time ago, and I still believe it to be true to this day. God asks you to do something, maybe you hesitate or you don't do it. By that action you may be interfering with someone else’s  prayer being answered. God calls each of us to do something, and if we don't do it, He has to find someone who will. Depending on circumstances, there may be dozens of people that are involved and slow up the process. I believe that if everyone listened to God and did what He asked them to do, many prayers would be answered much sooner for many people. God bless you and your family. Praise the Lord!

Remember Jesus loves you.

 Prayer of Salvation.

 Lord Jesus, please forgive all of my sins, and come into my heart as my personal savior. I want to serve only you. 

Praise the Lord! 

Amen

Plead The Blood

1 John 1: 7, But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the Blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

In case you are not familiar with the words of the title, it was commonly used by pastors and their congregations several Generations ago. In order for it to make sense, let us look at a few verses that they looked at and based it on..

Matthew 26: 27 - 28, And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them saying,” drink of it all of you, for this is my blood of the Covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

Romans 5 : 9 - 10, since, therefore, we have now been justified by His Blood,  much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by His life.

Hebrews 9: 12, He entered once for all into the holy place, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of His own blood, thus securing eternal redemption.

Hebrews 9 : 22 indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

Blood was the main reason for all sacrifices for the cleansing of sin. Without blood, no cleansing. They had to do this every year. Then along came Jesus, the Lamb of God. His sacrifice of Himself cleansed man for all time. The perfect blood sacrifice.

So let's put it all together. Jesus' sacrifice made us righteous, because we received His righteousness. Because of this righteousness, we are in Jesus, and He is in us, and now we can approach God and call Him our Father.

Our Father acknowledges the fact that we have been washed in the blood of Jesus, and have His righteousness. Because of the relationship with God the Father, and the presence of Jesus and His righteousness in us, we are legally authorized to plead the blood in our prayers.

The term plead the blood'' reminds all of the spirits of darkness, including satan, that they are powerless against us and our prayers. To give an example, it was common to plead the blood over a loved one to protect them from evil.

It is impossible for an in-depth discussion about the subject because of limited time and space. I hope this poor description will make you want to investigate further on your own. As my wife likes to say, when  you plead the blood of Jesus in prayer, satan trembles,  the Angels snap to attention, and God our Father leans forward toward us. God bless you and your family. Praise the Lord!

Remember Jesus loves you.

Prayer of Salvation.

Lord Jesus, please  forgive all of my sins,  and come into my heart as my personal savior. I want to serve only you. 

Praise the Lord!

Amen

The Great Injustice Part 2

Psalm 95: 6

O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!

Isaiah 25 : 1

Oh Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you; I will praise Your name, for You have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure.

Well my friends, you can see how important praise is. Praise is a simple thing that can be done all day long.

Here are some examples of Praise that many people don't even realize. If you are a parent, treat your spouse and children the way Jesus would. When you do, you are showing Him your gratitude for giving them to you

Since everything we are or have comes from God, enjoying what He gives us, is praise to Him. First thing every morning, thank Him for the day. Thank Him for how He will work during the day for your good.

Another thing you can do is tell Him how great He is by acknowledging everything He gave you, by naming things such as health, the fact that you can see, even the ability to take another breath.

It is inevitable of course that there are people who think words like this are stupid, or plain ridiculous. They don't get it. I pray that someday soon, they come to Jesus, because they see how important He is to each of us.

One last thing. If you help someone beyond reason, would you appreciate their gratitude? When we confess our sins, we are acknowledging that Jesus died for us, to forgive those sins.So you see, it really is pretty easy to praise God. Being thankful is a good start. God bless you and your family. Praise the Lord

Remember Jesus loves you.

Prayer of Salvation.

Lord Jesus, please forgive all of my sins, and come into my life as my personal savior. I want to serve Only You. 

Praise the Lord!

Amen

My Time With Jesus Tuesday

Let Go Already

It Is Written, Isaiah 41:10, fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Does that verse sound familiar? Do you believe it? Here are a few things to think about, before you reject the idea.

We have all heard about how we should forgive others. Besides being commanded by God, it is just common sense. If someone does you  some harm or insult, getting angry and not forgiving that person, means nothing to them. If you don't forgive and forget, it could eat you up, your whole life.

Now we come to decisions and problems. God wants us to put all of our cares on Him. His word says so. The sooner we give our cares to God, the sooner we can be free of them. He wants us to, and there is no limits to His offer.

Life is a journey, just like any trip. When you choose to take a lot of baggage, it creates many unforeseen problems. Traveling light is much easier, and far faster.

Unforgiveness, and cares or worries, is one heck of a lot of baggage. When you do it God's way, the trip is much more enjoyable.

How do you want to travel the journey called life? God bless you and your family. Praise the Lord!

Remember Jesus Loves You

Prayer Salvation

Lord Jesus, I thank you for what you did on the cross for me. Your blood washed away all my sins, by your stripes I was healed, your death and resurrection brought me salvation. Please forgive my sins, and come into my heart as my personal Savior. 

Thank You Lord

Amen

The Great Injustice Part 1

Psalm 109: 30 - 31

With my mouth I will give thanks to the Lord; I will praise Him in the midst of the throng. For He stands at the right hand of the needy one, to save him from those who condemn his soul to death.

The definition of praise is, approval and/ or admiration. We live with an example of it most of the time without even realizing it. There are many examples, here are just a few.

Have you ever told a family member or friend, how impressed you were with something they did? How about the way you thanked your boss for your last raise, or when someone did something nice for you.

One of the most common objects of Praises, athletes, and entertainers. Most people admire them to an extreme. Every time you buy a ticket, a jersey, or anything related to a person or team, you are in effect praising them. Most people admire those who don't even know them, didn't do anything for them, or probably wouldn't even talk to them.

There is someone all of us owe our very existence to. Someone who cares about us, helps us, provides for us, watches over us  continuously. The great Injustice is, most of us don't even acknowledge His existence. Some people hate Him and all He stands for.

Just in case you haven't figured it out yet, that man is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Whole books can be written about how He is not appreciated, is ignored, abused, taken advantage of, slandered, And so It goes.

I finished this message with a few verses from the Bible, regarding praise for our God  Read each one, think about each one, check the Bible.

Psalm 106

Praise the Lord! O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever!

 Psalm 146: 1 - 2

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord, as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

 Psalm 150 : 6

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

We will continue in the next message. God bless you and your family. Praise the Lord!

Remember Jesus loves you.

Prayer of Salvation.

Lord Jesus, please forgive all of my sins, and come into my heart as my personal savior. I want to serve Only You. 

Praise the Lord!

Amen