Forgive How Many Times

Greetings My Friends;
When Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive his brother who sinned against him, Jesus answer probably shocked him. It amounted to as many times as it takes.
When someone does something that offends us, our pride jumps right in. We become angry at that person, and sometimes we get so angry, all we want to do is retaliate.
We judge other people and forgive them or not, depending on how they do or do not measure up to our standards. We all think our way is the right way. A repeat offender is the most difficult to forgive. We make a judgment that the other person is an idiot, doesn't care, is ignorant, or does it for spite. They don't deserve our forgiveness.
Imagine if Jesus felt that way about us. If He did, we would not have salvation because He would not have died for our sins. We would not have any of the blessings He paid for on the cross.
God created us and set His standards of behavior. The creator has that right, we don't. If you look at what God calls sin, none of us would last a minute without sin. We would all perish. But our loving God, forgives us over and over and forgets our misdeeds. All He wants is for us to love Him and each other. When you consider how great God is, and the fact that He believes what He does about forgiveness, we should all try to forgive each other no matter how many times we have to do it.
When we forgive someone, it takes the pressure off of us. The problem does not have a chance to become a tool in the devil's hand to eat away at us. Besides that, most of the time, the other guy doesn't even know or care if you are angry at him. I didn't always feel that way, but I have come to realize the truth about it.
God Bless You And Remember
 Jesus Loves You
Prayer of Salvation;
Father, I truly repent for all my sins, and ask Jesus to come into my heart as my personal Savior, and to help me live my life according to His will.

Jesus Choice

Greetings My Friends;
I don't know if you ever sit around sometimes , and just think random thoughts. I do quite often.
For instance, I saw the movie the passion of the Christ several years ago. What He suffered was much worse than the movie showed. Isaiah said, He didn't even look like a man.
Well the other day I happened to think about the crucifixion. Jesus knew every little detail of what would happen to Him. I cannot imagine how He could function days or weeks before. He was loving and healing the very people that were yelling for His death. How is it possible?
I don't know about you, but I would have considered my options. He could go far away and be safe, by not doing miracles. He could have just decided to give in to the Pharisees. He could have gone through it all with no pain. I guess I am a coward, because there is no way that I wouldn't be looking for a way out.
Jesus knew that the only way to defeat satan and death, was the way he did. He knew there would be many who would seek salvation and love him in the future.
He did it because he loved us beyond measure, and wanted us to spend eternity with him. There are no words to describe His love for us. It would be very nice, if we could love Him even a little, of the measure He loves us.
God Bless You And Remember
 Jesus Loves You
Prayer of Salvation;
Father, I truly repent for all my sins, and ask Jesus to come into my heart as my personal Savior, and to help me live my life according to His will.

The Bible is a Plan

Greetings My Friends;
I start this message basically in the form of a parable, because it will give some people a better idea of what the Bible does for us.
You would have to go pretty far to find anyone that does not know what a recipe is. The whole idea behind a recipe or a written plan is for the person using them to duplicate something.
When you bake a cake, you carefully measure all ingredients. You don't use old ingredients, you follow the recipe exactly, and you get great results every time. If you don't do it, what you get may not even be edible.
The Bible is the word of God. It is a recipe for salvation, and a fantastic life. You may not agree with something in the word, and that is your choice. If your results are disappointing, don't blame God, it was your decision.
As far as I am concerned, when you read the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and follow what they tell you, you are on your way to a wonderful life. Now take what Jesus says in the Gospels and imitate that as much as possible. When you put this whole recipe together, you will not only have salvation, but you will have one happy, exciting life.
God gave us this plan,the Bible so that anyone who follows it will have great success in this life, and be with Him for all eternity.
God Bless You And Remember
 Jesus Loves You
Prayer of Salvation;
Father, I truly repent for all my sins, and ask Jesus to come into my heart as my personal Savior, and to help me live my life according to his will.

Things We Have Faith In

Greetings My Friends;
I just thought of something pretty interesting, at least it was to me. Many people including Christians say that faith is a real problem for them. Let's take a look at some facts.
The average person expects to get up in the morning. They plan on taking their car to a job that is still there. And so on. When someone gets sick, they go to a doctor to get well. They believe the doctor is qualified to diagnose the problem and give them medicine that will work.
Maybe you buy a car, and end up with 60 payments you expect to make. I think you get the point. These are all examples of ordinary things that we have faith for or trust in without even realizing it. If you sit down and think about all of the things or people you count on or trust in, in your everyday life, you will shock yourself.
So you see, you do have tremendous faith just to live your life. When you think about the creator and how much he loves you, how can you have little or no faith? Is it because you can't see Him? Think about this. E-mail your stockbroker to buy or sell a hot stock. You don't see him. Still trust him?
The difference between the Lord and all the people that you do trust  without blinking an eye, is that the Lord loves you and they don't, and they can lie, or be wrong, but the Lord can't  lie, and is never wrong. So you see, if you had faith in the Lord like in everyone else, all your prayers would be answered.
God Bless You And Remember
 Jesus Loves You
Prayer of Salvation;
Father, I truly repent for all my sins, and ask Jesus to come into my heart as my personal Savior and to help me live my life according to His will.

Predestined

Greetings My Friends;
1 Timothy 2:4 "God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth".
People being predestined has been a hot topic for years. A lot of people feel that if someone is predestined or as it is put, one of the elect, that God is not fair.
Their arguments are that if you are among the elect, no matter what you do you cannot lose that status. They also say that if you aren't among the elect, there is nothing you can do to attain it.
I believe that Jesus died for all people who were and are to come. He as far as I know did not pick out individuals to be saved. He invited all to be saved, and told them how through His word.
I believe predestined means simply that because He is God, He knew before we were born, if we would believe in Him. The fact is my friends, He gave each of us a choice. believe in Him and what He did, or reject Him. If you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, and repent of your sins, you are saved. It is really that simple.
Read Romans 5:9–11, and think about this. God calls each of us to repentance and salvation. As I said, it is your choice.
God Bless You And Remember
Jesus Loves You
Prayer of Salvation;
Father, I come to you a sinner, and I ask forgiveness. I truly repent, and I believe with all my heart that Jesus died and rose again. I also believe I am washed in His blood, forgiven of all my sins, and by His stripes I am healed. With all my heart I accept Jesus as my personal savior.

Pride and Forgiveness

Greetings My Friends;
The Bible tells us that pride is a sin. It also tells us we should love one another and forgive those who hurt us in some way. While we are at it, we are not to judge anyone.
Something most of us don't give a thought to, is that all of these sins, are a part of the same package. Let me explain.
When someone hurts your feelings for instance, pride makes you angry. You judge this person as inconsiderate or maybe ignorant or mean. It is hard to forgive, or to love this person, but you pray about it, and let's say you forgive this person, in your mind.
As time goes by, there are other incidents, so the whole process is repeated. The difference this time is, the new incident brings to mind all past incidents. Just when you start thinking that you are happy that you forgave, satan hits you with another incident, and here we go again.
As long as old memories keep coming back, I believe we have not truly forgiven. When Jesus forgives us, He says he will remember it no more. Forgive with no limit, with your heart. I just came to grips with this recently in my own life, and felt compelled to pass it on. Now I know what really forgiving someone is.
Praise the Lord!
God Bless You And Remember
Jesus Loves You
Prayer of Salvation;
Father, I come to you a sinner, and I ask forgiveness. I truly repent, and believe with all my heart that Jesus died and rose again. I also believe I am washed in His blood, forgiven of all my sins, and by his stripes I am healed. With all my heart I accept Jesus as my personal savior.

Tithing Brings Blessings

Greetings My Friends;
Whenever tithing is mentioned to a group of people, the usual reaction is deafening silence. I think many people don't believe what it involves or what the Bible says.
Proverbs 3:9 – 10 "honor the Lord with your possessions, and with the first fruits of all your increase; so your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine".
I believe among the reasons the Lord has for tithing is that it is a way for us to show we trust Him, and a good excuse for Him to bless us. There are any number of verses in the Bible that refer to tithing.
Tithing can be contributions to the church, or I believe to charities. The Bible says we are to help the less fortunate. The Lord said that if you have, and turn your head from someone in need, you're hurting yourself. I heard for years that all we have belongs to the Lord and we are to use some of it to do His work. It is written to whom much is given, much is required.
I have always given to charities. I wasn't cheap, but I wasn't exactly a philanthropist. About four or five years ago, my wife and I decided to give 10%. So I figured out what that would be. My thinking was I didn't want to cheat God, but I did not want to overdo it either.
After about six or eight months, I noticed that the increase in our giving was offset by a reduction in expenses. As time went on,  more reductions took place. It soon got to the point where we were getting back more than we were giving.
One day not that long ago, I was telling my wife that I would like to be debt-free. I had a credit card I was getting nowhere on, so the solution in my mind was to give more. That seems to be the smartest thing to do.
I have reached the conclusion that giving is absolutely necessary. The difference now is we pray about it, and give what our hearts tell us, and we don't worry about  percentages. You cannot out give God. Love and compassion has no boundaries, just as God's love for us has no limits or boundaries.
God Bless You And Remember
 Jesus Loves You
Prayer of Salvation;
Father, I come to you a sinner, and I ask forgiveness. I truly repent, and believe with all my heart that Jesus died and rose again. I also believe I am washed in His blood, forgiven of all my sins, and by His stripes I am healed. With all my heart I accept Jesus as my personal Savior.