Tag Archives: future

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Because He Loves Me

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Psalm 91:1-16
“He who [a]dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty [Whose power no foe can withstand]. I will say of the Lord, He is my Refuge and my Fortress, my God; on Him I lean and rely, and in Him I [confidently] trust! For [then] He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. [Then] He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings shall you trust and find refuge; His truth and His faithfulness are a shield and a buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror of the night, nor of the arrow (the evil plots and slanders of the wicked) that flies by day, Nor of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor of the destruction and sudden death that surprise and lay waste at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you. Only a spectator shall you be [yourself inaccessible in the secret place of the Most High] as you witness the reward of the wicked. Because you have made the Lord your refuge, and the Most High your dwelling place, There shall no evil befall you, nor any plague or calamity come near your tent. For He will give His angels [especial] charge over you to accompany and defend and preserve you in all your ways [of obedience and service]. They shall bear you up on their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the serpent shall you trample underfoot. Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him; I will set him on high, because he knows and understands My name [has a personal knowledge of My mercy, love, and kindness—trusts and relies on Me, knowing I will never forsake him, no, never]. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him My salvation.”

There are great benefits for loving God. Not just recognizing that He is, not just believing He took away your sins, but LOVING Him.

In verse 14 God promises to do all of these things, to rescue us, and protect us, because of our love for Him. Do you want long life? Love Him. Do you want Him to answer when you call? Love Him.

There are many people who say, “God has never done anything for me.” They have spouted out a few requests, maybe even begged and wept, tried to bargain or broker a deal. But do they love Him? Or are they just going thru ‘drive thru’ and placing an order on a fast food deity they expect a quick fix from? They don’t know Him, They don’t have “personal knowledge of My mercy, love and kindness.” He has done everything for them. He has made a way were there was no way, reconciled them back to Himself by shedding His own blood. He has loved them, even in their sin, and misunderstanding of who He is. All they have to do is accept His love and love him back and He is so easy to love.

I love Him, because He loves me.

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FREE TO BE WHO WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE

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Knowing who God is, is a very important aspect of following Christ. We can learn so much about Him by reading the books of the prophets in the Old Testament.

There is a study help in the Amplified Bible that says:
“One may read the writing of the prophets only as a valuable contribution to History and may become enriched by familiarity with their forecasts of events which have been startlingly fulfilled, thus proclaiming the diving inspiration of the books and the wisdom and power of the God who prompted their writings. BUT, to stop there is by no means to grasp their full and outstanding purpose for today. Though the prophets God is speaking definitively to every individual and nation on earth, right now, demanding that we see ourselves as He sees us!”
Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the lord, thought of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

God’s plans and purposes for us have been there forever. Before He formed us in the womb.
Psalm 139:16 “Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written everyone of them, the days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them.”

He recorded His plans for us in His book. He wrote them down…before He even made time? “Before the days were formed for me.”

Isaiah 43:18-19 “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

We can’t worry about our past. We can’t worry about what others think. Let’s read Jeremiah 1:5-10, The Message Bible.

“Before I shaped you in the womb, I knew all about you. Before you saw the light of day, I had holy plans for you: A prophet to the nations— that’s what I had in mind for you.” But I said, “Hold it, Master GOD! Look at me. I don’t know anything. I’m only a boy!” GOD told me, “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a boy.’ I’ll tell you where to go and you’ll go there. I’ll tell you what to say and you’ll say it. Don’t be afraid of a soul. I’ll be right there, looking after you.” GOD’s Decree. GOD reached out, touched my mouth, and said, “Look! I’ve just put my words in your mouth—hand-delivered! See what I’ve done? I’ve given you a job to do among nations and governments—a red-letter day! Your job is to pull up and tear down, take apart and demolish, And then start over, building and planting.”

God didn’t listen to his excuses. He doesn’t want to hear ours. He promises to be there, and to look after us. He’s given us a job to do! We have to know who He is and who we are to be able to do what He has asked. To be able to fulfill the plans that He has for us. He had wonderful, awesome things in store for His children-for you-for me! In Philippians 2:13 He says, “It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” We don’t have to do it in our own strength and wisdom!

Ephesians 3:19-21 “and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”

What are some of the plans that He has for you?

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The Dead Do Not Inherit

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An inheritance is for the living. When you go to hear the reading of the last will and testament of a person who has passed on, the room is not full of corpses. Instead it is full of the living relatives, and beneficiaries of the deceased.
God says that we are heirs and joint heirs with Christ, (Romans 8:17). He also says that we are seated in Heaven with Christ, (Ephesians 2:6). God gave Adam everything. Adam gave it over to Satan. Jesus took it back on the cross and went to hell to even get the keys to Satan’s eternal home. At Jesus’ death on the cross-we inherited everything from Him. At His death, a New Testament came into being. We inherited the Kingdom of Heaven, as well as all things on this earth. We don’t have to wait until we die to have Heaven. Heaven isn’t just a place. It’s a Kingdom. Jesus is the King, and we are His royal family. Heaven is ours, now! Salvation and everything that comes with it, is our now, isn’t waiting for us to die. Only the living receive an inheritance.
Jesus didn’t die to bring us to Heaven. If that was His only purpose, we’d be there now. Jesus came to bring Heaven to us, here on earth. His Kingdom needs to be enlarged. That can only happen if we stand in our rightful places as sons and daughters of the Most High God. We have to accept the inheritance, use it, and do what God asks us to do-love Him with all our hearts, and to seek and save the lost. It’s not just for our benefit. We are to heal the sick, raise the dead and set the captives free. That’s our job. We can sit around a pray about it, (and prayer is wonderful!), but God wants us to act on our faith. We are Royalty with authority.
No longer say, “I am a sinner saved by grace.” You were a sinner, and you were saved by grace. But if you have accepted Jesus and his finished work on the cross, you aren’t a sinner any longer. Sin is the nature of another kingdom, the kingdom of darkness. It’s no longer our nature. We have the nature of the King and the Kingdom that we submit ourselves under. God has made us brand new creatures, our old nature is dead, all things are new.
So what’s allowed in heaven? Is guilt, condemnation? Of course not. Then you can’t be guilty or condemned. You are seated in Heaven with Christ. He took our guilt. It’s gone! Now only one is judged, and that is Satan. He is judged guilty. His attacks against born again children of God is unlawful. Jesus followed all the legalities in getting our inheritance for us. Satan can find nothing in us to accuse us of to The Father. The Father only see’s us as righteous. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, yes, so that we can turn back to God, but He also convinces us of righteousness. He constantly reminds us of who God is and who we are in Christ. Jesus redeemed us from the curse and reconciled us back to right standing with The Father.
Does that mean we never sin? No-but if our hearts are given over to a New King, He is quick to forgive and chooses to forget. He doesn’t hold it against us. If we aren’t guilty is that the “ok” to sin. Paul says, “God forbid,” to that. All things are lawful, but all things are not beneficial. The closer we get to Him, the less we will sin. You’ll see that things that once tempted us will no longer pull us away from God. Don’t let Satan, the world, or even your own flesh tell you who you are or what to feel. Only God sees us for who we truly are. He says you are accepted in the beloved. He calls you blessed. He has called us sons and daughters. You aren’t who you once were. God didn’t scrub us clean-He made us brand new. He didn’t remodel or remake, He built you brand new from the foundation to the attic and filled you with good things!

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Book Review for “Fugitives From Northwoods” YA Dystopian

I was given a copy of “Fugitives from Northwoods” by the author, Chris Bostic in exchange for an honest review. The title originally caught my attention because I live in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. The story contains good teenage characters. Trapped in a world where teenagers are forced to work in labor camp “for the good of all”, and the boundaries of the countries that once were familiar are all changed. Penn leads a group of young people out into the wilds of a fall in the Northwoods of Minnesota. A strong story about loyalty and friendship. I recommend for ages 13 and up due to teen relationships. I give the story 5 stars and would definitely read more from this author.

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Chronicles of the Kings

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God called David, “A man after my own heart.” He made a promise to this young shepherd-turned King, to always keep one of David’s heirs on the throne. This line started with David’s son Solomon and went all the way to Jesus (who still happens to occupy the throne and hold the title of “King.”) Starting with Solomon, David’s heirs were not faithful to continue in their father’s footsteps. During Solomon’s reign he worshipped false Gods and led the people astray. So God separated His Chosen People into two groups, Judah who kept the throne of David and ruled in Jerusalem and Israel who ruled in Samaria. Israel had a string of leaders who mostly fought for the throne, while Judah continued to have David’s seed as their kings.
Read Kings and Chronicles as well as the prophets and you will quickly see that the very people that God had chosen to have as His own, turned their backs on Him. They built altars to foreign gods, worshipped and sacrificed to false gods; they even profaned the temple that David had dreamed of building for the Lord. They went as far as even sacrificing their own children to Molech, by throwing them into the mouth of the idol, which was a fiery furnace. Over and over through the lineage of those kings from Judah and Israel we read how they “did evil in the sight of the Lord,” and led God’s people to do the same.
Every now and then there was a light in the darkness, a prophet who really heard from God, a king who “did good like his father David.” They were few and far between and all but one, never removed one hundred percent of the idols and temple of the false gods, or restored the temple worship, sacrifices and the law. Only Josiah, who was only eight years old when he became king, did. He tore them down, pulled the altars to false gods out of the temple, crushed them into dust and let them wash away in the river. Then at the ripe age of sixteen he is given the book of the law that had been sitting unused in the temple. Once again God’s children renewed their faith in Him and they repented and followed the practices set up by God.
At his death, the next king, his very own son, “did evil in the sight of the Lord.” I read all of this and the one thing that stands out the most (no, not the stupidity of the people) is God’s patience! If I was Him, I would have given up after Solomon…So why did He keep trying? Why did He come when they remembered to call on Him? Because of the promise He had made to King David, all those generations ago, generations of unfaithful, hard hearted, stiff necked and rebellious people, that a son of David would always sit on the throne.
So even in His anger, when He used other nations to chastise the people and scatter them from their own land, He preserves the seed of David and a “Remnant” of His people. God was faithful to an unfaithful people. He preserved the line from David all the way until Jesus, the Son of David.
So what has God promised you? He is faithful. If He said it, He will bring it to pass. It might not always look like its coming, or come when we want it to, but it’s there. He is always watching over his word to perform it, (Jeremiah 1:12). Beware- don’t sin as the children of Israel and Judah did and expect God to move on your behalf. He clearly states in Zephaniah 3:12, that the remnant He preserved were, “A humble and lowly people and they will take refuge in the name of the Lord.” Those are the ones who inherit the promises.