The Old Man in the Back of the Sanctuary

This website is finally back up and running! It was hacked again, but Josh, my brother in Christ, cleaned it up and got it inspected and approved as safe to visit again. God’s Spirit in us will rile the demon in some people, but they cannot stop our testimony.

John 14:6  is the source for my most recent three posts.  Jesus is  who He claims to be. He is the Son of God who became a man so that we can be a son or daughter of God through, and only through, faith in Him. We cannot buy or earn our way into God’s family. The scariest words in the Bible are those Jesus says he will speak to those who thought their works earned them heaven. “Depart from me. I never knew you.” Do you know Jesus as your Savior? Has Jesus introduced you to His heavenly Father as a brother or sister in His family?

For the past nine and a half years, I have written more than 800 posts about my Christian life. I will cover just a few important points here. Our new life as a son or daughter of God begins when we believe in , follow Jesus Christ and repent by turning away from sin and toward God. Two of the most important things I have learned . 1. Never take attacks and criticism personally.  The Spirit in you will rile the demon in some people and the only taste of Jesus they may ever have is when they take a bite out of you. 2.  No matter how rough your life gets, God will bring you through it and His retirement plan is beyond our wildest imagination.

It has been at least twenty years since I served on a jury, but I still remember how the bailiff swore in every witness. “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?” Truth is important in the Christian life to help us expose the lies of Satan, the father of lies. Jesus doesn’t just tell us the truth; He is “the Truth”. Once we believe in and vow to follow Him, Truth is vital . in every relationship. As Christian believers God shows us hidden truth beyond human senses. It isn’t the alarm that wakes us to a new day of life. It is God’s love, mercy and grace that opens our eyes to another day and opportunity to draw closer to Him. We read that Jesus was nailed to the cross, but a few nails could not bind the Son of God. It was Hus obedience to our heavenly Father and His love for you and me that held Hin  there until His payment for our sins was finished. That is truth that can and will set us free.

The famous German philosopher, Nietzsche, once stated, “You have your way; I have my way. As far as the right way, correct way, and the only way, it doesn’t exist.” However, Jesus Christ says, “I am the Way… No one comes to the Father except through me.” Obviously, they can’t both be right.  Let’s  see. Do we follow the famous German who has been decomposing in his grave for over a hundred years; or follow the Son of God who became a man, paid the penalty for our sins then walked out of His tomb after just three days? I made my decision to follow Jesus 72 years ago. Since then, my way has been the right, correct and only way to get to where I want to be; in God’s presence forever.

I know that my last post sounded depressing and grim as I listed how Satan has opposed this blog and me personally. I want to make it clear that God has been with me through it all and has turned every test into a testimony.  Even when Satan hacked into my blog site and posted 103 ads for online gambling, my brother in Christ who designed my site was able to clean out the garbage without losing a word of my more than 770 Christian posts saved in archives at the time. Glory to God, there are now more than 800 posts for visitors to read at your leisure.

This world is no longer my home. It is my mission. when my tour of duty is completed, God will call me to my true home with Him for eternity.

When you first believe in and follow Jesus, you feel invincible. But you are not in Heaven yet and Satan will oppose your attempts to do God’s will for your life. He will distract you, put stumbling blocks or even road blocks in your way. During the years God was preparing me to write this blog, there were several distractions, but once I was fully in God’s will and reaching people around the world, he brought all of hell against me. I’ve had two cancer surgeries on my colon. J lost sight in my right eye and my license to drive. I’ve had three serious infections including Covid. Arthritis is now in my hips as well as my knees so I can’t walk even with a walker. Then a nursing home tried to trap me from returning home to this blog by lying on my medical chart. It was only answered prayers that make it possible to sit at my kitchen table and write this to you. I’m not writing this to scare you; just to warn you to stay close to God with prayer, worship and Bible study. Then, buckle up and let Him fight for you. Jesus faced opposition and so will we. The Christian life is not always easy, but the retirement benefits are beyond our wildest imagination.

A confrontation I had on social media yesterday reminded me of my very favorite modern parable, I may have shared it before, but it is worth a reminder.

You and I are in a commercial building chatting with my friend who is a janitor there, when terrorists set off fire bombs at each entrance setting the building ablaze. We watch over 100 people racing toward the flames. My friend says he knows a private exit door we can use to make it out safely. You and I yell at the crowd to warn them, a few come running, but the others tell us to stop judging them. As our small group makes it to safety, we hear loud noise as the building begins to collapse. We take a few moments of silence for those who perished, then say a prayer of thanks for our salvation.

Have you noticed this woke world is ablaze around us? Satan and his followers are leading crowds toward the flames. Is it judging them to warn them? Of course not! It is an act of love. Our friend, Jesus, doesn’t just know the way to safety, He is the only Way.

As I wrote the previous post, I began to think about the chapters that have lighted my way through my long Christian life.  My Bible tour begins with the third chapter of John, where Jesus convinced Nicodemus and me to believe in and follow Him to eternal life with no turning back.  Next, we see the two descriptions of creation. The most popular is the beginning of Genesis.  That  showed me the vast power of God.  The first chapter of John describes God’s Son taking a leading role in creation long before He became a man to seek and save the lost, including you and me. I have often found encouragement from reading the faith hall of fame in the 11th chapter of Hebrews. As a teenager, I knew the dictiotnary defined love as a feeling or emotion and didn’t   understand how a bride and groom could vow to hold on to such a fragile thing for life. A few years later, I met the love of my life and, at the age of 20,  I vowed to love her for life. I was sure our mutual love for our Lord would keep   our love for each other strong. Twenty years later, while on vacation in Branson, the wilderness Church was renewing vows and we agreed it was something we wanted to do. After the ceremony, that wise old preacher asked us to promise him that we would find a quiet place when we got back home and read chapter 13 of 1st Corinthians together. We kept that promise and I was amazed. There it was, a definition of love that we can keep because it is a list of daily choices. The wedding vow says, ‘Until death do us part”. Don’t believe it! Death parted us 11 years ago and my heat is still full of love for that beautiful woman who shared five decades of my life

An American Bible scholar and pastor was asked in the 1800’s if he could sum up the entire Bible in a single sentence. This is what he said, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” That is the reason the Bible is such an important part of our Christian life.  Skeptics point out that the 66 books of the Bible were written by more than 50 people over a span of thousands of years. So how can it be the complete and infallible Word of God? The answer is simple. Every writer was inspired to write every word by  the one true author, God’s Holy Spirit. How do I  know this?   

How else would Moses know about the Creation described at the beginning of Genesis? How else were other Old Testament writers able to predict the birth, life, death and resurrection  of God’s Son in human form? How else was John able to describe the direct role Jesus played in Creation in the first chapter of his Gospel and reveal His message to believers in Revelation from Heaven> How else did Saul of Tarsus, prosecutor of Christians, become the Apostle Paul establishing churches and writing most of the New Testament before being executed for his faith.