Use It Or Lose It

Christians, the Christmas season offers a great opportunity to stand up for Jesus. Christians are standing idly by and letting our religious freedoms be stolen from us. We have been the “Silent Majority” much too long and while we remain silent our light grows dimmer. Jesus has told us, “You (Christians) are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world.” (See Matthew 5:13-15) The more the Christian presence is known in the world, the greater the Christian effect on the world and the opposite is also true.

The commercialization of Christmas is removing every trace of Christ from Christmas it can, while Christians remain silent. Now they are trying to eliminate the name Christmas from the holiday and just call it the “Holiday Season.” Have you ever stopped to think about who is behind this? It is the devil, the enemy. He wants to remove the name of Christ from everything he possibly can. Businesses and corporations are complicit in going along with this. Customers are complicit also, just going about their holiday spending spree having forgotten what it is all about. Christians, don’t be complicit by your silence.

A college professor friend of mine said, “The Greeks made a philosophy out of Christianity; the Romans made a government out of it and the Americans made a business out of it.” It was never intended to be any of these. For Christians it is a faith and faith must be active and lived out by Christians or it is no faith, it is a dead religion.

James said, “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” (James 2:17) Stand up and speak out Christians; let your voices be heard and your lights shine. Let the world know that Jesus is the reason for the season. Had it not been for him, there would be no holiday season for there would be nothing to celebrate. It is He who gives us every reason to celebrate. He is God’s ultimate gift to the world. He is life everlasting.

8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Luke 2:8–14


The angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” That is what Jesus is all about. He alone can bring peace on the earth because he can bring peace in the hearts of men by restoring them to a right relationship with the heavenly Father. Look at what all the other religions have brought us. They have brought us wars and death and human suffering beyond measure. God gives us the gift of peace through our Lord Jesus Christ.


Silent Night
Silent night! Holy night! Shepherds quake at the sight,
Glories stream from heaven afar, heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!
Christ the Savior is born! Christ the Savior is born!

Joseph Mohr

Happy Commercial Holidays

Is anyone out there tired of the commercialization of our Christian holidays? Thanksgiving has been overshadowed by Black Friday which has now been expanded to make Thanksgiving Day Black Thursday. Christmas shopping now begins before Halloween which almost rivals Christmas in its celebration which makes the year end holiday season almost two months long. Where will it all end? Has anyone noticed, or is it just me? Does this bother you? With all these black days past and just twenty seven shopping days left before Christmas, my wallet is now in the red. Let me be the first to say, Happy Easter Everybody.

I want to pass a quote along to you, which I think is very significant.

Return the Cross to Golgotha
By George MacLeod

“I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church.
I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles: But on a garbage heap; at a crossroad of politics so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew, Latin and Greek.
And at the kind of place where cynics talk smut and thieves curse and soldiers gamble.
Because that is where he died and that is what he died about. And that is where Christ’s men ought to be and what Church people ought to be about.”

Thanksgiving, More Than Just A Once A Year Holiday

Psalms 100:4, “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.”

This Psalm tells us that if we would come into the presence of God, we must come with praise and thanksgiving in our hearts. The truth is we should do this every day. There is a phrase in that verse that gets less attention bur it is the key to thanksgiving; it is, be thankful. To be thankful means we have an attitude of gratitude. It is an ongoing process and not a once a year experience.

When we pause to remember all our God has done for us, we are blessed indeed and we all should be thankful. Never does a day go by that we are not the recipients of something to be thankful for. Our thankfulness should make every day a day of thanksgiving. If we are a truly thankful people, the fourth Thursday in November, each year, will take on a whole new meaning.

Happy Thanksgiving

Prayer Moves God

The electorate of America has spoken and the next two years should be markedly different, in many ways, from the last two years. Could this be an answer to prayer? I believe it is. Many churches, in the last few months, have issued the challenge to their members, and all Christians, to make the state of our nation, our government, our economy and our leaders, the object of their prayers up to the mid-term elections. Christians have responded by bombarding the throne of grace with their prayers. I believe this has moved God to action. God is the great mountain mover but it is prayer that moves God.

There is an interesting verse in the book of Daniel that tells us it is the Most High God that rules in the kingdom of men. “This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.” (Daniel 4:17, KJV) It is God that sets up and takes down kingdoms that rule the people of this world. Can God influence elections? He certainly can, and I believe we have seen a good demonstration of it in the election just past. If God couldn’t influence elections, the prayers of Christians would all be for naught.

Could it be that God moved our country to the left so we could see and learn the perils of socialism and its accompanying loss of individual freedoms? Many people wanted to see change in our country but many of those people didn’t like the change they got. And, many of those people turned to the only one who has the power to turn America back to the right, the Most High God.

Since our founding, America has been known as a Christian nation. That didn’t mean Christianity was a state religion but it meant that America was founded upon Christian ideals and principles. We had fought and won a great war for the right to freedom of religion, speech, press and fair representation in our government. It also meant that Americans were free to be a self determining people. After all, God himself had given us that right at creation.

There are many people, governments and religions throughout the world and right here in America that would take that right away from us. Our country was headed in that direction and the people prayed. God has made a move to the right but it is not complete yet. Christians need to keep praying that God will either move our current leaders back to the right or raise up new leaders that will lead us back.
God truly is the only hope for the U.S.A.

Thanks Lioneagle

I posted my first blog back in April of this year. I retired from the active pastoral ministry in 2004 and I decided before I retired that I wanted to have a writing ministry. After forty years in the ministry, I didn’t know anything to write about but my wonderful Lord and his word, The Holy Bible. To me, this gave me an inexhaustible supply of material to write about. Since my retirement, I have written and published fourteen books, all based on my studies of the Bible.

To me, The Word of God is the best thing the world has to give guidance in navigating the troubled waters of life here in the twenty first century. Jesus still is the best example that is available to us in how we should live. I have written my fundamentalist views in my blogs because I believe, whole heartedly in the message of the Scriptures.

I am like my friend, James, who also writes a blog on Blogspot. He travels as an evangelist and he was wondering if his ministry was really making a difference. I told him that if only one person is saved because of his ministry that it was worth everything it had cost.

Recently, I have wondered the same thing. Does this really make a difference? I wrote for months before anyone posted a comment about my blog. I was thrilled the other day when I looked at the blog site and found a comment that had been posted that gave me a great boost in my morale. I am now encouraged because someone has noticed and apparently they were blessed and posted a very kind and blessed response. I have found a new friend and sister in Christ.

Thanks Lioneagle

On the Same Page

“Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” (1Corinthians 1:10, KJV)

Isn’t it amazing that there are so many divisions in the Christian church? The apostle Paul, implores us, by the name of Jesus Christ, that there be no divisions among his people, the Christian church. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, if all of God’s people were, as Paul put it, “perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment?” Such a situation is almost unimaginable in this day. Paul called them brothers.

If we are all in the same family, Christians, we are brothers and sisters. Then why do we have all the divisions? I believe it is the enemy’s way of neutralizing the effectiveness of the Christian church as it tries to evangelize the world. The Bible has ample proof that divisions are not of God in their origin, so they must be of the devil.

In the true church, the body of Christ or the kingdom of God, there are no divisions. They are all brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ. They are all perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. They are blood related by the blood of Jesus and they are all led by his Spirit. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5)Think about how much more good the church could accomplish if we all had the same mind and were all on the same page.

Correction

In my last blog I made a slight typographical error. The blog was entitled, Rebuttal to Renouncing Christ. It should have read, Rebuttal Renouncing Christianity. It was in response to a statement written by Anne Rice and posted on Facebook which was reprinted in that blog. This was immediately called to my attention by my fellow blogger who said, “She didn’t renounce Christ, but she was renouncing Christianity.”

In her statement, Ms Rice stated, “In the name of …Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen” – Anne Rice.

Webster’s defines renounce as, (1) to formally give up a claim or right, (2) to give up a claim or practice, (3) to cast off or to disown.

Quitting Christ, quitting being Christian or quitting Christianity, according to the Bible, there is no difference.