Stop the Madness, and Surrender!!!

Are you tired of running from the pain? Are you weary? Are you ready to "throw in the towel"? Are you tired of hiding your hurt? Are you tired of wallowing in sin? Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired with your life? Stop the madness and surrender!
After years of running from God and living in sin, I finally became sick and tired of being sick and tired of being miserable! I had a head on collision with Jesus Christ and He has changed my life from a life of misery to a life of joy and peace! Jesus promises us rest for our souls. His promises are there for us to encounter and to embrace, only if we would slow down, humble ourselves and admit we are sinners in need of a Savior.
You might say, man you just don't understand what all I am going through and what all is about to happen! I may not understand but i know someone who does! Jesus will never leave you nor forsake you. He will give you peace and rest right now wherever you find yourself. Jesus said,"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

Jesus is saying to you right now,"Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."
Jesus said, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Matthew 11:29-30

A yoke is a heavy wooden harness that fits over the shoulders of an ox or oxen. It is attached to a piece of equipment the oxen are to pull. A "heavy laden" animal has a huge load to pull. Well, a "heavy laden" person may be burdened down with sins, drama, uncertainties, fear, anger,lust, jealousy and just weariness in searching for God's help through the madness! Stop the madness and surrender! Surrender to Jesus right now! Jesus Christ frees people from all these burdens. The rest for our souls that Jesus promises is love, healing, and peace with God.With God ALL things are possible and a relationship with God changes everything and gives your life purpose and spirtual productivity.
Come to Jesus, come as you are. Jesus is the way the truth and the life, and no man comes to the Father(God) but by Him(Jesus).
Come to Jesus with all your pain and all your scars! He will meet you there and your life will NEVER be the same!
If you need someone to pray with you, please contact me. Below is a video that i pray that you will watch and the words of this song will speak to your heart!

Because He Lives,
Steve

It’s Time to Cut Weight….

Let us examine our lives for a minute. “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” 2 Corinthians 13:5

In other words Paul was saying, “Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith.”

I want us to look at a verse of scripture that we all need to consider and we all need to take heed to what the Word of God says. The book Hebrews tells us this;

“…. let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,” Hebrews 12:1b

In other words, the Author of this book is saying, let us (Followers of Jesus Christ) take off or strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.”

A lot of times we only think that it is sin that trips us up or causes us to drift away in our walk with the Lord. But notice Hebrews 12:1b says let us lay aside (or strip off) every weight, AND the sin that so easily trips us up.

There are things in our life that we need to get rid of that easily trips us up in our walk with the Lord! We need to lay aside, cut off, strip off, or do away with ANYTHING that endangers our relationship with God!

  It is time for us to “Cut Weight”. In the sport wrestling, many wrestlers will “Cut Weight” to wrestle at a lighter weight class, in hopes of gaining a strength advantage over his opponent.

Followers of Jesus Christ! It is time we “Cut Weight”, examine our lives and get rid of anything that is hindering our relationship with the God Almighty! Our opponent is Satan, and he is out to steal, kill and to destroy us at all cost! Satan hates us. Satan will use any person, any circumstance, any song, any technology device, any substance, or ANYTHING to destroy our lives!  I don’t know about you but in my walk with the Lord, I need every advantage and every bit of help I can get while living life as a follower of Jesus Christ.

 “…. let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,” Hebrews 12:1b

Each one of us has something that weighs us down, something that we can’t seem to get rid of, something that continually sucks every bit of energy and joy out of walking with the Lord.

Lord, help us to examine our lives and to lay aside every weight and sin in our lives that so easily trips us up. Lord, help us to run this race of life with patience and endurance, while giving you the honor and glory that you so richly deserve!

I want to leave you with a thought………………………

Living this life as a Christian, or I like to say living this life as a “Follower of Jesus Christ”, is hard. It is easy to say you are a Christian, but yet your actions do not reflect anything Christian at all! As a matter of fact so many people want Jesus as their Savior, but they fail to make Him Lord. Lord means supreme in authority. Is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior the “Supreme Authority” in your life? Or is Jesus Christ just your “hell insurance”? Did you just say a prayer for God to save you and then you continued to live in sin? Was there a change in your life? Did you repent and turn away from sins?  Or did you just want enough of Jesus to save you from going to hell? These are all questions that we need to ask ourselves.

Jesus loves you!

Confess your sins. Turn from your sins. Believe in your heart. And ask Jesus to save you. Read Romans 3:23. Romans 5:8. Romans 6:23, Romans 10:9-10,13.

 Peace be with you and God bless you forever!

PLEASE, Whatever you do, don’t “just” Listen to Your Heart!!

   In 1988 the Swedish pop group Roxette released a song “Listen to your Heart”, and there are many songs out there that encourage you to “just follow your heart, do what your heart tells you to do!” I am sure we have all had friends to tell us this.Without a doubt you have heard people giving advice to others or people have given you the advice to “just follow your heart man!”I remember a time in my life that I did “just listen to my heart” and it cost me. I could list numerous examples of this in my life and I am sure we all can. Well, there is a problem with listening to our heart and I want to show you what the Bible says about the heart.

   Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”  In other words, the scripture says the human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? Or the heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out. Our hearts are inclined toward sin, since the time we were born into this world.  We must be careful with this inclination to follow your heart.

   Look at King David, a man after God’s own heart, and look what messes he got himself into by listening to his heart. Let’s look at Psalm 51 where we see David pleading for mercy, forgiveness and cleansing from God. This is the account where one of David’s friends, the prophet Nathan, went to David after David saw Bath-sheba bathing and David had to have her for his pleasure. Well, David committed adultery with her and then had her husband killed to cover it up. So needless to say David was in a mess for listening to his heart! As we read in Psalm 51:10 David was crying out, “Create in me a clean heart , O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”  

   We must ask God to cleanse us from within , cleaning our hearts and spirits for new thoughts and for new desires. Right conduct can only come from a clean heart and right spirit. If you find yourself in a mess, and you just think what you have done or said in the past is too much for God to “want” to forgive you, I have some good news! God can and will forgive you of ANY sin. While God loves us and forgives us, he doesn’t always erase the natural consequences of our sins. In other words, we all have scars, scars that have resulted from bad decisions by “just listening to our hearts” when the Bible tells us that our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. Oh yeah! The good news! Turn to 1 John 3:19-20

 “And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.”

Wow! This overwhelms me and this gives me hope! Even though my heart condemns me,

 GOD IS GREATER THAN MY HEART!!! Praise God for this promise that set me free from being in chains of guilt and depression all because my past. Especially after I began dedicating my life to tell others about Jesus, my heart was condemning me! I knew it was the devil using every means to keep me from preaching God’s Word. When I read this verse in 1 John 3:20, the Lord freed me from self pity and doubt about what God could do to use me for the building of His Kingdom! Every day, before I even look at another human being in the face, I cry out to God in my quiet prayer time and ask God to search my heart and to clean it up from wrong desires and wrong motives that I battle daily. Thank you God for your Grace and your Mercies are new every morning! Listen to your heart ONLY when God is sitting on the throne of your heart!! Amen

Take time to worship the Lord and listen to the words of this song as you worship Him from the inside out!

Why we Celebrate Christmas

"Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us."
Matthew 1:23

As we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us give Him all the glory that He deserves!  Christmas is the opportunity to worship God, to bow down and thank Him for humbling Himself and appearing in human form. Jesus was God in the flesh; thus God was lierally among us. Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ is present today in the life of every believer. Emmanuel, God is with us!     

"Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name."
(Phillipians 2:6-9)

There is more to Christmas than giving gifts to each other. The point of Christmas is the Message of Christ and receiving God’s gift of eternal life, forgiveness and peace through the Lord Jesus Christ. Glory to God, that he loved us enough to send His one and only Son into this world so, that He may pay our sin debt for us.

Without Jesus Christ there is no need to celebrate Christmas, but with Jesus Christ, we can shout and praise “Glory to God” every day of our lives! Glory to God and peace for us, found only in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." Luke 2:14

Click on this video and praise the God of Wonders, for He is Worthy of our praise!

FORGET THE PAST AND REACH TO THE GOAL

 Most of us don't have a problem wanting to forget the past due to some horrific mistakes and decisions we have made in the past. There are things that I have done in the past that make me sick to my stomach and I wish I could forget them. If we are all honest with ourselves, we ALL have things in the past we want to forget. These past mistakes and failures tend to keep our focus off of the prize, the eternal prize of being in heaven with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
 
  The devil hates God and he is out to steal, kill , and destroy us, at all costs, and since God loves us so much, the devil is on the prowl! Satan uses our pasts to brainwash us to think that we are no good and there is no way God would and could use someone like us. We need to forget the things that are in the past and press forward in our walk with Jesus. "He is the way the truth and the life."
 The Apostle Paul tells us in Phillipians 3:13-14, " Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended:but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

On the other hand, I believe there are some things that have happened in our past that we hold onto that we are "Proud" of. Past accomplishments and good deeds are fine, but they become a problem when our pride and arrogance take our eyes off of the prize. We seem to think that we have already made it, we did it and i am just going to cruise on through this life with Jesus in the backseat. If this is where you find yourself today, forget about the past accomplishments and regain your focus on the prize, Jesus Christ!
 Lord, please forgive us if we have become so prideful and unfocused.
If anybody had room to brag or be boastful, it would be the Apostle Paul.  Paul was one of the greatest Men of God to walk this earth. But notice he said, I haven't apprehended or lay a hold of, or he hadn't arrived yet, but one thing he did do was forgetting those things in the past. He forgot the good, the bad, and the ugly. Rememeber Paul had the "shady past"  as he persecuted Christians before he found Jesus on the Damascus Road, so he knew about this from both views. 

  Our hope is in Christ. Don't dwell on your past. Instead, grow in your relationship with God by reading His Word and by talking (Pray) to Him. Know that you are forgiven, and move on to a life of faith and obedience in Jesus Christ.

         Below my friend, IS the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus!!

Press on weary soldier, press on toward the the mark of the prize. Keep fighting, keep pursuing, keep trusting Him, and keep your eyes fixed on Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords!!


Because He lives,
Steve

Does Jesus have First Place(Preeminence) in Your Life?

Jesus Christ is THE reason we live. Without Him, we are lost and destined for hell. Jesus is our strength, He is our source of knowledge(Bible), He is our joy, He is the Light, He wants to deliver you and me from darkness,and He wants to forgive us and redeem us. By the power of the blood that was shed for you and me on the Cross, we have a Hope and a future! Our security is found in Jesus Christ, not in this world or the things of this world. Give Jesus first place in your life today. Ask Him to search your heart and yield your life to Him today and watch Jesus begin to transform your life!
Get your Bible out and read from Colossians 1. Let us start at verse 9.
"For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;

Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;

Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:

Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
 
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
 
And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence."
Colossians 1:9-18

Do you want to be delivered from the darkness of this world today? If you do, go to your knees and begin to cry out to Jesus and admit that you are a sinner, believe in your heart that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and raised from the dead on the third day, repent and turn from your sins, ask Jesus to come into your heart and to save you. " For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Romans 10:13
Just take God at His word and claim the salvation by faith. No church or no good works will save you. Remember God does the saving. All of it! If you want to speak with me about this please message me and oi would love to show you in the Word of God how to be saved.
If you are a believer of Jesus Christ, you have been delivered from darkness to the Light, from slavery of sin to the freedom of grace, from guilty to Forgiven, and from the power of Satan to the power of God!

True Security is found ONLY in Jesus Christ!! Do you know Him today?

How to have Faith?

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1

The Word of God according to this verse, seems to be pretty inportant, right? The Word was in the beginning, and the Word was with God, and the Word was/is God.
The Word of God is our GPS(God Positioning System) to help us navigate through this life. Our lives are in total chaos if the Word of God is not an everyday, essential tool we use to live your life.
Do you have faith that God's Word will transform your life?
Do you have faith that God's promises found throughout the Word are true?
Do you have faith that God's instructions are there to help us and NOT hurt us?

You might ask,"How do I have faith?" Well I am glad you asked.
There are 5 important steps in having genuine faith.
1. Hear the Word.
2. Read the Word.
3. Study the Word.
4. Memorize the Word.
5. Meditate on the Word.

It takes discipline to follow these steps. I am a work in progress as we speak! I am striving to get there.
The Word of God is crucial in our Christian walk. I challenge you now, along with myself to follow these 5 steps concerning the Word of God!

In Christ,
Steve