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!