PTSD in daily living

Post traumatic stress disorder sounds intimidating but it happens all around us, not just to soldiers. Children experience it from bullying at school or from constant tension at home. Men and women experience it at work as doctors, nurses, fire department personnel, police personnel and in tense arguments at home. Soldiers experience it anytime that they are in a dangerous and life threatening situation.

We are all in life threatening situations when we get on the highway but it seems so normal until we don’t see it that way until something happens around us or to us and our family.  Some days, just living can be a stress producing ordeal which can traumatize our minds. These are the times that we should be reaching out to God to be our constant companion in every situation. Our comforter and guide is always waiting for us to call on Him and He will be there.

Jesus said that we would receive a comforter when He went back to the Father and as Christians we have that but some of us don’t count on Him daily like we should. God loves us all, no matter where we are and until we allow Him to enter our hearts and live there daily, we can never know the depth of His love for us.

In many ways, the lack of commitment to being a servant of God is the reason for Post traumatic stress disorder.  If we would humble ourselves and come to Him daily, we would not have such stressful lives and if the stress was there we would have Him to comfort us in our time of need. There are many ways that people today have to find comfort. Some are legal and some are not but most of us find a way to find comfort whether it is temporary or permanent. The kind of comfort we find in serving Jesus is permanent.

Read the Bible, it is good for you and for your future. It also contains the most helpful wisdom that can be found in this life and it is the source of most “self-help” advice, in my opinion. Our Creator put your DNA together bit by bit before you were born and He knew you long before that. Give Him a chance in your life to prove that He really is the One, the Excellent Counselor and the Prince of Peace.  Romans 8:28

The time we have here is important

It is important to us, to our families and to God. Our lives are and always have been important to Him. If many of you would listen and check out His word, the Bible, you would see this is true. 

Psalms 118: 8  It is better to trust in the Lord than to put your confidence in people.

The Lord of Hosts and the Creator of the Universe loves all of His creation, especially us! He created us in His image, all of us! It is about time that we realized this. The word of God is full of passages which point to this out in detail.

We were put here to serve Him and His purposes on earth. Many people are confused about what this means. The Bible tells us if we only take the time to come to Him and pray about it while we study His word. He will reveal exactly what we are to do for Him and how to do it. The Bible is the only Living Word of God. It was sent to us to guide us and reveal to us what our purpose on earth is. Jesus was and is the Living Word and is manifested in the world now as the Bible itself. He is the Son of God and the savior of the world.

Give your life to Him and  live fully dedicated to Him and you will never regret it. He can and will reward you with more than you could ever hope for…. a life that will never end and more satisfaction in your life here than you can get from the world.

Thank you, Lord for a wonderful year!

This year has been very different from all others. We have seen gas and oil prices reach levels that our parents and grand-parents never dreamed of. We elected the first African-American to be President. We have gone into a recession like none before it with the exception of the Depression of the thirties and are still coming through it. Banks have gone out of business, the auto industry is on the skids with possible bankruptcy looming. We had record heat during the summer, snow in New Orleans, more rain in December than we saw all summer and we are only half way through winter!

I know it sounds gloomy but God is in control of all of it! Every leaf that has fallen, every penny lost, every snow flake was His doing. But it was all planned to bring our attention around to realize that we are not in control, He is! Nothing that we do can change the color of he sky or the leaves, but He can. The salmon lives it's life in the ocean until it is time to spawn, then it makes its way back to its birth stream to do so. Science says it is instinct, the real reason is that God is in control and the salmon does His will.

We are the only creation to which God gave a free will. We can choose to do His will or we can choose not to do His will. He knows which one we will do but He also knows when or if we will ultimately come to Him. He also knows the trigger that will bring us to Him and He will use it. It may hurt, it may cause us to doubt Him for a time but ultimately, no matter how hard or how far you run from Him you are always running to Him. No one can escape God or His will for their lives. You can put it off, but if He truly wants you to do something for Him, you will. It may nearly take your lifetime to bring it about but He knows when your time is up on this earth and He knows when you can do Him and His kingdom the most good. Even if it is on your death bed.

Don't let it be on your death bed! Go to Him in a church, in your car, in your closet....wherever you need to meet Him, He will meet you because He is always with you no matter where you are or what you may be doing. To me, that is a sobering thought. Knowing that God is always at my side no matter what! He always sees what you do and when. Tell Him you are sorry for doing something which is wrong in His sight, regardless of how small you think it is it matters to God. It should matter to you too.

We should all be Thankful!

Thankful to our Creator who sustains us with his power for without it, everything which was created would fly apart. Regardless of the scientific explanation to the contrary, God is the one who is keeping everything going.

I read something the other day that quoted doctors as saying that they did not know what the reason was for people living longer who regularly attend church services. It is simply because they are serving their Creator and He is sustaining them, nothing more than that. But it is folly to those who don't belong to Christ because they can't understand it.

Our lives are to be living sacrifices to Him every day, not just when we need Him. Truly, we need Him every day and He desires our service and praise. He doesn't need us the way we need our spouses, but He desires to know the desires of our hearts like a mother or father desires to know and hear from their children.

The love of God doesn't depend on our service to Him nor does it depend on us at all. He loves us regardless. He desires our service to Him when we give our hearts to Him and to Jesus. We are not required to do this, but when your heart and spirit are changed by Jesus you will want to serve Him in some way. Being a deacon, a pastor, singing in a choir, teaching a class at church, cooking for the church, doing the best you can do at your regular job whatever that may be, these are all ways of serving Him daily. He doesn't require us to be missionaries to other people, just to those around us.

All people are important to Him because He created us all. He formed us all in our mother's womb from the bits of DNA of our mother and father. He knows exactly how you will look, how you will talk, what kind of temperament you will have, what choices you will make and why. The colour of your hair and how many there are on your head and the colour of your eyes are all things that He put there to make you who you are. He knows each of us more intimately than anyone else can. That is the God I serve gladly every day and I hope someday you will too.

Eternity! That is a loooong time!

My life these past couple of years has been eventful and rewarding. God has taught me a lot about Himself and about me. I regret to say that there are still things about myself that I don't like but I suppose God looks over them and forgives me for them. I am not perfect and never will be until I am in Heaven with Him. At which point I won't have to worry about this world and its troubles anymore, and I will serve Him forever.

That word implies that our lives don't end and, if you are a child of God and have accepted Jesus as your Lord, they won't end. Oh, the earthly body will die unless Jesus comes before your time on earth is up, but either way eternity will be glorious. My acceptance of this was not easy and I did not come to this lightly. My grandparents and my parents died before I became truly committed to my walk with God. I am still not sure why I held so tightly to my own ideas and ways, but until my dad died about seven years ago, I wasn't ready to cling to God's way. I think God used my son and my responsibility to him as a way to get me to really commit to His service.

In reference to eternal life, whether you accept Jesus or not your soul will live forever. The big question is what will you be doing and where you will be for eternity? Eternity is a very long time and we cannot comprehend with our human mind the magnitude of it. It is hard for me to think about life as it was two hundred years ago or so. Jesus' followers lived two thousand years ago. Scientists say that our sun and planets are over four billion years old (although I don't believe it). Jesus is still alive and was alive before there was anything so regardless of the age of the universe, He is.

Just knowing that you will live forever is enough to make me commit my life to Jesus. I don't understand why anyone would want to spend eternity in hell. I know that many people think that it will be a big party, but it won't. There will be no laughter or merry-making there. If you have rejected God's provision of eternal life with Him through Jesus, you will be in torment and agony forever. Those are facts spelled out in God's word so they are set in stone and will not be changed. The only way to avoid that fate is to accept Jesus as your Saviour and live for Him and His kingdom.

Many people think that it couldn't be that simple and it really isn't. All you have to do is accept Jesus as your Saviour, then the work begins! Just because you accept Him your old nature won't go away, you will have to struggle against it for the rest of your life. But when you get closer to Him and study his word, it gets easier because you are becoming more like Him. You are not becoming a god, but you will become more like Christ by doing His will for your life. That can be as simple as doing a good job at your work whatever it may be. As long as you are following Him and studying His word to become a faithful servant of His, He will direct your life and “God causes everything to work together for the good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.” Romans 8:28

God Loves You!!

It seems that every time I post, the devil himself gets offended. Which is fine with me as long as he leaves my family alone. I know that many people don't think that the devil or Satan exists but he does. The problems in our country and all around the world attest to that. He has dominion over this world but God has dominion over him. The only way that he can hurt you is if God allows it to happen, if you are a Christian. Otherwise, he can do whatever he wishes until you realize that the only way to protect yourself and your family is to come to Jesus and ask Him into your heart and life.

Now, I am not saying that everything will be perfect after you accept Him but your spiritual life and your physical life will be under His protection from Satan's influence. And that is always a step in the right direction.

Christ said that when he came into the world it would cause conflict and that we, as Christians, would be hated because the world hated Him first. His love for us is spelled out in the Bible in so many passages that it would be hard to miss.

The Old Testament is usually seen as the history of the nation of Israel and it is to a certain extent but it is also where God shows just how much patience He has. He has far more patience than any human father would and He is our true father since He formed us in the womb.

Our universe was created by God, not some "big bang" or other random events. All of us and every star and galaxy was created by Him as well. The millions of species on this planet were designed by God to do exactly what they do and for the environment in which they live. There isn't enough time in the universe for all of these things to have happened by "random events" or evolution. God watches over all things that He created whether it happens to be something which He created in His image, like man, or not. You are special to Him because you were and are made in His image and the image of His Son! No one can take that away from you and if you would acknowledge it and accept Him as your Lord and Savior you will feel it! Like a BIG hug from your Dad, even if you never got one of those, that is how it feels when you surrender to Him. Give God a try....you won't be disappointed!

Our service...is it really all that hard?

What would you say to someone who offered you an eternity to live if you would only do one thing? Sounds crazy, right?

Well, that is exactly what God did when He sent His son to die for our sins and pay the penalty for us all. Now, if it involved some monetary gain in this life before we died, there would be more converts daily than the churches of the world could handle! But, isn't eternal life much more valuable than that!

I know that there are those who would like for me to stop posting here, but this is my calling from God Himself and I will not stop. There are too many of you out there who have not heard or maybe you are looking but don't know who to ask about these things. I am going to try to answer as many questions as I can and if I can't answer them I will find the answer somehow. Fair enough?

The people of Israel know God and know about Him but some are not willing to admit that the messiah has already come. I have heard that there are some Messianic Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah and they believe that He came when the scriptures and the New Testament say He did. I hope that this is true and I pray that some of you will let me know about it. My e-mail is posted here so you can reply to me about anything which I have stated wrong so I can correct it. If I have offended anyone, I apologize in advance and ask your forgiveness.

Our Lord and Savior is waiting for you. Please let Him come into your life, He will make it so much more rewarding than it already is! The Scriptures really do spell out how much God loves all of us, regardless of being gentile or Jew. Let Him show you just how much by coming to Him in faith as Abraham did when he believed God about the promise of a son in his old age. Give Him a chance to melt your heart and write on it with the Holy Spirit who He truly is and why He loves you!

Our Service to Him....

Should be out of love for someone who created us just the way we should be. Your life is not just yours but it belongs to God, whether you have given your life to Jesus or not. Everything on the earth no matter what it is, including everyone who is or is not a follower of Christ, belongs to God because He created everything and everyone. There are no animals, no bacteria, no insects, or fish or birds or anything on the earth that He did not want to be here.

I have never quite understood how some non-believers could come to the conclusion that man can make himself into a god. There is no possible way, because even the angels can't do that. They are heavenly beings created by God and they are very powerful, but they are still His servants.

Our lives are intended to be extensions of His will, even though we are not forced into this. We are to give ourselves freely because that is what Christ did. He subjected Himself to His Father's will, not His own. He went to the cross to die for us, all of us, so that when we believe in Him and His sacrifice for us we will have eternal life with Him. It is that simple!!

Simplicity makes some people scared because they think if it is too simple it must not be worth much. YOU ARE WRONG!! Our salvation is worth the price of God's son and His death and resurrection. I don't know of anything that could be named that would be worth even the price of my own son's death and being human we can't comprehend God's ways or His thoughts about His son's death. Of course, He knew that He was going to be resurrected and ascend to Heaven. But that is beside the point.

Would you sacrifice something so precious for beings that reject you and your ways! Even when you have given them every chance over and over and over, that is exactly what YAHWEH, Jehovah, God did for all of us. We should get down on our knees every day and thank Him that He allowed us to even get up from our bed. These facts are hard to accept, yet they are in the Bible which is the written word of God and He does NOT lie.

Please forgive me if this post is too forceful but time is running short and if you expect to be allowed into heaven, you have to get your heart and soul right with God. Once the door is shut by God, no one else can open it.

A prayer for us, all

Our Father in Heaven, who created all that is and was and is to come. I know that you can see through time as we see through a window, regardless of the direction you look. You knew well what people would do with your servants and prophets and your Son. Forgive us, Lord, for our lack of commitment and will to do Your will and not our own. To believe in Your Son and that He gave Himself for our sins and the sins of the entire world is all that you ask and that is too simple for many to accept, yet it is all that you require.

We are but puffs of smoke and our lives are nothing more than the tick of a clock compared to eternity. Even the "time line" that scientists say there has been on earth shows that the time of mankind is only a few thousand years compared to the length of four billion years which they believe our planet has existed. You could destroy and create the entire universe in less than a week and it would still appear as it does now if you chose for it to.

The amount of time that you allotted to man to live is but a puff of wind compared to eternity. In your word you said that "The days of our life are three score years and ten, or if we have strength, four score" (Psalms 90) Seventy years or, if You allow us, maybe eighty, but after that we are living on grace and nothing more. For it is by your grace and mercy that we live at all. We deserve death, but we are given life through your Son, Jesus, and through the grace which you extended to us through His sacrifice on the cross. Father, I know you will not forget your promises to us, your adopted children, or those made to your chosen people, Israel.

My prayer is simply....Come, Lord Jesus! Stir the spirits of those whom you will call to be yours so that they will come to you before the trumpet sounds for the gathering at the banquet for the marriage of the Lamb. In Jesus' name I believe and hope and I know that all these will come to pass in your time, not ours.

Thank you, Lord for the blessings which you bestow upon us daily and for the grace and mercy extended to us through your son. In Jesus' Holy name I thank you for all who will read and believe in Him and for all the blessings we receive every day we are alive. Amen.

My life in His Service

There are so many ways of looking at service to our Lord. The most important is that you look at your job, whatever it may be, as an outlet for service to Him. Everything we do should be a testimony to our life in Him and our service to Him. If you ask God to empower you to do His will every morning, then your day can be filled with opportunities for witnessing or for showing your faith.

God loves all of humanity regardless, as I have said before. No matter what religion you follow or what "denomination" you happen to be, He loves you because He formed you in your mother's womb. An artist has affection for his creations and so does God. He is the creator of all things and no matter what or where your life happens to be, in service to Him or not, He still cares about you more than you could know or even realize.

In the Bible, God says "My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts." (Is. 55:8) That is why it is hard to understand the Bible, but if you read it without trying to make it harder than it is you can understand it. That is why Jesus said "Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." (Luke 18:16) The faith of a child simply comes to Him with no "baggage" like an adult. That is also what makes it so hard for scientists and political leaders who may not know Christ to come to Him. They can't understand how it can be as simple as believing in Him and the salvation He brings to us without cost.

Our lives would be so much easier than they are if we would simply come to Him in prayer every morning and start the day that way all the time. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you." (Luke 12:31) My life and service to Him has not been perfect. I "gave" my life to Him twenty-eight years ago, but I didn't really begin to serve Him like I should until about five years ago. Why did I wait so long? I am not exactly sure, but I know that by the time I started serving Him I was a father and my son was starting to ask questions.

So it was a child who started the process, not me. I had been able to feel His influence on my life but I was still doing mostly what I wanted to and not what He wanted me to do. I don't mean that I was out drinking or other things but I wasn't serving God like I should. My spirit knew it and I knew it too, but it took a long time before I really did anything about it, and now I have and will continue to do as much as He will give me the strength to do. Please don't wait like I did. Ask Him to come in and give you the will and the strength to do what needs to be done so your soul won't be tormented forever for refusing His call on your life.

Good Morning, World!

Our lives are blessed, regardless of the religion you cling to or believe in. God loves you all and wants you to come to the knowledge of Him and His Son, Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Your life and vocation, whatever that may be, should be done as in service to Him.

In living the life that He wants us to live, through His Son, we serve in His Kingdom and we are able to do His will for our lives. The sooner more people come to realize that we are not puppets, and that God uses people for His purposes regardless of their belief in Christ or not, there is only one reaction that means anything.....coming to faith in Jesus! You know that God used the pharaoh in Egypt in order to display His power to the whole world, even though he didn't know the God of the Israelites.

He even uses other religions of the world to prove that He is the only God who loves and cares for all. He knows how many hairs are on each person's head because He put them there! He formed you in the womb from your mother and father's DNA into an individual with all of the attributes that He wanted you to have. Please consider reading His word and learning about Him and His Son, Jesus.

God loves you because you are His creation, no matter where you are or what religion you claim.

It has been a stressful week

I have been buffeted by some attacks from "the dark side" this week and they have been particularly stressful. The power of God is awesome in spite of this and He has given me the strength, both physically and spiritually, to stand against them. Through the prayers of my family, myself, and dear friends I have come through and will be stronger for it.

Jesus can do all things and I can too as long as I allow Him to work through me and not try to do it on my own strength. It is the "allow" part that most people have trouble with. We are not programmed that way by the world. We are told from a very young age that we can do anything and that it is up to us and no one else. That is one way of looking at things but it is not the way that God wants us to look at life.

Our lives are meant to be used in service to Him, no matter what occupation we have. He intends for us to use our occupations, such as policemen, firefighters, home-makers, factory workers or medical personnel to ultimately serve Him. Your service for God can be as little as showing that you are His by not arguing, or letting someone on a bus have your seat. Speaking with an elderly person about their life and really listening. Taking the trash out for your parents or your neighbor without being asked to do so and not asking for money. In other words, show that Jesus lives in your heart by what you do not what you say or by a cross on a necklace.

You can be a child of God just by asking Jesus into your heart and life. It really is that simple. There are many who don't think that they can be forgiven by Him, but since He forgave even those who rejected and crucified Him, He can forgive you too. Won't you let Him in to show you just how good it feels to be forgiven? Even if you don't know how to pray, God can tell when you are sincere about your repentance and are ready to receive Him.

Do you believe in the existence of Hell?

I have heard many stories of people who don't believe in Heaven or Hell, though I can't understand why. I guess if I weren't a servant of God and didn't believe the Bible as the word of God, I wouldn't either. There are many passages in the Bible which point to the existence of Hell and describe it as well. I just finished a book entitled,"23 Minutes in Hell" by Bill Wiese.

The reality of Hell is not whether or not it exists, just that it does! Jesus referred to it, the prophets of the old Testament referred to it. It is a real place. I know that many people say that a loving God could not send people to hell, but He will! The simple act of refusing his gift of eternal life through belief in Jesus will send you there, God doesn't want any human in hell. He created it for Satan and his demons, not us. Through rejection of His Son and the sacrifice made in our place, many people will go to Hell that would not have gone there by making the choice to accept Him as their savior.

I know that in many churches, the existence of hell is not preached but that doesn't mean that it is not there. Fire looks pretty but if you put your hand in it you will still be burned. The fire of hell is just as hot as any fire, if not hotter than that on earth, but your life after death is eternal and that is a LONG time!! The fire of hell does not consume you it just tortures you forever. God is not the one who sends you there, you do! By accepting Jesus as your lord and Savior you can escape that fate.

I know some will think that I get some compensation from a publisher by putting a link to Bill Wiese's book in this blog, but I assure you that I do not. I only put the link there to encourage you to get the book and read it. Then check the references to the Bible and other works that he uses and you will see that hell is a real place. If you don't believe after that, you will find out personally when you die. Instead of an angel coming to get you, there will be demon. I don't have to go into any more detail than that. Please, consider the validity of the Bible and the message in it's pages. It is true and Jesus is waiting. Don't wait until it is too late because no one knows when their time will come. It may be tonight or tomorrow. Don't put it off, please!