I am not sure what to do with my life

There are many answers to this question although very few of them seem to be the right answer at the time. The answer that most people are looking for is one that is very subjective and dependent upon the individual.

If you are a teen this question is put to you by your parents, your school counselor and your teachers as well as your peers. Adults ask this question after they have been working for a while and seem to have hit a wall that their career won’t go over. Kids younger than thirteen ask it, but it is a very confusing question since they aren’t sure what they might be interested in later on.

For older adults who have retired, they usually are looking for something to relieve the boredom since they left the workplace. Is it possible for you to consider volunteering at a shelter or your local church? I know that volunteer work is not a very lucrative way to have meaning in your life but it would expose you to other people and possibilities. Being of service to someone or performing a service at a shelter or church is an unselfish way to open up to other people and their needs. Helping someone with their grocery shopping or with their computer may show you that you have gifts and talents in other areas.

Our life is hard enough when we don't have problems but when someone needs help and you can help it is very gratifying. Jesus was the ultimate helper and His example is one we should all follow. I know that we can't do it on our own without His help and strength but if you ask for the strength from Him to do what needs to be done, He will answer. There are many ways that we can be more like Him, but only if we let Him work through us. Won't you give that a try and ask Him into your life? Your life will be so much more with Him in your heart and you will be too!

It is just the way life is but how can we live it?

Today, with all of the violence, abuse of all kinds, wars, etc., it is truly miraculous that we can live our lives period. When we look at the television and the internet it seems that all of the news is bad, regardless of what channel you may be watching or where you live. But, there is hope for all of us.

The way to live it fully and completely can only be found in the Bible and by faithfully walking the Christian faith daily. I know that this is an unpopular topic these days, but listen and you may learn something. I was sleeping soundly when I was awakened with this message and was compelled to get up and share this with the world.

God’s wisdom, found in the Bible or the Talmud, is timeless and applies now just as much as it did when it was written. Some of the concepts from the Old Testament may be a bit dated, like slavery, but the whole Bible points to the end of the age which we are living in now. I don’t know how much longer this world has because Jesus said, “Only the Father knows when that time will come”. I don’t claim to be a prophet, just a messenger. I don’t and cannot predict anything, only God knows when things are going to happen because nothing takes Him by surprise.

The books that are supposed to be “self-help” books just re-package the wisdom found in the Bible. None of these so-called “gurus” came up with this on their own. The ideas and concepts have been with us for centuries and were handed down by those who read the Bible and put it to work in their lives. God’s wisdom is timeless and no amount of advertising or marketing is going to change the core of the beliefs that most of the world has heard they just didn’t know exactly where it came from.

Please, if you are reading this, pick up a Bible somewhere. Read it, especially the book of Romans in the New testament. It outlines the way to salvation and peace with God and eternal life with His Son, Jesus. Here is a link to an important part of this book, I hope you will read it and read more after that:  Romans 8

God loves all of us and does not want anyone to perish in the pits of Hell. That is why the Bible and its message have not gone away like the courts and may others would like for it to do. It is the Living Word of God and therefore timeless. When someone goes to Hell, they do so not because they are being punished by God but by the choice that they made during life by not accepting God’s free gift of salvation through Christ. Yes, salvation is a gift although some see it as a binding or a curse. It is neither of these! If you are to truly live the Christian faith, it is a daily and at first it can be an hourly walk with Him. Because our nature is sinful and we are prone to follow it because it feels good or because that is what all of our “friends” are doing. This life is temporary and only lasts for a small amount of time compared to eternity. Our souls and the bodies that we are given for eternity never die, regardless of where you go after your earthly body dies.

Give yourself the chance to live fully because only through faith in Jesus and the message brought through Him can you be saved. The things you do on earth, regardless of how good they may be, will never be good enough to get you into Heaven. Rejecting Christ and His message is all you have to do to go to Hell. Think about it! Before it is too late.

How will anyone know?

How could someone who doesn’t know you, figure out that you are a Christian? Could they hear it when you talk to them? Could they see it by what you do every day at school or at work? Do you take Christ with you everywhere you go or do you leave Him and your faith at church when you go home?

We are supposed to be ambassadors for Christ in our daily lives. Do you know anyone who does this? If you do, how do they show it? By their words and deeds on a daily basis or just by going to church on Sunday?

Anyone can be religious about anything. They can religiously go fishing on Saturdays, they can be religious about watching TV every night or about how they comb their hair. Being religious about something is just making it a habit it doesn’t show your faith in anything. People who didn’t hear Jesus preach could watch Him and see what He did. They could tell that He had a faith and a purpose beyond this life and the day to day things that everyone else did. That is exactly what we are supposed to show the world. That our life is not based on our work schedule or when soccer practice is or when the big game is or who is winning the World Series this year, if you are a child of God through Christ!

The everyday stuff that we have to put up with while we are here is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. What will it matter in a thousand years how big your house is? In ten thousand years will anyone care what kind of car you drove while you were alive or even how much money and investments you had? NO!!! There won’t be any evidence that any of that ever existed by that time. Our life is only a few moments compared to that amount of time and if you stretch it out to a million or a billion years……? God loves all of us and he gave us a reason to be where we are. If you truly want to follow Him or are just curious, read the Bible! Especially the book of Romans. The way to salvation is in it from start to finish.

God doesn’t leave us alone, ever! No matter how far you think you have gone or what bad things you have done, He still loves you. It is simple to accept Him and His way if you will just trust in Jesus. He doesn’t require you to jump through hoops or anything like that. What He does require is faith in Jesus and the willingness to follow His way of life on a daily basis, giving up your sinful ways and so-called “friends”.

Living for Him and through Him is the same

Our life in Christ must be through Him daily. We cannot attempt to do it ourselves without Him. Because we can’t! If anyone is going to live a life dedicated to Christ and in service to Him they have to admit that they are sinners on a daily basis. Just as someone who smokes cigarettes has to admit that they have an addiction to cigarettes before they can possibly quit. We have to depend on Him daily for the strength to resist sin and the temptation to sin, no matter what the sin is or how “small” we consider it to be. In His eyes, there is no small sin. Just as there is no little lie or a little bit of murder. They are what they are and nothing else.

No one should consider themselves a Christian if they cannot say, truthfully, that they pray daily for the strength and wisdom to carry them through each day. Some people have said that being a Christian should be easy and that after accepting Christ we are supposed to be perfect. Jesus did say that we are to be perfect as the Father is perfect but He only meant that we are to strive to be perfect by confession of our sins and prayer for strength to resist temptation. We cannot be perfect in our sinful earthly body because anything that is corruptible cannot be perfect and our bodies are not perfect in a spiritual sense. God made our bodies perfect in the ways that they need to be so that all of the parts of our bodies work together, at least until something starts going wrong as we get older or due to disease or accidents.

Living in the times that we are living in is getting harder for Christians because we are considered to be the ones committing “hate crimes” and being non-conformist because we live according to our beliefs. Jesus said that we would be hated because of Him and we are seeing more and more of that everyday. It is going to get worse for all of us but we, as followers of Christ, are going to be targeted more and more as time moves closer to His second coming. I truly look forward to the day or night when He calls us home. Then the world will truly see what hard times really look like. Be in prayer for all who haven’t acknowledged Him and especially for those who don’t know Him at all.

Life is hard and it’s going to get worse!

In the economic times that we are living in, anyone with a job had better be satisfied with it or decide to be satisfied with it. The first six months of a new administration is always an uncertain time regardless of the political party involved. This has been true of Republicans as well as Democrats, so people who are playing the blame game trying to pin the problem on one or the other, are just wasting their time and everyone else’s.

The Creator, God, who made everything and controls it all, is the one who put each government into power and those who are in power are doing His will whether they know it or not. Nothing happens without His knowledge, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem to be at the time. Some people may ask, “Why does God allow suffering or murder or any of a thousand other atrocities which happen in our world everyday?” He allows it because He doesn’t control us!

We are the ones who commit those crimes every day and most are committed by people who do not know God at all! They may know of Him, but knowledge doesn’t make you a Christian. Believing in Him and His son, Jesus, does! The decision to follow Jesus is easy but the “following” is not. Our old nature tries to take over every second of every minute and if you do not decide to truly follow the teachings found in the Bible, you will not be a successful follower of Christ!

Once you truly decide to allow Christ into your life and your heart, it does become easier but the temptations never really go away. Satan is in control of this world but he is also under subjection to God so anything that he does is still in God’s will and His purpose. Humanity chooses to do whatever evil or good is in their hearts to do at whatever time they choose to do it. We are not controlled like robots, but only watched over by God. He loves and cares for us all, just like any loving father would for his children.

God put the universe together and He lovingly knitted your DNA together, just like He did with everyone else on this planet. He knows you far better than you know yourself and He would like to have a relationship with you if you would let Him. Give God a chance to show you what He can do with you and for you because no one else can do what He can!

Public opinion and policies

Our government has been working toward a premise that all of us need a college education to be an effective member of society. That is not so. A quote from an article that I read earlier says this:

“A good job requires a field of action where you can put your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world. Academic credentials do not guarantee this.“

There is proof of this since there are many with credentials up to PhD. that are working in jobs that do not require such lofty educational degrees. I am working as a technician on PC’s and I have a BS in Medical Technology but laboratories are cutting back on the number of employees rather than hiring. Although I do enjoy my work my degree is not being used at all. That is not to say that my talents are not being used, just my degree.

In other “policy” areas I have seen stories of legislation that is trying to bring about a “year of the Bible” but it will likely fail because there aren’t enough Christians with backbone enough to stand up for their own beliefs serving in Congress. On the other hand, there are plenty of lobbyists for the atheist side with comments such as this:

“Right now, we’re seeing atheism on such a rise,” said David Silverman, vice president and national spokesman of American Atheists, a group dedicated to fighting for the civil rights of atheists.

“We are seeing Christianity on such a dramatic decline that we’re not particularly worried about it. We’re thinking that this kind of old-style George W. Bush Republicanism is about to go away,” Silverman said, referring to the latest Pew Forum survey of American religious life, which showed non-religious Americans as the fastest-growing group.

Our country was founded on Christian beliefs and principles regardless of what the atheists would like for us to believe. The actual separation between church and state that Thomas Jefferson was speaking of was to keep the government from regulating our religion, not eradicating it entirely from the government itself.

There seems to be a growing public opinion that our country is a country of secularists and not Christians and the evidence seems to be pointing in that direction. Those of us who are Christians are just sitting back and watching this happen and not voicing our concern or our opinion at all. I am using this forum to at least get the word out although I am not sure if anyone is reading this or not. I pray that God will use me and my small voice to get some people upset enough to do something or say something in the right venue that may have some effect before it is too late.

Pentagon To Drop Bible Quotes From Daily Briefings - wcco.com

Dropping quotes from the Bible is not going to help!

Pentagon To Drop Bible Quotes From Daily Briefings - wcco.com

I realize that there is supposed to be a separation between our government and the church but only so that the government doesn’t control the church! That has nothing to do with whether our troops are Bible-believing Christians or not. Our country was founded by and would not have been settled at all if the people coming over to America had not been Christians who were trying to escape religious persecution and control from their own country.

Our government cannot escape its place in history or in prophecy. We have a place in both and we cannot ignore or deny this, if we do the end will be far worse than the beginning.