Man's Word or God's Truth?

There are godly men and women in this world. Unfortunately, there are some evil men and women as well. Many souls have been scarred by evil actions. As with most cases, God gets the blame.

God’s word and man’s word are different. God isn’t a human. He isn’t accountable for mankind’s actions or neglect.

However, God is aware of our hurts, and He has made provision to heal us completely.

The book of Genesis tells us of creation. It also tells that after God created man, He gave man a commandment.

God told Adam that if he ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil then Adam would die. (Genesis 2:17) But Eve thought that God said you can’t eat of it, nor touch it or she would die. (Genesis 3:2-3) At this time, Adam stood with her, and didn’t bother to correct her thinking. Perhaps, he was the one who added to God’s word and told Eve that they couldn’t touch the fruit.

Because of this, a lot of people (and I was once one of them) blame Adam for Eve’s sin. However, upon closer look we see that after the deed was done, God spoke directly to Eve in verse 13 and 16. This tells me that the communication line between God and Eve was already open.

Eve didn’t have to go through Adam to have access to God. She could have clarified the commandment with one question. But instead of depended on God and God’s word. She depended on man and man’s word.

Man’s word fails. God’s word never fails.

Today, people are wrongly judging God’s faithfulness by a man’s or another woman’s word. We are deceived into thinking that God is a liar, God is abusive, God is unfaithful, and God doesn’t care because of human action or inaction. But thankfully, God is not a man that He should lie.

Another fact to consider is that prior to their sin, God told both Adam and Eve that they may eat of every fruit tree that had seeds. (Genesis 1:28-29) Since God doesn’t lie, and His word never changes, we can conclude that the fruit from The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was seedless. (The first seedless fruit was created not by man’s ingenuity but by God in the Garden of Eden.)

Think of a wild plum tree. Think of all the little sprouts around it. That’s probably why God created the tree seedless. He wanted only one of this type of tree. This also distinguished the tree from the other edible fruits. 

Adam and Eve knew which fruit was forbidden.

Men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers have a distinctive purpose and a specific role to play in our life, but none of these are gods. None of these are Saviors. All of these are human. And all of these make mistakes. Every life has been touched by evil in some way. Yes, it hurts, and yes it affects us. But we can’t judge God’s love and compassion by human failure. And, it’s time to stop blaming our own failures on the inadequacies of others.

Instead, let’s use the communication lines that were opened on Calvary. Talk to God. Tell Him your hurts. Let Him heal you.

Remember that your heavenly Father loves you unconditionally. He sent Jesus to save you from the evils of sin. The Holy Ghost was sent with comfort and strength to help us not only survive this world, but to live victoriously.

Have you talked to your Savior today?

How to measure Godly success!

How many souls did Jeremiah win? 

Was he in the will of God? 

If so, why didn’t anyone heed his message?

Sometimes we measure our success by the success of others. 

Sometimes we measure our success by the number of souls that we see won. 

God has been dealing with me lately on obeying by faith.

In other words, I have been guilty of measuring success by the results that I see. 

But what about the results that I can't see? 

What about the seeds that I planted, but someone else reaped the harvest? 

Or the souls given the opportunity for salvation?

What about you?

How do you measure your ministerial success? 

Do you mentally add up the souls that have prayed in your altar 

and feel like a failure?

Think about Jeremiah. 

With the exception of maybe Baruch, he didn’t see positive results from his weeping. 

However, we can’t count the number of lives impacted 

by the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations today.

Was Jeremiah successful? 

The third chapter of Lamentations shows that 

the prophet believed he had failed. Did he?

No. Because of his obedience to God’s calling, Jeremiah fulfilled his mission.

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world,

 and preach the gospel to every creature. ~ Mark 16:15

Have you gone where God has lead you? Are you preaching the gospel?

Then congratulations! Your ministry is a success.

It doesn’t matter if you pastor a church running 5 or 5000, if you preach on the street corner, in a Sunday school class, or on the aisles of the grocery store. If you are doing what God has called you to do, then you are a success in His eyes.

Yes, we should pray. We should love. We should hunger. We should have burdens.

 But those are all things done in obedience. 

Don’t slack up if you aren’t seeing results.

Obey God’s calling and let Him tally up the harvest.

The Answer?

The answer to the world’s problems is...

 

 

Addictions?                            Jesus delivers.

Alcohol bound?                      Jesus frees.

Unloved?                                Jesus loves.

Unwanted?                             Jesus cares.

Orphaned?                              Jesus adopts.

Abandoned?                           Jesus rescues.

Lonely?                                   Jesus indwells.

Confused?                               Jesus enlightens.

Hungry?                                  Jesus feeds.

Lost?                                       Jesus saves.

Never apologize for obeying God

The bible says, “Obedience is better than sacrifice.”

Oftentimes God uses strange vessels. A burning bush. A talking donkey. But what about us? How does He use His people?

Obedience sometimes comes with a higher price than sacrifice. Take for instance, the heartache suffered by Hosea when he married the harlot Gomer, the persecution of the first Christians when they preached the gospel, Peter criticized by the church for obeying the vision and going to Cornelius’s house, Jeremiah put in a pit for prophesying the truth, or the prophets of old punished and killed.

What about Phillip? Have you ever wondered why the early church didn’t reprimand him for preaching to the Samaritans? Was it because the Samaritans were half Jews? I don’t know. But I do know that when we obey God, we sometimes face persecution from the world and from the church.

One night, in a service years ago, the Spirit was moving and God told me to open the double doors to the entrance of the church. Immediately, Satan whispered in my ears, “Don’t.” He named three people and told me what they would think if I obeyed God. One would complain about the cool air escaping into the night. Another would be angry because of the insects entering the sanctuary, and yet another would worry about the young children wandering outside.

When I told God that I couldn’t open the doors because people would be mad, he didn’t contradict me. He didn’t tell me that everyone would be happy and applaud my efforts. No. He said some people won’t like it, but do it anyway.

I did. And he poured out an awesome blessing that night. A few nights later, I learned that the three people did complain about the wasted electricity, the bugs, and the danger to the children. (Though none escaped into the night.)

With this blog post, I’m reminding myself of God’s words. With everything that he’s done for me, how could I choose to do what men say over what God says? And though some people will complain, I will obey God and I won’t apologize.

JESUS IS MORE THAN A BANDAID!

A few months ago, a well known Christian lady purchased my novel, Whatever He Wants. Shortly thereafter, I received a phone call. She said, “I cannot believe you wrote a book full of sex, drugs, and alcohol. Why?”

 

My response was weak. Since the release of the book, I had heard many great testimonies from readers about how the story had helped them by giving them hope or giving them a hunger for God's presence. I wasn’t expecting an attack from fellow Christians. I know with absolute certainty this was a Jesus story. A story God gave me to write. A story that I prayed and fasted for.  Since then, others have questioned my work. "Why did you depict sin so that the reader is almost tempted?"

 

This blog post is an answer to that question.

 

 

 

The book, Whatever He Wants, opens at a party scene.
Drugs, alcohol, and hook-ups are center stage.
This is reality.

Like many of us, James Preston struggles with consequences of past sins.
He searches for his young son and his son's drug addicted mother,
a woman James has no intention of marrying.

Many pew dwellers write James off.

They say he got what he deserved when he rebelled against his Christian heritage and sinned.

But, thank God, Jesus doesn’t give up that quickly.

He rescues us from our mistakes and calls us to repentance.
 

Jesus also protects us from our own good intentions.

Joni Maher attends the party with one goal, to destroy the curse of her virginity.

Today’s society portrays innocence as a weakness, but God says it is a treasure.

How can we fault young girls for giving themselves away,

when we haven’t taught them the value of their bodies?

While we give them a list of dos and don’ts,

 the world whispers lies in their ears.

 Satan seduces them with promises of beauty and temporary love.
 

Yes, the novels I write are full of sin.
 

“…But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:” Romans 5:20

They are also full of the convicting presence of God, His mercy, His grace,
and the awesome power of the Holy Ghost.

Why?
 
Jesus is more than a band aid. He can handle the tough issues.
The ones we encounter in real life., not the façade we wear to church.
Real people are tempted. And real people need the blood of Jesus,
magnified by the Holy Ghost to overcome those temptations.

 

Prayer Requests

Have you seen a similar social media status?

 

#PrayerRequest. These people are about to drive me crazy, but the Lord won’t put more on me than I can bear. #HelpmeJesus #hatestupidpeople #whylordwhy

 

 I’ve seen several lately and I’d like to clear the air.

 

GOD ISN’T RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR PROBLEMS.

 

Yes, it is true that he won’t give His people more than they can bear.

But…There are consequences of sin that we bring on ourselves.
 

“Don’t Judge me,” You say.

I say, “There is no need to judge. You confess your sins daily through your tweets and status updates. And I’m tired of people blaming God for their own sinful actions.”

 

He loves you and wants to give you blessings that you can’t comprehend,
but the Bible is very clear.

 

He will NEVER reward sin.

“…your sins have withholden good things from you.” Jeremiah 5:25

 

If you want the blessings of God…?

Stop sinning. Repent. Believe God. And live for Him. ~Amen

 

 

A Tale of Amazing Grace and My Uncle Charlie

This post is based on my childhood memories. I hope it doesn’t offend other relatives.

 

 

A Tale of True Amazing Grace

 

Maybe it was the images and memories of the Vietnam War
or it could have been the car wreck after he was discharged from the Army,
but my Uncle Charlie wasn’t quite “all there.” Even though he’d sit in the front yard
cussing an unseen enemy, I won’t call him crazy because I loved him
and he was my friend.

My mom assures me that before the war, he was very intelligent
and held a prestigious position in the army.
I should look up his military records but the solider wasn’t who I knew.

When I was a kid, bored during a visit at Maw-maw’s house, he was my playmate.
He and all my other bored cousins.
We thought that he was playing pretend and we’d sneak up behind him,
wait for just the right moment and tackle him.
Looking back, I see the miracle in that he didn’t mistake us for the enemy.
Instead he retaliated with hand to hand combat in the form of tickles
and rolls across the yard.
He always looked out for us, calling “watch for snakes” and “stay out of the road.”

Did he tell on us for setting the woods on fire?

Nope.
He simply put out the fire, drove us to a small country store, and bought us ice cream.

I won’t mention the fire later that night after the wind revived the coals.

Like all children must, I grew up. Then I married and moved away.
When I finally returned to my roots, Uncle Charlie was old, sick, and dying.
As I Christian I began to wonder, if he was saved.

Was his mind lucid enough to understand the concept of salvation?

I began to pray.

I wanted assurance that my beloved playmate would make it to heaven.

God is good and he answered that prayer in a unique way.
I wasn’t there when Uncle Charlie took his final breath,
but my mother was and this is what she told me…

My mom had driven from Tennessee to be with her brother.
Uncle Charlie was weak, on oxygen, and freshly released from the ICU.

There was nothing more the doctors could do.

Death was a matter of time.

One morning, as his breath grew shallow;
he turned to my mother. With wonder in his eyes and said,
“Jesus wants to hold my hand. Why? Why does Jesus want to hold my hand?”

I don’t remember what mom told him, or who else she said was in the room,
but I do know he was too weak to lift his head.

Yet my uncle reached toward heaven and smiled.

His hand then floated to the mattress and he was gone.

God answered my prayer with Uncle Charlie's final words.

I picture him now in heaven, sitting cross-legged by The River of Life.

Instead of curses for the enemy, praise for his savior rolls off his tongue.

One day, I plan to sneak up and tackle him.

I wonder…Is there ice cream in heaven?