“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” – Galatians 3:27

It’s nice to get comfortable after a long day. When I get home from work, I usually take off my work clothes and get into something like my sweats or maybe jeans and a t-shirt. As long as I have my work clothes on, I know I’m not home. However, I am encouraged because I know I’m on the way. Before long, I’ll be able to come home and be at peace.

While we are here on earth, it seems like it’s a day-to-day struggle just to keep your head up. This world tends to weigh pretty heavily on each of us. Between the pressures of our jobs and the stresses we face in our private lives, it’s a wonder why we don’t all look like we are 150 years old. I know that I’ve earned each one of these grey hairs; I just wish there was more wisdom that came along with them. When I look in the mirror nowadays, I see this grouchy old guy that’s been beaten up by this world.

That isn’t how our Creator sees us. God sees us for what and who we truly are, the beautiful children that He wanted to make. The world does its damage, but Jesus says, “Take heart, for I have overcome the world.” The Bible says that right now, we don’t even completely know ourselves and that is thanks to all of the trials that this world puts us through. One day though, we will know fully just as we are fully known by God. When we accept Jesus into our lives and hearts, we too shall one day overcome the pain, the stress, and the heartaches of this world.

You might ask why God wants us to go through hard times. The answer is in the cross of Jesus. No struggle, no pain, no trial that you will ever go through will be for nothing. Jesus suffered and die, then was raised from the dead to give us the gift of eternal life in Heaven. We, too, will have our own crosses to bear in this life. Those crosses aren’t only for our own benefit, but for other peoples’ as well. We learn how to life each other up during hard times and show each other how to appreciate the good times. Those crosses we bear for Jesus are for the greater good of all. That being said, some of our crosses are self-imposed. Our lives aren’t perfect and if you are struggling to make it perfect, you are in a losing battle. We think we can bring ourselves peace and work ourselves into Heaven, but it’s never enough.

Jesus Christ is the only thing that will bring us peace. When you accept Jesus as your Savior, He begins to live in you and through you so you can have that peace that you’ve worked so hard for. No more reason to fear all of your sins. You have a place in Heaven waiting because God doesn’t see you anymore, He sees Jesus.

Don’t be discouraged and don’t loose heart. Know that you are destined for Heaven and joy for all of eternity. You may not be there yet, but you are on the way. And thanks to Jesus, you have a new change of clothes when you get there.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.” – Galatians 5:22-23

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he speaks of the “fruits of the Holy Spirit.” Love, joy, peace, and faithfulness just to name a few. He also makes a contrast of the works of the flesh versus the gifts of the Spirit.

The point that the Apostle Paul was trying to make is just like what Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew. “By their fruits, you shall know them.” And again Jesus saying in the Gospel of John, “They shall know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Being a Christian is not easy. It goes against the ways of this world. The world tells you to look out for number one. Your flesh screams at you to feed its desires. When you give in to those base desires, it feels good only for a little bit. You soon need more and more to fill that void inside of yourself. You can’t physically do enough to keep your urges in check.

By contrast, Christ teaches you to have compassion for others and to put the greater good over your own self interests. You are to be happy, but not at the expense of the true joy that comes from a life lived in service of others. You will seek less for the lusts and greed of right now, but instead reach for a forever kind of love.

When you accept Jesus into your heart, the Holy Spirit starts blessing you with those fruit that Paul spoke of. It is easier to feel joy in the midst of trials. It’s easier to be faithful to your spouse. It’s easier to feel compassion towards those who are in need of a helping hand.

Indeed, by their fruits, you shall know a true follower of Christ. And the more time you spend with our Savior, the more fruit you will produce. It’s easy for a tree to bring forth fruit when it is planted by the river of living water that is Christ Jesus. Its life is everlasting and its fruit is inexhaustible.

Drink from the river of Christ and watch the fruit of the Holy Spirit grow in your life.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.” – Psalm 27:14

We will be moving back to Texas soon, which got me thinking about the last time we moved recently. Our lives have been a wild ride anyway, but then an opportunity came up near New York and we couldn’t say no. It is always exciting for us to move and try a new adventure. The kids get to be the new kids in school and my wife and I get to pick out houses. Of course, moving is not all it’s cracked up to be, especially moving over a day’s journey away from our previous home back there in the Lone Star State. There’s the long car ride, various smells from the back seat, and eating fast food so often that you want to just explode and get it over with. Then, there was the house complications. We thought we had the perfect house a few times, but each time was plagued by problem after problem. Over a month later, after paying through the nose for a hotel all of that time, we finally got into a house that was the best one that we had found yet. God is great every day, isn’t He? Well, I had my doubts now and then during that horrific process, but He came through. He ALWAYS comes through. So why did I doubt?

While we are in the moment of strife and problems, it’s hard to keep our eyes focused on Jesus. I remind you of a story out in Matthew chapter 14 where Peter is called by Jesus to walk to Him on the water. Because Jesus asked Peter to do it, Peter got out of the boat he was in and started walking across the sea to get to Jesus. He was doing fine for a while, until Peter took his eyes off of Jesus on the other side. When Peter started looking at and being concerned with the huge waves in the ocean, Peter couldn’t do it anymore and started to sink. But just before Peter went under, Jesus grasped his hand and pulled him safely up and away from the water.

The moral of the story is to keep your eyes on Jesus Christ. During my house hunting experience, I was so overcome with the stress that I felt like I was drowning. My main problem was that I was more focused on my situation than I was on Jesus. I shouldn’t have been talking about how big my problems were, I should have told my problems how big my God is.

Imagine that you can only keep one thing in sight at a time. You can either see your circumstances or you can see your God, but not both. So which one would you pick? This world and these problems are only temporary. It’s not even a blip on the radar screen of time and eternity. No matter how bad things get, realize that God is still on the throne. Like my mom said to me, “I’ve read the back of the book and we win in the end.” I preach the same thing, but unfortunately just like my mom who worried all the time, it’s easy to tell someone to keep their head up during trials, but it’s a whole different thing to practice what you preach. Honestly, if I want to do some confessing right now, I got overwhelmed during this move experience. I was grouchy (or at least grouchier than normal) and started to let cuss words slip even. I wasn’t exactly a joy to be around to say the least. To cool off, I would take walks with my dog and talk with God, but I would be in such an angry frame of mind that I wasn’t open to listening to Him. I just wanted to vent my own frustrations, and just like the good Father that He is, God stayed there with me and just listened. He always does, no matter what we have to say to Him. God walked with me and let me be the fussy little child that I am sometimes, but if I only would have taken a moment to listen, I would have heard Him say, “You didn’t get this house because I have something better. You just need to be patient with My plans. Trust Me, I love you and I want the best for you.”

Just like Peter and the lake, Jesus gave Peter the power to walk on the water as long as Peter kept his eyes and mind fixed on Jesus. God will never call you to do something without giving you the power to do it. God called myself and my family to move across the country and we accepted, but when the storms of life came, I let myself sink rather than keeping my faith firm.

I have this dream (or maybe a nightmare) that has me up in Heaven on my first day there. Jesus is walking with me and showing me all of these wonderful pictures. It turns out that He is showing me all of the great things that I could have experienced during my life had I only waited on His plans to come to pass. But instead, I pushed through for the things that I wanted so bad at the time, not knowing that Christ had something greater for me than I ever could have imagined.

I never want that dream to be a reality. I don’t want to miss out on what Jesus has planned for my life all because I was too impatient. I want them all and I want the same for you, too, as my brother or sister in Christ. So I say please, look at this not so much as a passive guide as it is a stern warning. You are meant for greatness and as a child of God, you have royal blood flowing in your veins. The Bible says we are to wait on the Lord and that’s exactly what we need to do. God loves us so much that He will let us screw up our lives if that is truly our wish. He’s not going to force blessings upon us. We can push something to happen in our lives or we can allow God to work His mighty works. It’s our choice.

Do not focus on your circumstances more than you focus on Jesus.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” – Hebrews 8:12

 

 

If you die tonight, where are you going? How many good deeds does it take to make it into Heaven? Are you even keeping track? Did you maybe forget one or two bad things that may make the difference when you time comes?

 

 

God is a true and righteous God and not a single bad action will go unpunished. You can’t break His laws and get away with it, but we have broken His laws, haven’t we? You might say, “At least I haven’t killed anyone.” You might not have killed someone outwardly, but we sometimes commit murder in our hearts when someone cuts in line at the grocery store or calls us names in traffic. Well, how about honoring thy father and thy mother? Did you ever get punished as a child and said or wished some bad things on your parents? The Bible says thou shalt not covet, but we covet all the time when we see something or someone that gets our proverbial motors running.

 

 

After thinking about any of those things, go back to your little scorecard of good deeds and tell me how you are stacking up?

 

 

So how is it even possible for any of us to make it into Heaven. The Bible says that only the righteous shall see God, so how do we have a chance? Let me sum it up for you in one word. Jesus. Only Him alone is enough to pay for your debt. Jesus lived the sinless life that we can’t, but yet He took the punishment for sin that we couldn’t. Through His life, death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus Christ stamped “Paid in Full” on your debt. When you accept Jesus and what He did on the cross, you can stand before God when your time comes and know for a fact that He doesn’t see all of your bad deeds. When you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, that list is wiped clean. God only sees the good deeds of Jesus from that moment forward.

 

 

Romans 10:13 – “for EVERYONE who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

 

 

This all doesn’t mean that we can go on sinning as much as we want. To accept this free gift of forgiveness we need to repent, or in other words, change our minds towards sin and bad things. You won’t always get it right, but now you are at least willing and trying to go down the right path. You don’t have to keep score of how many good things versus how many bad things you do. We can’t do enough good deeds to earn us a place in Heaven. That’s why we need Jesus to open the door for us. It’s not about our work, it’s about Jesus’s finished work on the cross.

 

 

 

John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

 

 

 

God loves you!  So stop trying to work yourself into Heaven and don’t worry if it has been enough. Instead, call upon the beautiful name of Jesus Christ and let His precious blood wash away all of your sins. His arms are open wide on the cross; wide enough for you and all of your sins.

 

 

 

God’s blessings to you.

 

DH

“But God raised him from death to life and destroyed the pains of death, because death had no power to hold him.” Acts 2:24

Since it is Easter, we are reminded today more than most times of the year that Jesus was crucified and died for our sins. It was horrible for all who looked upon the face of the Jesus hanging there on the cross. It is where we get our word ‘excruciating.’ Many people at that time thought that it was the end of their hope of salvation, but Jesus rose again just a few days later. What started as a miracle birth could have been reduced to just campfire stories had Jesus not risen again after his fall.

That is what made all the difference. Jesus rose again after his death. This life that we know will pass away soon enough, but when we accept Jesus as our Savior and put our trust in Him, we are promised that we shall be raised again with Him. We no longer need to fear death, because our Lord has complete power over death and not the other way around. Over the years, there’s been many people that have said their way was the answer to life, but they all died; all but one, Jesus. Jesus backed up every claim He made through fulfillment of scripture prophecies as well as the miracles He did.  The biggest miracle of all was the empty tomb on Sunday, because in dying He destroyed our death, and in rising He restored our life.

I don’t need a dead savior. I can die on my own just fine, thanks. What I need is the risen savior. I need Jesus Christ. No other religion offers that or makes that claim, because it just didn’t happen with anyone else but Jesus.

You and I will fall to our sins, but the real tragedy would be if we didn’t rise again from it. Only one thing separates us from God and keeps us out of heaven and that is our sin. That is why our greatest need is to have our sins forgiven. Only then can we be reconciled to God and have the opportunity to be with Him for all eternity.  The Bible says in Acts 4:12, “There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”  Jesus is the ONLY way.

Happy Easter, my friends. It is not just the resurrection day of our Lord Jesus Christ, but it is the day of our resurrection as well.  As He was raised, so shall we be raised with Him forever.

God’s blessings to you.

DH