“And he said to them, Go you into all the world, and preach the gospel to all creation.” – Mark 16:15

It doesn’t take long for people to know where I stand with God, but with our “politically correct” world, it’s sometimes hard to share my faith with people. For the average person, the situation can easily become uncomfortable. You don’t want to offend people, especially at your place of business which can get you into hot water with bosses and others.  That being said, how much more uncomfortable will it be if you knew that the person you had the chance to share the gospel with went to hell and even took others with him or her?

That’s the chance we take when we know that someone doesn’t know Christ and yet we do nothing about it. There are so many people in this world who are walking in sin.  They are going down a bad road and don’t know how to stop.  It’s up to you and I as Christians to tell them about Christ.  There’s a part in the book of Acts where the apostle Philip meets an Ethiopian who is reading the scriptures.  Philip asks if he understands what he’s reading, to which the Ethiopian replies, “How can I if nobody explains it to me?”

No matter how far along in your journey with Christ that you are, you still can help show someone else the truth. We all have a story.  Start with what you know.  Tell that other person about your past and then how your life has changed after Jesus.  It’ll be enough.  And let me tell you, I’ve never saved anybody.  That’s not my job, it’s the Holy Spirit’s job.  I’ve simply pointed towards Jesus.  Sometimes they walk away with a new purpose and sometimes they walk away offended.  All you can do is pray that the seed has been sown and believe that God will give the increase.

Just think about it. If you went to the doctor and they found out you had cancer.  Then, they knew that there was a cure, but didn’t tell you about it.  Once you found out, you’d be fighting mad.  You’d probably sue them or worse.  Well, sin is the cancer and the wages of sin is death.  The cure is Jesus Christ and all who call upon Him shall be saved.  How dare you keep that cure to yourself!

There are good people, maybe even people in your own household that don’t know the love of Jesus Christ. What would you do to stop them from being lost forever?  You don’t have to preach to them to tell them about Christ.  Do it simply and plainly.  To tell them about Jesus is to tell them that you love them.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55:9

I’ve been in and out of the church all of my life. I always had a sense of Christ thanks to my mom especially, but I didn’t really understand many of the precepts of being a Christian.  Even to this day, there are a few questions that I have that I’m sure will only get realized when I step into Heaven.  However, it’s a comfort to know that I’m not alone in those questions.  I’m sure that the sentence most often heard in Heaven will be, “Aha, that’s what it was all about!”

I know many people who get confused with all of the history and the “thee’s and thou’s” of the Bible. Honestly, I was one of those people, but I kept going.  That’s the real trick, keep going and pushing through those problems.  I’ll tell you right now from experience, you will have questions and you will get confused about some things.  Even the best Bible scholar studied the Bible because they had questions.

Questions are fine. Just because you have questions doesn’t mean that you are going to hell for doubting God.  My kids have questions about how I cook dinner, but they don’t doubt my ability to feed them.  You can wonder and question the methods or ideas behind God’s actions, but don’t ever doubt that He has got your best interest in mind even if it doesn’t look like it at that moment.  If we saw things from the viewpoint of God, we would understand fully.  For now, we can’t often see the reasons behind God’s actions.  That’s where faith comes in.

Even if you don’t believe in God, you are still putting your faith into something. You put your faith into a chair before you sit down.  You are believing that it will hold your weight or that it doesn’t have a nail ready to poke you in the behind when you sit down.  You believe that the chair will hold you like a chair should.  It’s not a question of having no faith.  You have faith, it’s just where do you put that faith?

If you are holding back your faith because you don’t know the “how’s and why’s” behind God’s actions, then you will be holding back for all of your natural life. The Bible says that God’s ways are so far above our ways, as the heavens are above the earth.  It takes the mind of God to understand God and that is why when you accept Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to work in you and through you.  The more time you spend in God’s Spirit, the more you will come to understand His ways.  But even then, you are looking at the mind of God through a dirty window.  You won’t see or understand completely, not yet anyway, but you will understand enough.

God doesn’t want there to be secrets between Him and His children. He loves you and wants the best for you.  That being said, there are some things that He can’t reveal to you and I just yet.  I try to explain my intentions to my kids when I can, but there are times when I can’t tell them everything, because either they aren’t mature enough to understand or because it may reveal a bigger surprise I have coming.  Take that same approach and understanding with God our Father.  We may want to know the reasons behind some things, but if He doesn’t reveal them to us, don’t take it as a sign that He doesn’t love you.  Instead, take it as a showing that He does love you.  He loves you enough to say, “I’m doing this for your good and the good of everyone, but I just can’t tell you why right now.”  It may be confusing and you may not get all of the answers you want, but you will get all the information you need to live a good Christian life.

I don’t need to understand how a radio wave or electricity works in order to watch the television. I simply press the power button and start watching the TV.  The same goes for your life.  You may not understand how God’s majesty works, but through His grace and His Holy Spirit, you will have the power to affect a positive change in this world if you stay close to Him.  Trust in the Lord, for now and forever.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” – Genesis 2:7

I was speaking with a friend today about retirement funds and insurance. He made the comment that he was “worth more dead than alive.”  It’s unfortunate to hear someone say that, but somewhat common in today’s world.

Many times in life, it’s easy to feel defeated or worthless, but that’s not the case. We have the God of the universe as our creator.  The same God that spoke worlds into existence also made you.  The Bible says that we were made from the dust of the earth, but that doesn’t mean we are insignificant. It means that we have both material and spiritual value beyond compare.

Which is more valuable, a diamond or a pile of dirt? At first thought, the diamond would be worth more, but what about to a seed?  To a seed, that pile of dirt is worth everything, since the dirt is its future and lifeblood.  That dirt represents food and shelter for what will grow up to potentially feed thousands, since from one seed can come many seeds later.

I read in a scientific journal that spoke about the makeup of the human body. Not too many people realize that we have many different types of elements in our bodies, including such things as gold, silver, and even platinum.  We are also what scientists call a ‘carbon-based life form’ in which there’s a good percentage of our physical makeup that is carbon.  Carbon, when placed under enough stress and heat, eventually becomes a diamond.  In other words, not only are you the pile of dirt that aids in the creation of life, but you are also the diamond.  Through the stresses and fires of everyday life, we can become a symbol of beauty and strength.

You are not worthless. God created you purposefully and wonderfully.  You are God’s masterpiece and no matter what this world says you are, you can walk around with your head held high knowing that you are so much more than what this world sees.  You are worth more than you can imagine, not because of what you do, but because of who you are.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

As a young man, I was living out my day to day life without care or consolation. Just me.  I found my significance in my own mind and in the pleasures that I frequently hunted for.  I couldn’t let myself have moments of quiet, because when the quiet came, I would hear pain.  Eventually, the sound of that pain became so deafening that I had to search for what the sound was and how to silence it.  It shook my very soul. 

I searched throughout my world to find the source of the sound, only to find that many people heard the same cries. Those cries drove other men and women to do the most horrible and detestable things, with even some ending their own lives to get away from the madness that the pain brought with it.  Without answers, I sought further into the farthest reaches of my world.  Then, I came to a hill which had a cross made of wood, poised at the crest. 

The cross was large and the wooden beams strong, apparently to hold some significant weight. However, all I saw upon it was a simple man.  I noticed a sign on the cross that said the name ‘Jesus.’  Dressed in his own blood, it was from this man that I heard the screams overwhelming of pain, even though he barely made a sound.  I approached him and asked why he was there, to which he uttered but a single word, “Love.”  The man had been beaten and made raw by whips. I saw nails affixing him to the wooden beams and I could not help but to think of the pain that this man endured. I tried to get him down myself, but it was as if the weight of a thousand worlds had pinned him there.  I yelled, “Please, what must I do to help you?  I cannot bear your cry!” 

The man said that he had placed himself upon that cross because of sin. He said he wanted that sin to be his, even though it belonged to every person on earth.  So I begged him, “I am sorry. Please sir, tell me, what must I do?”  He replied, “Go forth and tell everyone you meet that there is a man on the cross.”  He then explained to me that it would take the strength of love alone to get him down from that cross.  Not just from me, but from every man, women, and child.  And until everyone lifted him up with one love from a unified heart, there he would drape across those wooden beams, holding those sins as his own. 

Now, Jesus asks you as well to go forth with a message that there is a man on a cross. It is a message of the need for love amongst all people, always keeping that cross in mind. The cross and pain that we cannot bear on our own.  

  
DH

“Rejoice at all times. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in every circumstance, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

During our prayers the other night, my youngest daughter asked me what the word amen was. I explained that it meant, “indeed” or “yes, so be it.”  She then asked why we said it at the end of a prayer, to which I replied, “It kind of closes the prayer.”  She responded with, “Well, I talk to Jesus all of the time, so I guess I shouldn’t say that.”

She made so much sense with her youthful way of looking at it. The Bible said that we should continually pray.  That doesn’t mean that all we should hit our knees begging God for things all day.  Quite the contrary.  Prayers don’t have to be asking for things all the time.  In fact, the Bible says that our Heavenly Father knows what we need before we do.  Prayers should be more about giving thanks to the one that made all of our blessings possible.

We should thank God with everything we do. Colossians 3:17 says, “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.”  Those are great words to live by.  All of our actions should be with the intent of honoring God.  We should have Christ in mind before we do anything in our lives.  As Christians, the Holy Spirit is living in us and through us in everything we do.  We can’t separate Him from us, not even for a little while.  You are never alone and nothing you do is done in private.  When you sin, you sin with God watching you do it.  Conversely, when you do good deeds, God sees those too and what God sees in private He shall reward you for openly.  Each action from us is another prayer getting sent up to Him. Our prayers never truly end, so take care to make them grateful and not spiteful.

I heard the old saying again today about God giving us two ears and one mouth, so we can listen twice as much as we speak. Our prayers should be more listening rather than asking, but it’s OK to ask for things.  Yes, God knows what we need even before we do, but it’s still respectful to ask.  I know my children need food and clothes, but it’s nice to hear a please now and then.  My kids mess up occasionally and of course I forgive them, but it’s showing their maturity and responsibility when they say that they are sorry.

Another thing is that out of a healthy fear and awe for the Lord, we normally pray looking down at our hands or the floor. That’s OK, but whenever my kids come up to me with their head down, I know they did something wrong.  Try it sometime.  Go up to your spouse or parents and tell them you love them, but look down at the ground while doing it or even kneel at the same time.  See what reaction you get.  What I’m trying to say is that God is our Father and He loves us very much.  When we praise Him, look up.  Why shouldn’t we sing, shout, or raise our hands for joy?  We have a lot to praise Him for.  God’s face shining upon us shows His favor and caring for us.  Why shouldn’t we show God our face as well?

Just as written in the Psalms, “Let my prayer be set forth before you as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.” (141:2)   Our prayers are like offerings to God, showing Him that we keep Him and His Word on our minds and in our hearts.  So next time you say your prayers, don’t say “Amen” with the thought that the prayer has ended.  Say “Amen” with passion, thereby accentuating every word that was said.  We should pray without ceasing, remembering all the day long that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us, cares for us, and who wants us to be with Him forever.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

I’m deeply troubled by what I read and hear in the news these days.  Violence, disease, wars, and all the makings of a real life horror film.  It has become a world that exemplifies the fallen nature the Bible says it has.  Our country and our world is on the absolute brink of destruction, which begs the question, “So what’s next?”

No matter what you see in the news, remember that God wants nothing but love and happiness for us. You and I were made for good things, not this mess that we’ve created for each other.  Rest assured that this mess will not go on forever.  These circumstances are signs of a very unfortunate age where evil seems to get the upper hand.  The enemy’s job is to steal, kill, and destroy, and Satan is very good at his job.  However, don’t think that this is the end of times.  With each passing day, the end of this era is closer and closer.  But just as Jesus Himself said, “And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that you be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.” (Matthew 24:6)

There is a natural ebb and flow that God built into our world. Dark times and bright times.  Times of sadness and times of joy.  These days of suffering are horrible, but they will soon be followed by gladness. Our future lies in the hope of a tomorrow that does not see darkness.  No matter what happens in this fallen and twisted world, know that the sickness of evil will see its end in due time.  God has written that these circumstances will come to an end, either by the emergence of prosperous times or by Jesus Christ’s return.

When the hatred and insanity of this world seems to overwhelm your mind, rest your heart and soul in the Holy Word of God. Know that these times shall pass.  Take heart and stay strong in the Lord.  Continue to pursue love with all you have and all you are.  Your perseverance will not be in vain.  Your reward shall be eternal in Heaven.

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

God’s blessings to you.

DH

When my dad passed away, I inherited a big tool box of his that he had for many years. There was one hammer in particular that he had gotten from his dad. It was a good, sturdy hammer.  One day, the head on it kept trying to swivel and come loose. I tried to fix it and it would work again for a while, but then it would start turning and loosening again. Eventually, I had to stop using that hammer, because it couldn’t be used effectively as the tool it was meant to be. I had to start using a different hammer for the job that I needed to accomplish.

Let that be a lesson for our walk with Jesus. We can be excellent tools in the Master’s hands, but through our sin and our poor choices that turn us away from God, we keep ourselves from being the tools God really needs us to be. We are either instruments of good or bad. Blessings or destruction. It all depends on what we want in and for this life. If we focus our time and efforts into just building ourselves up here and now, we are falling drastically short of what God had in mind. We are to be building up each other and ourselves for that home not made with hands, eternal in Heaven.

Beloved, here is your choice. The time is now to choose whom you will serve. As spoken in Joshua 24:15, “As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord.”

How about you?

DH

Today marks the 12th wedding anniversary with my wife, Monica. It is just amazing how far we’ve come in those 12 years. Starting off as crazy kids in love, not having a real clue about how to get where we were going, but knowing that there’s no one else we’d rather go there with. 

Starting out, we were both in law enforcement. I was a police officer and she was a dispatcher. Both of us were in high stress jobs, but we never really brought it home with us. Occasionally we did, but it was nice to be able to speak to the person we loved about our day and our problems. We understood each other. We got each other on a different level than other people can get us. And thank God, we still do. When you love somebody, really love them, then there is that unspoken connection that you just have. It is a love straight from above.  

I wanted to take this time to not only say thank you to the love of my life for these past 12 years, but also take time to thank our Lord who made it all possible. He did it all, from the vast expanse of the universe to the tiniest speck of an atom, but like the Bible says, “The greatest of these is love.” And if you don’t know or haven’t heard it in a while, GOD LOVES YOU!  

I think everyone at one time or another wonders why we’re here and why we were made. Let me tell you the secret that really isn’t a secret. God was always there, but He wanted someone to love. He made us so that we could know Him, love Him, and serve Him so we could be happy with Him in Heaven for all of eternity. How awesome is that?! The God that created everything wants to know and love you and to be known and loved by you. We are capable of love because He first loved us.  

Even if you have never known the love of a parent or spouse, you can come to God right now and know Him. You can know His mind and His heart’s desires through Jesus Christ. Jesus showed us the way to live in accordance with God’s wishes, and all it takes is one word, love. Love God, love each other, and love yourself.  

I love my wife. I love my children. All of this is made possible by the God Most High through Jesus Christ. Get to know Him today. I know my wife and I only wish I would have known her longer. I’m sorry I missed out on those wasted years before her. Don’t you dare miss out on knowing Jesus. Don’t you dare miss out on love. 

God’s blessings to you.
DH