Know Your Bible
October 1998
Change
We are moving into the season called "Fall" or "Autumn". It is a season of change. I remember the first time I had ever went away from home to college in Florida. It was in the summer of 1970 and I did not return till December of that year. I had considered what would it be that I would miss the most and concluded that, since Florida did not have mountains, it would be the mountains that I would miss. To my surprise, I did not miss the mountains nearly as much as I missed the change from Summer to Fall to Winter.
Some changes are necessary while others are not and some changes are welcome while other aren't. If all is normal, we change from a child into an adult, from young to old but some changes have to be deliberately made. They just don't happen by themselves. We are born into this world in a state of innocense; not knowing right from wrong.(Romans 7:7-12). But, through the process of teaching and learning what God expects of us, we make the same kind of choice that Joshua spoke to the children of Israel about in Joshua 24:15 when he said, "...choose you this day whom ye will serve."
Ultimately, on our own, we choose the way of Satan and the way of sin. "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23). We choose to sin and sin separates us from God (Isaiah 59:1,2). Thus, we choose death (spiritual death) for "the wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23). There is another choice which is available to us: the choice of being reconciled back to God. That choice involves meeting the conditions God as set for the removal of sin. Faith (Hebrews 11:6; Romans 10:17), repentance (Luke 13:3,5; Acts 2:38), confessing Christ to be the Son of God (Romans 10:10; Acts 8:37), and being baptized (buried) will result in the forgiveness of sin (Colossians 2:12; Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38). This I can and will choose to do or not do. The choice is mine. If God's conditions are met, a change will occur: I will be changed from one who is lost in sin to one who is saved by the blood of Christ. What a change!
---E.R. Hall, Jr.
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If You Had One Minute
| If God came to you and said " you have one minute to see anything you want to see", what would it be?
Many's first response would be "/ want to see heaven. I want to see all the glory and splendor of that place that God has prepared for them that love him. " Some would say, " / want to see hell and the torment that will await those that refuse our Lord. " And some, " / want to see Jesus, and all the miracles that he did while he was here on earth that I would know it's all true."
All these things would do us well to see, but I would like to suggest one thing that you may not have thought of " What about Me " Would you want to look through God's eyes and see yourself the way God see's you? The only way that we can do that is through a study of God's word "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. " (IITimothy 2:15). Jesus also said in his conversation with |
Nicodemus " But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. "(John 3:21)
Friends if we are concerned how God looks at us, then we need to take these passages seriously Let's Study our Bibles that we may know if we are doing those things that God would have us do. Let's be rightly dividing in order to make the proper application to our lives that we can live Truth and cometh to the light. When someone would wish to see heaven let us be able to show this place to them in the light of God's word (Revelation 20-21).
When someone would wish to see hell, let us be able to show this horrible place to them in the light of God's word (Matthew 25:41,13:42).
When someone would wish to see Jesus let's be able to show Him to them in the light of God's word John 20:30-31. | |
---Tim Shephard
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What Is Your Life?
"For what is your life? It is even as a vapor, that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away." (James 4:14). How true that is! How often have you thought of things in the past which you thought were only a couple years ago but it turned out to have been five or six years? Also, it seems the older we get the faster time passes. When we think of our childhood it doesn't seem that long ago. We think of a class reunion which seems that we only graduated five years or so ago, and yet it turns out to be our twentieth or twenty-fifth year reunion. Sometimes it is a little frightening to be made to realize how swiftly our years are passing.
Regardless of peoples' religious or philosophical views, one thing we all can agree on is that our life is going to end one day. Let this cause us to think soberly on ‘what is your life'? We must acknowledge God's Word as the "instruction manual" by which to pattern and put together our lives. It contains "...all things that pertain unto life..." (2 Peter 1:3) and it can make us "...throughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Timothy 3:16,17).
From its pages we can learn that "...it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27) and that "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; ..." (2 Corinthians 5:10).We must realize that what we do while we are living is the basis on which we will be judged. The rest of 2 Corinthians 5:10 says, "...that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." Some have the idea that judgment is going to have God put all our good we do on one side and all the bad we do on the other side and whichever outweighs will determine the verdict. Not so! Ezekiel 18 :21-32 shows that when a wicked man repents and does the will of God, all his transgressions will not be mentioned unto him. However, if the righteous turns away and sins and does not repent, all the righteousness he has done will not be mentioned. God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked (verse 32) but "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." (Psalms 116:15).
So, what is your life? Do you know God, have you obeyed the gospel, and living faithful to God's Word? If not, Jesus is coming "in flaming fire taking vengeance..." and you "shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power." (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9). Only if our life is a life "...faithful unto death", then Jesus says, "...I will give thee a crown of life." (Revelation 2:10).
---E.R. Hall, Jr.
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Secret Of Life
Take Time To Think. It Is The Source Of Power.
Take Time To Play. It Is The Secret Of Perpetual Youth.
Take Time To Be Friendly. It Is The Road To Happiness.
Take Time To Work. It Is The Price Of Success.
Take Time To Pray. It Is The Greatest Power On Earth.
Take Time To Love And Be Loved. It Is The Way Of God.
---Author Unknown
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