My Journey

It’s June 2016 now, and all is well. I hope all is well with those who are kind enough to read my blog.

My last check up was in March 2016, and do not have to go back until December 2016. All my blood counts are continuing to stay the same, (which is very good). Not much change in them now for the last four years. I am very thankful.

I continue to eat bitter apricot seeds (only 12 a day now), believing the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and what He said in Genesis 1:29.

I am certainly a blessed man. I continue to feel very healthy at age 73. I have had none of the usual illnesses, flu, colds, hay fever, etc., now for these last four years.

A few weeks ago, I heard this question asked. How do you get saved? The question is not how do we get saved, but how are we saved.

For by grace are ye saved…………………………through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is a gift of God. Ephesians 8. We are saved by the grace of God. We are not saved by faith, but by Grace. This saving grace is applied to us through faith.

We have the freedom to choose whether or not to believe (have faith) Christ died, was buried, and rose again, freeing us from our sins. If we choose to believe through faith, we are saved by grace.

The word is near you, even in your mouth, and in your heart……..that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. Romans 10:8-9.

And for all of us who by grace are saved through faith, the following also applies.

The good news in the Gospel is that: God counts you righteous in His eyes. Counts you deserving of all His blessings. Counts you worthy of all things He has to give. We say, I have done nothing righteous, how can I be counted righteous?
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He received our sin at the cross, so how do we become righteous?  By doing righteousness, no. We receive His righteousness.  1Peter 2:22- Who did no sin neither was guile found in his mouth: 1John 3:5- And ye know that he was manifested (made visible) to take away our sins; and in him is no sin. God cursed him at the cross. Galatians 3:13
We can be sure that as sure as Christ was cursed on the tree, we are now blessed by His righteousness.

This righteousness is not a reward, it is a gift.
Therefore as by the offence of one judgement came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinner, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Romans 5:18-19.
Am I still trying to earn righteousness? Am I still trying to earn the blessing of God?
Receive it as a free gift, and by grace, reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Verse 21- That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. This righteousness is not a reward, it is a gift.

I am hoping all will be well with all of you.

 

My Journey

Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children.

Walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave himself up for us………..

Ephesians 5:1-2a

In Genesis, we read that the Lord God told Adam, “because you have listened to your wife’s voice and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, Do not eat from it: the ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. It will produce thorns for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.”

Now many will say, after reading this passage, God is mean, unjust, and just cruel. If He is so nice, you would think He would have told Adam, this is only your first mistake, I will give you another chance.

But God is just, and if you are just, you have to do the right and just thing, the law demands it. If you did not, then you are not just.

The Lord God, who created Adam told Adam up front, before hand, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For on the day you eat from it, you shall certainly die.” What did the Lord God actually say to Adam, “All these trees, here in the garden, you can freely eat from; all of them. But there is one that will cause you to die, don’t eat from that tree. I have given you life, but this fruit, that offers the knowledge of good and evil (Law), causes death.”

Before Adam gained the knowledge of the law. In God’s holiness, God only had to share His grace with Adam, not His justice. Paul clearly gives us the reason the Lord God told Adam not to eat from that tree. The law produces wrath. And where there is no law, there is no transgression. Romans 4:15

What we also neglect to read, and understand, is the Lord God firstly told the serpent (Satan), “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. I will put hostility(enmity) between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. (just a note: the woman does not have seed, the man does. The Lord God was letting us know right from the beginning that a miraculous (virgin) birth would occur). He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel. ”God was telling Satan that a man, born of a woman, will someday deliver a mortal blow to Satan. In this same verse, the Lord God is telling everyone, that Yeshua the Messiah (the Christ), Jesus Christ, will someday come and defeat Satan, along with the sin that Adam just committed, and death because of the knowledge of good and evil. In Christ, the Lord God would once again, in grace, meet, walk, and talk with His creation

I have been a Christian now for 38 years. I put my faith in Jesus Christ when I was 34 years old. Over these last 38 years, I have heard a certain theme about God. He is mean, demanding, unjust, angry, kills people, often good people, and even lets children starve. Many who think this, who believe this, I have found never studied, much less read, the only Book that actually reveals who God is.

There are some who claim they have read the Bible, but also say it was for the purpose of finding errors in it. And there are others who have started out with that same purpose, and have come to believe the Bible is the perfect, inerrant Word of God. There are others who believe, but do not read the Bible. Often I have found that it is because they are just not readers. However they believe and are often eager to hear and know more about the Bible. Then there are others who were told about the wonderful love that God has for them. And because of His love, He sent his Son, to pay for the sin Adam did, and all the sins they have done. They believed what they heard, and then began reading about it, in the Bible.

Of course there our also those that I have met, that do not believe there is such a thing as sin, or say they have never sinned. To these people I only remind them of what the Apostle John wrote. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 1John 1:8. With that said, I cannot stop there, but must tell you the next thing John said. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1John 1:9

One does not have to read the Bible to be saved, it is Jesus Christ who saves. Yet by reading about this love that God shows to His creation, in Christ; gives the believing reader the opportunity, and ability to grow in that faith.

If one reads the Bible, one would find out that it is the devil that had the power of death. Since then the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also himself (Christ) in like manner partook of the same, that through death he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is the devil. And might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Hebrews 2:14-15.

It is Satan that hates what the Lord God created and has always wanted the human race dead. It is Adams original sin that caused a curse on the earth. It is because of that sin, we see disease, sickness, hate, and everything that lends itself to the destruction of human life. The good news is, Christ took the power of death from the devil, and offers life, health, and His love to all.

Now as for God being mean, demanding, unjust, angry, kills people, often good people, and even lets children starve. To those accusations, I say the law is demanding, we are unjust, and usually angry. People kill people, and it is people who cause children to starve.

God causes the crops to grow every year in most places around the world. The world grows more food for every man, woman, and child than we can eat. The world produces enough food to feed everyone. (www.worldhunger.org) The principle problem is that many people in the world still do not have sufficient income to purchase (or land to grow) enough food.(www.worldhunger.org)

Yet, the United States alone sends thousands and thousands of tons of free food to starving nations every year, yet the children continue starve. Those who receive and hand out that food though, seem never to starve. The leaders of those poor starving countries, never look like they are starving. Why is that? Have you ever asked yourself that question.

Let me finish with this; why do so many hate God and will not read the Bible? Well the Bible gives us the answer. For when they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God, nor were thankful, but became vain in there imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds and four footed beasts and creeping things. Romans 1

This same Bible tells us also how much God loves us, and His whole creation. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16