Eternity is a Long Time

  Even though our faith can be summed up in one sentence – “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16) – it is so deep as to be unsearchable. This means we can never fully understand all of what our faith in Jesus means. Of course, if we could totally understand it, then our faith would not be worth much. However, we often feel overwhelmed by the enormous depth of our faith. So, it is good to look at verses which summarize what we are to do with our faith. Some of these verses are: Luke 9:35 35  And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” Matthew 11:28-30 28  Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.   29  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.   3...

God is love . We know this not only because the Scriptures explicitly tell us but they also show us. God provided ways to come to Him even when we had turned our backs on Him. Yet the pride people have in themselves or their fear in trusting God cause them to not take advantage of God’s generous mercy. When we do not take advantage of what God offers, then the natural consequences of the condemnation we live with is the result. It started with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden listening to Satan rather than God. Yet God provided for them even as He evicted them from the Garden not only materially but with the  promise of ultimate salvation by one of their posterity . It continued with Cain ignoring God’s desire to be worshiped with a whole heart and becoming jealous of his brother Abel’s close relationship with God. This ultimately lead to Cain’s murder of Abel even after  God encouraged Cain to do what he knew was right . It reached its first wide scale demonstration of Go...

  One of the more shocking stories in the New Testament is about the deaths of Ananias and his wife, Sapphira as told in Acts 5:1-11 . The couple lied to the Apostles, and God, about the money they were giving. They claimed to be giving all proceeds from the sale of their property but they kept some back for themselves. For this act both of them were struck dead after being confronted with their misdeed. They did not even give any defense of their action that is recorded. Now contrast this with what happens to a man called Simon who was a person performing amazing abilities in Samaria as depicted in Acts 8:4-25 . Many Bible translations say that Simon was a sorcerer but the Greek word here seems to indicate more someone who is impressing his audience with greater knowledge and technology rather than someone dealing in the occult. Be that as it may, Simon believed in Jesus but had not received the Holy Spirit. When Peter and John arrived (v14) and started laying hands on people, Sim...

Think of all the really bad people who got away with things during their lifetime and never had to "pay" for them. Is there never any justice? We all know that there are plenty of people who have done really, really bad things but have never been convicted of their crimes in a court of law. Is there any justice for them? Or do they "get away with it"? If you think about this question for long in relation to how God looks at things, you'll realize that He doesn't worry about what we do here on Earth towards each other. What? He knows that we do some nice things and some bad things to other people all the time. It doesn't matter what we do to each other as we are all condemned living here in the world. Each and every one of us. "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." (John 3:17) Jesus wouldn't have come if we weren't condemned already. And Jesus came for EVERYONE. "For Go...