Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Can sinners go to heaven?/Are Christians allowed to judge others?

Can sinners go to heaven? You must be saying to yourself, "what kind of stupid question is that? NO! Of course not!". If sinners could not go into heaven, then heaven would be empty. Stay with me now, I have a point to make and it will make sense in a moment. Forgiven sinners are the ones who go to heaven. Those who obey the commands of God go to heaven. Those who believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord and is our Savior, will go to heaven. Those criteria have to be met, or no go. Here is a saying I'd like to get known..."Full submission or no admission". We must fully submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and everything that it means to submit or there will be no admission into heaven.

Can I get an AMEN?

Some of you might say that I am being too harsh or that we will always be sinners. Well I've read the New Testament and nowhere does it call born again followers of Christ a sinner. Do we have the capability to sin? Yes. But how else do we learn how to war against the devil if we don't fight against our sins, temptations, trials and tribulations? Don't ask God for an easy life. Ask Him to give you the strength to endure it. 1 Corinthians 6:9 "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,  nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God." Gods word says that unforgiven sinners wont inherit heaven UNLESS they repent. 

The flesh must be put to death, Romans 8:13 "For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live." Before I was born again, sexual immorality was a major sin that ruled my life plus all the other sins I was involved in. All of my sins carried the same price as homosexuality, adultery, sodomy, stealing, drunkenness and etc. The price is death. Jesus paid for my sins with His life and blood. THANK YOU JESUS! How can we not be grateful for that?  I had to repent and put my fleshly lusts to death and live by the Spirit. So can a homosexual make it to heaven? Yes. But only after repenting from their sin and putting to death their flesh. The same goes for every other type of sin. Stop doing it, deny your sinful nature, pick up that cross and follow Jesus. 

I didn't use to like to read but I read a lot now. I like to get on social media outlets and read the comments of other people who say they are followers of Jesus Christ. Some of these folks need to read their Bible because they got it all wrong. They twist scripture and bend the Bible to fit their sinful lifestyle. Lets pray for these folks because they are being deceived by the enemy. Now before you go and tell me to "Judge not", the Lord does say that we can judge. We must judge righteously though and do it the way He says to judge. Its called having discernment. I learned how to judge. It was a hard lesson to learn because I had to foul up a bunch of  times before I got it right. But by Gods good grace, I learned how to judge righteously. If you are born again, you are righteous. So if something contradicts what the Lord has commanded, its wrong. Not because we say so but because the Lord God says so.

Lets see what the Lord has to say on the matter. Let me remind you that when God makes sense, make no other sense!  

Matthew 7:18 "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

Matthew 15:18 "But the things that come out of a person's mouth come from the heart, and these defile them.

John 7:24 "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.


1 Corinthians 2:15 "But he that is spiritual judges all things..."

1 Corinthians 6:2-3 "Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life?

1 Thessalonians 5:21 "By all means use your judgment, and hold on to whatever is good."

The Christian is not to judge hypocritically or self-righteously, but Scripture repeatedly strongly encourages believers to evaluate carefully and choose between good and bad people and things. The Christian is to "test everything" (1 John 4:1).  More and more I see that people who call themselves followers of Christ allow sin to continue to be a part of their life. They are not waging war against it. For example, if there happens to be somebody at your job who say they are Christian, but after inspecting the spiritual fruit you discern that they are not very Christ like. Lets say one of them blasphemies Gods name all the day long. The other has a Scripture out of Matthew displayed on their desk but while you are on break you happen to over hear a conversation they were having with another colleague and they were cursing like a sailor. Or maybe they dont dress modestly.The God, via the Bible, calls those things sin.

I know that what comes out of the mouth flows what is in a persons heart. Blaspheming the name of God, not being modest and cussing ,it is not Christ like. I could understand once in a very long time you just so happen to let a cuss word slip and immediately start asking the Lord for forgiveness and repent. But everyday saying "Jesus!" and "Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" as a way to vent out your anger is wrong. His name is Holy, Holy, Holy. Did you know in the Jewish culture saying something three times means that its perfect. So God is perfect in His Holiness. How dare we use the Lords name in vain.

Also we are commanded to not use foul language. How can we use the same mouth to bless the Lord and then turn around and insult another human being? We are also told to dress modestly so to not make others sin by looking at us and making them lust. I use to curse really bad. I use to use the Lords name in vain many times and when I was younger, I dressed inappropriately. I don't do that anymore because the Lord has washed those sins away and has renewed my mind. He has given me new desires and I dont desire those things any longer. His grace doesn't give me or any follower of Christ a license to sin. Its a license not to sin. Would I judge a person who is not born again like I just did these two believers? No. A sinner is going to sin because they don't have the option not to sin. That is why we share the gospel with nonbelievers. A born again Christian does have the option to not sin because Jesus gave us that option. So use that option because we have been set free from sin. Don't get angry if somebody corrects you. We should always correct fellow saints out of love.

Anyways, I know that I got a bit side tracked but this has been on my heart for a while. Something just fired me up and I had to write about it. Call me critical. Call me judgmental. But that's what God calls use to do. I like to call it the gift of discernment. The Lord was good to me and answered my prayers. With that in mind, call sin what it is. Sin. Don't make excuses or sugar coat it. Repent from sin and wage war against it. Remember that only forgiven sinners go to heaven. Its a free gift, but it will cost you. Imagine your sin is like a back pack full of poop and its all you have. Jesus offers you salvation, eternal life and a relationship with Him in exchange for your worthless bag of poop. Its all you have and you give it to Him. It cost you everything you had but it cost you nothing because what you had was worthless. It cost the Lord His life to give you what He gave you so it wouldn't cost you anything.

Good night and God bless!


Monday, September 21, 2015

God's mercy is steadfast and unwavering

Someone asked if God was more merciful now or less. I replied that God's mercy is steadfast. First lets examine what steadfast means. Steadfast is defined as: fixed in direction; steadily directed, firm in purpose, resolution, faith, attachment, firmly established, as an institution or a state of affairs,
firmly fixed in place or position. God's mercy doesn't change. His mercy doesn't depend on how God feels. I think God is being merciful even now. He hates sin and because He is a righteous judge and because of that fact, sin must be punished. The wage of sin is death. Yet, here we are, alive. Jesus dieing on the cross for our sins is not only a display of God's love towards us but also a display of His mercy. So easily could God annihilate the world because of sin and it would be right for Him to do that. Yet His grace and mercy are new everyday. Some may say well if God is so good and merciful why is there death, war, crime, and diseases? The Bible says that Satan kills, steals and destroys. On the other hand, God is the source of life, He gives everything to us and makes things new. 

It was us who allowed sin, death, illness and all the ugliness into this world. It's was man's choice to disobey God and attempt to be like Him. It's the first lie we believed from the devil, the original sin. But God was still merciful. Mankind still exists today despite all our wrong doings. God still sent His only Son to die on behalf of mankind. We have to get a real grasp on this. Let me tell you a story. So lets say one day you are driving and minding your own business. Life for the most part is good. Not perfect, but good. Then out of nowhere, you were involved in a car wreck and you were severally injured. Doctors tell you that you actually died for a moment. The other person involved was driving very intoxicated and impaired, but DIED upon impact. You might say that the driver who was impaired got the sweet part of the deal because they don't have to deal with all those hospital bills and being crippled for the rest of their lives. Where was God's mercy for you who was minding your on business? This is how I see it. Yes, I agree that being now physically impaired due to an accident is not desirable but the fact of the matter is that God kept you alive. He decides when your time is up. He still wants to give you a chance to find salvation in His son, Jesus Christ. I suggest you seek the Lord and don't waste this chance. On the other hand, the other driver, although they died and don't have to deal with the stress and woes of this world, they have it much worse now. They must own up to their sins and if Christ was not their Savior, they are doomed to hell. The impaired driver rejected God by ignoring warnings, doing what hey wanted, constantly poisoned their body, put other people's lives at risk, and whom God showed mercy and grace over and over again. This car wreck may have been God's mercy on others by taking out this person who not only was a danger to the people surrounding them, but also to themselves. On the flip side, this may have been Gods wake up call for you to get right with Him. Sometimes when someone dies, it's a show of mercy so that the person doesn't have to suffer anymore or others don't have to suffer. 

God is a righteous judge. He is not a corrupt judge. Because He is a righteous judge He must judge sin accordingly. God punishes sin with death. One of two must happen in a person's life while on earth. 
1) They accept Jesus as Lord and Savior because  Jesus took the death and punish for their sins. When they die physically, their soul will live in eternity with God. 2) They don't accept Jesus as Lord and Savior and then when they physically die, they face the judgement and wrath of God. They will have to pay for their own sins and the punishment for that is your soul will burn former in eternal torrent, damnation and eternally separated from God. God in His mercy gives us a way of escape and that is through Jesus Christ. If God just let us sin all we wanted and showed us mercy by letting us into eternity with while still being sinful would mean that He is corrupt, Jesus died in vain and He is and liar. Sin, death, war, etc was never part of God's original design for mankind. It was designed for us to have an intimate relationship and fellowship with God in paradise. But God being merciful, He gave us free will. He didn't design us to be robots. He wanted our love and worship towards Him to be genuine and given freely. God is love. Love doesn't force itself on anyone. That's also a former of mercy. In conclusion, God's mercy doesn't change. He doesn't change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. We change because of our age, feelings, and circumstances. God is solid and is immovable. That includes His mercy. 

Here are some Bible verses that tell about Gods mercy. You will find in these verses they mention how Gods mercy is ABUNDANT, GREAT, PLENTIFUL, TENDER, and RICH, Here is my challenge to my readers. Read the the following verses and ask yourself if Gods mercy is more or less now?
    2 Samuel 24:14 And David said to God, I am in great distress: let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man.
    Psalms 86:5 For you, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy to all them that call on you.
    Psalms 145:9 The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
    Luke 6:36 Be you therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.
    Ephesians 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us,
    Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
    Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
    1 Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Biblical Warning! - There will be HELL TO PAY

There is so much sin and evil in this world because there is no FEAR OF GOD. Everybody will stand before the Lord and be judged and if you did not receive Jesus as your Lord and SAVIOR, there will be hell to pay for all your sins. God desires that no one perish but the date has been set and nothing is going to stop it. But you can avoid being punished for your sins. You can be forgiven. Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand!

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

An amazing weekend

The weekend of August 29-30, 2015 will be a memorable one for me and many individuals. This testimony of what our Lord did has it all. Be warned, its a long story but I am promise you that you will be blessed by the end. So, I had planned on working on the family rally wagon because the Lord blessed us with enough money to buy some parts that it needed. I ordered an external transmission cooler, some new horns, and HID headlight bulbs and ballasts for the blacked out headlights I bought a couple years ago for the car. Mind you, I am not so much of a car guy anymore. I use to be. Cars were my passion, hobby and god. But God changed all of that once I got born again. I still like cars and I know how to work on them a bit, but my passion is now for Jesus. This particular weekend my church witnessed a Godly couple get married and I also planned on going to church and going to the mall with my brother in Christ Gabriel and our sons to share the gospel at the mall.

Saturday, August 29th. I went to a prayer breakfast. I had inquired about becoming a Gideon. The Gideons is an evangelical organization that gives free bibles to people who cant afford them or who need a bible. They have become famous because in some hotels rooms you will find a Gideon Bible in the room. A gentleman I know from my church called me and told about it. I was the youngest guy there, and I am not that young anymore. I am 36 years young, 37 this coming November. Its okay, they made me feel very welcome. It felt good to be surrounded by other believers who were like minded. I ordered a pancake breakfast. When it came time to pay, I noticed that my debit card was not in my wallet and I don't carry cash. I should have took this as a sign of the kind of weekend I was going to have. Well I waited until everybody left and I asked the manager if I could leave my phone there as collateral so I can go home and get my card. My wife had it. I came back and paid for the meal and went to the auto parts store to get some tools. I got home and got myself ready in my coveralls and gathered all my parts and tools.

It was ridiculously hot out side as it usually is here in Mesa Arizona and I don't like to work on my car in the heat and I had anticipated the repair to not take a long. The heat here is dry and it will zap out all your strength from you in a snap. Before I got to work, I prayed that God would give me strength, wisdom and patience to get the job done. I did the hard part first, the transmission cooler. It was a messy job and a bit more difficult than I expected. I will confess that there were times I got a bit frustrated, complained and laid on the ground in exhaustion. But the Lord would remind me to praise Him and He would give me strength to go on. Also my wife would come down and give me water and later brought the fan down stairs for me. What a wonderful and thoughtful wife I have. Thank you Lord for such a Godly woman. So I got it done installing the transmission cooler, so I thought. This will be mentioned again later on in the story, make a mental note. Once the cooler was in, I installed the new Hella super tone horns for the car. Its me and my wife's favorite modification by far. I recommend everyone to upgrade your horns to these babies because people will move out of the way when they hear these horns go off.. So then I did the headlights. That took longer than I wanted plus by then I was really tired and I began to get irritated. Oh, I almost forgot I had a wedding to go to that night and I had to finish with enough time to clean up and arrive on time. Thank God I got it all done in time, cleaned up and went to the wedding.

The wedding was great. Two people I admire because of their faith got married. Jesse and Heidi. I know Jesse from men's Bible study, we have gone out preaching together. He also gave me some fantastic advice that I will never forget. Last year at the Arab festival Jesse and I were on the evangelism team. It was tough crowd and I also was still not so confident in my preaching skills. We sat down for a break from all the walking and we started talking. I shared that sometimes I get a bit preachy with my kids. Jesse told me to keep on preaching to them because even though they may not understand what I am talking about now, later they would. He told me his parents would minister and preach to him and his siblings while they grew up. He said most of the time he didn't know what they talking about but as he grew in faith, the Lord began to take those seeds his folks planted when he was a child. This young man is a mature man of Christ. His wife Heidi, I don't know her very much but from what I do know of her, she is a Godly woman. The Bible says that a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. One time at a men's bible study family night we prayed for one of the brothers wife who has problems with her stomach. Heidi say something in prayer to the Lord that became a part of my prayer language and I have mentioned it before. This is who I copied it from. "Lord I believe but help me in my unbelief". These two are a great couple that was predestined before the foundation of the world and I wait with anticipation to see what the Lord will do in their lives. I cried at their wedding. One thing I want to mention, at their wedding reception, they had some really cool Bible tracts. I took a few and later on in the story, one of them would be used to lead someone to the Lord.

Sunday, August 31st.  I woke up for first service. My wife and kids stayed home because they didn't wake up when I did. The message our Pastor had was simply put, amazing. The Lord was working in my heart through this message about the high cost and honor of discipleship. Following Jesus may come at a high cost but our salvation came at an even HIGHER cost. The Lord calls us to follow Him, to be His disciple and take His yoke. Early in the the ministry of Jesus, He was followed by large crowds who wanted to see Him work miracles and listen to Him preach. They left everything and followed Him. A blind man was healed and began to follow Jesus. Several women followed Jesus. But the large crowd began to dwindle when the cost got too high. In Luke 18:22, just tells the young rich man to sell all he owns and give tit o the poor and follow Him. But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. A scribe in Matthew 8:19-20 told Jesus he wanted to follow Him where ever Jesus went. Jesus said to him "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head". That scribe was never mentioned again the Bible. In John 6:66 "After this many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him". Jesus didn't come for a huge following. He came for followers who are willing to take up their cross. To come after Christ whole heatedly. To push aside a "self centered" life by denying yourself. Deny what? Your agenda, time, money, leisure, career, and priorities. Taking up your cross isn't something that should be always associated with sadness or grief. Taking up your cross is saying "yes" to prayer, Bible reading, God's prompting, service, fellowship, time, talent, treasure, sacrifice, and suffering. In Romans 8:17-18 it says"Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later". I decided to say "yes" to taking up my cross. Little did I know that only a few hours later, I would be put to the test.

So after church me and my brother in Christ Gabriel met up at the mall. Earlier in the week he mentioned he wanted to go to the mall and take our son's with us to show them what it looks like to go preach the gospel to the lost. My son Santino is 7 and Gabriel's son is 6. Our first interaction we had was with a man who couldn't talk and had a cane. I believe he was deaf also but could read lips. Gabe asked him if we could pray for him. We laid hands on him. When I touched this man I was reminded about the deaf and mute man Jesus healed. I recall praying that his ears would be opened and that he would be able to speak clearly in Jesus name. I recall hearing Gabriel praying for this mans leg and salvation. We didn't see a miracle but he did take a King James Bible we gave and he allowed us to pray for him. We got the first person out of the way and that was good. We walked around and Gabriel gave a woman who was sitting in front of a barber shop a tract. As we looked back, we could see that she was reading the tract. Praise the Lord. We got our sons involved by sending them out with tracts in hand and they delivered a couple tracts to a couple who were at the mall. I admire their child like faith and obedience. They didn't question nor complain. They just did what we told them to do. A short time later, we met up with a security guard who Gabe talked to earlier in the week. He was nice Native American man. His name was David and he was having problems with his son. Lift him up in prayer if you can.

So we walked upstairs and we ran into that security guard again. He was talking to a young lady. She just got discharged out of the hospital and had no way back home to Globe , AZ. She came to the mall to see if by chance she would run into someone she knew from back home so she could catch a ride. The security guard asked us if we could do something. This was Gods prompting. She told us she just got out of rehab. She blacked out and woke in the hospital. She had also been suffering from seizures. So Gabriel and I laid hands on her and began to pray. The Lord told me to command the demons to come out in Jesus name. I was reminded about the story of the boy who suffered from seizures and Jesus healed him. She was weeping and the more we prayed for healing and commanding demons to leave in Jesus name, the more she wept. I felt really hot and tears were coming from my eyes. This was intense! As my brother and I were praying, we started to hear a woman's voice pray with us. It wasn't the voice of the woman who we were praying over. Someone walked by and saw what we were doing and she joined in. That was awesome! So when we were done, I asked the woman we prayed over for her name.  Her name is Mary (please pray for her). I asked her how she felt. She said she felt a lot better and that she had been delivered. The Lord told me to ask if she wanted to be born again and she said yes. Gabriel handed me one of the tracts from Jesse and Heidi's wedding because it had the sinner's prayer in it. So we lead this young woman to the Lord and now she is a child of the one true living God! Hallelujah!

The next thing that needed addressing was getting Mary back home. The Lord was prompting me to take her. I called my wife to get the "okay" because I cant make these kind of decisions with out her consent. Its dishonoring to her. When I told her what I was planning, she hesitated. I told that I'd give her 5 minutes to pray about it and see what the Lord says. I talked to the woman who joined us in prayer. Her name is Ellen. Ellen said her church doesn't go out to preach out in public. She is looking for a church that does that. We invited her to come to our church. Ellen also said she would be interested in joining us one time and that we should ask the Lord if it would be His will, she will come and join us. Ellen talked to Mary and bought her some food. During that time I called greyhound and they had no buses going to Globe. I checked with Amtrak, they don't go through there. The Lord planned this so that me and my wife Erin would be the ones to take her home in our car. Erin calls me back and she said "Lets do it." I was so excited and happy. I got to minister to Mary and she was receptive and she was reading the Bible we just gave her. I went home and my wife and my daughter Jocelyn came with us. Santino went with Gabriel and Benicio to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Later on, Gabriel told me that Santino hugged him at Chuck E. Cheese. I asked my son about that and he said he was very grateful to Gabriel for bringing him to Chuck E. Cheese and that is why he hugged him.

So we get on the freeway and about 10 miles into the trip we stopped at a Chevron in Apache Junction. Got some gas and some food. Mary said she felt weird having us pay for her stuff, but we told that it was okay. Of course we didn't mind because the Lord had blessed us so that we could bless her. We got back on the freeway and all of a sudden, disaster struck. Remember that I said earlier that I thought I was done installing the transmission cooler? Well, all of a sudden the car just revs up and the car is slowing down. I look back , I see a plume of white smoke. I knew what it was. Something happened to the transmission cooler. Some how we had enough momentum to get off the freeway, and pull off at the next exit and into another Chevron gas station. I get out, Erin pops the hood and cooler looks fine. So I look under the front of the car....the undercarriage is lathered in transmission fluid and one of the lines came off. All the transmission fluid was gone. The clamp was defective. I thought I tightened it down all the way and come to find out, it stopped turning. I tried to turn this clamp when I took it off the hose and it wouldn't turn after a certain point. I felt embarrassed. I wanted to freak out and get angry. Which is what I use to do before Christ. How did I manage? With prayer and praise. Even when things seemed out of control, God was still in control. Every spiritual attack of discouragement was met with praise and prayer. Next time something doesn't go your way, start praising, quoting verses and praying. The enemy doesn't want to drive you to worship the Lord and the attacks will have NO power over you.

I needed a new clamp and I asked Erin to go and ask if they had a screw driver and hose clamps. She was praying that the Lord would some how provide and He did! They just so happen to sell hose clamps and a set of screw drivers. With the new clamp on, all we needed was transmission fluid. I asked Erin to go check to see if they had some. She prayed and yes, they had a bunch of it. But, it wasn't the right kind. This all happens just as a cashier is getting off shift from that Chevron and she offers to take me to the auto parts store for a long funnel and transmission fluid. The Lord used the time while I was repairing the car so that my wife could minister to Mary. I got the funnel and 5 quarts of transmission fluid and filled up the transmission, cranked the car on and took her on a short test drive. Praise the Lord the clamp held and the car was running fine. I picked up the girls and we were on our way. The rest of the way there my wife and I ministered to Mary. She listened. We arrived in Globe, we all swapped phone numbers, and we hugged good bye.

The drive back we were just so filled with joy for EVERYTHING that happened. Yes, even the car going out of commission for a bit. It was the way the Lord planned it. He called me, Gabriel, Erin and Ellen to serve and we responded. We were told to sacrifice and we did. Was it all worth it? Absolutely. Because of all of this, someone got born again. The Lord was glorified and there was a party up in Heaven for Mary.