“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen 1:1) “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) Another name for “the Word” here is Jesus Christ. “And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.” (Acts 2:3) “The Lord our God is one.” (Mark 12:29) The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are all separate and distinct from each other, and yet these three are one, the one we call God. Don’t try to understand it, no one can in its totality, accept it in faith. God not only created the heavens and the earth, He created all of reality, and everything that was created is held together by Him (Col. 1:16-17) and for His pleasure, (Rev.4:11) He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, (Rev. 1:8) He is self-sustaining, Omniscient, all-knowing and eternal. (Psalms 90:2) Again, truth that must be taken in faith. He created all of existence by simply speaking, it took Him six days, but He could have done it in six seconds if He wanted to, and then He rested on the seventh, (Gen. 2:2) and He called that day Holy. (Gen. 2:3) Resting here doesn’t mean He was tired; it simply means that He stopped creating. Some of the first beings that He made were the angelic host, we call them angels, they are spiritual entities with no known materialistic form, and there was and is a type of hierarchy form to them. The most powerfully created one He named Lucifer. (Isaiah 14:12) They were all given free will, and Lucifer by his own free will determined not to serve God, but grew within himself a desire to be like God, (Isaiah 14:14) and he passed these ideas around to the other angels and actually coerced a third of them into following him. (Rev. 12:4) For this and the pride that was found in him (Ezekiel 28:15) he along with all those angels were cast out of heaven and onto earth. God is sovereign, in complete and total control of all things He created, pride says I don’t need God, and so pride is a sin. Our Lord, God, changed Lucifer’s name to Satan, and those angels that were cast out of heaven are now called demons. Satan’s plan is to hinder in any way that he can the plans and desires of God, but since God is the only Sovereign one, Satan is limited in what he can do. On the sixth day of creation, God created a man and a woman, He called the man Adam, (Ge. 2:19) and Adam named his wife Eve. (Gen. 3:20) They were placed in a garden on the earth in the land of Eden, and were instructed to tend it. (Gen. 2:15) God brought all the animals to Adam and He had him name them. (Gen. 2:20) One day Satan entered into one of the animals called a serpent, and spoke with Eve about one of the commandments that God had given these two, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Gen. 3:3) He tricked Eve into disobeying God, and she ate of the fruit along with her husband Adam. Those who knew no sin now had within them sin, and there was no way to get it out, the fruit did not have sin in it, the disobedience of the commandment of God to not eat of the fruit was what caused the sin. Not only them though, but all of their descendants until the last day would be born with sin, (Romans 5:12) that’s you and me. God promised that a deliverer would come one day and remove their sin, (Gen. 3:15) but now not only would their physical bodies die, but they would be separated in proper fellowship with God until that day. Sin separates us from God. Many centuries and thousands of people later, God saw that the heart of man was only evil continuously, (Gen. 6:5) and so He told a man named Noah to build an ark for himself and seven other people. In this big boat which took Noah and his family 120 years to build, God put two of every type of animal of His choosing into it, (Gen. 6:19) He shut the door, opened the floodgates of the deep, made it rain on the earth, and killed every single living thing on it that had breath. (Gen. 6:17) Sin has consequences, God is Sovereign. Man still had sin in him though, and as time went on a man named Nimrod and all the people built a tower to reach where God was. (Gen. 11:4) Everyone still spoke the same language, but God changed that, He gave the ability to different groups to speak different languages, and made them to forget how to speak the one they had always known. (Gen. 11:7) Then He scattered them over the whole earth, this is where all the different languages come from. As for the different ways we appear physically to each other, the different races, only God knows. As more centuries went by, no one desired to serve God of their own free will, so God Himself chose a man, his name was Abraham. God told him to go to a country where He wanted him to live, and so he did. (Gen. 12:1) Abraham had a son named Isaac, Isaac had a son named Jacob, and God changed Jacob’s name to Israel, (Gen. 35:10) now you know why the country of Israel is so named. More centuries pass, and as promised to Adam and then to Abraham, (Gal. 3:16) the deliverer is born, the Messiah Jesus Christ. He who was in the beginning (John 1:1) is born in human flesh, God in human form, all God and all man at the same time. He preaches love and repentance, and tells the people that the only way to the Father, to God, to Heaven, is through Him. A perfect sacrifice is required by God for sin, and since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) a sinless one would be all that would be accepted by God. “Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.” (Heb. 9:22) All of the sacrifices of animals that the children of Israel had been commanded by God to do were to show them that a perfect sacrifice would be offered for their sins by God Himself in Christ Jesus. The Israelites did not kill Jesus, nor did the Romans, He went to the cross of His own free will in love for you and me so that we could be with Him in the eternal bliss of Heaven forever. Those who will not accept this free gift of salvation (Eph. 2:8) will be cast into eternal damnation in a lake of fire that has been prepared for the devil, Satan, and his angels. (Matt. 25:41) The name that has been given to the followers of Jesus Christ is the “church,” it represents people, not a building. Those who believe in His name are called “Christians,” and they were first called by this name in a town called Antioch. (Acts 11:26) Before Christ people were under the law, but Christ fulfilled the law (Matt. 5:17) and now Christians are under grace, unmerited favor. Christ rose from the dead, (1 Cor. 15:4) and now sits at the right hand of the Father. (Acts 2:33) He promised that He would return for His church, (1 Thess. 4:17) and those that die before that time are immediately with Him in Heaven. (1 Thess. 4:16) Those who die denying Him are immediately in hell. (Matt. 25:41) These promises were almost two thousand years ago, but they are still true and faithful. Satan and the demons are still at work, sin is still in every person, even the believer in Jesus Christ. The Lord though will forgive all of your sins if you only believe in Him. (Acts 22:16) If you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, (Acts 16:31) you will go to Heaven, if you do not, you will go to hell, it is that simple. Those who believe in His name alone for salvation will receive the Holy Spirit of God (John 7:39) who will indwell them and reveal to them the Truths of God, found in the book that He has written for us, the Holy Bible. “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe with thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” (Romans 10:9) This is the desire of God, that all men should come to His Son, that all should be saved, (1 Tim. 2:4) but it is also His desire that all men do this of their own free will, no one is to be forced. God is Sovereign, but the decision is yours, Heaven or hell. “For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen.” (Romans 1:20) “All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) “There is none righteous, no not one.” (Romans 3:10) “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way.” (Isaiah 53:6) “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) “If thou will confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.” (Romans 10:9) If you have read this you have no more viable excuses, but if you have asked the Lord Jesus to come into your heart and save you, then you won’t need any.
Archives
This Too Shall Pass
February 14, 2025
This too shall pass. The lust of your eyes, those items of the world that may not consume
Starting With The World
February 14, 2025
I handwrite these letters on a one subject notebook that has twenty-seven lines per side, using both sides
No Competition
February 13, 2025
A man of understanding in a fitness center will tell those he meets there that the only person
Whispers In Your Ear
February 13, 2025
Contemplate this question at length. Which is more detrimental to your walk with the Lord, the temptations of