Tag: Salvation

“Come!”

Posted on by Dorci

“And because lawlessness will abound,
the love of many will grow cold.”
~Jesus
Matthew 24:12

I’ve been thinking about these words a lot lately. It’s easy to read them and assume that it’s the people who practice lawlessness whose love will grow cold, and that’s certainly true. 

But in my own heart I’ve seen how easy it is to simply sit and watch or read about the wickedness going on around us and become angry. Yes, we should have a degree of righteous anger, but if we’re not careful, that righteous anger can turn into self-righteousness, judgment, bitterness, and with them the loss of grace, mercy, faith, and love. 

We can get our eyes onto other’s sins and off our own, and forget how much we need forgiveness ourselves. Over time, a lack of repentance and the guilt that sets in can keep us from sitting in the presence of the Lord, the Source of the love we so desperately need.  

And slowly, replacing a tender heart of love, anger begins to fester, and the enemy slowly leads us away, not from salvation, but from fellowship with our gracious Heavenly Father. 

“You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.”
1 Thessalonians 5:5-8

Let’s be alert, filled with the Holy Spirit, resisting the enemy, abiding in the love of Christ, the One who is able to rescue us from ourselves, and remember the hope Jesus gives in the next breath after His words we started with at the beginning:

“But he who endures to the end shall be saved.”  Matthew 24:13

That word “endures” means “to stay under or behind, remain, to undergo, bear trials, have fortitude, persevere, abide, patiently suffer…”

Yes, we’re living in hard times, but remember, the things of this life are not the goal, this life is not the end, it is the beginning. It is the training ground for the life to come; it is where we cling to Christ, and even more through those very hardships, receiving His character for ourselves, growing into spiritual maturity, prepared for what He has for us in the next. 

So let us “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Ephesians 5:1-2

If followers of Christ should be characterized by anything, it should be by His love. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

So what should our response be to the violence, the hatred, the blatant disregard for life we see around us? Yes, be angry at the sin, yes, be angry at the enemy and the war he’s declared on Almighty God, and then let’s emulate our Lord and Savior who was filled with love and prayed from the cross that His Father would forgive those who put Him there. 

We, too, can let the love God’s given us through the filling of the Holy Spirit lead us to pray for those who are caught in the sin. We can ask our gracious and merciful Heavenly Father to grant them repentance and salvation, pulling them back from the pit of hell, just like He did for us. 

So, if you’ve drifted away from the Lord or you deliberately walked away for whatever reason, and your love has grown cold, or maybe your faith is there but it’s lukewarm, which Christ said was even worse than being cold (because it’s so deceiving), or maybe you’ve never given your life to Christ and you know there is something missing, something you desperately need and have been looking for but haven’t yet found, today is the day.

Christ is ready, willing, and able to forgive you and receive you and fill you with His love, a love that is able to go far above and beyond all other loves, a love that will quench our thirsty souls, renew hearts and minds, and heal us more than we can imagine, and this is what He says to you:

“The Spirit and the bride (followers of Christ) say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.”  Revelation 22:17

“Come!”

 

 

The Best Things in Life Are Free

Posted on by Dorci

Hello Friends,
I’m unable to type much right now, so I thought I’d re-post this from December 2013.  I pray the Lord blesses each of you with the continual gift of knowing and walking in His love and the fruitfulness of sharing Jesus through the spiritual gifts given especially to you.

***

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21

They say the best things in life are free.  Yet every year the day after Thanksgiving (well, now you barely have time to eat your last bite of pumpkin pie) the stores open and people rush the gates like race horses at the Kentucky Derby.  Even now there are people everywhere still scrambling to find that last perfect present or two.

I wonder if we really do believe the best things in life are free.  All the frenzied waving of credit cards is really just a distraction, a way to make Christmas mean something when we fail to make it about Christ. And it’s hard to do that when He hasn’t been Lord the other 364 days a year.

Thanksgiving Day I was in the kitchen, as I am every Thanksgiving, going about the cooking I’ve now gotten down to a science, when I stole a moment to take a peek through our kitchen window which faces the front of our house.  The streets were lined with cars that had brought family and friends to spend Thanksgiving with so many neighbors.  It made me feel just a little bit lonely.

I love my family, my husband and our two sons whom we’re still blessed to have at home, but we have no extended family we’re able to spend the holidays with.

I didn’t have much of a family life growing up, so it was always my dream to have huge family gatherings at the holidays, the house full of laughing, eating, cooking, and a dozen different conversations going on a once, catching each other up on our lives, our victories and our defeats, encouraging and loving each other, so that when the day was done we’d be as full in our hearts as we were in our bellies.

A long time ago, though, I accepted the house would be a little less full and a little more quiet. That it would be just the four of us, and I’m happy with that.  Still, I couldn’t help but peer out the window a time or two (maybe three) more and caught a glimpse of all those cars in front of so many other houses.

Instead I’ve filled the holidays with one of the few talents I did have: mad baking skills.  I started baking when my kids were tiny and we didn’t have enough money for store-bought birthday cakes.  I started collecting cookbooks and practicing the art of cake making, frosting, and decorating.  I bought all kinds of frosting tips and every food coloring in the rainbow.  I practiced my royal icing roses. My mouth full of sweet teeth had me quickly expanding to almost any kind of cookie, pastry and dessert you can think of.

And when the holidays rolled around I’d have a field day.  I’d stock up on flour and sugar and butter and chocolate and peppermint candies.  I’d pore through my hundreds of recipes of Christmas cookies and delectable desserts and wonder which to bake first.  Wedding cookies or Chocolate Peppermint Pretzels?  And there are always cream cheese frostinged cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.

But now I have health issues that make it almost impossible to enjoy eating sugar or any kind of carbohydrate. Oh I can eat it, I just have to be willing to face the consequences when I do.  My family is trying to eat healthier, too.  So every year I’ve baked less and less, and this year I haven’t done any.  Yet we are inundated with messages that for Christmas to be Christmas we should indulge in one sugar-laced treat after another.  But since I can’t it’s just one more thing that can make me feel like I’m somehow outside the party peering in.

There are other things, too, that getting older make celebrating Christmas the way I’d like very difficult or impossible.

Sometimes, when we’ve been stripped away of so much that the world says we must have and do to be happy, God is able to show us what’s most important.  To see what the best things in life really are.

No matter what gifts I’ve been given, the best by far will always be my salvation.  Ultimately, of course, I am forever indebted to Christ for dying for me, and to the Holy Spirit for pursuing me, opening my eyes, and revealing to me my need for a Savior. Regardless of what I am not able to have in this life, eternity will be filled with family and feasting.  Relationships will be restored and my body will be perfect.  This life is only temporary.  Eternity’s forever. And I’m looking forward to it!

I would not have that hope if it weren’t for the willingness of some to offer prayers and the honest teaching of God’s Word.  Those were gifts to me, gifts I could never afford.  Gifts that are free.

And now I, and many of you, are in the position to be able to offer those gifts to others.  No credit card needed.  Some may not open their gift of salvation right away, perhaps for years.  But even seeds are gifts.  Water is a gift.

So maybe it’s time to slow down and allow those things the world says we must have in order to have Christmas be stripped away.  Maybe it’s time to give a gift that would last for eternity.  Maybe you’re a seed-bearer, or a waterer.  Maybe you’re a harvester.

Wherever God would have you be in the process, give a gift of your gifts.  Your spiritual gifts have been given to you to not only encourage fellow believers, but to bring truth to unbelievers.  There is no better gift than the truth that leads to salvation.

One phrase that I hear over and over every Christmas season that’s become a pet peeve of mine, is when someone uses the word Christmas in place of the word gifts.  “She won’t be able to give her kids Christmas.”  “They won’t have a Christmas.”

Even the Grinch came to understand Christmas when he’d stripped the Whos of all he thought would make them happy, yet their joy on Christmas morning was undeterred and unrestrained.

“That’s a noise,” grinned the Grinch, “That I simply MUST hear!”
So he paused. And the Grinch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow.
But the sound wasn’t sad! Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn’t be so! But it WAS merry! VERY!
He stared down at Whoville! The Grinch popped his eyes!
Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise!
Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any presents at all!
He HADN’T stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!
And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: “How could it be so?”
“It came with out ribbons! It came without tags!”
“It came without packages, boxes or bags!”
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.”
“Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”

A little bit more indeed.  A lot more.  It means the birth of our precious Savior who came to give us the best gift of all.

So if you’re struggling this year, I hope you’ll take heart,
And know that the life we live here is only the start!
Christ was born in a stable for you and for me
And He died to give us eternity.
So wherever you are, whatever you do
Remember that Jesus, yes Jesus loves you!
He gave you salvation and that’s the key
To knowing the best thing in life is free.
So remember that Christmas doesn’t come from a mart
It comes when we let JESUS fill up our heart!
So store up for yourselves treasures in heaven
Give the gift of telling others how they can be forgiven!

Merry Christmas and God bless you!

What is Reformation Day?

Posted on by Dorci

Today marks the 504th anniversary, otherwise known as Reformation Day, that Martin Luther is said to have nailed his famed Ninety-five Theses to the door of the All Saints’ Church in Germany, and sent his theses with a letter to the Archbishop of Mainz, under whose authority the Roman Catholic church sent out preachers to sell “indulgences” – an act such as a prayer or good work which the Roman Catholic church claimed was “a way to the reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sins.”

Just before Luther wrote his theses, which he called “Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences,” a Dominican Friar had been sent to Germany to sell indulgences to raise money to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. 

Martin Luther, a professor of moral theology and a preacher, meant his theses to open an academic debate on this and other teachings of the church that he believed were in direct conflict with God’s Word.

His theses made statements such as: that the Lord Jesus called for followers to live a life of true inner repentance rather than a system of outward sacramental confession; that the pope could not absolve sin; and that in selling indulgences, those preachers were giving false certainty of forgiveness and leading people to believe that obtaining an indulgence made repentance unnecessary.

The theses was quickly distributed throughout Germany and Europe, and leadership in the Roman Catholic church charged Martin Luther with heresy, some even calling for his punishment by burning.

A few years later he was excommunicated, but by then the church in Europe had begun its reformation.

We are privileged to live in a time and place where we can own God’s Word for ourselves and, in prayer, search it, study it, and know the truth God’s set forth in it. This should be our solemn duty as those who have been given the greatest, most life-altering, eternity-changing gift. 

We can emulate the Berean Jews, who “were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11)

Though it’s been more than 500 years since Martin Luther sought know and proclaim the truth, there are still a lot of erroneous beliefs, philosophies, and religious doctrines floating around out there, lying to people and leading them away from the truth. 

We cannot let ourselves fall into that trap. If we are to continually abide in Christ who is the truth, we must, through the Holy Spirit, discern the lies from the truth and never waiver from it. 

Time gets shorter every day, for the souls around us and for us, and people need the truth in God’s Word.

“It is finished.”

These are the last words of Christ before He “bowed His head and gave up His spirit.”

This statement in the Greek is teleō,-to end, complete, execute, conclude, discharge a debt, accomplish, make an end, expire, fill up, finish, go over, pay, perform.

The work of payment for sins is done. Anything added to Christ’s work on the cross for forgiveness of sins and salvation makes a mockery of His life, His death, and His words, and serves only to lead people away from the truth. 

The free gift of the forgiveness for all one’s sins and eternal life is one that only Christ can offer, and He offers it to anyone – ANYONE! – who will believe in Him as Lord, receiving His payment on the cross for their sins.  

***

Heavenly Father, we pray for your mercy, for a revival of hearts around the world, and for boldness to live and speak as witnesses of your truth, in love and humility and in the power of your Holy Spirit, to those you bring to us. As we walk in faith, we pray you would enlarge our territories for your glory, Lord.  In Jesus’ name we pray, amen. 

 

Sunday Praise and a Prayer as We Stand Upon the Rock

Posted on by Dorci

Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you. You, Lord, are our Rock, and on you we stand. We declare that as we stand upon You, the Rock of our salvation, we will not be shaken; we will not be moved. You are our Mighty Fortress, our Protector, and we will not fear. 

You are our Strength, our Courage, our sure Hope. No matter what storms rage around us, you are our Peace, and our Light in the darkness. 

You are our Sustenance, our Fountain of living water. 

As we stand upon you and walk in faith, may our lives be a reflection of your great love and grace, and may all we go through magnify and glorify the holy and precious name of Jesus Christ. 

In His name we pray, amen.

* * *

If you would like prayer, please feel free to contact me. 

For His glory, 

A Wake-Up Call and a Prayer in Light of the Events in Afghanistan

Posted on by Dorci

As I read the news about what’s going on in Afghanistan, I’m repeatedly being reminded of prophetic scripture. 

“And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” Revelation 20:4

“So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” Matthew 24:15-16

Not that what we see happening is the specific fulfillment of these scriptures, but we can see it coming. The birth pains are getting more frequent and more painful. 

As we lift up in prayer those in danger in Afghanistan, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ who are a particular target, let’s remember we cannot give way to fear. Fear leads to weakness and that’s exactly what the enemy wants. 

We must set aside our fear, remember whose we are – the chosen children of our Heavenly Father, redeemed by Christ, filled with His Holy Spirit, and given an eternal promise. 

Let’s pray, believing.  Believing in His love, in His strength, in His power, we can pray with confidence, knowing that He hears us, He is on the throne, and in full control. 

I believe the events we see happening should be a wake up call to waste no more time.  Now is the time to make sure we are right with the Lord, to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” Hebrews 12:1b-2a

“Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.” 1 Cor. 3:16-17

“Therefore, ‘Come out from among them (unbelievers) and be separated’ says the Lord, ‘and do not touch the unclean thing. And I will receive you and I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters,’ says the Lord Almighty.” 2 Cor. 6:17

“I am the LORD who sanctifies you.” Lev 20:8


Heavenly Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus Christ, your only begotten Son, and the only name under heaven given by which anyone can be saved. 

We pray for the pouring out of your Holy Spirit for the revival of hearts that are cold or lukewarm, and for the salvation of countless more souls.  

We pray you would strengthen the love and faith of your Church, that you would “strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, He will come with vengeance; with divine retribution He will come to save you.” (Isaiah 35:3-4)

We pray we would be found being about your business, walking in your Spirit, serving boldly in the gifts you have so graciously given to us, building up one another and making disciples, that you might be glorified and magnified through us.

We pray you would fill our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan with your peace that surpasses all understanding and with a fresh boldness to continue in hopeful, faithful prayer and to stand firm in their faith. We pray their witness would lead many to Christ. May they feel our prayers through the powerful presence of your Holy Spirit. 

We pray you would be with our soldiers and with all those they are charged with bringing home, that every one would arrive safely. We pray our president and all those who oversee our country would turn to you in humble reverence and repentance, receive you as Lord, and be filled with your wisdom, praying that you would intervene. Please bind the the work of the enemy, Almighty God. 

May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus’ name, amen.