How to Know God Personally

How to know God Personally

... As a minister of the Gospel, ordained to this ministry by none other than God, Himself, I see one, ever present problem that is persistent, no matter the web site, the forum or the means of communication. I speak of knowing God on a personal level and as long as a person can hide behind a screen name or an assumed name at Hotmail.com, Yahoo.com, Google.com, or so on they want to know how to do that, to know God so intimately that they, like myself can speak to and be spoken to by God, the Creator. I will not draw a great deal on scripture for this message because it is obviously for the lost man, both inside and outside of the Church.

... First allow me to cross my own statement and draw on Hebrews 10:25 to reinforce this statement. We must become a part of the body, a.k.a. The Church, if we are called of God. The Church is not that building nor is any building required to house the Church. In the Hebrews passage we find that we are to with regularity, assemble ourselves together. As we read through the Bible we find that there are an almost limitless number of reasons for this activity but today I just want to tell you that we do this to Worship God, jointly, and so that we edify one another. For instance, I will never be able to teach you everything I know about God through an email once a month or so or through the postings on the bulletin boards that I work in my service to our Lord.

... Let me tell you right now that God has spoken to me in a still quiet “voice” once upon a time. Today He communicates his messages to me in a variety of manors. The first thing to understand is that you must make yourself available to God. When I met my wife I spent as much time in her company as I could possibly make for her. By doing this she came to know and to trust me and I came to know her likes and dislikes. If you are ever to come to the point that you love God and therefore know Him on a personal level you must make time in your life for Him, ever single day, for the rest of your life.

... When you turn your radio on what sort of music and speech comes out of the speaker? As I prepare this message, mine is on. I almost never change the station and right this moment some unknown man is singing about “someone is praying for me.” Throughout the course of the day there will be preachers delivering messages from God, Christian News programs and interviews with folks that are active, on the field, in some third world country. Just listening to my radio I here messages from God and often one of the singers or the preachers speak and it is an answer that the Holy Spirit applies straight to my heart. You can spend time with God by just turning on your radio, to the correct station.

... One of my most blessed experiences is the first six or seven times I read the Bible through. That took me 20 minutes or less each day for a year. I read three chapters, in sequence, a day for a year. It was during those days that I learned how much God loves me. My favorite book from those studies was and is the Book of Judges. I, a combat hardened veteran that once killed men with just the pull of my finger, am moved to tears every time I read the Book of Judges. From that single, short, volume I learned that God not only will but seeks to forgive us, no matter what the sin looks like to us. But there is one thing that is certain, if you never find the time to seek after God, the way you did your wife, husband, girl or boyfriend, you will never learn that God loves you that much.

... Must you always wait for God to answer you? No! One of many examples is once, when my wife was in for Day Surgery. I had taken some vacation time to be with her while she would be recovering. As I sat there in the Waiting Room I prayed and I asked God for His assurance that my precious Help Mate would be restored. I opened the Bible I had taken with me to no particular place and began to read. In the first sentence that I read, about mid-page in the first column I had my answer. I had God's assurance that He was on the Throne and in command of the situation. If you will be faithful to seek after God He is faithful.

... You see, there is no great secret to establishing a personal relationship with God. You learn to love Him and He is there, forever.

Stem Cell Research

... Recently I have been confronted with a group of people that I find to be very distressing. Although they do not see themselves as such, they are very immoral. Their beliefs cut a wide path accross society and they are gaining momentum at an incredible rate. Some of the people will object that I am placing them into one group but the truth is that we are all in the same group to some extent. We are, everyone of us, sinners. Some of us are in repentence, daily, and are doing our best to please God and on the other end of the spectrum are the God haters.
... Some will be offended that I have lumped them in with that "Bible thumping" bunch of Christians and others will protest that they are under God's grace and therefore, not at all like the bunch that harvests T-cells from the infants they just murdered. The truth of the matter is that God sees everyone of us in the same light as explained in Isa. 64:6.
... When you read this passage you will do well to remember what I have heard from a number of studied men, The rag spoken of here that resembles our righteousness is the rag used by a woman during her menstrual cycle before anything had been invented for this purpose. Without the imputed righteousness of the Christ, that is how filthy God sees us to be.
... And you wonder what in the world does that have to do with Stem Cell research. There are many in the church today that have arrived at different levels of acceptance of the harvesting of Infantile Stem Cells. Some are even Elders in the Church Government. Some almost justify and others do justify the abortions performed today to harvest those stem cells.
... Each of these people have gone through a process of being turned away from the Word of God and most of them have completed this cycle without even thinking about it. The very popular battle cry from the Abortion Clinics is that there is such promise in this research and Christians, without caution and mental exercise have begun to echo that call to battle.
... What is the truth then? Let's begin with the beggining and that is that God is omnipotent. Because He is God has the ability to bless anything He chooses to Bless and to condemn to failure anything He chooses nit ti bless.
... I have read, recently that therde are fifty or better success stories in the Stem Cell Research field and that one of them is in the trreatment of Diabetes. So what am I harping on the research about? None of the sucesses are the result of research completed on people using crops harvested from slaughtered infants. If we examine the situation closly, we find that this research does not lack for funding.
... The much hated Free Market is a truly wonderful thing to watch. Rich, money smart people are most often called greedy and while I remain away from that camp, in observing them I have noticed something about them that is important. If a thing, anything is discovered, they begin, right away, to acess it's value and it's potential value. If an item, such as Adult stem cell research, has value or contains the prospect o gaining value, they begin to invest their millions in the project because they see some sort of profit in the endeavor. If the case is one that has failed to show potential, such as Infantile Stem Cell Research, some will invest early on but when the endevor looses all promise of success, they withdraw and cut their losses.
... If we are ever to succed in the fielld of science we must discard emotion and operate solely on the basis of fact. The fact is that there has been no sucess from the murdering and the harvesting of babies and all we accomplish by doing so is to condemn ourselve into Hell.

Trials to Prove Our Faith

1Pe 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which cometh upon you to prove you, as though a strange thing happened unto you:

1Pe 4:13 but insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, rejoice; that at the revelation of his glory also ye may rejoice with exceeding joy.

1Pe 4:14 If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye; because the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God resteth upon you.

1Pe 4:15 For let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evil-doer, or as a meddler in other men's matters:

1Pe 4:16 but if a man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this name.

1Pe 4:17 For the time is come for judgment to begin at the house of God: and if it begin first at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God?

1Pe 4:18 And if the righteous is scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?

1Pe 4:19 Wherefore let them also that suffer according to the will of God commit their souls in well-doing unto a faithful Creator.

... A common question, asked today, is why does God allow such a thing? First Peter four explains it well if you will sit and meditate upon these scriptures a bit. Just for clarity on exactly where I stand on this issue, God knows everything! God knows exactly what I will do in any given situation but I don't. I enjoy thinking that I do but that is not something that God is just wild about. You see, God need men and women that are fully confident of their faith and are not afraid to, as the pilots I flew with in Vietnam put it, push against the envelope. The envelope, in this case, is the mysterious limits of the machine and the pilot's ability to exceed them and prove them wrong.

... Just as every good pilot in Vietnam was tested by gunfire and missal avoidance, the Christian is also tested by the fiery trials of Satan, when God permits them. (See and read the book of Job.) During the course of my three tours in Vietnam, my helicopter had every right to just collapse and burn numerous times as I served with the Killer Spades. The reason I live today is because my LORD had a mission for me to complete and in Vietnam I was not a Christian but as I now look back at the times such as the time we were not in Cambodia and the 1^st Div. Of the North Vietnamese Army did not put 300 bullets through my aircraft because Uncle Sam said we were never there, I very clearly see the hand of God on my life, even when I thought I was His enemy.

... If we will just look to God when our trials come upon us, and if you are a Christian, they will come, we will not fail the test. Just as I hated tests when I was in school, the Christian today, in America, seems to despise the tests, a.k.a. trials of God. God did not allow Job to be tested just for grins, God was making Job a strong, fire tested, God loving man. After the fiery trial was over for Job God made him richer and better off than he had ever been and He will do that for each of us if we will just rely on Him and nothing else, no matter what.

... Many today hate Randy “Duke” Cunningham and I cannot judge his condition today since he has destroyed his reputation but there was a time over North Vietnam when the Duke refined his faith to a sharp edge in just a few seconds, really. That day he had already flown his mission, dropped his load from the F-4and he was clear to go home and put it on the carrier. But as he was flying back to the ocean (known as feet wet) he saw a pilot trapped inside a carousal of eight MIG-17 fighter jets. The F-4 Phantom carried no guns and the MIGs were very well armed for aerial combat. He knew that if no one helped that pilot that he and his copilot would, likely, die that day.

... He turned into the outer edge of those fighters circling the F-4 and flew right between two of them, pulling a couple of the bandits out of the formation, giving the F-4 a chance to break free. Duke slammed the throttle forward and as the bandits turned back he came about, locked on one and brought it down with a missal. That was his third kill and he went for one more. After downing his fourth and the second for that day he turned home.

... As he was going for no less than “feet wet” he spotted another bandit flying straight at him and he chose to engage him and graduate to Ace that day. As they engaged, Duke realized that he was probably fighting North Vietnam's number one Ace. Not having the speed of the F-4 he forced Duke to engage him at speeds where he held the advantage. Realizing the folly he shoved the throttle forward and forced the enemy to disengage and turn for his home base. When he did Duke came about, caught an angle where he could not be seen without a good deal of effort, locked on and brought his third for the day and his total to five for the status of Ace.

... As he and his copilot were once more headed home they saw a SAM launch. He managed to elude the SAM but when it was close to him it exploded and he was on fire. He had lost the hydraulics and all the control surfaces in his wings and the rudder and elevators were engulfed in fire. He had lost all communication and could not hear all the other pilots screaming for them to bail out. Suddenly the F-4 yawed and was upside down. Duke prayed for God to help him and when the aircraft was right side up he thought to himself, “That was my superior ability to fly this baby, not God.” Suddenly, the aircraft flipped upside down again and Duke was terrified and praying, he asked God to forgive him and to get him out of this.

... Just as suddenly as the F-4 had just flipped, it was right-side up again. They were just short of the water and to bail out was to be sent to the Hanoi Hilton to have their arms broken as they were tortured so that they might never fly again, they did not want that. Suddenly the aircraft was shuddering and the tail of the ship broke off and they were in a flat spin with no control at all. Once more they did not hear the men screaming into their mikes for them to get out of that death trap. The ship, flying much like a burning Frisbee was just high enough for ejection and they were well enough into the ocean and they bailed out, just ahead of the crash. God had been faithful, even when Duke Cunningham doubted.

... I cannot tell you Randy “Duke” Cunningham's spiritual condition at this moment but that day sharpened his faith to a razor edge. Regardless of his recent history, there is a great lesson about the alue of trials to be learned from his experience in Vietnam. My prayer is that, from this story and from the story of Job, you will take the strength you will need when, not if, the trails hit you.

Truth, Trust and the Church

... In the past my family has been required to deal with the issues of Truth. Trust and the Future of the Church. Matthew 5:37 is my reference in this matter and while many seem to think this scripture is only applicable to how one answers a question I would submit for your study that this single statement has a much broader scope. I submit that when the light of Exodus 20:16 Thou shalt not bear false witness, that there is a very broad range of our activity that comes under the scope of this passage in the message delivered from the mount on that day.
... Now, bare with me because I am not on a rabbit trail and will tie this together in a few moments. Without the Primaries we will not grow any Juniors and without the juniors there will be no Youth in our churches. If we have no Youth maturing into young adults to go to Seminary we will have no Church. The Children are the future of our churches and without them, God will need to raise up the stones to lead the church into the future.
... When I raised up my namesake I was very careful to never promise him a thing I would not be able to deliver, when I said I would deliver it. That is the principal of let your yes be yes in life application. In the past my family has abandoned our ministry in a church where the director of Children's Ministries was promising the children that if they did a thing and then arrived at the church parking lot at a given time that he would do such and such. When the children would complete their part and show up at the appointed time and place he would tell them that not enough people had completed their work to make the reward worthwhile. Then he would complain that the ministry was not growing and of course he was right and he was the reason.
... If you pull such a lie on adults they will drop you in short order, children have much less in the options department but they will learn, in very short order, that the ministers in the church are no different than most of the people outside the church. When these children grow up they will be a very hard sell because they will have a very hard heart against God. As the people of God we must learn to act more like Jesus or we must get out of the way. Matthew 18:6.

Debunking Evolution

... There seems to be a great deal of misdirected concentration from both, within and outside of the Church today. The Theory of Evolution, as presented by Darwin and now as modified by the sellers of dreams today. The Dream Sellers have renamed the ability to physically adapt to our surroundings from Adaptation to Micro-Evolution. The rather logical extension of this is that what we have always known as Evolution is now renamed Macro-Evolution. I have found, nor can I imagine, no other reason for the change in terminology other than they hope to make the lie easier to sell to the uninformed.

... One of the largest problems with the selling of Evolutionary Creation is that it must fly in the face of what God has said to us and God has said in Genesis that everything produces after it's kind. For any form of evolution to stand, God must either not know of what He speaks or God has sinned and told a lie and sinned. Both of these thoughts are an attempt to make God into the image of man and that is a lie, in either case.

... If a person will simply look around themselves they will know that evolution is simply not true. Neither man nor any of the animals show any signs of advancing but are instead in a state of decline. The human race alone is not as healthy as it was just fifty years ago and just as the scriptures have foretold there are new diseases attacking us that have never been known in times past.

... There has always been and there will always be only one salvation for mankind and that is Jesus, the Christ, and there will never be another.

Justifing Sin

... It has become a very popular tactic today to compare one person's sin with anothers in order to justify our sinful condition. Because I do most of my work for the LORD in the public arena, on the web, I am often hit with questions such as, "Why do you treat the Homosexual differently than the Adulterer?" And of course, since there is no status difference between the two, I always respond with, "I do not, they are both condemned to Hell if they fail to repent and come to seek salvation."
... It would seem that even the lost man of the world knows a good deal of what the Ten Commandments have to say and with the exposure that Exodus 20 has received in days gone by that is not surprising. What, though not surprising, is distressing, is this, my sin is no worse than your sin attitude. When we look at our Bibles we learn that all sin is capable of sending us to the eternal death.
... With the Westborough Baptist/Fred Phelp's hate movement for the Homosexual, Christianity has received a very prominent black eye. We, as Christians, must not learn to compromise with sin and yet, at the same moment in time, we must continue to love the sinner. (2Pet. 3:9 and 1Jon. 4:8,9) Our assignment, as Ambassadors for Christ is to be the reflection of the Christ in our world today, so that the sinner, no matter which verity, is not afraid to approach us in honesty and to seek God with our help. There is a great deal of godly wisdom that is required to pursue this endeavor, whether the sinner be a homosexual or a bank robber. And refusing to allow one of them acces to God while accomidating the other cannot be allowed.
... We also must not allow sin to run unchecked in our churches. The letters to the Seven Churches in the Revelation illustrate that truth, God is watching our deeds and He knows our hearts. Some churches have become so "Seeker Friendly" that sin permeates the assembly and there is no difference inside the walls than there is outside.
... The bottom line is this, "We are called to be a peculiar people and to live differently than the world." Many is the man that will tell you that the The Commandments are of no importance today because we are under the New Covenant but I will ask you to study all of God's Word because God has given us a ruler to measure our sin against and the best short standard to use is the Ten Commandments. I am not telling anyone to keep them, I can't, I failed long before I became a Christian. I am telling you to measure yourself against God's Standard and to know yourself. Then, knowing yourself, go forward, seeking the council of the many, in the Church, and draw the lost to you that they, also, might repent and come to the foot of the cross and live the new life that God gives to us. There is no greater thing for any person to accomplish than to lead a lost person to eternal security through the Salvation offered by Jesus' death on the cross.

Christianity

The Condition of Christianity

... I have been working the forums now for about 11 years and have been used of God in a powerful way all over the world. In the US I am instructed that the church average 3.5 professions of faith per year and because I have submitted to God's will (kicking and screaming at first) God has used me to lead such folks as a senior Wiccan to the foot of the cross that resulted in her son's and husband's salvation experience also. As I have watched person after person giving their lives over to the LORD I am simply speechless as entire Churches seek to follow people like Rick Warren and Joel Osteen.
... Now, I'll get into some trouble here but the truth is just that. When I speak of the
Church I do not mean the building where you go to Worship Service on Sunday, no, you and I are the Church that our LORD is returning for. Not only that, I am a Baptist and this will upset some of you but He isn't coming back for the Baptists. The LORD will return on that cloud and He will take the Christian that has devoted his and her life to Him. It is my firm belief that if the rapture is on Saturday that there will be little difference in the assembly the next morning. I know that I will receive many replies to that statement that will be upset with me but the truth is that our LORD told us that we will know the faithful by their fruit. So just consider, how many of your friends read the scriptures daily for any reason other than bragging rights?
... Recently there is a resurgence of Homosexual activism that does not even come from the San Francisco style activists, it comes from within the church. Today I read an article published by The Berean Watchmen that was a confirmation of a previous article on homosexuality. As per the previous article, it was inferred, we should not be looking at the lifestyle the homosexual lives because it is none of the Church's business.
... In Canada, our neighbor to the north, it is illegal to teach what the Bible has to say about the act of homosexuality. My understanding of the matter is that they have already placed a preacher in prison for preaching on the subject. I did not save the number nor the name of the bill but here in the US the sister bill is being readied for our churches and Pastors.
... And now we have a new President and Vice-President that each and every one of us has the responsibility to pray for God to lead and to influence and I not only hear folks refusing to pray for the man that I, also, did not vote for but it is painfully obvious that even though, as children of the Most High God, we are commanded to pray for them, we are not. (1 Tim. 2:1-4) How, you might ask, can I be sure that we, the Christian community, are being disobedient? There is the overhearing of voices in church and there is the obvious hate on the forums, from the Christian Community. And then there is the SENATE BILL S. 2433, that is quietly being passed through the Senate after being sponsored by the President and his VP. No one knows and no one in the church is studying this bill that will pass because God has been kicked out of America and this bill will cost us our sovereignty as a nation.
... Will you read 2 Chro. 7:14 and join me as I pray for this to fail because God had His way?