I’m heading out to California tomorrow to speak at another prayer breakfast. My flight is early-early in the morning and I’ll be flying all day. I don’t know how many people I’ll be speaking to Thursday morning, but I’m really looking forward to it.
I love telling people about Jesus and what He has meant to me. Without him I would be dead and in hell forever, or possibly in prison or an insane asylum. I was thinking about it this morning and wondering how many people are without Christ at this very moment.
I thought back to those days when I didn’t have Jesus in my life and remembered being miserable most of the time, and without hope of brighter days. I had a big hole in my heart and I was looking for some way to fill it. I tried to find relief in bars, bedrooms, violence, and illegal drugs; all to no avail. Later I found Jesus and I was excited for a while and God blessed me and my career skyrocketed as did my bank account. Unfortunately like many immature Christians, I soon found myself not focusing on Jesus anymore, and instead to building businesses, buying Porsches, BMW’s, mansions, boats, planes, and the finest material things to find what I needed in my life.
Ugh – No peace in any of that. In fact I’m convinced with certainty that no material thing, nothing this world has to offer, can bring lasting peace, joy, and genuine love. When I once again found that I was miserable, like the prodigal son, I soon found myself slinking back to Jesus and begging His forgiveness and asking Him for a second chance. He graciously and wonderfully forgave me again, and I vowed to follow Him forever.
I have not lived, (and still do not live a perfect life), but one thing certain my life is dedicated to Jesus now and will be until the day I draw my last breath. Though I know that I cannot emulate Him to the degree that I desire, or even come close to the perfection that He lived, I know that I can come much closer than ever before.
I don’t know about you, but I want to finish well. I want to know that when I’m on my death bed that I fought the good fight and I when I face God I long to hear Him say that He is proud of me and that I have done a good job.
This life is brief and uncertain, but eternity is forever and there is no uncertainty about whether or not I will join Jesus in heaven. There is no uncertainty because I have acknowledged that He is the true living Son of God; that He came to live a perfect life on earth; that He willingly sacrificed His life as an acceptable payment for my sin debt; that He arose from the grave and right now sits at the right hand of God; and I have vowed to make Him LORD of my life. I have confessed my sins before Him, asked for forgiveness, and repented.
Hey if He calls me home today, or tomorrow, or ten or twenty years from now, I’m good to go!
That gives me the peace, joy, and love that I have yearned for all of my life and I know only comes from having a Father/Son relationship with our Creator.
That is the message that I will deliver in California. I hope it resonates with you this morning and you will consider following Christ now and forever too. If He is truly LORD in your life, like Him you will want to share the gospel and disciple others who just might be in danger of spending eternity separated from God in a place Jesus described as hell where there will be continual weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Unfortunately statistics indicate that a majority of people don’t believe Jesus. They don’t believe in hell, satan, sin, and/or the need for repentance.
Ugh! God help those who have rejected God’s only Son and His supreme effort to save them . . . Amen
Matt. 13:42
The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will weed out of His kingdom every cause of sin and all who practice lawlessness. And they will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear . . .
May 10, 2016 – Click here to listen