Shaking Hands or Saving Lives

“Shaking Hands or Saving Lives?”

BIBLE MEDITATION:
“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him.” John 3:36
ENCOURAGING WORD:

There was a preacher who kept a painting in his study of a shipwreck. It was a picture of sailors in lifeboats reaching out their hands to people floating on debris from the ship. A little boy looked at the painting and asked his daddy, “Are those in the lifeboats trying to save those people or are they just shaking hands?”

I often wonder about us. It is good to have friends by all means. I encourage everybody to have as many friends as you can. But are you doing more than just socializing? Wouldn’t it be a shame if all you did was shake the hands of those around you, when you could be serving and showing them the way to God through Jesus Christ?

The Word of God says in James 4:17; “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” I know we are all guilty of this sin. We very seldom take the opportunity to share the gospel with others when we have the opportunity sitting right in front of us. It is not always an easy thing to do. We are afraid of what our friends may think, or we are afraid we will not know what to say. When you have the opportunity to speak to someone that will listen to you, turn it over to the Holy Spirit and if you are sincere, He will provide the Words that need to be spoken. The best way I have found to open a door to conversation is to always use scripture to support what you want to share with others. For example, “If you are talking about events that are going on in this world, use prophetic verses in the Bible to explain why these things are happening.” If they take an interest in what you are saying, then you most likely will have an opportunity to work in the gospel of salvation which will bring them comfort.” We need to let people know what the problem is before we can give them the solution. It is much easier this way, then to just come right out and say, “Hey, did you know you’re a sinner?” You will most likely lose them right away with that approach, even though it is true. Be strategic, work scripture into your conversation. You will know right away if the Holy Spirit is working in you or not. When you feel the Holy Spirit working in you, words will come out of your mouth that you never knew you had, but don’t make the mistake of thinking you are good, only God is good and it is through Him that the message of the gospel will be presented. You are a vessel to God, so open the door to The Holy Spirit and let Him share the Word through you. What a privilege we have to share the absolute, best news the world has to offer!

We read in 2 Timothy 3:16-17; “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” We may not realize it, but even today as well as in the days of old when the Holy Spirit spoke to renowned (widely acclaimed and highly honored) men, the same thing is happening to God’s people today. The Holy Spirit is constantly seeking who He may to bring the message of salvation to a lost world. The biggest problem that I see is the fact that very few people will open their hearts to receive the most important message ever written. Why is that we may ask? I think the biggest issue is because people do not want to be held accountable to anyone or anything but themselves. It is a “me” world. They say, me first, then my family and friends and then if they have time, they will work God into the equation. When in all reality it should be the opposite. God first, then your family and friends, and then finally yourself. We have it all backwards. We read this very popular verse in the Bible, but yet, very few take it to heart and trust it,Matthew 6:33; “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” We have no idea what God is saying in this verse because most people do not know what it means to seek the kingdom of God. This does not mean that we have to be a priest or a pastor or anyone that speaks to a congregation, it means we should be pleasing to God in everything that we do. We read this verses in Colossians 3:2-10; “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him,” The Apostle Paul was talking to the Colossians that gave their lives to Christ. He gave a few things to sustain from and to be quite frank with you, if you truly love and live for Jesus Christ, these things should be easy to stay away from.

If you take the five things in the above Bible verses that we should stay away from, you should know that these things are overtaking the world as we speak, especially in America. For those that might not understand what these five things actually mean, let me explain the best that I can. The first one is the killer and probably the hardest to refrain from doing, “fornication.” This means having any kind of sex outside of the bonds of marriage. I am sure that I lost a few of you already on this one. I could go on about this category, but I’ll let your conscience be your guide. Second, “uncleanness.” This onegoes along the same lines as fornication except it has to do with anything sexual outside or marriage. We read this verse in Hebrews 13:4; “Marriage [is] honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” You may think that if you do not know that this is in the Bible that you will not be held accountable for your sins, wrong! Ignorance of the law will be no excuse when you stand before the creator of the universe at the “White Throne Judgement.” Do not take this lightly, God says what he means and means what He says. Then we get to “passion” which means anything that you put before God is wrong. Like I said before, God first, then He will give you the desires of your heart as we read in Psalms 37:4; “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” Psalms 37:5; “Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring [it] to pass.” God is a keeper of His Word, but it is up to us to do our part first. Next, we come to “evil desires.” Do I need to even comment on this one? There is so much evil in our world today that goes well beyond anything that I could have ever imagined. We read this verse in Genesis 6: 11-13; “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So, God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” We get a warning in the New Testament about what to look for just before the second coming of Jesus Christ in Luke 17:26; “And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man.” I cannot imagine it being much worse in the days of Noah than it is in our world today. Of course, if you are not aware of how bad our world is, you will not understand this verse. You will not get the true news over the popular airwaves in which most people tune into, you have to go outside of the everyday news and find a source that will tell you what you really need to know. I will suggest one very good source if you are interested. https://hischannel.com/. Watch “World News Briefing” with Don Stewart. It is a very good source of what is really going on. Now, the last one mentioned is “covetousness.” (Having a craving for possession). Everybody seems to want what everybody else has. We all need to understand that everything that we have is a gift from God. If we want what someone else has, then we are telling God that we need more than what He has given us. Go knows what we need and what is good for us, accept it, be happy with it and thank God for all that He has done for you.

The message above is one that I feel is extremely important, especially in light of the days in which we live. This is a message that the Holy Spirit has been putting on my heart for quite a while now. It’s not one that most people want to hear because most of us are guilty of one of more of these abominations to God. We hate having someone tell us that we need to change, but the truth of the matter is this, (we need to change from living in the flesh to living in the Spirit)or we will suffer eternal consequences. Now, you may say you cannot do this, and you know what, you are right. You cannot do it on your own, only by the power of the Holy Spirit can you be changed and the only way to accomplish that is through prayer. John 15:4; tells us, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”

ACTION POINT:
I will always be the first person to give a hug or a hand shake, but that, in and of itself does very little when it comes to what I would really like to share with people. Unfortunately, as soon as someone knows how much I love the Lord, they slowly start to fade away and I usually do not see them again unless it is by accident. My advice is this, you can snub your nose to those that truly love you and are willing to lose your friendship for the sake of Jesus Christ, but know this, one day and one day soon you will know just how much you are loved by that person that took time to try to save you from an eternity of evil that was made for Satan and His fallen angels. Your choice is this, do you want to live eternally with Jesus Christ in paradise or do you want to exist outside of God’s love forever in what the Bible refers to as “The Lake of Burning Fire” which was made for Satan and His fallen angels. Choose who you will serve…Jesus Christ or Satan…there is no other choice. Choose wisely! “Written To the glory of God, Inspired by the Holy Spirit!”   

  

From our Chaplin—R. Fritz

Shaking Hands or Savings Lives

Before I retired, I am an ordained chaplain who was given an opportunity by the company who I worked for to talk to people who needed spiritual help as I would do my job. I am talking about this because I learned to let people talk until, they brought up about God. Most people knew who I was, so they figured that I was going to ram religion down their throat. They learned I did not do that. I would let them talk and wait until “they” brought God up or had an issue that they are struggling with. If you are looking to bring up God, God will give you an opportunity through the person you are talking to. If the opportunity does not appear, do not try to push God on anybody. Sometimes we are just to talk to people and put a thought in their mind and the next person that comes along is the person that they hear or somebody comes along with the Holy Ghost and convicts them. 1Corinthians 3:6-8 says I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. Paul talks about people who have planted, watered and God gives the increase. This is the principal behind us doing God’s work and showing people the gospel. With every person we talk to, we start the conversation or add to it, then God gives the increase. It says that every man shall receive his “own” reward according to your own things you do for God. Fear is what stops us from talking to people about God. I can say that because fear used to stop me. The answer is to overcome fear and not worrying or dwelling on what you believe somebody thinks about you. The thing I found out was most times it was not about you. 2Timothy 1:7 says For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. The second verse that goes with that is 1John 4:18 and says There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. Love is the answer. Who is love? God is love. If you have the Holy Ghost indwelled in you, you have that love and you can overcome fear. I overcome fear through 2Corinthians 10:4-6 and says (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled. We have the ability to bring in “every” thought to obey our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. That is how I was able to overcome fear. If you understand what I just wrote, it will change all aspects of your life, especially your spiritual life. If you truly love the Lord, you will keep his commandments. Matthew 22:36-40 says Master which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him,” Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” These 2 commandments are the most important. All-consuming love changes situations. When we love people that come against our thoughts or ideas, we are following what Jesus is talking about. This love overcomes Satin and all the reasons you cannot do or will not do the things that God commands us to do. This is why we need the Holy Spirit to teach us what love is. John 14:26 says and this is Jesus speaking “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you “all” things, and bring “all” things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” This is a promise spoken by Jesus that the Comforter will teach you all things and bring all things for you to remember. That is why you need to make sure that the Holy Ghost is indwelled in us. We have to understand that if we cannot overcome our issues and when we do not hear from the Holy Ghost, we need to look at ourself and ask the Lord why the Comforter is not helping you. Sometimes we have done things that hinder God working in our life. We should always try and make our relationship with the Lord the best we can because we have to remember God is “Love.” When you think about what I just said, how can we have a bad relationship with him unless we have unrepented sin that is part of our life.

Prayer is always the answer. When I have things going on in my life. I will spend an hour or more praying and sometimes I pray for other people that the Holy Spirit puts on my heart. This is the relationship I am talking about, one where we engage the Lord about our situation, and are willing to change what the Lord wants to change in our life. We need to trust him and do what he asks us to do. If we do not trust him, we will be stuck in our situation. We have control over our life, we are responsible for the things that happen in our life. Take that responsibility and pray without ceasing until the Lord answers your prayer. I pray you pray as I have asked you to do and see if this changes your life.