Which Cup will you drink?

In a moment,in the twinkling of an eye, at the last 

trumpet...

I Corinthians 15:52




I got knocked down the last week or two, but I'm not out. Preparing  for a craft show, running around helping people, and lack of taking good care of myself and suddenly I found myself nearly out of commission from a cold which turned into a sinus infection which turned into an asthma flare.  I shouldn't take good health for granted.

I did some thinking between blowing my nose and sleeping on the couch. Just why am I writing anyway? Does it even make a difference? Maybe just quit while I'm ahead.

This morning, though not better, I rethought that. Current events are downright depressing, if looked at from only a secular viewpoint. Current events through my life seemed to go along as they always had but not anymore. They are reaching a point of no return.

Without Jesus, without the Bible, how could I live with what I see happening on the news every day?
I would fall apart. How do people live without Jesus?

And so that is why I write. To tell people that there still is time to believe in Jesus before the things prophesied come quickly to pass.

Most if not all people who might read this already believe in Jesus. Great! But maybe, just maybe there might be one who does not? This blog is just a little thing, but if God could use it to reach one person it would be such an awesome privilege for me.

Because, if you don't know Jesus, let me tell you, things are about to get really bad on this earth. No matter who is elected America is in grave trouble. We can't deny it anymore. Nowhere is safe: not Europe, not America, not the Middle East. All the money in the world cannot fix the problems of hatred and man's inhumanity to man.

But there is really good news in spite of this bleak picture. Jesus came and made Himself available to do something about the tragic mess we are in.  2,000 years ago, He obliterated sin that ruins everything it touches. He paid for all the sins of all mankind, even the ones of those who don't believe in Him. Why? Because He was perfect love, and He made the perfect sacrifice.

We are out of human solutions. It is time to take the only one that works: the Divine one. It cost Him everything to give it to us, but He did it willingly because He loved us all so much.

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. II Cor. 5:21

 Some may say that to believe the Bible is old-fashioned and doesn't keep up with modern science. I for one choose to believe it above what man's theories say. I believe it because it gives me hope for the future in heaven, a sense of destiny and especially it helps me today:

...to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.       I Thessalonians 1: 10

So dear friend reading this, wherever you are, why not take the cup of salvation the Lord is offering you? Then you too will not be looking for any kind of human way to fix the problems all over this earth. Instead you will look to Jesus, and in Him you will find all that your heart is longing for, all that you will ever need. Like the Psalmist so long ago, you can also say:

I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD. Psalm 116: 13

After all, I would much rather have to drink from God's cup of salvation than the cup of wrath that will be poured out on the Christ rejecting world.

Two cups, two destinies. Which one will be yours?

If you are not sure if you have a home in heaven waiting for you, you can think something like this toward God in your heart: Father, I believe that Your Son Jesus came to earth to pay for man's sins and not just all men's, but my own ones too. I want to be with You in heaven so I believe in what He did for me that day, and that You raised Him from the dead. I take the gift of salvation and new life that He alone offers me. Amen.

The Hammer Fell...on Christ!

By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
And as for His generation, who considered
That He was cut off out of the land of the living
For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?

Isaiah 53:8



Do you ever live in fear that the hammer could drop on you at any moment? Or that God is just waiting to catch you in some sin so He can pummel you into submission?

I lived that way for many years. Mostly battling fear that somehow my sins would catch up with me. But lately, I have been meditating on the fact that Christ died for me when I was ungodly. I think many Christians are confused about what constitutes saving faith. Is it a promise to be better, to do better somehow? Or is it looking totally away from yourself in the realization that you can't be good enough, no matter how hard you try?

The gospel really is good news. Why do I say that? It is because I know that the only One who can make something good out of my life is God. It is knowing that Christ willingly stood in the gap for me. Today I was driving on the Pennsylvania turnpike and I came past a bridge under construction. I wished I could have gotten a picture, because it represented man in his spiritual state without the gracious gift of Christ's death for us and as us.It went so far and then abruptly stopped. Kind of like if someone was driving along and there was a huge earthquake and and one of the bridge's spans got completely knocked away. One minute you are driving along and the next minute you are descending downward to your death. I remember the 4 Spiritual Laws booklet we used when I was in Campus Crusade many years ago. One of the laws said that there was a gap between us and God and no matter how hard we try on our own, that gap just cannot be spanned by human effort. But Christ willingly, by His sacrificial death made that span, made that bridge, so we would not have to descend downward at the hour of our death.

That verse from Isaiah 53:8 came into my head and the phrase "to whom the stroke was due" entered into my thoughts. Just what did Isaiah mean by the stroke? The Hebrew word for "stroke" is #5060 in the Hebrew Lexicon, and is the word "nega." Here is the outline of Biblical usage for that word:

stroke, plague, disease, mark, plague spot
stroke, wound
stroke (metaphorical of disease)
mark (of leprosy)

and the definition reads: נֶגַע negaʻ, neh'-gah; from H5060; a blow (figuratively, infliction); also (by implication) a spot (concretely, a leprous person or dress):—plague, sore, stricken, stripe, stroke, wound.

https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H5061&t=NASB

Christ was actually afflicted in that way for us to the point where God had to turn His face away from Him. But He willingly did it and God was forever satisfied with it. Because of that, I come to God in the standing that Christ alone gave me, never in any work that I have or have not done.

I am reading a wonderful book called Romans Verse by Verse by William R. Newell and though it is a meaty book, I am taking my time and underlining a lot. I just got to chapter 4 (one of my favorite parts) and Newell said something that hit me so profoundly, I underlined nearly all of it. It said:

"If God announces the gift of righteousness apart from works, why do you keep mourning over your bad works, your failures? Do you not see that it is because you still have hopes in these works of yours that you are depressed and discouraged by their failure? If you truly saw and believed that God is reckoning righteous the ungodly who believe on Him, you would fairly hate your struggles to be "better"; for you would see that your dreams of good works have not at all commmended you to God, and that your bad works do not at all hinder you from believing on Him,--that justifieth the ungodly.

Therefore, on seeing your failures, you should say, I am nothing but a failure; but God is dealing with me on another principle altogether than my works, good or bad, --a principle not involving my works, but based only on the work of Christ for me..."

p. 129 Romans Verse by Verse, William R. Newell

To me, this is huge! God is pleased with me today and I look to Him confidently knowing that He is pleased because I am in His Son, totally covered with His very own righteousness. I was a Christian for a very long time before I came to this realization. It is the one thing that makes me happy, because every day I have a fresh slate before Him.

I have been encouraged by my pastor to get the foundation of Romans within my soul. I encourage you to do it too, and rejoice in the great standing we have before God as a totally free and unmerited gift.