God’s Story of My Salvation-Video #1

Watch along as I share all my struggles, delays, and celebrations during my book writing process.

When Doubt Takes Over, Fear Can Reign

To admit that we do not have or are in complete control is something our prideful hearts do not like to hear, consider, or accept. We like to think we are in complete control of ourselves, our desires, all circumstances we live in and the outcome. If something happens in a way we do not like, we may find someone or something to blame. We may look to cast blame because we will not dare look within or at ourselves. But, if something goes our way we are more likely to instantly look at ourself and give ourselves the credit.

We may not like someone telling us what to do or how to live, but we increase the depth of our prideful heart by telling others what to do and how to live according to our view of what is right or wrong. We have become our own authority and think very highly of ourselves. We may tend to look at the lives of other people in our network of family and friends and begin to take a critical look at them from the outside looking in without realizing we are and have been standing in quicksand.

When something is broken we tend to want to fix it, even if the broken thing is a person. We rationalize our behavior by convincing ourselves that we are helping to fix this broken person. We begin to give this person advice on how to change their circumstances or life. But, what usually happens? This person does not take our perfect, right, advice and we may become angry. Why can we become angry? Because our motivation was never really about wanting what was best for the other person, it was really about ourself. We now think we are this person’s savior.

But, we have all the answers to fix them, right? If she would just do what we told her to do, her life would be better and on the right path. Why can he or she not see how perfect my advice is and just do what I say? We tell ourselves that if we were in that same situation as he or she is, this is how we would handle things, so he should do it my way. Does this sound familiar? We have now just become their judge. We now think all of our views are the right ones and judge anyone who does, thinks, or believes anything differently than what we judge as right or wrong.

Our pride of self can be so full that we feel we can control other people and can change them. That ultimately means that we think we are their God. To think we are their God means we think we are God. Here lies the most important factor to consider; the desire of the heart. We may actually think we can change the desire of someone’s heart if he or she would just do what we tell them. The truth is, we cannot change the inward desire of one’s mind, not even our own. Only God can.

The hardest truth for many to hear is not only can we not change the desire of someone’s mind, we do not have the ability to change the desire of our own heart. If we could, there would not be any sort of addiction/idol on this planet. You quit smoking on your own, you say? Your desire to create an idol out of something or someone is still in your heart. If you truly look within and conduct a self examination, by God’s grace, your eyes will see. You will see that the greatest idol is the idolizing of self. Since the fall to sin in Adam, our desire is for ourselves; to be God. That inward sinful desire of the heart can only be changed by the merciful, grace filled effectual call of God, through Jesus Christ, by the power of The Holy Spirit. In Jesus we receive freedom from our slavery to sin.

1 John 1:8,10 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth(Spirit) is not in us. If we say we have not sinned, we make (God) a liar, and His word(Spirit) is not in us.

John 8:34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”

Ephesians 2:3 We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Romans 8:7 For the mind that is set on the flesh (sinful desire) is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.

John 3:20 “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light (Jesus) and does not come to the light (Jesus), lest his works should be exposed.”

Psalm 10:4 In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”

Romans 3: 10-11 “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks God.”

John 6:44, 65 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

Romas 9:16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Ephesians 2:1-2, 4-5 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked….But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved.

When I first became a Christian, my faith, as well as the truth of the Bible, was challenged by a few people. I defended my faith as well as a new Christian with limited Biblical wisdom could, but I found my own doubts of the Bible’s truth creeping about in my mind. As much as my desire was not to doubt the truth of the Bible, I could not make it go away! The more my doubts surfaced in my mind the more I began to panic.

One evening after enduring the most heavily challenged conversation about my faith since becoming a Christian, I came across a documentary that questioned who Jesus is and if what the Bible says is true about Him. I only saw a minute or so of it, but it was enough to set me over the edge. My wisdom of the Bible was not rooted deep enough to fight these attempts by the devil to turn me away from God. I did not yet have God’s word ready in my head to ward off doubt. Christianity was still new to me. I had been studying the Bible for a short period of time and there was still so much to learn so I could be deeply rooted in my faith and wisdom.

In my state of panic, I was scared, so looked outside of myself for help. I turned to the only One I knew could help me. I turned to God and prayed for Him to show me the truth. In my state of panic and doubt, at that moment, I could have turned away from God and just decided that there was no way the Bible was true. But, the desire of my heart was to know God and to trust Him. I already knew that the only reason I had a desire in my heart for God was because I am His and He placed His effectual call upon me. But, what God recently showed me, is that the only reason I even turned to Him and prayed to Him in that moment is because I am His.

In the book of John chapter 6, the circumstances of the doubt that I went through as a new Christian were spoken of by Jesus. The situation begins with Jesus teaching how he is symbolically the bread of life and the true food. He says, “If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The people around Him are new to the teachings of Jesus. They misunderstand and take His words literally. They say, “How can the man give us his flesh to eat?”

Therefore, when many of His disciples heard this, they said, “This teaching is hard. Who can accept it?” Jesus knows that his disciples are complaining about Him, so he asks them, “Does this offend you?” (John 6:60-61) Jesus explains,”The Spirit is the one who gives life. The flesh doesn’t help at all. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and are life. But there are some among you who do not believe.” He said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father.” (63-65)

The disciples complain that the teaching of Jesus is too hard to understand, so how could they accept it? Here they are at a crucial point. Will they stay with Jesus, or will they turn away and refuse to accept Jesus’ teaching as truth because it is too hard to understand?

From that moment many of his disciples turned back and no longer accompanied him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “You don’t want to go away too, do you?” Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” Jesus replied to them, “Didn’t I choose you, the twelve?” (John 6:66-70)

Many of the early disciples were not genuine disciples of Christ, for they turned back. Their initial “faith” was not genuine. They may have been following Jesus only because of the physical benefits he gave, such as healing and multiplying food. As soon as the teaching exposed the doubt in their hearts, became hard to understand and accept, they all turned away. But, if they would have stayed with Jesus, over time, they would have had their wisdom increased and would have come to understand Jesus’ teachings. Of the twelve remaining disciples Jesus says, “Didn’t I choose you?” The twelve disciples stayed because He chose them.

Knowing that God chose me brings me comfort, and humbles me. It is humbling because knowing that God chose me takes away all potential prideful boasting that it was out of my greatness to pray to God for the truth that evening. I would not have been able to make the decision to turn to God and pray if I had not already belonged to Him. According to scripture, if the decision was left up to me, in my state of sinful fallenness, I would not desire to know God. The desire of my heart would be for the self and to be God. I only desire to know God because He desires to know me and loves me. It is freeing to know that God has His hold upon me and He is NOT going to let me go.

Take a moment and conduct a self examination of your heart. Do you have a desire to know God? If not, do you long for a desire to know God? If you have a desire to know God, or even wish you had a desire to know God, His Spirit is already working within you. Giving up control and selfish pride is a little scary at first, but once you surrender to God and ask Jesus into your heart, your fear is turned into contentment and joy!

Are you a new believer who has not opened the Bible because you are afraid you will not understand, or are you early on in your Biblical education and unsure about what you are reading? Do not turn away! I stared at my Bible for a month before I opened it the first time because it looked like a book of foreign language to me. The more you read and study God’s word the easier it becomes to understand. As time goes on and you deepen your study, new and deeper wisdom will be revealed to you by God.

Solid trusted Biblical teaching is highly important because there are many people out there teaching false interpretations of the Bible. A red flag is if someone is not speaking of our sin and the need for Jesus Christ. Be careful of the denominations who do not believe Jesus is God and only believe He was a prophet.

I study with an ESV Study Bible. I highly recommend a study Bible. It includes the interpretations of scripture on every page. If you are new to the Bible, I recommend you start reading with the book of John. After you read John, then start at the beginning of the New Testament in the book of Matthew. Once you read the whole New Testament and feel comfortable, then start reading the Old Testament beginning in Genesis.

If you are not yet a believer in Christ, I invite you to come to Jesus just as you are! Repent (change your ways), ask Jesus for forgiveness and ask Him into your heart so you may have eternal life with Him! You do not need to clean your act up before you come to Jesus. He wants you just as you are! Come to Jesus, come!

The Lamb: Passover and The Lamb of God

If we lack a desire to personally know Jesus through studying the Bible we will miss out on deeper wisdom to be revealed by God. The result of our actions leave a hole in our faith, a hole in our understanding of the Gospel, a hole in complete understanding of the sermons we sit preached under, a hole in our personal growth, a hole in our life, and a hole in our heart.

As I began a slow and steady study of the Bible five years ago, God began to reveal wisdom to me that can not be known by skimming through the Bible, or randomly picking through scripture to fit the emotion you are feeling or the subject you are in need of guidance. When we randomly pick out scripture without understanding the entire picture of how the scripture works together with the whole Bible, scripture can be taken out of context, or used as proof of a distorted belief that is not truly supported in God’s Word.

For those who only study the New Testament and think the Old Testament is just a nice book of history, not relevant, or worth studying, I pray you will see below how everything in the New Testament is first rooted in the Old Testament. If you view the Bible as two separate books and do not study the Bible as a whole you are missing significant wisdom revealed by God. Be prepared to get a glimpse of the wisdom you are lacking if you do not thoughtfully and carefully study God’s Word.

With Easter approaching, God placed upon my heart, the Passover event in the Old Testament and why Jesus is said to be the Lamb of God. We must, therefore, begin in the Old Testament. Early in the Old Testament the Israelites are said to be God’s chosen people through whom God would send the Messiah (Jesus). The Israelites eventually settled in Egypt and, over time, grew in number. They were believed to have grown to a total of over two million. The Egyptian Pharaoh became fearful that if there were a war, the Israelites would join the enemies. He decided to oppress them, hoping to reduce their number by forced labor. But, Instead of their number reducing, their numbers multiplied.

When this plan failed, Satan moved Pharaoh to have all first born Hebrew males to be put to death. We must remember that there is a spiritual war taking place. Satan does not want Jesus to come to Earth and crush his head and beat death through the fulfilling of God’s plan. Satan also used Herod to kill all the male babies in Bethlehem at the time of the birth of Jesus. We must stay focused on who our enemy truly is because we tend to only focus on the person and neglect to remember the spiritual war truly taking place.

The Egyptian mid-wives did not listen to the Pharaoh’s order of murder and allowed babies to live. Moses survived birth, but at three months old, his Mother did not feel she could conceal him any longer. She placed him in a basket, where he was found by and Egyptian Princess. Although she knew he was Hebrew, she decided to save him. God allowed Moses to be raised with the Egyptians. This gave him the Egyptian background to prepare him for the work that lay ahead.

The Egyptians were pagan because they worshiped the creation, rather than the Creator. They worshipped animals such as birds, bulls, cows, crocodiles, and snakes. The Pharaoh was considered a god, although he was truly only human. Because Egypt turned to Satan with their pagan worship, God brought judgment upon Egypt with the ten plagues. Through these plagues God showed them that he is the all powerful true God and their pagan gods did not have any power.

Egyptian’s approximately eighty gods and goddesses centered around the three earthly creations, the Nile, the sun, and the land. The plagues were targeted against these earthly creations and the gods and goddess that centered around each one. The first two plagues were directed against the gods and goddesses of the Nile and anything associated with the Nile. Four plagues were targeted against the gods and goddesses of the land. The last four were targeted against the gods and goddesses of the sky and anything associated with the sky.

The Pharaoh was thought to be the earthly incarnation of the sun god, Ra, so the tenth plague, death of the firstborn, was against the sky. The Pharaoh’s firstborn son would have been the next incarnation of the sun god, Ra. The death of the firstborn was a horrible judgment, but also a fitting judgment. Remember, years earlier, Pharaoh had ordered the death of all male Israelite children. This act from God was not an act of cruelty, it was an act of judgment against the gods they worshipped and the cruel treatment enacted against the Israelites. Not only did the firstborn of all families die, but the firstborn of all the animals also died.

The Israelites received instructions from God to carry out so their firstborn children would be saved on the night this judgment would come upon Egypt. Each Hebrew family was to take a firstborn male lamb from their flock. The lamb had to be one year old and without blemish or spot. It had to be perfect, with no broken bones. The lamb was to be killed at twilight on the specified day and the blood was to be collected. They were to use a brush and spread the blood on both sides of the door frame and on the lintel at the top of the door. These three marks made with blood were to be a sign to God. As the destroyer passed through the land, the households with the sign would not be stricken with death. Those households would be passed over. Death indeed would come to each household, but it would be the death of a lamb, not their firstborn. The lamb was their substitute. This is the origin of Passover.

Each lamb was to be roasted and eaten. Any uneaten parts were to be burned, not eaten. The Israelites were to celebrate Passover with a feast celebration every year, so that their children would ask why they celebrated Passover. This would keep the remembrance of Passover and what God did for His people on the minds of His people for generations.

If Pharaoh would have truly been the incarnate sun god, the most powerful force, he should have been able to save his people from death. But, Pharaoh had no power. He was not a god, nor were any of the other gods they created as their idols of worship. Some of their gods were gods of animals, but they were unable to save the animals, because they were not gods at all. By the carrying out of God’s judgment upon Egypt and their gods, the Egyptians must have realized that their gods of Egypt were nothing and were powerless.

Do not think that the Israelites were special, or did anything to deserve special treatment from God. They were just as sinful and guilty as the Egyptians. If they had not marked their houses with the blood of the lamb, their firstborn children would have also perished. The Bible says they had worshiped other gods just like the Egyptians. We are not special either, or better than another. We are all sinners in need of God’s grace because sin brings the penalty of death.

Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin or salvation. The lamb had to die and his blood had to be shed. This Passover event in the Old Testament points to the coming of Jesus in the New Testament, as the Lamb of God. In the New Testament, Hebrews 10:4 says, “The shed blood of bulls and goats can not take away sin.” This means that these things are a picture, looking forward to the coming of Jesus, who is the perfect sacrifice for our sins. 1 Peter 1:19 says, “….but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5:7, “…For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” And, finally, when Jesus approached John the Baptist, John loudly declares in John 1:29, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

In the New Testament, as the Passover is being celebrated, Jesus meets with his disciples in an upper room. He eats the Passover meal with them and says in Matt 26:26-28, “Jesus took the bread, blessed and broke it, gave it to the disciples and said, “take and eat it; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he gave it to them and said, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

In summary:

In the Old Testament the Israelite families must choose a perfect lamb, without blemish, spot, or broken bones. In the New Testament Jesus is chosen by God. Jesus is perfect, sinless, and dies on the cross without a bone broken.
Because God is Good and Just, there must be a penalty for sin. That penalty is death. In the Old Testament God is enacting His judgment upon Egypt with the death of their firstborn. God gives the Israelites a lamb to be killed as their substitute instead of the death of their firstborn. These families were passed over by the destroyer. In the New Testament Jesus is our Passover Lamb. He is our substitute, took on our sin, and received the penalty of death that we deserved. By doing this, judgment has passed over us so that we may have eternal life instead of the judgment of Hell.
In the OT there must be a shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins. Not only was the lambs blood shed, it was also brushed on their door frames as a sign to God. In ancient times when two men entered into a covenant (a binding agreement) together there was a shedding of animals blood as a sign and seal of the covenant. God continually tells us throughout the OT that He made a covenant with us. That binding covenantal agreement was the promise of eternal life with us. In the NT Jesus’ blood was shed as the payment for the penalty of our sin and also as a sign of the covenant with God. Jesus, fully God and fully Man, shed his own blood to give us life so that we may have eternal life in Heaven with Him.
In the OT the lamb must be eaten. In the NT Jesus eats a Passover meal with his Disciples and says that the bread is his body and the wine is his blood. They are commanded to eat it in remembrance of Him. Eating the bread and wine also symbolizes the eating of the lamb since Jesus is considered the Lamb of God.
In the OT the lamb is killed in preparation for death to be passed over them(the Passover). Jesus died on the day of preparation for Passover.
In the OT The Israelites were to celebrate the Passover with a feast of celebration every year in remembrance of what God did for them. In the NT we are commanded to partake in The Lords Supper in remembrance of what The Lamb of God did for us and as a foretaste of the feast of celebration to come upon His return and our gathering into Heaven for eternity.

The progression of sacrifice:

Death as a penalty for sin began with Adam and Eve in the garden, with God providing the sacrifice. One animal for each individual.
During the Passover, the shedding of the blood of the lamb protected a whole family.
While the Israelites were out in the wilderness, the high priest confessed the sins of an entire nation over an animal before it was killed.
When Jesus, the Lamb, sacrificed His life, one Lamb took away the sins of the world. God provided the ultimate sacrifice to save us, because we were unable to fulfill the payment due, by sacrificing Himself, his own life, in the person of Jesus.
This is the progression of sacrifice; individual, family, nation, and the whole world.

If your eyes have been opened to see this wisdom that is also revealed through the study of His word, I pray that you are filled with a desire to begin or continue a thorough study of the Bible. I pray that you will desire to know Jesus personally if you currently do not have a personal relationship with Him.

If the Bible sits on your shelf and looks like a book of foreign language, I recommend that you have a Bible that is a study Bible so that you may read the interpretation along with the scripture. I have an ESV study Bible. If you have never opened the Bible, I recommend that you start with the book of John in the New Testament. If you feel comfortable after reading John, Start with the book of Matthew and read through the New Testament. Once you have your foundation of Jesus I recommend you begin reading in Genesis.