Seeing is believing

I read this reaction re: religious vies on the page of a Facebook friend:
For god sake we don’t need any religion. Every thing either living or non living, existing or no existing is part of same energy.. some call it god…“We are the same as plants, as trees, as other people, as the rain that falls. We consist of that which is around us, we are the same as everything.” … interestingly, god was mentioned twice!

So what do you believe, does God exist?
Did Jesus actually die, then come back to life? Is He going to return to earth? How and why would He do that?
Can we rely on His promises?

The Bible gives the answer to all of these questions as yes, but it doesn’t make sense from our level of thinking.

I loved this picture when I found it, warmed by how comforting and beautiful it was, but as I looked closer I found all was not as it seemed, in fact not much about it was real.

This pic although very beautifully in no way reflects reality. These words are meant for encouragement but the fact is every storm in our lives doesn’t come with a rainbow and it’s not possible to capture a rainbow when looking at the sun. It’s so easy to be lured by what pleases us but believing in something that doesn’t exist.

This pic at first looks like the bird is giving a cute little animal a ride to the next tree, but in fact the opposite is true. This cute little creature is attacking the bird who is desperately seeking freedom. What we believe we see isn’t always true.

There’s a world of people living life pinning their hopes on a false doctrine. What we choose to believe comes with consequences and one day, whether you believe it or not, we will have to give an account of how we lived. God says:

Young man, it’s wonderful to be young! Enjoy every minute of it. Do everything you want to do; take it all in. But remember that you must give an account to God for everything you do. Ecclesiastes 11:9 NLT

Even the words we speak:
And I tell you this, that you must give an account on judgment day of every idle word you speak. Matthew 12:36 NLT

Yes, each of us will have to give a personal account to God. Romans 14:12 NLT

The Bible says that, just like a rich man who stores up treasures on earth will be no good to them when they die, no matter how nobly we spend our life, no matter how kind we’ve been to others, no matter what good we’ve done for the community, no matter how generous we’ve been with our finances, only the decision we made to reject or accept Jesus as our saviour will count.

Whether you decide to believe it or not, the fact is that God is real and His promises can be trusted. I say this because I have a personal relationship with this God of the Universe who made us – it’s hard to see but true. I haven’t done anything to make Him love me enough to die for me but He did it anyway. All He asks of me is to is believe in Him and accept Him for who He is.

I have a living relationship with God and I can honestly say:
Once I was young, and now I am old. Yet I have never seen the godly forsaken, nor seen their children begging for bread. Psalm 37:25

But until you take that step of faith into God’s reality, you’ll never see it.

Does that mean become a Christian? Yes, If you don’t know what a christian is follow this link

Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing!

No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

But don’t take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God’s ways had no idea of any of this, didn’t know the first thing about the way God works, hadn’t the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God’s covenants and promises in Israel, hadn’t a clue about what God was doing in the world at large.

Now because of Christ – dying that death, shedding that blood – you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.

The Messiah has made things up between us so that we’re now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance.

He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.

Christ brought us together through his death on the Cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility.

Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.

That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He’s using us all – irrespective of how we got here – in what he is building.

He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day – a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home. Ephesians 2:8-22

And if you’d like this personal relationship with God that I enjoy it’s simple. He’s only a prayer away.

God’s a safe-house for the battered, a sanctuary during bad times.
The moment you arrive, you relax; you’re never sorry you knocked. Psalm 9:10 NLT

There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever. 2 Corinthians 4:18 MSG

Whenever we turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there we are—face-to-face! We suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiselled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him. 2 Corinthians 3:16-18

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© Copyright 2014 Elaine Costin All Rights Reserved
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