FollowingJesusUS.com

The Joy Of The Lord :)

“¹²Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” Psalm 51:12, NIV

A friend of mine told me that she was praying this verse, and it got me thinking. What is the joy of our salvation?

And I realized, it’s the way God loves us. It’s different than any earthly love we experience. It’s always there for us, surrounding us, no matter what.

On earth, we’d like to think that love is unconditional-but it’s really not. Imagine cheating on our spouse multiple times? Think they will still love and stay with us? Perhaps not…But when we mess up, God still loves us. And He stays no matter what 🙂 There is no mistake we can make, no amount of failure, no length of time in which we do not honor and love Him as we should that will stop God from loving us. For God is faithful to us, even when we are not.

And there is no time that we can not turn back to Him. Because He loves us and He’s waiting for us with open arms.

So close your eyes for just a moment and imagine this, God lifts you up and twirls you around. And both you and God are laughing with joy. The kind of joy that fills every part of you. Because you are finally home, safe and sound, in God’s arms as you were born to be.

Pray. Don’t wait. Be with God today 🙂

Taking A Stand For God!

Persecution of Christians is Growing, both here and abroad! We need to stand up before it’s too late!

In India for example, the main religion is Hinduism. India is not a country that we usually think of when we think of Christians being persecuted, but it is definitely becoming one! Those who follow Christ or who share their faith are sometimes murdered-simply because they are following Jesus. They are sometimes interrogated and beaten, while the government turns a blind eye to it all. There are 66,194,000 Christians in India. Please pray for them.

In America, we are so Blessed. And yet, how often do we fail to realize just how Blessed we are? In India, a person may lose their life for simply following Jesus. In America, all we really have to do is stand up to peer pressure, and yet how often we fail to do so?

There are many types of “bullying”. There’s the physical bullying as we see in India and there is the emotional bullying that we see in America. But how often did our parents tell us that “sticks and stones may break your bones, but names will never harm you.” We can take a stand now-or wait until the emotional bullying becomes physical.

After all Jesus suffered for us, should we not be willing to stand up to the bullies in our country?

We “were born for such a time as this! It’s our choice, we must pray that we choose wisely. Be the Light!

Take A Stand For Christ!

For those who don’t know, Jim Caviezel played Jesus Christ in The Passion of the Christ. (This video is well worth watching 🙂 )

Some of his great quotes include:

“Freedom exists not so you can do what you want; freedom exists so you can do what you ought”

As we pray today before the eve of the Prayer Day being held in Washington DC tomorrow, we need to realize that we, each one of us, will need to make a choice and we will need to live with the consequences of those choices.

We will need to choose between God and Satan. Between Good and Evil. Let’s hope as a nation, and as individuals, we choose wisely.

As Jim Caviezel said, “you were not born to fit in; you were born to stand out”. Stand for Christ!

“Be The Light”

The Return: A Call For Revival!

Franklin Graham Invites All Christians To Prayer March on September 26, 2020

Isaiah 59: Does Our Father Forgive Us?

Of course He does, He loves us ?

Often we read of forgiveness in the New Testament, but it also speaks of forgiveness in the Old Testament (Isaiah 59).

Isaiah 59 starts with a reminder that God is all powerful and can save and hear us. But because of our sins He could not. So clearly our sins do separate us from God. Good thing for us that we have a Savior that forgives us and wipes our slate clean. Because of His Great Sacrifice, God can hear us and we are saved ?

And in fact, towards the end of Isaiah 59, God clearly wishes to save His people, even if it is from themselves. And so He looks to find one good person who truly stands up for truth and justice, who seeks to turn the people back to God, but sadly, He can’t even find one.

So at the end of Isaiah 59, our Father promised to send a “Redeemer” to save us Himself-Jesus Christ. God could have given up on us. He could have stopped loving us. But He didn’t. God Loved Us Always. And because He loves us so, He sent Jesus to Save us.

And because Jesus came and we accepted Him as our Savior (Redeemer), we are completely forgiven. For God not only forgives our sins, He erases them.

And we should do the same for others ?

The Blessing

We’ve posted The Blessing being sung in many states and countries. What a gift they have all given us! A reminder that it is our very differences coming together that truely create beauty.

God loves us all. Jesus died and rose again for everyone of us. And we should love each other, just as Jesus commanded. Always.

People follow Jesus all over the world! Each of them are our brother and sister in Christ. We need to be reminded what a Blessing and Gift they are to us all 🙂

The Blessing From South Africa :)

The Blessing from Pakistan :)

What is Sin?

Something we don’t like to talk about lol. Who does?

How do we define sin? God defines sin repeatedly in The Bible. But in order to understand God’s definition of sin, we must first read the Bible. (hint, hint 🙂

Webster’s dictionary defines sin as, “an offense against religious or moral law. b : an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible it’s a sin to waste food. c : an often serious shortcoming : fault.”

Christian hamartiology describes sin as, “an act of offense against God by despising his persons and Christian biblical law, and by injuring others. In Christian views it is an evil human act, which violates the rational nature of man as well as God’s nature and his eternal law.”

The Bible itself defines sin in a number of places. One place includes in types of sin, “pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth”. These are often referred to as the “seven deadly sins”.

But notice one thing they have in common: they are all a type of selfishness.

And when we really think about it, selfishness is at the root of all sin, including the seven listed above.

Why is it important? Because it simplifies our lives so much. When we are trying to make choices, what we really need to consider is are they selfish ones? This can apply not just to our actions, but to our speech. Does our speech build someone up or tear some one down? Does it satisfy a need in us or help another?

Jesus commanded us to love God with our whole heart and soul and love one another. All sin is really our refusal to follow these two commands.

So let’s face it, we all sin. Even the best of us have bad days or days when we are tired and crabby! Days when we consider our selfish needs rather than our Lord’s commands or the needs of others. We just do. If we could be perfect, than Jesus would not have had to suffer for our sins. So the question is, what do we do?

We simply ask God to show us where we have fallen short.

We ask God for His forgiveness.

And we ask God to give us the strength to do better today. And everyday.

And we ask all of this in Jesus’ Name.