Your First 5 Minutes With God

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed  from the empty way of life  handed down to you from your ancestors,   but with the precious blood  of Christ, a lamb  without blemish or defect. (1 Peter 1:18-19) Meditation I was a captive to sin and a prisoner of worldliness before I surrendered to Christ Jesus. It was bondage to sin, and I chose to remain there. All I wanted was happiness. I thought happiness was all about me, and involved promiscuous sex, drugs, and alcohol at the next party I was going to. I chased the things I thought would make me happy like a carnivore chasing its prey. I was relentless and I had moments of shallow happiness, but those feelings never lasted very long. Like a person suffering from insanity, I would do the exact same things the next chance I got. It was like running on a treadmill. I was running hard but getting nowhere. After I got married, I was always monogamo...

How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert. They tested God again and again and provoked the Holy One of Israel. (Psalm 78:40-41) Meditation The Israelites created the golden calf just days after God parted the Red Sea for them so they could escape Pharaoh. They whined and carried on about having to eat manna every day and not having any meat. They constantly told Moses they would rather be slaves in Egypt than die in the desert. They were completely ungrateful for all God was doing for them at the time. I have a tendency to look back on those people with scorn.  How could they experience all those miracles from God and continue to complain? They had recently witnessed the plagues against Pharaoh and the Egyptians, then complain to Moses about how badly God is treating them? Were they the greatest ingrates ever? I don’t think so. I know I haven't bowed down and worshiped some handmade idol, but I have reacted to challenges in mu...

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23) Meditation We are all doomed and going to hell! Not one of us stands a chance on our own. We will all die to this life and spend eternity in the Lake of Fire…without the cleansing blood of Jesus. How do we comprehend eternity? We only have our own lives and the lives of other people as a reference for the passage of time. Eternity is forever, which is a very long time. We cannot wrap our minds around something as big as that. If I’m going to spend eternity somewhere, I want to spend it with Jesus. Eternity in hell is the punishment I certainly deserve, but God sent his only Son to pay my penalty. All I had to do is confess Jesus as the Lord of my life, repent of my sins, and be baptized. Now I’m assured of eternal life with Christ. I now live my life in Christ Jesus to the best of my ability. I fail regularly but I take strength from the Lord to return to a righteo...

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20) Meditation I used to walk through life looking forward to the next party, the next shallow relationship or some other distraction to fill a hole I felt in my heart. I was in so much pain, I didn’t really care if I hurt anyone else while I was satisfying my search for, what I thought was, happiness. I was selfish in my pursuits, but so was pretty much everyone else around me. We were all using and hurting each other. I think you could say, we were all searching for a purpose for our existence. After a while, just living for yourself, gets really old. That hole is in every heart that doesn’t know Jesus. I now realize the happiness offered by this world is fleeting, hollow, and unsatisfying at best. When I’d wake the next day after the raucous party, I was never...

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. (Isaiah 53:2b-3) Meditation Just look at how our society uses physical appearance to decide what they might think about someone. We actually make character judgments about someone we don’t even know, based on our first impression of them. I admit, I do it all the time too. I was once called up for jury duty. When the attorneys were asking the jury pool questions, to determine their fitness to serve, the defendant was sitting right in front of us. To be honest, to me, he looked sleazy and creepy, and so I judged him guilty. Thankfully, I wasn’t picked for the jury because I was so prejudiced because of what he looked like. He may very well have been innocent. How many people do we prejudge like that ever...

And when they came to the place that is called The Skull [Golgotha], there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:33-34) Meditation Even as he was hanging on the cross, Jesus was more concerned for the people who were mocking and spitting on him. Every single one of those people deserved to go to hell for what they did…just as I do…just as you do too. Wait, you’re thinking, we weren’t even born yet when they crucified Jesus. The simple reply to that is, we are all as guilty as they were almost 2,000 years ago. I’m sure, if I had been there in Jerusalem back then, I would have been shouting, “crucify him, crucify him,” along with everyone else. Our sins are reason Christ had to go to the cross. My adult life, before Christ cleansed me, was one sin after another, without remorse. I’d tell anyone who’d listen that I didn’t need God, that I could run my own li...

Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.” Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, “I find no fault in Him at all.”  (John 18:37-38) Meditation Truth is not a relative thing. There are no gray areas, only truth and falsehood. Many people think like Pilate, believing there is no such thing as absolute truth. You’ll hear all the time that what’s right and moral for one person may not be right and moral for another. Take sex outside of marriage for example. Before I was saved, I told myself I could sleep with anyone I wanted because I was simply making a choice. It didn’t occur to me that I might be hurting anyone. That wasn’t on my radar; I didn’t really care that much. If there were ...

Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:38-39) Meditation Before I was saved, I had this picture in my head of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, all calm and serene, without a care in the world. There are even portraits painted of this very scene. However, being fully God and fully man he knew everything that was going to happen to him. The painful beating, scourging, and crucifixion he was going to suffer through were terrible enough. His anguish was from knowing of the separation from the Father he would have to withstand while he was on the cross. He knew, when the Father placed our sins upon his shoulders, he would become sin, and could not be in communion with the Father. He had NEVER, on earth or in heaven, not bee...

On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.  (1 Corinthians 11:23-26) Meditation I always look forward to the Lord’s Supper because it brings me closer to Christ every time I participate. I started going to my church because it was close to my home, but I kept going to that church because they served Communion every Sunday. It’s much more than a ritual that we do mindlessly on Sundays. I do not take it lightly or without regard for what Jesus did for me. I am thankful and humbled to be in communion with him, but what does that mean? The word communion comes from the Latin, commun...

Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10) Meditation I am one of the possibly billions of followers of Christ. I was selected by the Most High God to be one of his very own. There is nothing special about me. I was a sinner who needed saving and that’s all that mattered to God. Nothing about me warranted saving. I am only saved by the mercy and grace of the Father in heaven, and the sacrifice of his Son. God has chosen me from my tiny little corner of the world to be his servant. I am his servant and follower, not an adviser or counselor. He could have easily turned his back on me a long time ago, justifiably so, but because he loves me, he has remained faithful to his holy purpose. I am weak and easily fall back into sinful behavior all the time. God always forgives me and restores me. I’ve read somewhere that the Bible instructs us no...

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) Meditation I have had more than a few tribulations in my life. I was usually the direct cause of most of them, although I always blamed someone else. Some of them were debilitating, and for long spells I couldn’t see an end to my suffering. I tried to drown my anguish with drugs and alcohol. I inadvertently started taking advantage of other people to make them hurt the way I was hurting. There’s an old saying, ‘hurting people hurt people,’ and I was hurting. I wasn’t consciously thinking about purposely trying to hurt them, but that’s what was happening, and I didn’t really care. Eventually I became numb, without any feelings about who I hurt, but the problems were still there. Some people think that getting saved will solve all their problems. As long as Jesus is on their side, nothing will ever hurt them again. No...

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23) Meditation I can say, without a shadow of doubt, that I have begun producing all of this fruit in my life since giving my heart to Jesus. I still struggle with self-control from time to time. Especially over worldly topics like politics. I don’t know anyone I hate. Even those who don’t like or even hate me. Christ has put in my heart to love everyone, and so, I do. Before I submitted my life to Christ, I had no true understanding of what real joy was. I try not to get joy and happiness confused. I choose to have joy because Jesus is my master. Even when I’m not happy, I have joy in my heart. I once thought I already had peace without any need for Jesus. I had a long list of people who really bugged me, so I avoided them at all cost, and had peace of mind. I loved my family and a few friends, but I di...

He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.  For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him (Psalm 103:10-11) Meditation My sins weren’t the worst anyone ever committed. I was most definitely not as evil as many who’ve ever lived. But I am comparing myself to other fallen, sinful people. If they were the final standard by which my guilt would have been measured, I would probably rank somewhere in the middle. When I measure myself against God’s perfect standard, I can only shudder and tremble, because it doesn’t matter what anyone else has done. It only matters what I’ve done. God is so good, my best behavior for my entire life doesn’t amount to a pile of cow dung. I am in awe of his goodness, righteousness, forgiveness, mercy and grace that he will never withhold from me. If I were to be judged without being covered by the blood of Jesus, I would spend my eternity bein...

Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?” (Matthew 26:67-68) Meditation Why did the Creator of the universe and everything in it, allow himself to be treated the way he was? Why didn’t he speak up when he was being spat upon? Why didn’t he tell them who it was that struck him? Because he is not me, that’s why. He’s is infinitely less vindictive than I am. In my weakness, I want to put the blame on someone else for what happened to Jesus that night and the next day. I want to forget that it was my spittle that struck the face of Jesus. Shamefully, it was my hands that were striking him, and it was my voice that was mocking him! It was my sin that required him to sacrifice himself. And yet, when Jesus was hanging on the cross that next morning, he asked the Father to forgive! I saw a photo with a person holding a sign that said, “The Jews killed Jesus. God hates the Jews!” People who thin...

Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all peoples on earth will mourn over him. So, it is to be! Amen. (Revelation 1:7) Meditation Can you imagine what it would be like to be standing on a street corner and looking up to see Jesus? I am sure there will be some believers present, who came to Christ after the rapture removed the Church from the world. These people, both believers and unbelievers, will have survived the most horrific time of God’s Wrath, the world has ever seen. What a great and glorious day this will be, but there won’t be any unbelievers celebrating. For them it will be an awful day because they will realize that the Messiah, they refused to believe in, is real. They will understand their mistake in rejecting the only savior who could have rescued them from this final battle between good and evil. They will mourn because they will understand Jesus wanted them to repent of their rebellion and turn to hi...

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. (Colossians 3:12) Meditation As a believer, my behavior will speak many more volumes to unbelievers than anything I tell them about Christ. My actions speak much louder than my words. I want everything I do to be a reflection of Jesus. I try never to complain about the tasks I’m presented with, no matter how menial they might be. While I’m at work I should treat my coworkers as though I truly love them like Jesus loves them. I should want to help and encourage in any way I can. That just means I should be kind and humble while doing my best to complete my duties and help others do theirs. When I get home, should behave as if the Lord were an honored guest in my house. I should treat my spouse and children with gentleness and patience, no matter what my emotions are like at the moment. If I’m rude and fail to show courtesy and compassion ...