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Showing posts from November, 2015

Whose Child Are You?

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One song often heard during the holiday season is “What Child Is This?” A question many people need to answer for themselves is “Who’s Child Am I?”   Sometimes while evangelizing, sinners tell me they are going to heaven because they claim to be a child of God. My hometown newspaper recently published a letter applauding Sen. John McCain’s declaration (regarding the Syrian refugee situation), “All of us are God’s children.” That inspired me to write a response pointing out this is not an accurate statement. It’s true that all men “have been made in the similitude of God.” (James 3:9)   But not every person on this earth is technically a child of God. A man or woman who doesn’t become born again has Satan as their spiritual father even if they don’t believe he exists. Look at this conversation Jesus had with the Pharisees in John 8… 39 They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.”  Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the wo

Stepping Out

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This past week at the church I’ve been working with, we had a visiting evangelist named Joe Jackson. That had me thinking of famous people with that name such as Michael Jackson’s father, a baseball player with the nickname “Shoeless,” and a British singer whose biggest U. S. hit was the Grammy-nominated “Steppin’ Out.” As I watched the music video of that song for the first time in years, I suddenly realized how Joe Jackson’s tune could be turned into an exhortation to obey the Great Commission. The hardest part about evangelism is simply getting started. Even after doing street ministry for over twenty years, there are times I don’t feel like talking to people. But once I get over myself and start sharing the gospel, the Holy Spirit flows through me and I feel much better afterwards. Back in the early 1990s when I was involved with network marketing, I heard a sales trainer point out if we only do things that are comfortable, we are “screwing up big time.” One way we matur

The Jesus of Islam

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Not too long ago during a prayer walk, I stopped to witness to two young men waiting for a bus. Both of them thought they would go to heaven for living good lives. Eventually Sayma told me he was Muslim but still prayed along with his friend Sam to get born again. Since Sayma didn’t have a Bible, I gave him a gospel of John pointing out it reveals a more accurate picture of who Jesus is. The Koran has some verses about Jesus that agree with the Bible... Jesus was born of a virgin (Surah 19:19-21) Jesus taken bodily into Heaven (Surah 3:55) Jesus was a miracle worker (Surah 2:253) Jesus said to obey him (Surah 43:63) However, there are Koranic verses about Jesus that conflict with Scripture... Surah 3:59 claims Jesus was created . John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Surahs 4:171 and 5:75 claim Jesus is no more than a messenger of Allah. Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Out on a Limb

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English preacher John Scotland often says at his meetings, “For those of you taking notes…save the trees.” This is meant to be a humorous jab at people who jot down too many notes during church services.  Sadly there are environmentalists who do ridiculous things like chain themselves to trees they don’t want chopped down. In this creepy YouTube clip , members of a radical advocacy group are hysterically bawling over dead trees…   Tree huggers who really want to take their cause to the extreme shouldn’t read books, live in wooden houses with wooden furniture or use paper money, Kleenex and toilet paper. If God valued trees as much as humans, He wouldn’t have told Noah to built an ark out of gopher wood ( Genesis 6:14) or instructed His people to use wood for various sacrifices. God is certainly not worried about earthly shortages. One time I was driving through Yellowstone National Park and saw a mountain range with a huge amount of trees. At that moment, the Lord spo