Should I be in Church on Sunday?

This is something that comes up all the time. People question themselves on this, especially when they go do something else on Sunday. For example ride Motocross.

Let's see what the Bible says:

The Bible says that God created the heavens and the earth in six days and on the seventh day he rested.

This is in Genesis:
GE 2:2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

This you can say was the very first Sabbath.

God wanted the Sabbath to be kept holy:
NE 13:22 Then I commanded the Levites to purify themselves and go and guard the gates in order to keep the Sabbath day holy.

The above is an example out of Nehamiah as to how God instructed the Levites. If they where to guard the gates to make sure the Sabbath was kept holy, I would say he was pretty serious about it.

Let's look at what "Holy" means.

Depending on the context you read it in it has more then one meaning. Here are some of the definitions:

"Holy" is from the Greek word that means "separated," it means separated from sin and therefore consecrated to God, or set apart for a sacred purpose.

Holy means free from all defilement, pure. "God is holy" means, "God is absolutely pure."

It also means sacred; having a divine quality; exalted.

So when God asked the Levites to keep the Sabbath Holy. What do you think it meant? I think God set the Sabbath apart (separated) from the rest of the week for two reasons. One to give his people a day of rest to recover from the weeks stress and two he set it apart to give his people a day to worship him and be consecrated unto him. There where strict guidelines and rules as to how they where to keep the Sabbath.

So how does this apply to us? Do we have to follow all of this and keep the Sabbath?

If we read the New Testament you will find that the law the Israelites had to live by does not apply to us. We are not required to live by their law.

GAL 3:24 So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

So if we are not required to follow the law does that mean we can now do whatever we want? I don't think so. God's principles don't change. If he wanted the Israelites to keep the Sabbath as a day of rest and a day of worship, I believe he would still want us to have a day like that.

The big difference I see is that we are not locked in to do it according to the law. Most Christians usually make this day Sunday. The Sabbath was actually on Saturday. This was done because it was on Sunday that Jesus resurrected.

So is this now a have to? I don't think so. If it is, we would be right back to living under the burden of the law. According to the Bible the righteous will live by faith. Living by faith gives us liberties that living under the law does not. We have to follow our heart and do what we feel God wants us to do. How do we know what God wants us to do? By reading the Bible and prayer. Our conclusion can not contradict what the Bible says.

I believe God wants us to keep a day set aside for him. We need time to worship God, we need time to draw close to God and we need time to rest. Does it all have to be on the same day? Does it all have to be on Sunday? What is God telling you?

Me personally I like to worship on Sunday and I like to rest, relax and recuperate. Could I do the same thing on Tuesday or maybe Wednesday? Yes I believe I could. Could I worship on one day and rest on another? Yes I believe I can. The important thing is that we need to stay refreshed and we need good quality time with God.

So what is my answer?

Should I be in church on Sunday or can I ride Motocross? I believe I can ride Motocross on Sunday. It is okay for me to go ride on Sunday and use another day to worship God.

But what I truly like, is to combine the two.

How do we get a Passion for Jesus?

If you have been with me since the beginning of my blog, you know the question that I asked. How can we have the same intensity of passion for Jesus as I have seen displayed at Motocross tracks?

We get excited about a lot of things, but when you go to church or talk to people about Jesus there seems to be a lack of excitement with the majority of Christians. Why is that?

I think with most of us it is because we don't really draw close to Jesus. What do I mean by that? You have become a child of God as we discussed in the last blog at some point in your life. That was the start. It is not, as many seem to think, the completion.
A lot of people think they can say a prayer to receive Jesus as their Savior and then go back to their life's and live like nothing happened. That does not work. This prayer is the start of a relationship with God thru Jesus and now that you have done that, you start living for him. This means you now try to live a life that is pleasing to him.
How do you do this? You do this by studying the word of God, which as we established in an earlier blog is the Bible. The more we study the Bible, the closer our connection with God will be.
You study the word with other believers, because it helps us understand and allows us to support and encourage each other. You may have heard the term that you can not be a Loner Christian. The reason for this is that by yourself it is easy to fail.

The Bible says:
1PE 5:8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

But how does this increase our passion for Jesus? As we study the word and see how God becomes more and more a reality in our life, we also see more and more how we owe everything to the sacrifice that Jesus was willing to make for us.

He died on the cross, was buried in a tomb and rose three days later. He is now at the right hand of God interceding for us.

That in itself should give us a passion for Jesus.

Remember just knowing it is not enough, you have to live it for it to become a reality.

Making a Life changing Decision

After reading the last blog, what have you decided? Do you want to have eternal security as in being in heaven after you die? Are you tired of doing it on your own and want your life to have meaning?
Is it time to make a life changing decision? I hope you decided yes. If yes, please continue to read this. If no, please continue to read anyway, maybe you will change your mind, and this will help you to do so.
It is very simple to make Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior. Here is what the Bible says:

RO 10:9 That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11 As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile--the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

What exactly does that mean?

As we have talked about in earlier blogs, we are all sinners. Because of this we need a Savior if we want to spent eternity in heaven. We need a Savior if we want to be God's children and have him watch over us. But what do the above Bible verses mean?
All we have to do is realize we need a Savior, ask Jesus to be our Savior and to believe it in our heart. If we confess this we will be saved. If you want to do this, you can start by saying a prayer like or similar to the one following.

Prayer:
Dear Jesus. I know that in order to have a relationship with God I need you as my Savior. I need you as my Savior, because I am a sinner and there is nothing I can do to earn my way into heaven. The only way I can get there is by accepting that you died on the cross to pay for my sins and you rose three days later and are now in heaven preparing a place for me. I thank you so much for your sacrifice. Thank you for forgiving me of my sins. I also know that by receiving you as my Lord and Savior I become a child of God and you will be with me from here on forward to be with me and protect me. Thank you so much.
Amen

This is the initial start to your new life. If you truly made this decision, you are now a child of God. Now it is time to come to know God and to start walking with him. Now it is time to start living for him. To learn how to do that, you can come back for future blogs or you can check out our website @ http://www.meet-me-at-the-crossroad.com/
Welcome to your new family.

A Relationship with God

In our last blog we established that to have a relationship with God we need a Savior. But why would we want that relationship?
We have a lot of fun living as we want to. We don't like people telling us what to do. From all I have heard about having a relationship with God, it requires that we live a certain way. Why would I want to do that?

Without God we have the now, but nothing else. You can very possibly live a pretty, what you might consider, good life, but that is where it ends. Even if you acquire a lot of money, a lot of friends, a good husband or wife, or whatever else you might think makes life great, you are only living for the now. What about your future? Your eternal future?
A lot of people claim they don't worry about it. I don't know if I can believe that. When you sit down and things get really quiet and you truly think about your future, you think about the end of your life as you know it, are you at peace? Are you scared of dying? How can you have peace in that?
Nobody likes the unknown. It is in our human nature to want to live forever and all of us at some point are going to die. Then what? Are you okay about that part of your future?

Here is where a relationship with God comes in. Now it can't be a relationship on our terms, it has to be a relationship on God's terms.
A right relationship with God will secure our eternal future. It will not only do that, it will also help us in the here and now. According to the Bible, if we establish a relationship with God, we become children of God. Being his children comes with benefits.
The Bible says that God will help us in all things, protect us and watch over us. We will never have to do it on our own again. Knowing this will give you peace now and forever.

Do you want this? If yes, great. We do this by receiving Jesus as our Lord and Savior and surrendering to God.

But there is a major problem, most of us don't want to give up control of our lives. We want to be in control. See to become God's children, we have to give him control of our lives. We have to live according to what he wants, not what we want. By surrendering to God we establish our relationship with him.

Do you still want this? Only you can decide if you do.

What is the alternative?

Is God real?

Do you believe God is real? Let's establish that God is real. How do we do that?

We look at the evidence.

What evidence is there for the reality of God? If we look at the universe and nature, and if we look at it with an open mind, we will come to the conclusion that it is not an accident. I know a lot of people do not believe in creation. Let's just look how everything works and fits together and then try to imagine that all happened by accident. I think if we are honest with ourselves we will not be able to believe that.

If we look at the Bible, here is what it says: Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

So if we go by what the Bible says, there is no way that we will not know that there is a God. We know this by what he created.


So you say: That's just the Bible, how do I know it is true? We believe the Bible is the word of God and the writers as indicated in the Bible wrote under the inspiration of God. How did we come to that conclusion? Here are just a few reasons. The Bible was written over a spread of several thousand years. It was written by over forty different writers from all walks of live. None of them new they where writing anything for any such book and still all the books in the Bible fit together perfectly. There are a lot of prophecies in the Bible that have been fulfilled just between the Old and New Testament. The Bible is historically accurate. A lot of the New Testament was written by eye witnesses with much of it even backed up by non-christian writings. There are approximately 20,000 manuscripts that back up the New Testament of the Bible. The famous "Dead Sea Scrolls" support the Old Testament. These are just some of the reasons to believe the Bible.

Hopefully this helps you establish that there is a God. If it did we can move forward with what we talked about in the last post. If this didn't help you, feel free to ask more questions. We'll get into why we need a savior next time.

Passion for Jesus

Over the past seven years I have spent a lot of time at Motocross tracks. Over that time we have provided church services at some of the local tracks around Kansas City and for the Missouri Motocross Championship Series.
One of the things that has really come to my attention over these years, is the passion that people have for their sport and to what length they will go to make sure they can follow that dream.
The passion that I see at the track, is the passion I would like to see people have for Jesus. But how can that happen?
First they have to believe that there is a God. Once they believe that they have to believe they need a Savior. But why should they? I'll try to explain as we go along.