Faith – Page 4 – Jacksonville Blogger

The Records of All People are Being Preserved- Yes, Even Yours and Mine

How do you think God will reward His people for the things done in His name and also one day, see the devil and his bunch cast into hell for their horrible works, if things are not being recorded?

Why can’t people see that? When talking to even Christians sometimes, I hear them diss the fact that deeds are being recorded including those in the negative realm for “them”. They somehow believe that their deeds won’t be exposed? The fact is, we are all sinners. ALL. Even the Christian is a sinner. It is ONLY by the grace of Jesus that the Christian can and will stand in the day of judgement. That does not though, take away from the fact that even the Christian’s sins must be known to show God’s fair and just rewards.(I don’t know how it will play out, but that is true).

Every single one of us, Christian or not, sin. The Bible is clear, “We have all come short of the glory of God”.

That… my friend is precisely why we ALL need a Savior. What I hear so many times with the Christian though is, that because he or she has the Savior, his or her deeds are forgiven thus somehow not recorded and kept. NO. ALL things are recorded whether you have trusted Christ or not. The difference is that God will show His love and reward to those who took His Savior as the payment for that sin.

Yes, when we trust Jesus Christ as Savior, our sins are forgiven but NO, that does not mean we will not see a “play back” of our sins one day. YES, they have been forgiven as far as the “east is to the west” but… here is the kicker…. Lk 8:17: For nothing is secret, that shall not be revealed; neither anything hidden, that shall not be known and come light.

It is the just God who will be able to sort out the whole display of events one day. He will be judge and jury. He will be right and fair. He will expose all so that everyone is aware of why people find themselves in heaven or hell.

Here are other scriptures about exposing ALL and that means, my sins and yours one day. ALL-

Numbers 32:23 says, “Be sure your sin will find you out” (KJV).

Heb 4:13: And there is no creature hidden from His sight: but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to give account.

Psalms 33:13: The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men.

Lk 8:17: For nothing is secret, that shall not be revealed; neither anything hidden, that shall not be known and come light.

Rom 2:6: Who will render to every man according to his works.

Rev 22:12: And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

1 Cor 4:5: Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

Our only hope to be in heaven is to trust Jesus Christ as our Lord and King but by that, do not think that your sins will be hidden. ALL will one day be exposed so God’s righteousness can shine through. It will be through Christ that ALL are saved from those sins. Praise God.

See you tomorrow,

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August 25

Little Cowboy Leads the Way

The Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida Rally held at the Diamond D Ranch began with the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag from a young cowboy.

He lead the group in the pledge with hand over heart and hat on his chest: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”. And the crowd went wild! God bless America. 8-24-22

See you tomorrow,

Category: Country Life, Faith, Government | LEAVE A COMMENT

August 24

Live For Jesus

My Mother died at the early age of 49. She was born a twin, October 20, 1924 and died September 5, 1974. I was attending Florida State University at the time and came home for a visit when my Mom couldn’t stay awake. We took her to the St. Luke’s Hospital which was on 8th Street at the time and she never returned home. It was a devastating loss for all of our family.

My Mother was a true Christian. John MacArthur has a comment about a “true Christian” and my Mother exemplified his statement.

“I’m going to give you a description of a Christian.

It means that we trust His wisdom beyond all other wisdom. It means that we believe that everything that He says and everything that is said in the Bible about Him is absolutely true and anything that contradicts any of it is wrong.

It means that we desire to know His thoughts above all thoughts as supreme. It means that we long to hear and obey His Word over all other words. It means that we give Him our lives now and forever, we entrust Him not only with our time but with our eternity, believing firmly in a person and a reality that we have never seen, but the testimony of Scripture is sufficient to verify. It means we obey His commandments with joy.

It means we love Him supremely and we love people who love Him and we even love people He loves who don’t love Him. It means we give our lives to proclaim His gospel, the gospel of salvation. To say that Jesus is Lord, which is the Christian confession, is to say that we accept Jesus as our absolute authority and source for all that is true. It means that we desire always to do what pleases Him, though we fail.

It means we fear Him, we worship Him, we obey Him and we proclaim Him above all others. To confess Jesus as Lord means that no area of our lives is unaffected by our relationship to Him. Our relationship to Him defines what we think. It defines our attitudes, it defines our emotions. It defines what we say. It defines how we act in every area of life. Our relationship to Him pervades all our being. To confess Jesus as Lord means that we trust His purpose for our lives and we trust His utter, sovereign control over all aspects of our lives including our failures and our successes, our blessings and our sorrows, our sickness and even our death.

To confess Jesus as Lord means that we count Him as the source of all that is good and all that is right and all that is blessed, and therefore He is to be thanked for everything. To confess Him as Lord means that we believe that He created and controls the entire universe, that He has pre-written all history so that it is directed in its course toward perfect fulfillment of His intended desire when He re-wrote…when he pre-wrote it.

To confess Jesus as Lord, to be a Christian, means to give our souls to Him, our bodies to Him as living sacrifices, our minds to Him, our time to Him, our abilities to Him, our money to Him, our prayers to Him. It means to dedicate our children to Him and to pray that everyone we know may love Him the way we love Him.

To confess Jesus as Lord means to give our lives in service to Him, fellowship in the church, to engage ourselves in ministries of all kinds to the honor of His name and the spread of His gospel.

To confess Jesus as Lord means that we are willing to live for Him no matter what it requires, and if asked to die for Him with an affirmation of His glory on our lips as our life leaves us.

We have never seen Him but we talk to Him every day. We have never heard an audible voice, but He speaks to us through His Word every day. We haven’t seen His face, He is to us invisible and His Kingdom is not material. And even the heaven He promises to which we look we have never visited, nor has anyone else who can tell us about it. Only two apostles had a glimpse and struggled to explain what they saw.

You ask about what it means to be a Christian? That’s what it means.”

—John MacArthur

My Mother lived for Jesus every day. She was a great example of what it means to be a Christian.

See you tomorrow,

Category: Faith, Family | LEAVE A COMMENT

August 1

Southern Baptist Convention Lore

This week, I visited the First Baptist Church of Augusta. It was the site of the founding church of the Southern Baptist Convention. Also visited was the first Baptist Church in Georgia which is in Appling.The interesting thing about both is that they tie to Jacksonville; sort of….

The First Baptist Church of Augusta, located at 802 Greene Street began in 1817 with a “Praying Society”. It expanded and in 1821 a brick building was dedicated . The fellowship continued and in 1845, the Southern Baptist Convention was established. A historical marker is outside of the church with this inscription:

In March 1817, eight men and two women meeting in an Augusta home formed “The Baptist Praying Society of Augusta” – the forerunner of the First Baptist Church. Two months later the society was constituted a church under the leadership of the first minister, Wm. T. Brantley, this property was purchased in 1870. A church on this site was dedicated May 26, 1821. In 1845, after serious friction arose in the national Triennial Convention, 327 delegates from eight southern states and the District of Columbia met here to form the Southern Baptist Convention. This building was erected in 1902.

The first Baptist Church of Georgia, Kioke Baptist Church, is located in Appllng, outside of Augusta. It began with a meeting house in 1772 with the Rev. Daniel Marshall as pastor. It held church meetings at least 45 years before the First Baptist Church of Augusta

In Jacksonville, Florida, there is a historic building at 218 West Church Street less than a block from the Historic Hobson, the First Baptist Church, built after the Great Fire of Jacksonville. The “Florida Baptist Building” was designed by the Jacksonville famous, Henry John Klutho. In January of 1984, it was designation a U. S. National Register of Historic Places. It is now being repurposed to have apartments and living quarters for residents. It was there that Southern Baptist Convention business was conducted, newspapers for the Southern Baptist Convention were written and more.The photo below is the original rendering by Klutho.(credit:unknown).

When Kioke Church, the oldest Baptist church in Georgia, built its beautiful current facility, it asked the Southern Baptist Convention founding Church, the First Baptist Church of Augusta which was in disrepair since they changed their facility to another location, to give them some of the stained class windows from their former church in downtown Augusta. They did and today, those beautiful windows can be seen in their lovely facility in Appling, Georgia. The former church where the Southern Baptist Church was formed is in total disrepair but their former windows are seen in beautiful display in Appling.

In Jacksonville, The building once used by the Southern Baptist Convention in Jacksonville, which through the years has moved to another location in Duval County, is being repurposed to house others and create living and retail space.

In all, the Church is alive and well although the facilities have changed, God remains The I AM.

See you tomorrow,

Sources: Wikipedia, Baptist Press, Waymarkers, Southern Baptist Convention, Markers at Kioke, FBC Augusta, Fl Memory.

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