“I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”
John 14: 6
12 “Look, I AM coming soon! My reward is with Me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. 13 I AM the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Revelation 22: 12-13
Pastors Noreen & Henry Kevern
Grace
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advanced for us to do.
Ephesians 2:8-10
Grace is a gift from God, not because we deserve it, but because of God’s amazing love. I am so thankful that God has showered me with His grace. Though I try, I cannot thank God enough for this free gift. Through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ we are, when we receive Jesus as our Savior, free from all our sins. That just amazes me. Because I have faith in God and I trust Him for everything in my life, because I freely give my life to God, He has redeemed me from all the sins in my life. And He will set you free from your sins if you will accept Jesus into your life.
When God called Abram away from all he had known, Abram left with his wife, Saiai, his nephew Lot and his wife Milkah. God told Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all people on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1-3 NIV) Now Abram was 75 years old when God called him. For many years Abram travelled to Canaan, to Egypt, to the Negev, then from place to place until he arrived between Bethel and Ai where he first came into Canaan where he had built an altar to the Lord. Then the Lord spoke to Abram and said, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I AM your shield, your very great reward.” (Genesis 15:1 NIV) Abram questioned God as to what use would it be to receive any reward as he and Sarai had no children. God told Abram that His reward would be given to Abram’s son and that his offspring would be like the stars in the sky that cannot be counted.
“And Abram believed the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness.”(Genesis 15:6)
Abram was human after all and because of Sarai and Abram ages, they thought that they needed to help God conceive this child He told them they would have and so Sarai suggested that Abram sleep with her servant Hagar and she conceived. Abram was 86 when Ishmael was born.
Thirteen years later, the Lord again came to Abram. “I AM God Almighty; walk before Me faithfully and be blameless. Then I will make My covenant between Me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.” (Genesis 17:1-2 NIV) Can you imagine what Abram thought? God called him out of Ur 24 years before, he thought that Ishmael was the fulfillment of the promise and here God was again telling him that he will increase his numbers. It had already been 13 years since Ishmael was born. Abram fell facedown before the Lord, trusting in Him and awaiting for the Lord to speak. God said to him, “As for Me, this is My covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram, your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.” (Genesis 17:1-7 NIV)
Have you ever thought that you knew better than God the promises He has made to you? Have you ever thought that you could help God to what you think that He means when He tells you what He is going to do? Maybe you have never heard God or you do not have a relationship with God. Do you know that you are called to a relationship with God and to walk with Him in your life? When we look through the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) we see that God had many relationships with humans. From the very beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, he started the first relationship with Adam and Eve. Can you imagine the joy that Adam and Eve had because God walked in the garden with them? Sadly they sinned and broke the perfect relationship. They, instead of accepting blame for their sins, began the first of blame shifting. And since then, humans have been blaming others and the devil for their sins. Just because a temptation is put before you, does not mean that you should sin. When we sin, we choose to sin and we are twisting our own arms into sin. Humans even try to justify why they sin but let’s be honest, there is no excuse for sin. You can say you do not know the righteous requirements of God, but you are the one who chooses not to grow your relationship with the Lord and learn from His Word what His requirements are. We have our part in a relationship with God and He has his.
Following the way of the Lord is not an easy thing to do. Abraham left his home and wandered many years. Noah built a huge ark and was locked in it for almost a year. Can you imagine living with all those animals for that long? Could you imagine living with your in laws for that long? Jacob dreamed of a stairway to heaven and in that dream God gave him the land he was living in and said, “I AM with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (Genesis 28:15 NIV) Jacob said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” (Genesis 28:16-17 NIV) The next day he took the stone that was under his head and poured oil on it and called the place Bethel (which means the house of God). Jacob had faith in God and trusted Him to bring him into the land and to bless him. Joseph’s brothers sold him as a slave and he ended up in Egypt. He landed in prison after being falsely accused. But God blessed him in prison and when the right time for God came, Joseph was given from God the interpretation for the Pharaoh’s dream and Joseph became the Pharaoh’s second in command. Joseph was put in the right place at the right time so that when the drought happened, Joseph was able to provide for his family and fulfill what God had told Abraham about his future descendants. Moses when he was a baby was put into a basket and placed in the river. The Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses and raised him as her son. God placed Moses where He wanted him to be. God did not tell Moses what God’s will was for his life until he was 80. Moses had faith that what God told him would happen. And so Moses went back to the land where he was wanted for murder and led God’s people out of Egypt and into the promise land. They wandered the desert for 40 years and then Moses died at 120 years old. He followed the way of the Lord for 40 years.
God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of His blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate His righteousness…He did it to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. (Romans 4:25-26 NIV) Throughout the Jewish Scriptures God called out to His people time and time again when they stopped following His way. He used the Prophets to warn the people and the promise of Christ but the people did not listen and did not understand. God poured out His grace and still does. Jesus chose to come down to the earth to show us that He wanted a personal relationship with God. Think about it, God came down to earth because He loves us so much and wants us to have a personal relationship with Him. He took the punishment from His laws and showed His amazing love by dying on the cross for you! He died for your adultery, your lies, you taking His Name in vain, you choosing not to worship Him, your greed, envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. He died for your gossip, slandering others, your hating God, your homosexual ways, your insolence, your arrogance and boastful ways, your disobeying your parents, your sexual impurity, for having no understanding, no fidelity, no love and no mercy. Through the death of Jesus He took these sins upon His shoulders and saved us from the punishment that we deserved. He did this before you were born and we did not have to ask Him to do this. Through the cross, God offers us His right hand, Jesus, to take Jesus into our hearts and accept Him as Lord and Savior of our life. When we do, we tell Him all the secrets, the sins that we have been hiding from Him, even though He already knows. And we have to repent, to change the way we were into a new spiritual person, foregoing sin and living our lives with His Spirit in us.
I want you to think about your life this week and ask God to look into your heart and to show you where you are not living in Him. Many people think that they are following Jesus according to their standards and think that even if their way of living is not quite God’s standards He will be okay with that. Let me tell you that you are wrong to think that your standards come anywhere close to God’s standards. God and His message, His standards, His commandments do not change. God is the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow. His love He will never take away from you and His laws will stand until Jesus returns and completes all that He is going to do. We have to ask the Holy Spirit to show us our hearts and what God’s will is for our lives and go to God’s Word, the Bible to learn what He wants from us. We have to open our hearts to hear the Lord in our lives. We have to put away from us things that are not of God and place in our lives things that are of God. If you continue to sin after you accept Jesus then you crucify Him over and over with your sins. Is that what you are trying to do? Think about this: If someone has hurt you, say someone has molested you, and they continue to do so and you do nothing to stop them, they hurt you day after day until you come to the point that you cannot take it any longer and you decide to kill yourself. When you sin, you hurt Jesus day after day.
Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:1-2 NIV) When I preach to you through these Weekly Ways, I want you to know that when I write these, I ask God to guide me and to give me the words that He wants me to say. Sometimes when I write, it takes a while to finish these because of things that are going on in my life. God has called me to write and preach and to Journey to those He sends me to, to evangelize, to be a prayer intercessor, and a minister. Sometimes when I am writing, someone will call or come to me and I leave my writing. But each day, I do whatever comes to me and at the end of the day I am at peace with my day. Last night I awoke about 2 a.m. and could not go back to sleep. I had so many things on my mind and spent the time talking with God. Even though I surrendered these things to God, I could not go back to sleep. So God and I talked about things and when I finally went downstairs to get my coffee, I knew that even though I had been awake for hours, those hours were well spent with God. I had talked with one of my daughters earlier that day, and she said that she had not slept well the night before and with all that has been happening in her life, she has been having many nights of not sleeping. I told her that is the time to get up and read her Bible. With a toddler and just moved from another state, it is hard to read the Bible during the day, and that this would give her the opportunity to spend time with God. Why, you may wonder, did I not get up and read my Bible last night. The reason is that I read my Bible in the morning and before prayers at night. And I am really comfortable in my relationship with my Lord, that spending time, even hours with Him, is enjoyable. He showed me some things that I have been neglecting and I had no excuses for Him, so now I have asked forgiveness and will get to work on those things.
The reason for telling you about myself is to let you know that I am no different than you. Even though my husband Henry and I have given our lives to God and we travel wherever He sends us and stays where He wants us to stay, and that nothing in our lives is the same day after day. God took away our home and told us that we were to go and travel to preach His Word and share His love and to do all that He tells us to do. You may be thinking, “But what about free choice?” Well, we freely surrender out lives to God and we only want His will for our lives. And when He says “Go” we go and when He says “Stay” we stay. Our lives are not our own. We were bought by the blood of Jesus. There is nothing else that we want in our lives. We have been blessed these past few months with staying with two of our children and their families. And soon, we will be welcoming our daughter (in law) back from Iraq. We have been praying and trusting the Lord during her deployment for her safe return. And we are waiting to sing praises to our Lord for her safe return. We believe that what we pray for we receive and the Lord does not disappoint. In a way, our lives are like Moses, wandering through in our motor home, and I am glad that we have a motor home. I would not like to walk around this country! I like air conditioning and heat! And running water! It has cost a quite a bit of money in the way of gas for the motor home as it gets between 5 and 6 miles to the gallon! We have gone over 10,000 miles this year and have loved every mile of it. Oh, if you would, please pray that we will find something that we misplaced in our 36 foot motor home! Only God knows where we put this! We have not gone through the whole motor home yet because it is stored while we are here. But we know that the Lord will provide and that He will guide us along the Journey where He wants us to go.
Back to this Scripture: Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:1-2 NIV) Notice the word “if” and the words after, “you hold firmly to the word I preached to you” that “if” is a very big word even though it only contains two letters. It is important to know that when you accept Jesus you have to follow Jesus by firmly holding on to the Word and to God. What God gives me to do is to teach you His Word and to show you what you can choose to do to follow the way of the Lord. Jesus tells us that we have to repent of our sins and to follow Him. That only He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and He is the only way to the Father. No other way is there to God, only Jesus. We have to read the Bible to learn what is required of us when we receive Jesus into our lives. When we tell God our sins, we have to change our ways and follow His way. That’s what repent means, to change. God makes the rules and we must obey them otherwise our faith is in vain. You become a hypocrite if you do not listen to God and change your way of life. Sadly most Christians do not realize this. They think that what they are doing is good, but when you know God’s Word, you understand that following the way of the Lord is far different that you think. Some people think that you only have to read the Bible once but the Bible is more than a book, it’s a daily way to come to the Lord and to learn from Him. God and His message does not change. Each and every Bible verse contains God’s truth, God’s value, and has meaning, inspired lessons, and wisdom that comes only from God. And when you read the Bible, ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with what God wants you to learn from His Words. This is what I preach because I want you to be sure of your faith and when your time comes to leave this world, I want you to be sure of where you are going. There are only two choices: Heaven and hell. Do you know for sure where you are going?
Following the way of the Lord is not boring. Truthfully, I am so much at peace and have so much joy. I enjoy life, I live for God and He blesses me in ways that I never thought of and in ways that have brought such happiness. Henry and I are blessed with 10 grandchildren so far and we expect to have more. When I hold them, I am always reminded of God because of the joy they bring into my life. I consider my sons and daughter in law to be my sons and daughter. Some of them have not accepted the Lord in their lives, but I am trusting God that they will because I have prayed to God and believe that He will bring them to Him. I do not worry about tomorrow for I know that God is already there. I know He will provide for our needs. God is my Shepherd and that is all I need to know. He knows the plans for my life, plans to give me hope and a future. His love covers me and He is always with me. We don’t have a lot of money but we have God and He will provide what we need and even through others who will give to us because God will place in their hearts to bless us with a love gift to continue the Journey that God has for us. And the reason I do this is that I love you, you are my family because God created all of us. We may not know you personally but we pray that the Lord will bring us to meet some day. We hope that you find these words a help to your faith and that you will find a Bible based church to belong to and to grow in the love and knowledge of our Lord God. There is nothing more important than following the way of the Lord and I am blessed that God uses me to share His Words of love to you. We pray that each of you will look into your heart and soul and find where you are in God and surrender your lives to Him. Be truthful with yourself and God and let God’s message of love grow in your life and teach others to surrender to the Lord. Be blessed in the Lord and never give up hoping in His promises for they are truth. And the truth will set you free!
there are lots of false messengers, God and his message is unchanging
Each and every verse of the Bible contains value, truth, and is coded with inspired lessons, meanings and wisdom that can be fed to the Holy Spirit.”