Ranger59's Blog

Stand fast

ranger59 — Sat, 22 May 2010 13:50:26 +0000

Galatians 5:1 says to, “Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and bee not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

This was my encouragement for today, we, who have been picked up, or pulled out of the scrap heap, who have tried many different “religions” so to speak, who have been delivered from a LIFE of sin and destructive behaviors, who base their “self esteem” on what others think of them, and what the “world” considers to be ok or not ok. We are a miserable lot, but…. Thank God that in Christ Jesus we are set free, These are words that get tossed around alot out there, but, the impact on a personal life is huge. We are free from bondage. This bondage word is a big one, and mostly in our minds. It is the driving force behind so many actions and behaviors. It is at the core of how you rate yourself, what you think of yourself, it is the motivator of ” I feel like I have to do’s…” it is almost like an entity, you have to do things a certain way or you are not good enough, it tells you lie after lie, and makes you feel the need to BOW down to it, it keeps you a prisoner in your own mind. I picture the Jews, after Christ set us free, I imagine that they had real difficulty thinking they were a “Christian” if they did’nt perform all the rites and rituals that their fathers had taught them, they probably had much difficulty leaving out perhaps bowing to the east, then the west, using incenses, and saying certain chants. Their “security” has come from this for years and years, the whole thought process needed to change.

Folks, we are free, if we are in Christ, all the rest is garbage, mind battles etc. If we have submitted to Christ, repented of our sins, and living the best way we know how afterward, we are free. It is quite opposite to what we would think, it seems to most that becoming a Christian is a great restriction, and you cant do this or that. Christ is our leader his ways start to become our ways, and his ways are good ! They are liberating, they make you KNOW that you are walking with him, they remove the question that everyone has… am I going to heaven? Let us not listen to the enemy bondage any longer, let us join in the battle that the Saints from Galatia were in and many others since. Let us stand fast, be confident in our freedom, knowing it is not a burden of denial and bondage, dont listen to PEOPLE who say you have to do this or that, and you dont amount to much if you do this or that, let us listen to Christ and his words, they truly are pretty simple and plain, yet profound. He gives us victory over all things, sometimes it is just a matter of accepting it.

May God with his grace and his mercy help us to all get his freedom and liberty today !!

Run this race

ranger59 — Wed, 19 May 2010 14:14:58 +0000

I was reading from the word today and a thought really struck me… Paul says in 1 corinthians 9:27 ” But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others I myself should be cast away ” I thought about this, and studied it for a bit, and the Spirit has impressed on me that this is important. This raises the question of are we ever really secure in going to heaven? Paul is an example to many of us. He and Jesus were 2 totally different characters, Paul being very intense, and Jesus being very intense in a much more calm and miraculous, profound kind of way. What jumped out at me today was, Paul was only secure with his future when he was doing what he knew to be right. Each day was a new day, each day he had to bring his body into subjection, or make himself do what needed to be done. It appears that he never took anything for granted, that salvation was a precious gift,that he worked very hard to keep. He didnt just get the gift, felt secure, lived his life, made changes from time to time. He was WORRIED that he would and could lose his place in eternity. He worked very hard each day, to deny himself the pleasures of this world that would crowd out his love for God, that might start to occupy his mind. He worked very hard to be completely above reproach, which is a very difficult task, and he knew that, people that claim Christ are under huge scrutiny by those that dont. They are constantly under the magnifying glass, and even 1 mistake and they jump on you HARD, and you lose your opportunity with them. Paul compares his salvation to a race, if you run a race, you will only get a reward if you finish. This stresses the importance of the daily effort, and the thought should be on our mind all the time that I need to finish this race, each day I need to do, what Paul teaches us, what Jesus teaches us, what God teaches us, we dont get to have “days off ” so to speak, if we do we will fall behind, and if we fall behind to many times, we fall out, we are not even in the race anymore. This really helped me today. In addition, Paul says ” fight the good fight” from experience I have learned that, although ” his yoke is easy and his burden is light” sometimes it is a fight, usually with self and our own worldly lusts and desires. I think the mindset needs to be a commitment to fight no matter what. Here again, if you are in a REAL fight, you either win or you lose. Who would be in a fight for their own life and only give it 1/2 an effort ? You are going to try your hardest to win, else you will lose and be very hurt.
Join me, people of God, let us make our efforts as serious as Paul, let us look at it the way he did, and not the way that we HEAR today, where there are no works involved for salvation, because there are many. It is true, that it is a gift to us, and we dont deserve it, but why did Jesus come. To heal the brokenhearted? yes, to save that which is lost? yes. To save us from sin? yes I encourage each of us, to never let the day that Jesus “lifted that load” “took that burden” “saved us from our sin” gave us a clean slate, one that you could be seen in heaven with. Let us never ASSUME that we are OK no and forever. Our conscience alone will tell us different if we will listen to it, let us RUN, let us FIGHT, let us GROW in Christ, let us CHANGE from all of our old ways that are sinful. Let us teach and spread the word, let us set our standards very high. If something is in our way or serving Christ as we think we ought, let us never just accept it, we must fight, longsuffer, until we overcome it. Never settle for giving God our 2nds he has always wanted our best, our firstfruits, even in the days of animal sacrifice he was adamant that the animal be the best one you have. Join me, pray for each other, pray for His Church, pray for the sad condition of this world. Dont be in the habit of following the majority, and things you hear about what is OK and what is not, God will reveal it to you if you use him for your source of wisdom and direction.
May God Bless His Church, and may the Saints continue to protect it with all they have, and as my Pastor says, this IS a better way !

Did you know ?

ranger59 — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 16:33:31 +0000

Did you know that the hour Christ died, it was, according to Jewish tradition, the time of day that they were to make sacrifice to God,?? And did you know that when the High Priest was to enter the Holy of Holies for the sacrifice, a place that only he had seen, the veil was torn from top to bottom, and was now open for all to see?? Thus ending the need for the sacrifice and blood of animals, a new way had just been provided for all, for eternity. Did you know that the sky went dark for about 3 hrs in the middle of the day when this happened??

Gods timing is impeccable, his mercy is unsurpaassed, his ways and wisdom are so profound, his creativity and ways to grab your attention are unlike any other, his creation, all of it, is so intricate and beautiful, his people are Holy, his people are real, his people are humans. I just love God this morning, I love his ways and his beautiful people, I can hardly wait to get to worship Him, with Them this morning.

Depart from me

ranger59 — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:19:11 +0000

I was just reading this morning Matt 7 and came upon vs. 23 where Christ says depart from me, I never knew you, ye that work iniquity. Jesus really spoke to me today, every other time I have read this I figured he was speaking to someone else, maybe the serious hypocrite, or the ones that you think are teaching and really just trying to get into your pocketbook, or perhaps the one that lives vicariously all week, shows up for church on sunday, enjoys a good sermon and goes back and does it all over again. Well, this morning He spoke to me , and said “ye that work iniquity”. For me, today, in my experience thus far, if I say I know Him, if I teach or preach or claim the Gospel yet have ANY iniquity in my life, he wont accept me in that last day, he will turn from me, he will consider me a liar and a hypocrite, and I never was a friend. I guess similar to if we had a friend that was lying to us, saying one thing and doing another all along and then we found out, we would be pretty disapointed and probably not claim them on our “christmas card list ” any longer right? And even if we found that they, during the course of our friendship had done us wrong even once, but never came clean with it, we would feel betrayed and would take them off the list. This is my revelation for today. If I claim Christ, and say I love him, and want to end up in heaven for eternity, I have to be clear with him, I cant have sin in my life, ( well maybe I can have one or two little ones) nope, not even that, it is still iniquity, and He didnt tell me I could have some, just not very much, and to keep it under control and make sure that my sins arent very serious. He will disown me, He will in fact say he never knew me, WOW !! I just love the Word, and especially the ones in red. I have read this scripture many many times, and I praise God that He spoke to me personally, clearly, and in a very special way this morning. I dont feel like I got bound, or my hands got tied or I was given something to hard to do, I feel like I was given freedom, and a message that has no confusion in it. Isnt the journey great, ever changing and getting more meaningfull

Jesus Birthday

ranger59 — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:30:54 +0000

Just a thought, I sit and watch all the thankfulfness and happiness and love being spread about at this time of year. I love it, it is a joy to be a part of and watch. The reason for this celebration is supposed to be the miraculous birth of our Lord and Saviour, which in our customs is pretty normal to celebrate “birthdays”. At this same time, I cant stop thinking on how much more we should celebrate his death, all the time, everytime we come together for this act of unselfeshness is what gives us life ! Believing on this is what has set so many free, freed from our sinful past, freed from the penalty, pardoned, given the gift that no one else coulp possibly give and cant be bought. We get to become new people, our souls get to spend forever in beauty and glory in heavenly places. We will actually get to meet God, Jesus, Moses, Paul, Martha, etc.
I could die and give all that I have to my children and it wouldnt even compare in the smallest way to this gift. I just want to encourage anyone who reads this to celebrate not only now, but all the time, all year, for we have something more than just His birth to shout about.

Is it worth being divided?

ranger59 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:57:55 +0000

New realization…in the days of the Apostles and disciples, the Jews and Gentiles, the challenges and religous differences were huge, yet Paul was adamant that it not cause division. The gentiles got to be a part of the church and never had to obey any of the “rituals” that the jews did. The jews had to figure out, and accept the fact that they didnt have to do sacrifices anymore, or circumcision, or the many many other things that were part of their daily life, engrained into their culture, commanded from God. Now all of the sudden it was not required to do many of these things, yet I imagine they didnt feel like they were “christian” if they didnt observe these things that had sustained them for so many years.. let them know that they were in Gods will, kingdom. Now there is a new covenant, open to all. Now the common thread is Salvation, repentance, being freed from sin, Jesus now being the atonement and nothing else. I will let your mind wander from this point, this just impressed me on how vast the differences had been. Acts 15: 1-31 describes one occasion where they kind of butt heads, and how they resolve it, and the lengths they went to do this. They “did not divide” they worked through it. This is not what we do today, we just divide up and start another congregation or division. How many do we have now? Many not respecting the other, whole religions made out of one or two scriptures to stand on. I challenge us all to be prayerfull about this, and really consider who is in and who is out, and decide what is really worth being divided about.

Woe unto you

ranger59 — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:07:24 +0000

I write this to the Church worldwide and to believers everywhere ~ to strengthen her (the church), that she
may be without spot or blemish, in order that we may profess we love the Father and are His Church without bringing damnation onto ourselves or making a mockery of His words, His ways, His tremendous sacrifice for us. That we many do battle with the enemy and be victorious time and time again; so that the Father may get the glory time and time again; so that our children’s children will have clear lines to live by; that these lines have been divided perfectly and clearly by the sword of God’s word, so that the excuses used for continuing in sin will be looked at through biblical eyes, rather than justified by our world view.

In the days not so long ago, whenever you spoke to someone, you knew right away which side of the law they were on. Sometimes the outlaws would even be offended if there wasn’t a high enough bounty on their head. Today we get offended just to have a bounty on our head. The world today wants to profess goodness and rightousness on the outside and yet have all kinds of unrightousness, filth and sin on the inside. This attitude has permiated the religious world as well. There is so much sin and corruption present in todays religious body’s, you almost can’t believe someone when they say, “I am a Christian” or “I love God”. This is an abomination! We should hate this! This should make us want to wage war on the enemy. This should make us WANT there to be NO mistake when someone meets us as to which side of the fence we are on. We should be very concerned about doing things that would even have an appearence of questionable content or have questionable behaviors. We should want to stand well above reproach in all things and be very concerned about the wrath of the Father, especially for those that claim Him. The Bible says He will “spew” you out of His mouth and it would be better if you were never born and I believe it. Christ was very clear to the ones who profess (ed) and “acted” the part, but didn’t “do”. He said , “Woe unto you”. I pray that none wiill ever hear those words, but I am afraid that if He were still here walking on this earth, most would have heard them already. When He walked amoung us, the dividing lines were clear and simple. Today they are muddled, mixed with partial truths and made to look “okay”, by standards that the world has set and not God.

Let us examine the scriptures with fear, reverence, a heart of obedience and not be so laxidasical or have a “I’ll do what is convenient” attitude. There is a movement among religion today, that God is “all loving”, and while it IS true, God is a loving Father (who else would sacrifice their own Son to a cruel death for us?), let us not forget Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot’s wife, who was told not to look back, but she did anyway and POW, just like that she was turned into a pillar of salt! Yes, He is a very loving God, and yes, you better watch out if you think you can continue and continue to not obey all of His word. Not just part of it most of the time. I am a father and I know how it upsets me to have one of my children say they have done something or say they “are” doing something, when really, it is only partially true. Let us be a people of prayer, let us be a people that have been freed from the bondage of sin and appreciate it and let it show every day. Let us hold fast to Gods word and his truths and not make up our own, as we see fit in todays society, and tell ourselves what can and can’t be done based on the majority of how people live. One example that is prevalant in todays society is sex before marriage and “shackin’ up”. Most think it is a pretty normal thing to do, not so long ago it was unheard of, and then when it started you were really living on the edge and somewhat of a rebel. Today it is commonplace and the Lords way appears weird and old fashioned and is scoffed at.Now we tell ourselves that this doesnt make or break you as a Christian, God still loves us. Well, He hates this I know, make no mistake, it is taught over and over that this type of attitiude, neglect, sin is not OK. I am just trying to make a point, and you could switch this scenario with any number of others prevalant today and it would be the same. He says we wont enter the Kingdom. Let us raise our standards, let us hold His ways in high esteem. Let’s take a stand and he will bless us richly. By the way, this can be done, I used to be of the persuasion that times are different now and this lifestyle was ok because everyone was doing it, well, through a long series of events and the Lord’s leading, I discovered that God still has a people, ( http://www.churchofgodcarmichael.org/ ), a people that were happy to court, hold hands, get to know each other and families, THEN get married. It is the normal way to us. I thank God for being able to be a part of this, to witness it, to see that it can be done and its not a big huge battle to keep our young ones clear before God this way. May God stir your heart, may the Spirit convict you if you are not living clear before Him. May even just one person read this and fall to their knees and get freed from their guilt and sin and rise up a new creature, another warrior for God standing ready to do battle against the enemy and all his lies and tricks, in Jesus name, Amen

Choose ye this day whom you will serve

ranger59 — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:03:00 +0000

The scripture from Joshua”Choose ye this day whom you will serve” brings to mind a very important decision that everyone must make. If you havnt made the decision yet, then you are serving mammon, you are serving this world. You might be thinking I serve God, I do good things, just not all the time, well the bad news is… no you are not. If you are serving God, he is your Master, in all things. As preached yesterday you have to get to a tipping point. God will save you from yourself if you choose him, you won’t bounce from Gods world to Satans world back and forth. This is a doctrine that we have made up from our own humanity,and told ourselves we can’t do it, we are bound to continue in sin, continue being ” lukewarm christians” and that we cant be freed from bondage.This is not at all what the Bible teaches us, God has “saved” many people throughout the years, from themselves, their sin, their sicknesses. We just need to be sick of ourself, get to that tipping point, make a decision and choose ye this day whom you will serve. By the way, as for me and my house… we will serve the Lord!! God bless you

Jesus is real

ranger59 — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:32:26 +0000

Welll, what a great day in the Lord we had yesterday.We began with a Spirit filled lesson from one of the Brothers about belief and faith, and what is different today from 2000 years ago, Jesus said, when two or three are gathered in my name there am I also. We spent some time on that and what does it really mean, well, as with most things in the Bible, it means what it says. This puts conversations, prayer and worship into a complete different arena if you take the time to think on this.His Spirit descends on us each time we get together in his name. Another realization is that we remain human beings, we dont transform to spiritual Guru’s. It helps me to understand Holy as humans are capable of, with pain, with emotion, with joy and gladness, with responsibilities etc. but free from sin, free from course jesting, upright and determined to live the will of the father. We still live in the fleshly bodies, as Jesus did. He spoke as we do, he got dust in his eyes, he got the flu and colds, he felt hunger, he felt tired, all the same daily stuff yet he was Holy, as we are and can be without floating around in the sky as a spirit.I guess what I am trying to put into words is Jesus and holiness is very REAL and attainable, where, for years I kinda felt it was another unattainable existence. And for Jesus to be in our midst it also is not attainable, with an experience of burning bushes etc. If he said when two or three are gathered together, well, thats what it is, and what it feels like, not something supernatural. I write this as a help to put a “regular” perspective on the topic, to help peoples belief everywhere, Our God is a living God, his word is alive, changes and healings are happening daily for people, you dont have to have “wings” and know the “Bible” back an forth to be Holy and commune with Christ. Sin is what keeps us separated, we need to repent of them, we need to turn from them, We can walk with Christ not only as our Lord and Saviour, but also as our Brother.

Im Free

ranger59 — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:33:52 +0000

I guess there was a reason we were so excited about going to worship yesterday, our Lord must have been paving the way, preparing my heart for what was about to happen. The songs began, and the gift we have, the sacrifice made on my behalf, the thought of me being restored, made whole, complete, contented, and free began to well up inside me, I began to get shaky and sort of weak, then we sang “It is well with my soul” and we got to the part: ” my sins not in part but the whole were nailed to the cross” I began to get overwhelmed with joy and sorrow. A mental image came to me that I will never forget. recently I went to nail up a sign for a garage sale on a telephone pole and couldnt find a spot, there were so many nails left there by others over the years. Well, I pictured the cross, I pictured my Jesus dying on it, gasping for air and my sins were like darts hitting the cross, all around him, and they would’nt stop they just kept coming, they FILLED the whole cross, every square inch of it, stacked on top of each other even, this is when I realized to a different degree than ever before just how much grace I had been given, how my life had been, in the name of fun, sin and little else, day in and day out for years. I saw the cross, and couldnt figure out how he could take so much all at once, it was overwhelming, then I thought of others, I was just 1 man, how could he do it? There was’nt even any more room for someone elses sin on the cross. Wow! what an impression this left on me, as I continued to think about this during the rest of the day, I tried to imagine me putting one more nail in the cross, I cant do it. I cant be the one to put even one more nail in his cross, ever!! I pray that this testimony has such a profound affect on others that they too will decide not to claim Christ then keep nailing him to the cross daily, it is an insult, a slap in the face, an ungrateful attitude to accept his grace for all that we have done, have him bear our heavy load of sin and guilt, and then keep adding to it daily,” no Jesus, dont get up because Im gonna have another one to put on you shortly” how cruel!The bible says he came to free us from our sins, and that if we continue in sin we have not known him. I dont know how I overlooked these scriptures for so many years, but my eyes are open now, and I have been freed, I am free from the bondage of sin. I have decided to follow Jesus !!