When you see God in the small stuff, your life becomes more meaningful.

We like to compare seeing God in the small stuff to looking at the stars. If you’ve never studied astronomy, you could look at the stars all night long and never know anything about them. The sight would be beautiful, but your appreciation would be limited. However, if you were to do a little study, get a star chart, and plunk yourself down with a telescope, those little points of light would take on a much more meaning and significance.

It’s the same thing with the small points of light in your life–the places where God is working. If you don’t make an effort to know God, if you don’t read the Bible regularly, if you don’t try to look at your circumstances more closely, you will miss out on the amazing things God is doing now and wants to do in the future.

May grace and peace be yours from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Galatians 1:3

Jesus came to Earth in the past, and He is coming again in the future. Thank God for the first coming and get ready for the second.

The New Testament begins with the historical record of the first coming of Jesus to Earth, when God became a human and lived on Earth for a while. (One of the names of Jesus, Immanuel, means “God with us.”) The Bible ends with the fact that Jesus, God in the flesh, will return someday. Jesus came as a Savior the first time (the name Jesus means “Savior). When He comes again, he will be coming to reward and repay according to what people have done. And He will come unexpectedly.

All those who have accepted God’s plan of salvation through Jesus will receive the wonderful reward of eternal life in heaven. Those who have refused will receive the judgment they deserve. Are you ready for the “soon” return of Jesus?

“Yes, I am coming soon!”

Revelation 22:20

It’s never a good idea to play the percentages with God, because God is right 100 percent of the time.

We think we know why God is the only One who knows when the world is going to end. He hasn’t set the date yet. The Bible says, “The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise to return, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake” (2 Peter 3:9).

When you have patience, you wait for the right moment. We believe that God is waiting for the right moment to send Jesus back to Earth (ending the world as we know it). And that moment has a lot to do with people giving God their hearts. Of course, even God’s patience is going to run out at some point, which begs the question, “Why would anyone want to take a chance of being on the wrong side of God’s patience?”

That is why the Lord says, “Turn to me now, while there is time! Give me your hearts.”

Joel 2:12

Living a life that pleases God doesn’t come automatically.

Living life so God sees Jesus in us requires something of us: obedience. Accepting Jesus and what he did for us on the cross puts us in God’s good graces (after all, we are saved by His grace), but it doesn’t automatically mean we’re going to live our lives the way God wants us to. God didn’t force you to accept Jesus, and He’s not going to force you to live like Jesus. But He is asking.

More than anything else, God wants us to imitate Jesus in our lives. he wants us to look at each situation we encounter and ask the question, “What would Jesus do? Professor Dallas Willard put it this way: “Live your life the way Jesus would live your life is He had your life to live.” The best way we know to do that is to know what Jesus said and did, and then go out and do it.

Follow God’s example in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love for others, following the example of Christ, who loved you and gave himself as a sacrifice to take away your sins.

Ephesians 5:1-2

Question: If someone continues to sin everyday and doesn’t obey or live up to God’s Word, will he have salvation at the end?

Answer: That’s a great question, and there’s no easy answer, precisely because only God knows the heart. Only God knows if someone has truly given their life to Him by receiving Jesus by faith as Savior and Lord.

Of course, Christians continue to sin, but it isn’t something that should characterize their lives. On the other hand, if someone claims to be a Christian, and the person continues to willfully sin with no remorse and doesn’t obey God’s Word, then there is the possibility that the person never received Christ in the first place. The Bible says that it’s possible to have knowledge of the truth and yet not be saved. “Even the demons believe that [there is a God]” (James 2:19). We are not saved by good works, but we are saved unto good works. That’s what James means when he says, “Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (James 2:17). So, a person who is truly saved will want to obey God’s Word and do what it says.

Again, we can’t judge whether someone is or isn’t a Christian by their outward behavior. But each of us needs to examine our own lives to make sure we are doing those things that please God, not because they work for our salvation, but because they are the outgrowth of our salvation.

The Bible says, “how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?” (Hebrews 2:3). Listening to God and His Word means not just hearing, but also obeying (see James 1:22-25).

As a Christian, you have the unique ability to live both now and also in the future.

Do you ever confuse “hope” with “wishing”? When you say, “I hope I get a better job,” or “I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow,” do you have confidence that what you hope for will actually happen? Or is your hope more like a wish? For the Christian, hope is believing. We put our hope in God, that what He says in His Word is true. And we put our hope in Jesus, that what He did on the cross counts for us now and for the future.

We can believe by faith that Jesus lives in us here on Earth, and we can look forward with complete confidence that Jesus is coming again to take us to heaven. This is not wishing hope. This is real hope, the kind that enables us to live for God now while we look forward to living with Him in the future.

We should live in this evil world with self-control, right conduct, and devotion to God, while we look forward to that wonderful event when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed.

Titus 2:12-13

God will never see holiness in us unless He sees Jesus in us.

We shouldn’t be concerned when we come across things in the Bible that puzzle us. God’s Word is a book with many layers, kind of like an onion. Some verses are more on the surface and easily understood, while others are deeper and take more time.

The Bible’s teaching on holiness is one of those deeper truths. We clearly understand verses that say, “All have sinned” (Romans 3:23). But when we run across a verse that says, “But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God–who chose you to be his children–is holy” (1 Peter 1:15)–well, that’s tough to understand. How can sinners be holy?

The only way for us to be holy before God is for God to see Jesus–the purest of the pure–in our lives. Our job isn’t to try to be holy, but to let Jesus live through us.

For you know that God paid a ransom to save you…with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose him for this purpose….And he did this for you.

1 Peter 1:18-20

You don’t realize the meaning of Christmas until you take Jesus out of the manger and put Him in your heart.

How silly it would be to receive a gift this Christmas and leave it unopened. You would never do that. It might look pretty sitting under the tree, or on a shelf (after the tree has been chopped into kindling), but the decorative value of the package is likely to be minimal compared to the usefulness of the gift itself.

Many people never realize the real meaning of God’s Christmas gift–His Son, Jesus. They keep Him wrapped in a religious package, and then set Him on a shelf in their life because He has some decorative value to them. But they never tear away the religious wrappings. They never take Him out of the box and have a real relationship with Him.

Please, don’t make the tragic mistake of keeping Jesus under the wrapping. Enjoy the full benefit of Him by getting to know Him personally and intimately.

“The Savior–yes, the Messiah, the Lord–has been born tonight in Bethlehem, the city of David!”

Luke 2:11

People who don’t know what happens when they die don’t know that God can give them life.

From what God has told us in His Word, we have confidence and assurance of life after death. Jesus was the prototype of the “resurrected” body that every Christian will someday have in heaven. The old earthly body, with all of its limitations, will be gone. The Christian’s new body will be indestructible and immune from all defects.

Jesus gave His followers a glimpse of what was coming when He raised His friend Lazarus from the dead (John 11:17-44). Jesus wanted to demonstrate that physical death isn’t the final death. Spiritual death is the only one that counts for eternity.

The same power that Jesus used to transform the dead body of Lazarus is the same power God will use to transform our bodies when Jesus comes back to Earth (1 Cor. 15:51-57).

But let me tell you a wonderful secret God has revealed to us. Not all of us will die, but we will all be transformed.

1 Corinthians 15:51

Enjoy each day as if it were your last.

Even since Jesus left the earth nearly two thousand years ago, people have been predicting when the world is going to end. As you may have noticed, no one has gotten it right. Here’s our advice on the subject: You need to worry more about the end of your life than the end of the world.

When it comes to the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world, Jesus said that no one but God knows when it will occur (Matt. 24:36). But when it comes to the end of your life, you know that’s going to occur sometime within the next hundred years or so (we’re being a little optimistic, but you get the point).

The important thing is to be sure of these two things. Are you ready for the Lord’s return? And are you living your life fully each day until Christ comes back or you die, whichever comes first?

“However, no one knows the day or the hour when these things will happen.”

Matthew 24:36