Month: March 2025

This past weekend I was honored to host a group that attended a local conference which is held here every year.

It is a pagan conference, and my friends go to discover information and also to meet with people there, get to know them some, and perhaps give a word of truth if possible.

Truth = Jesus

The stories they tell are compelling and interesting. The people that are attending the conference are all extremely needy. Many are the outcasts of our society. Most are formerly “Christian.”

There are witches and druids, pagans and a few Satanists. (Satanists don’t really fit in either, though.) Luciferians are all present. Lots of trans people, obese people, and mentally struggling people.

They have found community and acceptance from the pagan world.

What a terrible thing to realize and learn of, for someone (like me) who follows Jesus. Christ followers should have embraced and loved these dear people FIRST!

Sadly, many had horrible stories of rejection by churches claiming to be Christian.

Minneapolis has become a real capital of paganism. There are thousands of pagans that have moved here, multiple covens call this home. This is a mission field.

May Christ be preached to the pagan, the heathen, the lost.

Let’s go!

MARANATHA!

I am reading Psalm 71 every day this year. Last Easter we were honored to host house guests who are missionaries to Japan. The husband/dad had gone to high school with Brian 40 years ago. He married a Japanese woman. They have two children.

Ministry in Japan is difficult. My assessment of the church in Japan is this; Japanese are a very proud and self reliant people. They are efficient and capable. They really don’t need answers to life’s problems. Their way has worked for centuries.

I lived in Germany for two years. Germans are similar: talented, hardworking, clean, efficient, gifted, self-reliant. I got the same vibe in Japan. The society works well. There is a very strong mindset which is hard to divert from.

Mavericks aren’t welcome.

For anyone to choose Christ in Japan is a cultural death sentence. There are about 1 million Christians in Japan, out of 130 million. This number grows slowly. There is definitely growth. People are recognizing their need for the truth of the Gospel.

To become a believer is courageous. Those who do are very strong believers. They have made a huge choice. Often they lose family and friends for Jesus. Faith choice comes at great cost. Japan is mostly atheistic in belief systems, but there is still a huge faction paying respect to the dead and to the ancient religions, Buddhism and Taoism, the teachings of Confucius, and various other religions. Christianity is the marked minority belief.

So, my friends, who are missionaries to Japan, understand difficult ministry.

I was blessed to get to know these friends over the holiday weekend that they visited. Before they left they gave me Psalm 71 as a word of encouragement for me. I read it several times over the rest of the year, but decided to read it daily in 2025.

What a blessing this Psalm is!

It encourages and strengthens. I plan to share a verse every day over the next 24 days (24 verses) on social media.

I think it’s a good plan. We need to encourage each other in this dark spiritual climate. Things may look chaotic, perhaps to some the world looks brighter, but to many things are spinning out of control.

We await our King, but the world awaits theirs. That beast system is coming, even as Scripture has prophesied. There will be a ruler, a Christ figure, who is the antithesis of our Lord and Savior. This person will set up a hopeful kingdom but it will ultimately fail.

According to the symbolic plan that the Lord gives us in the array of feasts ordained from the time of Moses we believers will not see that kingdom. We will be feasting with our bridegroom in glory.

We will be celebrating God’s Kingdom with Him, the marriage supper of the Lamb.

This is the plan.

Looks like it will happen soon, too.

MARANATHA!

I was down with a cold over the weekend. Sneezing, sore throat, etc.

But sickness has a benefit of quieting the mind at times. I thought about politics, health, family, friends, goals, dreams, bills, and Jesus.

My Bible reading was helpful. I have found over the many decades of “quiet time” that the consistent and sequential plan of Bible reading is most beneficial to my spiritual walk. God always speaks to me in the plan.

I’m currently reading five chapters a day in my Henry Morris Study Bible. I also read (KJV) the corresponding day of the month/chapter in Proverbs. (Today is the 17th, Proverbs 17) and I also read Psalm 71 every day.

Add to that “Daily Light on the Daily Path” and Institute of Creation Research “Days of Praise” and I get a sweet diet of spiritual counsel. It takes me about 45 minutes every morning.

It was a few years ago that Jude 23 hit me in a different light. I developed a list that I prayed for daily, a “Snatch List” that covers everyone I want to be in eternity with, that I plea for before the Lord to snatch them from the fire.

Maybe it’s like praying a Rosary, or something, but here, on this St. Patrick’s Day, I avow that I am just a plain Christ-follower, a Christian. I love Jesus and I believe the Holy Bible.

I am a believer in the power of prayer.

I went to funeral last Saturday. The man was born to a German Roman Catholic family. His parents and an older sibling had emigrated from Germany in the 1920’s. It was a good funeral. The gospel was preached, and the testimony of the man’s faith was pretty solid.

The service, in a Free Church, was a nice respectful blend of Protestant and Catholic for his mostly Catholic family.

Traditions are fine if the life of the Holy Spirit is in them. Dead traditions are worthless.

I affirm faith in Scripture, faith in Christ.

I liked what the pastor said about “belief” and the strong, willful meaning of it regarding faith. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.”

He chose to use this English word in the sense of putting absolute trust and faith in someone. Jesus.

This belief will change a life, fill a heart, heal a spirit, give joy and peace. This is the truth of faith in Christ.

So I pray for my Snatch List, that each and every person on it will seek that type of “Belief.”

I am praying in accordance to God’s will, as He is not willing that any perish.

Each person must willingly make a decision to follow Christ, but the Holy Spirit must open the eyes of the spiritually blind. This transaction is what I am praying for.

You may be on my snatch list.

I am resting in the confidence of answered prayer in Jesus’ name. I will find out the results when I am with the Lord, and at that time I can trust Him to be everything to me, all of my desires and dreams.

I will pray for these loved/listed ones until that day.

Start a Snatch List. Let’s pray these loved ones into the kingdom of heaven.

We are called to be light. We are not to hide it under a bushel, as Jesus preached in his Sermon on the Mount. We need to be constantly interacting, sowing seeds, speaking the truth and the Gospel to everyone that we can!

Prayer is the basis for that action.

Lately I have been under severe spiritual attack. Warfare. I can almost feel the presence of evil beings as they put thoughts of failure and inadequacy in my mind. I’ve even listened to those voices! I’ve agreed with them.

Several of my friends are also being attacked with the same lies.

The battle is real. We need to be in the Word, we need to be in prayer. We need to be confessing our thoughts and sin before the Lord—-

In the morning, when I rise, give me Jesus.

His mercies are new every morning.

Each day is a brand new start.

Remember Anne of Green Gables? That wonderful quote she had? Each day is a brand new day with no mistakes in it! (It was something like that.)

We need to walk spiritually like that. Too often we are mired in the mistakes and sins of the day before, week before, years before—

Start fresh. Pray. Get a snatch list. Be light.

Jesus is coming again soon.

Are you ready?

PERHAPS TODAY!

MARANATHA!!!

Choices must be made.

Today I choose to be grateful! I choose to do what I don’t want to do; exercise, listen to music, breathe in the fresh spring air, stare at the sky.

So many of us are affected by depression. The dark panic that closes in at times can be suffocating, frightening. This gray time of year is a surprise pitfall for us. The beauty and expectancy of spring is marred by lack of color and whimsical weather.

As believers in Christ we know the truth and have a foundation for blessings and praise. I can choose to praise God in my darkness.

Inevitably that will help me.

I took my B vitamins, D and C. I ate my handful of cashews.

But the road is hard! Spiritual battles are happening all around us. I am burdened with other’s burdens, not to mention the ones I’m carrying.

And yet I tell myself that God knows the end game. He isn’t going to leave me hopeless. I will adopt the attitude of gratefulness and expectancy.

I will put my trust in Him, the Ruler of Creation.

It’s the waiting game.

Pray for us who struggle with depression.

It’s all in the attitude.

And Jesus knows.

Come Lord Jesus. Come soon. We are waiting for Your glorious appearing.

MARANATHA!