Pastor Michael Johnson

You must be born again

Have you been born again?

Jesus told us in the Bible that we must be born again if we want to see the kingdom of God.

Many people grow up hearing stories about heaven. Even if you did not come from a religious family, humanity is regularly conversing about what happens to us after we die.

Some people believe we become nothing. Others believe we turn into energy. Some believe that we are reincarnated just to live life again on earth (sometimes in a better state, other times in a worse state).

Some people believe that there is some paradise or heaven that people can go to after life on earth is over.

The Bible teaches just such a reality.

When we breathe our last here on earth, we will stand before God and then either be allowed and invited into His heavenly kingdom or turned away.

According to the Bible these are the only two possibilities.

And Jesus told us that the only way to see heaven is to be born again.

So I ask you: Have you been born again?

You might say, “what does that mean?” You might tell me that you have gone to church, read your Bible, given money to the poor and to the church, you might even tell me that you were baptized in a certain church or have membership in a specific church.

But the question about heaven is not based on these, it is only based on whether or not we have been born again.

I have asked people this question (or something like it) for many years. Some of the people have been children while others were teens. Some of the adults I have asked were young and new to church, others were old and had been in church for many, many years.

Yet I asked them the question: “Have you been born again?”

And the reason I ask, is because I don’t want any to spend eternity away from the Lord and His faithful, loving, righteous presence.

And this is how you are born again:

You must confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is the Son of God, who came to earth, was crucified, killed and resurrected for the forgiveness of your sins
You must humbly surrender your life to the Lord admitting that you are a sinner and that you need a Savior
You must believe that His grace is sufficient to forgive you of sins and save your soul
You must deny yourself and follow Jesus, faithfully listening to Him and obeying His Word

God Himself is the one who gives us salvation and new birth. But we must acknowledge our sins and our need for a Savior.

And it’s not enough to simply agree in our mind that God exists and that Jesus died on the cross and that we have sinned. Instead we must acknowledge it to God and begin a relationship and a journey with Him, where He changes us from the inside out.

This is how we get to see heaven one day!

And the other cool thing is that even before we die, when we are born again we will begin to see heaven even here on earth by the work of God in us and in our lives.

Will you pray with me to be born again today?

“Dear Jesus,

Thank you for coming to earth and dying on the cross for my sins and rising again for my eternal life. Please forgive me of my sins and come and live in my heart. Help me to live daily for you. Please get me ready for heaven and thank you for loving me and saving me!

In Jesus’ name we pray

AMEN!”

If you prayed this prayer (with all sincerity and faith) God has given you new birth and you will go to heaven one day! In the meantime, He has much to teach you and amazing things He wants to do in you and through you.

So please, find a church, a Godly pastor/teacher/friend who will help you learn the Bible and grow and I even encourage you to reach out to me to tell me you have been born again and see what help I can give you on your journey of faith.

Devotion #5 – Colossians 3:5

Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed which amounts to idolatry. (Colossians 3:5)

This verse repeats and goes into a little more detail about the meaning of Colossians 3:3a “You have died.” It is up to us to willingly and willfully place ourselves as a living sacrifice on the altar. As Romans 12:1 reminds us, we are supposed to “present [ ]our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is [ ] our spiritual service of worship.”

We are to die to the world, to sin and to selfishness.

The Bible tells us that we are slaves to whatever has mastered us and to whatever master we obey. We cannot allow temptations to call the shots in our lives. We must not allow our appetites to control us.

Someone once asked me if I would like to give control of my life to someone who had the same experience, wisdom and resources that I have. My answer of course was “no!” Their follow-up question was simply then: “Why would you want to have you yourself in charge of your life?!”

When we give control of our lives to the Lord, we are entrusting our lives into the protection and care of one who is infinitely wiser, more experienced and more amply resourced than we are.

A lie the devil loves to tell people is that if they give up their lives to the Lord, the result will be a boring life with God making demand after demand and making us uncomfortable and even miserable. But the reality is that when we count ourselves as dead to the temporal things, the earthly things, the wicked things of this world, and instead surrender ourselves fully to God, He will bless us, and will be able to transform and sanctify us.

But it takes us saying that we are dead to “immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed.” We have to allow those things no control in our lives. Sadly, when we do live for those things we are making for ourselves idols and not in fact serving the one true God who is able to make us wise for salvation, able to make us holy and ultimately able to make us happy.

Don’t serve the idols of appetite and worldly hedonism. Instead “crucify the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24) and count yourself dead to those things which will only bring oppression and destruction. Instead place yourself on the altar, fully surrendering to God’s will and God’s way and let Him work in and through you in marvelous and miraculous ways!

Are you dead to immortality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed?

Are you making hedonism and your appetite into idols that you serve instead of God?

Are you willing to crucify the flesh with its passions and desires?

Devotion #4 – Colossians 3:4

When Christ, who is our life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. (Colossians 3:4 )

Christ, who is our life…Chapters and books could be written just about this phrase alone! But to fully understand it we also have to go back to the Garden of Eden when God breathed His very own breath (“Ruach”) into Adam and Eve and gave them sentience and consciousness. But we also know that after the fall, the life within humanity was limited. Why is that? Because the only thing that animates us, empowers and sources us is the breath of God. So when our relationship with Him is fractured, strained and broken then the life within us is strained and stained.

But then Jesus comes and breathes on the disciples and tells them to receive the Spirit of God. He is renewing the life within them. He is re-sourcing, re-viving and re-”lifing” them! The “pneuma” of God in the New Testament is the same as the breath of God in the Old Testament and it is only by His breath that we really live.

Thankfully He has not removed all of His breath/spirit from the earth or else all life would cease to be (Job 34:14). Like the Bible says about the fact that He rains on the righteous and the wicked, even so He has lent His breath to both the righteous and the wicked, but He desires to bring new breath, new life, new wind into the hearts of humanity. He wants us in fact to be people of the wind (see John 3:8) Jesus told us that He is “the way, the truth and the life” and also that He is “the resurrection and the life.”

So may we always remember: Christ Himself is our life, when we believe Him and receive Him.

But when will He be revealed? So many times and in so many ways! Of course this is looking towards His coming again, when all creation will know that He is King of kings and Lord of lords, but it also is true that when He is revealed, manifest and made known (in church services, through love and by miracles) then so long as we are hidden in Him and He in us, we will be seen as belonging to Him. And then when the day comes, that He appears in the Eastern Sky, we also will be with Him in glory forever!

So the question is: Is Christ Jesus your life? Have you allowed Him to re-animate and re-vive you?

If He is your life, are you relying on Him for strength, wisdom and direction?

Also, when He is revealed to the world one day, will they then see you revealed with Him? Or will you be revealed as only being part of this world and following self, the world or the devil?

If Christ truly is your life, are you asking Him and seeking His Word so that He alone will be the source for your thoughts, words, actions and reactions?

Devotion #3 – Colossians 3:3

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

This is a strange verse. What does it mean that I “have died”?

Romans 6:11 helps with understanding this: “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus”.

We are supposed to be dead to sin, dead to self, dead to the devil and dead to the wicked ways of the world. And on the other hand we are made alive by Christ.

Romans 6:8 says “if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” So by dying to sin and self we know that God Himself resurrects us to new life in Christ. Furthermore when we are resurrected we are in fact “raised…up with Him, and seated…with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”. (Ephesians 2:9)

So here we are instructed (yet again) that as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, God has lifted us up by His grace and actually placed us IN Jesus in heavenly places. As a matter of fact not only are we abiding in Him, we are sitting with Him overlooking the earthly realm, unhindered, untethered, unrestricted by earthly things. The temporary things should no longer have a hold on us! That includes worldliness, materialism, fleshly lusts, wickedness and selfishness.

This only happens though if first we die. We have to believe, and in believing we die to self, die to sin and die to the world. In believing, we lay ourselves entirely at His feet as living sacrifices so that He can do what He wants to with us.

And you know what He wants to do with us? Place us INSIDE of Christ! Remember when John recorded Jesus’ words about Him abiding (dwelling) in us? He also said that we must abide in Him. Of course this is hard for us to understand because we don’t see Him and we think “of course His Spirit can dwell in us, but how can I dwell in Him?”

Instead of worrying so much about how it is possible, let’s accept the reality that God has in fact done it for all who believe.

So now Jesus is our clothing. We wear Him on ourselves like a robe. A robe of righteousness. God Himself is our armor: He is our protection, the One who shields us. We are “hidden” with Christ in God which means that we are secure, anchored, covered, surrounded, and like Scripture says elsewhere “hemmed in.”

Are you hidden with Christ in God? You are if you have believed and been born again!

Are you abiding in and dwelling in Him as He also has sent His Spirit to dwell in you?

Are you daily denying yourself and dying so that it is His life that is one display in you?

Why does it have to be this way?

Do you ever get overwhelmed by the foolish, broken, incompetent, overly-complicated or unnecessary things in this life? (you know like technology, cars, customer service, etc)

I know I do!

People make things harder than they need to be:

And we over-promise and under-deliver.
And sometimes we leave a wake of chaos and confusion behind us.
And the end result is stress, frustration and disappointment because of the actions of others.

So what do we do when this happens?

Often times, I feel like losing my mind!

I feel my frustration and anger growing, and I simply want to blow off steam like a tea-kettle that is finally boiling.

But I realize that doesn’t help me, nor is it what is best for the people around me or my witness.

So I have to take a deep breath.

And pray.

And ask God to help put things in perspective.

“This is not the worst that could happen – This is not the end of the world – This is not insurmountable – This can be overcome – Don’t let this steal my joy – Help me to walk by faith – Give me strength and patience to go through this – Help me to look forward to the day when I will be in heaven with you and all this broken mess will be a thing of the past.”

Sometimes I have to walk around to clear my head.

Other times I may need to read or quote a Scripture.

Sometimes I just have to stop thinking about or dealing with that particular aggravation at that moment, knowing I can come back at another time with the energy, patience and wisdom that God will provide.

I hate that it has to be like this sometimes for you and for me.

I wish it weren’t so.

But in the middle of a fallen and broken world, full of sinful, selfish and imperfect people, and imperfect things and situations, these types of things are bound to happen (or as Jesus said: “In this world you will have trouble”).

But may we always remember that Jesus has overcome the world and that He invites us to more than overcomers in Him as well! There is a way through this, as we call on His mighty name!

Devotion #2 – Colossians 3:2

Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth… (Colossians 3:2)

When our mind is set on earthly things, we are often overwhelmed by them. We think about not having enough time to get everything done. And yet time is not a problem in heaven, because everything is timeless and eternal there. When we dwell on earthly things we think about how heavy the load is. But in heaven there is no such thing as a crushing load. For God will remove all pain and suffering and wipe away every tear.

You may say: “That’s true in heaven but we are here on earth.”

And yet we are also told in Ephesians that if we are in Christ we are in fact “in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Somehow, by His Spirit and power at work within us we are simultaneously living in the heavenly kingdom and on earth at the same time. So therefore we know that we actually have heaven’s power at work within us while we are here on earth. That should be something we should meditate on!

When we think about the things that are here on earth we think about sin and oppressors and despotic/tyrannical leaders. When we think about earthly things, we think about trauma, abandonment and betrayal. But when we think about heavenly things we think about redemption, forgiveness and eternal life. When we keep our mind fixed on the things above we think about deliverance from guilt and shame as well as freedom from loneliness, sickness and death.

This verse builds on the first verse, which reminds us that Jesus is seated on His throne in heaven. And when we think about this we are reminded that He is there actively interceding for us. In addition to this He is preparing a place for us and awaiting the moment His Father sends Him back to gather His bride (the church) and bring her to glory.

To spend our time thinking about these things has far more value, depth, beauty and power than thinking about the things that are broken here on earth. This Bible verse is not about ignoring the plight of humanity on earth but instead fixing our mind on the answer, the provision, the redemption and the salvation that is available from heaven in spite of whatever is going on here on earth.

Will you choose to keep your mind on Christ and on heavenly things?

Will you surrender now to God the earthly things that you cannot control anyway?

Devotional – Colossians 3:1

I will be sharing a new devotional every week. I hope that you will take your Bible and a prayer journal so that you can listen to the Lord and spend time meditating on His Word and sharing with Him your life and your heart.

Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God… (Colossians 3:1)

IF — the offer is made to all people. The invitation is “come follow me” and “humble yourself and I will lift you up.” But it is all contingent upon the “if.” Will you believe? Will you receive? Will you obey? The promise from God is established. The atoning work of Jesus is finished. But you and I have to choose. And if we choose Christ, we know that He has already chosen us and already made a way. Will you let Him save you and raise you up?

You have been raised up with Christ — once the “if” is settled between us and God, the reality is that He absolutely lifts us up. Out of the muck and mire. Out of despondency. Out of darkness and into His wonderful light. And the raising up is from death unto life. The raising up is participating in the resurrection power and victory of Christ. And in addition to that, the raising up is participating in the ascension of Christ, because God has placed us in Christ Jesus who in fact is at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.

Therefore — what’s that word there for? Precisely to remind us that contingent upon believing and receiving and then being raised up with Christ, we have a responsibility for something that we must do. Ours is not a passive receiving or a passive believing or waiting on God. Instead ours is to be an active faith that indicates we have something we must actively do. What is it that we are to be actively engaged in?

Keep seeking the things above where Christ is — we know that Christ is at the right hand of the Father. Once He ascended He resumed His ruling and reigning from heaven on His throne. From that place He is also interceding from us, preparing a place for us, and awaiting the moment of His return to claim His bride. Are we seeking things above? Are we seeking to understand God’s rule and reign over all things? Are we willing to change our focus from the temporal to the eternal?

May you and I receive God’s invitation, allow God to raise us up (in salvation as well as perspective and faith) and then let us keep seeking the heavenly things. May we ask the Lord to help us discern the things we should be thinking about, meditating on and daily pursuing.

Have you received?

Are you seeking the things above?

Life is hard – God is good

Dear friend,

Life is hard.

But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.

And yet it can help when we realize that others see what we are going through.

So, may this post help you to know:

You are seen
Your cries are heard
You are not alone!

When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, He told Moses that He had heard the cries of His people, had seen their struggles and their misery and that He had prepared a plan to deliver them.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if God, or an angelic or prophetic messenger from Him, saw all the hardships you are facing and said to you: “God sees you and hears you and is going to give you all the help you need.”

I hope this blog post serves just such a role in your life.

The Bible tells us over and over again:

The Lord will not leave you or forsake you.
The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.
Do not be afraid.

So in all of your trials and tribulations, may you be reminded today that God is near, God is more than able to help you and that He in fact delights in giving you mercy and grace for your time of need.

Don’t give up hope. Don’t hang your head in despair.

Just keep trusting the Lord. Lean on Him and find rest in His unfailing love!

What does it mean to love your neighbor?

Let us remember that love is sacrificial action. It is a decision of the will to desire and work for what is best for that person (both for now and for eternity)
It first starts by noticing your neighbor
- “Who is my neighbor?” A question asked of Jesus by one who wanted to excuse his neglect of neighbor
- “Am I my brother’s keeper?” A question asked to God by one who wanted to abdicate himself from personal responsibility regarding the welfare of another
And seeing what they are facing
- What pain
- What heartache
- What disappointment
- What suffering
- What oppression
- What captivity
- What injustice
And then working for their hope, their provision, their redemption, their deliverance, etc.
If they are in pain because of sickness, disease or injury, we pray for their healing, anoint them with oil in the name of Jesus, refer them to doctors and medical science.
If they are in heartache because of the loss of a loved one or a dream or a relationship, we sit and listen to them, we give them a shoulder to lean on, we pray for them.
If they are in disappointment because circumstances haven’t turned out like they thought we pray for and with them and share with them the promises of God and His heart to provide for them and give them hope and a future.
If it is suffering we should seek to discover the source of their suffering. We should seek to comfort them and pray for God’s relief in their life, but if we can offer relief through a blanket or food or water or medicine or companionship we also do that.
If it is oppression because spiritual forces of wickedness are accusing and belittling and condemning them, then we share the hope of Scripture and the promises of freedom in the name and power of Jesus.
If it is captivity that they are in because of addiction or human enslavement we seek to help them to be set free. We pray for their deliverance but we also work for them to be connected with addiction recovery tools, groups, counselors, etc but if it is human captivity we pray for their release and work for their deliverance through diplomacy and appropriate appeals to authority.
If it is injustice we must defend their cause, appeal as necessary to authority figures, pray for God to grant them relief and justice and in the meantime help to make sure that their basic (and spiritual) needs are still met while waiting for some manner of earthly justice and of course God’s perfect justice.

We can’t turn a blind eye

There are so many truly difficult, painful and troubling things in this world.

And so often we would prefer not to see those things or let those things bring anxiousness or chaos into our own lives.

You might even say to yourself “Not my problem” or “Not gonna let that crazy in here.”

But we can’t turn a blind eye to people in need. We can’t bury our head in the sand and ignore the problems in the world around us.

As Christians, we have tasted of the peace and joy of the Lord in our own hearts and in the church, and we are looking forward to the perfect paradise in heaven that God is preparing for us. But in the meantime, we are in a broken and fallen world, and we need to ask the Lord to open our eyes to the heartache around us. We need to ask the Lord to help us to know the difference between right and wrong and that He would instruct us about what is truly right and just.

There is much injustice, unfairness and selfishness exhibited in many relationships and homes. Similarly, in corporations, Hollywood and Washington, there is much that is wrong. And we need the Lord to help us to see clearly when things that are said and done are against His holy and loving ways.

And when our eyes are opened we need the Lord to then help us know what to do.

Sometimes we just pray. Other times we seek to help others know the truth. Sometimes we may have to warn people. May we ask the Lord to open our eyes to what is wrong in the world around us so that we can pray, graciously point people to the truth in Christ and so that we can offer a helping hand to those who are in pain, abused, exploited, enslaved or all alone.

May we as Christians never seek the peace and solace of heaven so much that we ignore or disregard the people here on earth who are hurting or being mistreated by others.