It's just Grace

I have a friend that was talking about another friend and describing this friend she said that he often says:

"Its Grace, Its Just Grace."

In other words, Why are WE, as wretched as we are, saved?, How can all this be true? How can it be so simple to receive? How? Why is there God and us?

"Its just Grace, its just Grace."

Sometimes theres just no words. Sometimes I think too much. But Jesus said, " Unless you be like a little child you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Not a direct paraphrase.) To believe is to trust God and sometimes we just have to trust God even when we can't fathom.
I have a rough mutt-like dog that lives in my grandfather's back yard and it is not great at taking commands. It needs to be trained to listen to my WORDS. In that way, we need to be trained to listen to GOD'S words. To His WORD. I feel like I had alot more thoughts that flowed in my brain easier but it boils down to this: His Word is truth. The scripture is God's words, expressions. laws. thoughts. commands. What He has to say. Why do we get it? Grace.

its just Grace. Please let me be humble to accept that Gift.

I'm in this strange process of waiting. Sometimes I'm not sure what I'm waiting for. Here's one I was happy to get:

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path. "
Proverbs 3:5

I wish i had taken a picture of when it was just now raining. (Its stormin In CA by the way. That means Compton too.) I had to run across the street and I felt like a little kid and I knew He was making it rain. Man, to feel like that always.

Still here. Still made to know God, just like you.

"Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart

and you will find rest for your souls.

For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

Jesus

i want His name to be more than a name to me. He has promised much. I want to see Him. I, we were made to know HIM.

more to come God willing.

O soul, are you weary and troubled?No light in the darkness you see?There’s light for a look at the Savior,And life more abundant and free!
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,Look full in His wonderful face,And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,In the light of His glory and grace.

This is why some people cant be ushers.

I am not, repeat AM NOT, saying that this is the way church should actually be. it is just a joke of someone taking the great commission too far. please dont write comments about how heretical I am.

Is is true that a church should never be without evangelism and that everybody is called to reach out to the world. I'm speaking alot to myself as I tend to be very fearful of witnessing, but God does a work regardless.

what is the great commission?

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
"teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; Matthew 28:19, 20

How Chris Richards met God

My pastor Johnny always says something along the lines of, "youre not saved if you don't have a testimony."

At one point in my life I didn't know God and was going to hell. Then there came a point where I met Him, I knew Him and I recieved the forgiveness that He promises. That is what a testimony is: a story about the day you met the Lord and how he changed you. If you dont have a story like that, are you born again?

Ive been working on this for a long time and finally had the chance to finish and post it (by the Grace of God).

This is NOT my testimony - Chris Richards is part truth/part fiction but there are many bits of my life that inspire him, more on that later. I hope to make more stories about these characters.

I hope this edifies you if you know God and witnesses to you if you dont. God is the one who supplied the talent and the resources and if it wasnt for Him, I wouldn't draw comics about God because I wouldn't know Him or love Him.

I'm curious what people think. and ALSO - if you leave a comment - it would be cool to hear you guys comment about your testimonies. when did you meet God? lemme know.(p.s. sorry its so big)

Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:3

How Chris Richards met God

You betta praise Christ

Based on my friend Joseph (I dont think it looks like him but oh well.)
He's been sayin this alot recently. and its true.

Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
I Corinthians 6:19, 20


Hard to do sometimes.

Surrender to what God wants. He's in charge.

more posts to come...

One more thing....

Jesus Christ loves you and He came so that you could be saved from sin, made whole and reconciled to God.

Search the scriptures for yourself and see...

His words, not mine.

5 quotes from Jesus Christ that everyone should know. #5

Jesus, after having been crucified and put away in a secure tomb, appears to His disciples. The scriptures say He showed them His wounds and then to prove that His glorified body was flesh and blood, he ate in front of them.

To the amazed and afraid group, He said:

#5

Then He said to them, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me."

And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.

Then He said to them, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day,

"and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."
Luke 24:44-47


The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was prophesied, told about before hand, THOUSANDS of years before Christ was even born.

(God talking to Satan)
And I will put enmity

Between you and the woman,

And between your seed and her Seed;

He shall bruise your head,

And you shall bruise His heel."
Gen 3:15

For dogs have surrounded Me;

The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me.

They pierced My hands and My feet;
Psalm 22:16


Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,

And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,

Because He poured out His soul unto death,

And He was numbered with the transgressors,

And He bore the sin of many,

And made intercession for the transgressors.
Isaiah 53:12

The sending, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was more than just God doing something great for us, it was God telling mankind He would do something great and then doing it.

Salvation through Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all Scripture.

And because Jesus Christ fulfilled the prophecies, it is only through HIS name that repentance and forgivness of sins can be preached TO THE WORLD.

Jesus Christ is God's answer to sin and the only one through which we can be saved.

5 quotes from Jesus Christ that everyone should know. #4

#4

".......He said, "It is finished!" And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit."
John 19:30


Jesus' last words on the cross. What was finished? His life? Why is this significant?

The New Testament was originally written in Greek. In the original Greek, the word 'finished' is translated 'teleo' which is an accounting term meaning to complete or pay, as in a debt.

Jesus clearly uses an accounting term to describe the end of His death. why? The Scriptures teach that the death of Christ was a sacrificial death. Sin had to be punished. SIN HAD TO BE PUNISHED and we deserved the wrath of God but God sent His son and, on the cross, Christ took that punishment for us. The payment for sin was payed by Jesus Christ on the cross.

"Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him;

He has put Him to grief."
Isaiah 53:10

"For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

2 Corinthians 5:21

Jesus Christ declared that His death was a payment.

5 quotes from Jesus Christ that everyone should know. #3

#3

"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.

"In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
John 14:1-3

Jesus made this statement at the last supper with His disciples. He was going to be arrested, beaten and crucified soon. He was preparing His followers for His death but also trying to explain to them that He would see life again and that after that He would return to the Father.

This statement is clear and simple: Not only was Jesus going to defy death and be reunited with His Heavenly Father but He was going to make a place where His followers would be reunited with Him and The Father. There is a Heaven and Jesus promised it to all those who put their trust in Him.

Jesus Christ promised that all who trust in Him will be reunited with Him and the Father in Heaven.

Five quotes from Jesus Christ that everyone should know. #2.

"Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves."

#2

"And He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a 'den of thieves.'" Matthew 21:12, 13

Twice during His lifetime (as far as it is recorded) Jesus entered into the temple in Jerusalem and chased out the men in the temple who sold animals and exchanged money.

These men would sell "acceptable" sacrifices at a higher rate to people who needed them to offer to God. They would also exchange currency for foreigners who needed to tithe, adding extra fees.

They were using the house of God to make money.

When Jesus Christ cleared these men out He was quoting Scripture, notice "as it is written.."

The Scriptures He quotes are from Isaiah 56:7 ("My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.") and Jeremiah 7:11 ("Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of thieves in your eyes ?")

Both of these verses are verses that are spoken by GOD. Yet Jesus is referring to Himself.

Jesus claimed the authority to clear out the house of God because it was HIS HOUSE.

Jesus Christ, in clearing out the temple and quoting those Scriptures, claimed to be GOD.

5 quotes from Jesus Christ that everyone should know. #1

The woman said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?

"Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?"

#1.

Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,

"but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."

Jesus promised a water that would quench thirst. It was not a literal water like the water of the well but something that would quench man on the inside, in the spirit.

Every human being, regardless of who they are or what they have, has a thirst inside of them, a void, an emptiness. The woman Jesus was talking to was trying to fill her void with relationships. (John 4:17, 18)

This living water Jesus was talking about was the Holy Spirit of God which is given to those that repent of their sin and trust Jesus Christ.

"On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.

"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." John 7:37, 38

According to Jesus Christ, this same Holy Spirit will satisfy the void inside of you.

Jesus Christ says that He can fulfill the emptiness of man.

Vanity of vanities, saith the Searcher [or the Debater], vanity of vanities; all is vanity (Ecc 1:2).


"There is within man that desire to know God. That desire to have fellowship with God. There is within man a vacuum that only God can fill. And if you deny the spiritual nature of man, then man can never be satisfied because this deep-down spiritual thirst will always be haunting him, telling him there's something more. There's something more. There's something more. And I feel this dissatisfaction with life. I have a thirst that I can't define. I know it's there. I know that life hasn't yet brought me fulfillment. I know there's got to be more than to life than what I've yet experienced. And I have this frustration and this is what Solomon went through. That's what he is describing. "Emptiness, emptiness, all is empty and frustrating." He's talking and the phrase is used some nine times, "Life under the sun, it is a frustrating existence."

As we get in the first part of the chapter here, they're just... life seems to move in cycles, and this, according to psychologists, is the cycle of life. And you think, "My God, is this all there is? Stop this crazy merry-go-round. I want off. I'm tired of it." And that's what Solomon came to. "Vanity, vanity; all is vanity." And frustrating. And it all comes from the denial of the spiritual nature of man. It is living life on the human plane apart from God. For the gospel of Jesus Christ comes into this cycle. And the gospel of Jesus Christ comes to me. Now, when I'm in the neurotic behavior pattern it is so often that people say, "Hey, man, you better go see a shrink. You're crazy. You're doing nutty things. You better get some help."

And so I go to a head shrink and he sits me on the couch and he gives me a series of tests and he seeks to determine what I'm feeling guilty about. And then he starts to talk to me. "Now, when you were a little boy, did your mother tell you that you shouldn't tell lies? And did she teach you that it was wrong to cheat? Well, you see, these are a part of the old Puritan ethic. They're part of the old Victorian system and everything is really relative. You've got to face the fact that there are certain situations in which it is perfectly proper to tell a lie. You shouldn't feel guilty about this, you see." And he tries to remove your guilt by telling you that it's not wrong. It's not guilty. Everybody's doing it so you've just got to join the crowd and realize that the part of that old Puritan ethic by which you were trained is the thing that's your hang-up today.

But Jesus Christ comes to me and says, "Hey man, you are guilty. That's bad news. That's wrong. But I love you. And I took your guilt and bore your guilt when I died on the cross. I took all of your sins, all of your guilt, and I paid the penalty for it. Now, if you'll just believe in Me and trust in Me, I'll forgive you." Hey, that's something no psychologist can do, is totally erase that guilt feeling. Take away this haunting feeling of guilt. But Jesus Christ and the gospel does. It's the greatest thing in the world for removing the guilt complex. If that's all the gospel did, it would be fantastic. But it does much more than that.

It comes back to the very beginning. Frustration, where it all started. And we hear Jesus on the last day of the great day of the feast as He is standing there on the Temple Mount crying to the crowds, "If any man thirsts, let him come unto Me, and drink. For he who drinks of the water that I give, out of his innermost being there will flow rivers of living water. And John said, 'This spake He of the Spirit'" (John 7:37-39). That third dimension of man that man in his educational processes today is seeking to deny, and by his denial has created all of this confusion in our society today.

All of the frustration that people experience results from the denial of the Spirit. And Jesus is saying, "You have a thirst for God in your spirit. Come to Me, come to Me and drink." And so this frustration where the whole thing started, Jesus comes to me and not only does He fill my life, does He fill that spiritual void, but He keeps pouring in until it begins to pour out from me. And my life is no longer just a sponge, thirsty, seeking to grasp for the draw, but my life now begins to flow out with that love and that grace of God's goodness that He has bestowed upon me. And now as David said, "My cup runneth over" (Psalm 23:5). My life is an overflowing cup. No longer going around with this cry and thirst and frustration within, but now the fulfillment and the fullness of God within my life as my life overflows God's goodness and grace.

So you look at life on just the human level as Solomon is looking at it, you look at man like an animal as Solomon does, you deny the spiritual dimension of man, that which places him apart from animals and above the animal kingdom, and you're opening Pandora's box to all kinds of psychological ills. You're opening to a life that can never be filled, a life of vanity and vexation of spirit. And so we are looking now through the eyes of Solomon at the world under the sun, apart from God. Man on the animal plane. And man at the highest on the animal plane is hopeless. It is not until you interject the spiritual plane and bring man into the divine plane that man can have any hope for a fulfilling, enriching, complete life."

Pastor Chuck Smith.

Amen

"I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; "that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
John 17:20,21 Sometimes it's hard to believe, sometimes there is doubt. Can I really know God? How do I know? Can He hear me? Jesus thought about us. He prayed for us and the bible says He still is. Trust in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ . Believe in Him.

And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, "Peace to you!"

Then He said to Thomas, "Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing."

And Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!"

Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." John 20:26-29 God came to earth as a man for a short period of time and directly affected a few. However, He made it very clear that the entire world would be affected by those few who were directly affected by Him. Believe in Christ who came, died and rose, and you will KNOW Him. Then when it is all over, you will see Him as Thomas did. He promised that all who believe in Him would one day be WITH Him. "LET not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. "In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. John 1:1-3 One day we will see God.

Jesus Christ is the LORD.

Happy resurrection day.

The death of Jesus Christ was not a mistake. It wasn't an unforseen accident. It was God's plan.

It was God doing exactly what He said He would do.

"..... the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death," Mathew 20:18

In order for the sin of man to be paid for, a perfect sacrifice had to die. Christ was God's perfect sacrifice. He took the punishment for our sin, it's over.

Because He died - we can live.

Turn from your sin and accept Christ - the savior of the world.

Jehovah's witness bear

please watch out for Jehovah's witness bears. I'm not even playing around.

Jehovah's witness bears are bears that don't believe Jesus is God and that blood transfusions are a sin. When you try to argue their points or reason with them from the scriptures, they pretty much just attack you.

Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.
Jude 1:3