The First Eternity

Have you ever realized that there was an eternity before what we have now on Earth? Think about this: when God placed man in the Garden of Eden, it was perfect. There was no sickness, no hurt, no pain, no Washington D.C. (um-hum), and no death. I believe God intended for life always to be that way. Walking and talking with man and woman each day.

Then, Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God, and darkness entered the world, ending perfection.

Hundreds of years later, Light once again came to the world, and the hope of a perfect eternity was now obtainable by believing that Jesus is God’s Son and accepting his gift of salvation for the forgiveness of our sins.

God never intended for people to hurt or for them to deal with sickness and disease. He didn’t want them to suffer in any way, shape or form. God didn’t want anyone to feel hunger, the pain of war, or the sting of a broken family. He never wanted to comfort a parent having to bury a child. God only wanted his best for his children.

Not living with God is choosing to live in a dump! Darkness dumps on you, most likely every week, if not every day! Your Facebook posts constantly share the pain and heartache that you deal with on a regular basis. I’m not saying you shouldn’t post those things with us because it reminds me to pray for you. And I’m not saying life with God is perfect on this side of heaven, but it is definitely better than living in a dump!

Accept God. Learn to live his ways by studying the Bible, his manuscript for living life. Walk and talk with him daily. Ask lots of questions, for He is the only one who has the correct answers. You will enjoy the victories along the way until you reach the second eternity.

John 8:12 – Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Proverbs 21:21- Whoever pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity and honor.

Romains 8:28 – And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Isaiah 41:10 – So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Copyright © 2024 Mark Brady. All rights reserved.

The End is Here

If you are reading this, in a few days you will be able to say, “I survived 2020.”  You might even be able to say that you beat Covid.  My friend in Chicago did.  I give the glory to God for that one, because he got close to the edge, but God escorted him back to give him another opportunity to accept him and his love.  I also know of a few people who didn’t.  Others have lost jobs, while some have lost their freedom to visit family, or attend a church service in person.

Yes, it’s been an especially tough year, but as I opened the mail today, and read what a friend went through in the two previous years. It was in that moment, I was reminded;

any year can be a difficult year!

That truth is a result of sin, brought into the world by the original sinners, Adam and Eve.  So even today, mankind is born into sin.  Therefore, God sent us a Savior to rescue us from ourselves.  If our greatest need had been education He would have given us a teacher.  If our greatest need would have been money then God would have given us a financial wizard.  But God, who loves us so much, and wants nothing more than to commune with us daily, gave us his son, his only son.

I have noticed the Holy Spirit has led me all year to write about God’s love, God’s son, and the free gift of salvation.  That tells me that He, God, wants to be reunited with everyone, before the end of the earth comes as we know it.

The Bible is true, and as the last book in it, Revelation, tells us in detail what is about to happen.  We are on the very threshold of the days, and events mentioned in the book of Revelation, coming true.  Please don’t dismiss God calling you home.  Don’t let another year go by without acting on his call to come into the family of God.  Life may get even harder than it was in 2020, and I tell you this, the only way I survived this current year was by doing life with God.  Drawing even closer to him like a child afraid of people they just met.

Please, I beseech you, accept Jesus into your life.  You will not die regretting it, but live forever rejoicing you did.

Copyright © 2020 Mark Brady.  All rights reserved.

I Do My Best

Charlie 777bIf Adam had stopped Eve from exercising her free will, and disobeying God.  If Eve had not listened to the devil in the form of a serpent.  Somebody, somewhere, in the ages of time still would have sinned requiring a perfect sacrifice to reunite us with God.  Jesus would still have found himself hanging on a cross.

Even if no one had disobeyed God, by the time I was born, I’m sure I would have been the one to mess things up.  Like the apostle Paul once said, “… My own behaviour baffles me. For I find myself not doing what I really want to do but doing what I really loathe. Yet surely if I do things that I really don’t want to do, I am admitting that I really agree with the Law.

… I often find that I have the will to do good, but not the power. That is, I don’t accomplish the good I set out to do, and the evil I don’t really want to do I find I am always doing. Yet if I do things that I don’t really want to do then it is not, I repeat, “I” who do them, but the sin which has made its home within me.” Romans 7:15-20 J.B. Phillips New Testament

Even if I was the only sinner on earth, God still would have sent his son, Jesus to die for me.  That’s how much he loves me, and ya know what? He loves you that much too.  2 Peter 3:9 (NET)  because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

You know the bottom line is this:  God simply wants us to choose to be in a loving relationship with him.  I do my best, for that’s my heart’s desire as well.

Copyright © 2019 Mark Brady.  All rights reserved.

It’s All About Obedience

simple truthI have been reading from the Bible book of Exodus.  Today, I read a portion of chapter 12.  The true story of Pharaoh and the children of Israel has always intrigued me.  In meditating, upon this portion of God’s word, I realized one thing, being with God, being in his presence, is all about obedience.

You see, it was disobedience, by Adam and Eve that caused mankind to be separated from God in the first place, when they ate fruit from the tree, God told them not to.  Then, God gave us his son, Jesus, and it takes obedience of accepting him to be back in God’s presence.

Growing up in an Assembly of God church, we sang the song, Trust and Obey.  Some words in that song say, “there’s no other way.”  Simple truth, but truth none-the-less that will save your soul from eternal damnation.  God knows that when you obey him, and come into his presence, you enter into the greatest love story ever written.  It’s an amazing feeling to wake up loved, to lay down at night and close your eyes wrapped up in love, and living in between with God’s love abounding in your life.  God welcomes you, invites you, to partake of his love.  All you have to do is obey him, and stop eating the fruit the devil keeps putting in front of you.  A simple verse, but a true, loving verse none-the-less:

For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.  (Joh 3:16 AMP)

Copyright © 2018 Mark Brady, All rights reserved