By Mike Peek

“I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord”. I stand before you today a Criminal guilty of breaking the law. I have broken ten very serious laws and I have not just broken them once but countless times. I am a criminal guilty but despite all I have done I have been set free, no longer held by the law. The crimes that I have committed are serious and the punishment is the death penalty but I have been let go because the judge Himself took the punishment in my place. And He is a good and just judge, being a good and just judge by His very nature He had to find me guilty but He also loved me so much that He didn’t want to punish me, so He Himself took the punishment for my crime and this is all He asked of me. To admit I had broken the law and deny myself the pleasures that breaking these laws gave me and put my trust in Him, to follow Him. “The law of the Lord is per...

A question was posed to me earlier this week. What is your source of joy? Well my answer is the Lord Jesus Christ is my source of Joy but my explanation of that answer may surprise you. I came to grips with who and what I was several years ago; I am a criminal, that’s right a criminal. Now to bring light to this subject of joy a separate question needs to be asked. What is value? For something to have value it must be valuable to someone. Nothing in itself has value unless someone is willing to pay for it. The Qianlong vase is an 18th century porcelain vase from the Qing Dynasty; The Qing Dynasty succeeded the Ming dynasty in 1736. The vase was sold at auction for a reported $80 million making it the world’s most expensive vase. Now I ask you, is the vase itself valuable or is the vase valuable because someone was willing to pay a lot of money for it? Is the vase pretty? Yes, but there are a lot of pretty vases. What makes this vase so special? This vase is special ...

Most all buildings have four corners especially very large buildings. A roof without walls requires four pillars to hold it up. It is this square structure that gives the building stability to withstand the weight of all the floors above and the four pillars withstand the weight of the roof above. Take away one pillar and the entire roof comes crumbling down. Take away one corner of a large building and the building will come crumbling down. Today I’m going to share with you the four pillars of salvation take away one of these and you have a lost soul. {We are all sinners}. The Bible says: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. God has given us His law to follow and if you fall short at any point you have sinned; and we all have sinned. Take a look at God’s laws, His ten commandments. 1. I am the Lord your God and you shall worship only me. 2. Do not create for yourself any false God’s and bow down to them. 3. Do not take the Lord’s name in vain. 4. Re...

“I bring to you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord”. “Taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, humbled Himself and became obedient to the Point of death, even the death of the cross”. Merry Christmas! Christmas is my favorite time of year because it is this time that I am reminded of the greatest gift of all, that even though I didn’t deserve it God gave his son Jesus as atonement for my sins. Yes Christmas is about Jesus, God sent His perfect and Holy son to dwell amongst us to be the perfect sacrifice that once and for all takes away the sins of all those who follow Him. There has been a verse out of the book of Romans that I have meditated on all week. “Now we know what the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God...

I began writing this blog for one reason and one reason only, to seek and save the lost of the world. I was on the brink of death and Hell I didn’t even know it, I was blind; God reached down from heaven and rescued me, saved me and healed me. My passion in life now is to help other lost sinners find healing from the Great Physician. You see I was like many walking the earth today, I thought I was saved but I was dead. I was not living for the Lord I was living for myself. It was when I realized I was a sinner and my sin wasn’t what I did to other people, it wasn’t the consequences of sin; I realized that my sinning was against God my creator. Have you ever come to that lowly place yourself? The best Biblical description I find of this and what happened to me is in the book of James. (Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. ~James 4:9-10) It was when I reali...

Next week is Thanksgiving and I am so thankful for all that God has blessed me with. He has given me far more than I ever deserve and there is no way I could ever pay Him back. He has shown me love when I was unloving. He died for me while I was still sinning how wonderful is that? (For by Grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast ~Ephesians 2:8-9) God has given me a free gift and there is nothing I can do to earn it. He has given me Grace for my sins; there is nothing that I can do to earn this grace, the gift cost more than I could ever earn. Yes, the gift has a price just as all gifts do but I didn’t pay the price; the price of the gift was paid for by the giver, Jesus Christ. (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) I have sinned and broken God’s laws and the bible says (the wages of sin is death, but ...

(Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.” But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.” Lord, remember me when You come into your Kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”~Luke 23:39-43) There were two men crucified along with Christ one on His right and one on His left. One of these men was saved from judgment and entered into the Kingdom the other did not and would face the wrath of God. Both of these men had committed the same crime both the gospels of Matthew and Mark said they were robbers. (See Matthew 25:38 and Mark 15:27) Now what did the criminal that went to heaven have that the other criminal didn’t have? He had Knowledge of three truths and he accepted those truth...

I am so excited about what God has given me to write about today. I am excited because it is what brought me to Jesus. That is the resurrection of Jesus Christ! What is so amazing is; the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus is found in the reactions and lives of His disciples. Many in the time of Jesus considered Him to be a good person and a profit but He began to say a lot of things that people just couldn’t stomach. He angered the religious leaders of the day who thought they were good people by showing them they were not and He began to claim He was God and told people that the only way to heaven was through Him. He called Himself the door. “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved” ~John 10:9. He called himself the bread of life. He told people that anyone that eats of Him will have eternal life. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever” ~John 6:51. He called Himself the good shepherd. “I...

I have a mirror and would like you to look into it and see what you look like. We look into a mirror to make sure our faces are clean while the mirror at home reveals the surface of your body the mirror God has given us reveals who you are in the depths of your soul, when you look into this mirror you will see what God sees. The mirror is called the Ten Commandments, written with God’s own finger on the tablets given to Moses on Mount Sinai (see Exodus 20). Now let’s take a look into the mirror of the Ten Commandments. Have you ever told a lie? Isn’t it true if you’ve even told one lie you are by definition a liar? Have you ever stolen anything at all regardless of its value? If you have taken something that doesn’t belong to you doesn’t that make you a thief? Have ever used God’s name in vain? Used God’s name the one who gave you life and instead of using a dirty filth word to express discuss you used His name instead. Jesus said: You have heard that it was said to those ...

Moses came before the people of Israel and made this proclamation: “You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day must be a Sabbath day of complete rest, a holy day dedicated to the Lord. Anyone who works on that day must be put to death” ~Exodus 35:2. The Sabbath is a command from God it is the 4th commandment in the Ten Commandments that God wrote with His own finger on the two tablets He gave Moses on Mt. Sinai. (See Exodus 25:16 and 31:18.) In Exodus 31 God promises death and separation from His community for anyone who works on the Sabbath. “You must keep the Sabbath day, for it is a holy day for you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; anyone who works on that day will be cut off from the community” ~Exodus 31:14. “These tablets were God’s work; the words on them were written by God Himself” ~Exodus 32:16. This was the Covenant between God and the people of Israel. The account of creation says that God made everything in six days the...

“The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God” ~1 Corinthians 1:18. The gospel is a hard pill to swallow for many or should I say most, it is offensive. Because to accept the Gospel message you must accept the fact you’re not good and not in charge. The Gospel should be preached with power causing conviction and repentance but most times it is changed in such a way to make it more palatable; easier to take and spoken of in such away to keep from offending the majority. The world would have you believe that God is all loving and since God is all loving He would never send someone to Hell. There are two thoughts in the world today that I see as destructive and keep people from ever trusting alone in Jesus Christ for salvation. 1) There are many ways to heaven: I’m not sorry if this offends you, there are not many ways to heaven there is but one. Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and...

Everything is unfair! There is no equality in anything. There is no fairness in this world at all. There are people who have children born strong and healthy with average and even above average intelligence; there are people who have children with physical or mental and sometimes both physical and mental deficits. This is unfair! There are people that live into their 80’s and 90’s healthy their entire lives that die of old age never being ill until the end; then there are those who battle illness their entire lives after suffering for years they die as a child or young adult in their 20’s and 30’s. There are two people that I know; one with stage four colon cancer the other just finding out this week he could have cancer, both in their 30’s with very young children. This is completely unfair! There is no fairness in athletic ability most every high school student can attest to that; some with little effort become the superstar of the team and others work day after day with extr...

I just finished reading the gospel of Matthew this morning in my daily morning bible reading and it got me to thinking about being a witness for Christ. Before Jesus ascended into heaven “Jesus came and told his disciples, ‘I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations’ (or all peoples)” ~Matthew 28:18-19. Jesus is fully God and He was given full authority in heaven and on earth, He could have chosen any way He wanted to for the gospel to be spread throughout the world but He chose us. This is not a request from the Lord it is a command, he didn’t tell this to the great leaders of the day He gave this command to His disciples the people that followed Him. If you’re a Christian you are a disciple, a follower of Jesus Christ so He was talking directly to each and every Christian. He wasn’t talking just to pastors or other leaders in the church He was talking to everyone that believes everyone that claims the name of Christ. ...

I’ve got a statement that may shock you: There will be no good people in Heaven! What is good? You could probably talk to 100 different people and you would probably get 100 differing ideas of what good is. You can ask almost anyone (are you a good person?) and the answer will almost always be yes. A lot of people call the Bible the good book and think if the live by what the Bible tells them they can go to heaven but if that is the standard you’re going by you’ve got a real problem. Psalm 53:3 says: “No one does good, not a single one!” Romans 3:23 says: “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” You might say “I fallow the ten commandments” or I follow the golden rule “I do to others as I would have them do to me”. The law of God wasn’t given so that we could earn our way to heaven it was given to shut us up. Romans 3:19-20 says: Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and ...

(Colossians 3:13) “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” In Matthew 18:21-35 Jesus tells us a parable about a man who owed his King Millions of dollars more that he could ever earn in a life time, the man fell down before his master and begged him, the king was filled with pity for him so he forgave his debt and the man was free to go but as soon as he left the king he found someone that owed him and he demanded repayment, when the second man couldn’t pay the first man had him thrown into prison, when the king heard about what the first man had done he became angry and threw him into prison to be tortured. I am a forgiven child of God I haven’t done anything to deserve God’s mercy, God is merciful to me because He is merciful. When we sin we are breaking God’s laws so we are therefore sinning directly against God our Creator. Despite all that I have done sinning against my Creator ...

I’m going to let you in on a secrete something that I have known for several years now. I’m not good enough to go to Heaven! I'm really Not! Jesus said: “unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven! ~Matthew 5:20” In the time of Christ the Pharisees were a group of religious men that attempted to follow the law of God to the letter. These men in everything they did were humanly speaking as good as is humanly possible. They prayed to God continuously, they memorized the Torah (the Old Testament books of law) they also memorized the psalms & proverbs, the many books of the Profits basically the entire Old Testament of the Bible, they Tithed (gave 1/10th of all they earned) even to the tiniest income. The people of that time considered the Teachers of Religious law and the Pharisees to be good and they looked to them for teaching on how to conduct yourself. Think of...

Earlier this week I was amongst a group of people talking. They were talking about how each of them cheats on their taxes. One woman said she never cheats she just always puts down $500 for charitable giving after admitting that she doesn’t really give it. She stated everyone does. If that’s not cheating what is? As this group talked they all discussed the different ways they lie on their tax returns and the things they would say if they thought they could get away with it. Not a single person said they felt bad about lying and in fact were all boastful about their lies. Each one of these people would say they are a Christian if asked, I know this because I have asked each of them. I sat there not knowing what to do or say, it really bothered me a lot to see this. People that claim the name of Christ but are unregenerate, even boastful and proud of their sins, it makes me wonder how this can be. It made me ask have they really heard the gospel. Well if the entire gospel they...

Do you have someone you need to forgive? Has someone hurt you or angered you causing you pain? Do you hold a grudge against this person or persons? Being angry or allowing you to remain in a hurtful state by someone else’s actions real or perceived only hurts yourself. There are real physical and emotional things that people have done that hurt you. Continuing to hold anger towards them, does it hurt you or them? If someone hurt you, it may have been very wrong wether they admit it or not and they may not even be sorry for what they have done. Forgiving them does not take away their blame, it just clears you from having to judge them and punish them. When you forgive someone you’re turning them over to God who can be counted on to deal with them. “Dear Friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, ‘I will take revenge; I will pay them back,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). We are all born with the sin gene or as the Bible call...

Earlier this week I walked into my break room at work and the television was on one of the 24 hour news channels. There was a man on there representing a group of atheist his complaint was; in the state of Utah everywhere a state trooper dies they erect a large white cross and this offended him deeply. As there always is on these news shows (the reason I never watch them) there was someone on the other side arguing angrily for the crosses while he argued angrily against them with a news person in the middle. It got me to thinking neither one of these men understand the cross! Why are they so angry? Why does a group of people act this way over a cross? Why spend all of your time and resources fighting on television and in court over a cross? You see each of these men see the cross as a religious symbol and neither one understands what the cross represents. In the time that Jesus walked the earth the cross was an instrument of death. Romans used it as a fear tactic, people from...

Last week in the Sunday school class that I attend the questions was posed; Can a Christian sin? I think a better question to ask is do you really know what sin is? People will laugh and joke about it even in a Sunday school setting but when you get down to it sin is a horrible thing that traps you and separates you from the Living God. Jesus said: “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin.” (John 8:34) A slave is owned not free. If you’re a slave you can’t do what you want to do you must do what you’re told. You have no free will as a slave. If a slave tries to leave and escape he will be hunted down and captured then forced to obey his master. People call Jesus Lord; if you plug the word lord into your thesaurus you will get the word Master. Remember a slave has no rights he is owned; your master as the Apostle Paul puts it is your sinful nature. You are owned, you can’t make decisions for yourself, so no matter how much you want to be free inevitably you wi...

If I were to ask you if you are a good person what would you say? Most people when asked this question reply; “Yes I am a good person.” So let’s go through a few questions and see if that is true. As we go through these questions really search yourself. 1) Have you ever at anytime in your life told a lie? What would you call a person who tells lies? I’ll make it easy for you, I’ve told lies before so what would you call me if I lied to you? The answer is a liar. A person who tells lies by definition is a liar. 2) Have you ever stolen anything, taken anything at all regardless of its value that doesn’t belong to you? What do you call a person who steals? A person who steals is called a thief. 3) You know the command do not commit adultery, Jesus said: “anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Have you ever looked at another person with lust that wasn’t your wife or husband? 4) Have you ever used God’s name in vain? God...

“Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you Light.” (Ephesians 5:14) Earlier this week I was thinking and praying about (Matthew 22:37-40) Jesus said: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” As I was contemplating this verse and its meaning praying to God for direction the Holy Spirit said: “To love the Lord is to believe in Me Jesus Christ and to trust in Me alone for salvation, to love your neighbor is to tell them there is salvation alone in Jesus Christ.” I have to tell you this message and the understanding that it brought completely floored me, it made total since. It brought all new meaning to the statement: “The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” You see ev...