Make Sure Your on the Right Path

Most paths have signs that give you an idea of where you’re going. Many years ago my wife and I lived in Colorado and I loved to go hiking in the mountains and there are a lot of paths in the mountains, my goal in hiking most of the time were to climb to the top of a mountain; at the trail head there were signs showing you which path lead to the top of the mountain, it would be color coded and you would follow that sign all the way to the top if you took the wrong path you would find yourself somewhere else miles away from your goal. There is but one way that leads to heaven and all other ways lead you away from your goaled of heaven, all other paths lead to destruction. “He who has the Son of God has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” ~1 John 5:12. Jesus said: “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by Me” ~John 14:6. “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” ~John 3:18. “And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire” ~Revelations 20:15. Is the path your on the way to life or is it the way to destruction. There is only one way!

You might say well what about all these religions in the world don’t they lead to heaven, if you look at each of them closely you will find a common thread through out them and that thread is self righteousness. They all have you earning your way to heaven. We can’t earn what we don’t deserve. God has given us a moral law, it is the standard by which God will judge the world and Judge us He will; “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” ~Hebrews 9:27. And it is the moral law that God will judge us by. If I asked you if you have ever told a lie, what would you say? The moral law of God says “You shall not lie” ~20:16. Now each of us will at some point die and after death we will be judged by God according to our deeds done in this life. If the law says “You shall not lie” but you have lied and cannot say to God I am good I deserve heaven when His standard is moral perfection, you have either followed His commands or you haven’t. You have either broken the law or you haven’t. How many lies does a person have to tell to be a liar, isn’t it true you tell one lie you are a liar. The Bible says: “all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” ~Revelations 21:8. Once a person has broken the law (committed a crime) there is nothing you can do to undo it, there is no amount of good deeds you can do to outweigh it, on the day of judgment and you stand before God to give an account of your life and He asks you have you kept my commands (have you lied?) you have no leg to stand on, it is a yes or no question. The penalty for breaking God’s moral law is death in Hell forever.

There is a way to escape this death and to have life and that way is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. He is the only one that has ever lived a morally perfect life. The Bible says that He was fully God (conceived of the Holy Spirit) and fully man (born of a woman). Being fully man He was subject to the same moral law that we are subject to. He faced the same temptations that we are faced with every day but didn’t once break God’s law. So He did something only He could do, He allowed Himself to be killed in our place, instead of us getting the punishment that we deserve He stood in our place and took the punishment we deserve, then being fully God He did something we couldn’t do, when He was ready He took His life up again (rose from the dead). Now He is the way to life, no one goes to heaven but by Him because He is the propitiation for our sins (the payment for our sins). Eternal life is yours for the taking; it is a completely free gift. All we have to do is except it. Except the fact we are not good, we have broken God’s moral law and what we deserve is Hell. Except the fact that Jesus is good and He took the punishment in our place. The Bible calls this Repentance and faith. Repent turn away from trusting in your own goodness trust in the goodness of Jesus to save you on the Day of Judgment. If you will do that you will be saved. “Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” `1John 5:5.


Repent and trust alone in Jesus Christ,

Mike Peek

What's Up With That?

“But why do you call Me ‘Lord Lord’ and not do the things which I say? ~Luke 6:46. I was contemplating this yesterday and I got to thinking about the commands of our Lord Jesus Christ in particular His final command (“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” Mark 16:15). Then it occurred to me I’m 42 years old not far from turning 43 I calculated the days I have now walked the earth 16,604 days and I have looked back, I can’t think of even one time someone directly shared the gospel of our Lord with me. I have heard many preachers profoundly preach the gospel; I have listened as many a Sunday school teacher expound on the gospel of our Lord. I have sat in small group bible studies were everyone in the group professed Jesus as Lord and we all discussed the gospel, but I can’t think of even one time that someone that did not know me or my spiritual state one on one share the gospel with me or even ask of my spiritual state. So then I asked myself, how many Christians are there? In the United States 51.3% of the population call themselves Protestant Christian; there are 16,228,438 members in the Southern Baptist convention. So ½ the population of America claims to be gospel believing Christians who profess Jesus as Lord; Jesus said “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” ~Mark 16:15” yet no one has personally shared the gospel with me. It seems that there is something wrong! Jesus said “But why do you call Me ‘Lord Lord’ and not do the things which I say” ~Luke 6:46. What are the odds that 50% of the population were out sharing their faith as Jesus commanded, having 16,604 opportunities to witness to me and yet no one has, I cannot even begin to contemplate that, I have a statistics calculator and the odds are so huge that it just give me an error message. I can’t possibly be the only one! The only way that this is possible is if the number of Christians sharing the gospel has to be very small, not 50%, not even 1%, but a fraction of 1%; Which completely clarifies some things for me.

Jesus said “Not everyone who says to Me ‘Lord Lord’, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father in heaven will enter” ~Matthew 7:21. Am I suggesting some sort of works righteousness, certainly not; “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. We are all sinners and what we all deserve for our sin is death in Hell but God not wanting us to perish provided a way to save us, and that way is Jesus Christ, for all who believe (have faith) and profess Him as Lord. To call Jesus Lord means that He has total authority over your life, if He is your Lord you do what He says to do, period. He bought us with a price and that price was His very life, He was punished for us, He was bruised for us, He bleed for us, and He died for us. The Apostles began most of their Epistles with these words “a bond servant of or Lord Jesus Christ” meaning that they knew their lives were no longer theirs, that they belonged to God, they were purchased and Jesus was their master and servants obey their master.

I was like everyone else, not sharing my faith until the Lord woke me from my slumber at the end of 2009. One day while reading His word I read this; “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and Prophets.” ~Matthew 22:37-40. As I was praying and thinking about this it hit me like a ton of bricks; to love the Lord is to do what he says, and to love my neighbor is to warn them of the wrath to come. How do I do that? “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” ~ Mark 16:15.


Mike Peek

Repent and trust alone in Jesus Christ

What are Your Desires

“Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart” ~Psalm 37:4. The word delight means to take pleasure in someone or something; it is your source of happiness. To take delight in the Lord would mean He is your source of happiness and joy, you take pleasure in Him. To desire something would incline that you want something, it is a feeling of an unsatisfied state. Every one of us has desires, what are your desires? This verse is a promise from God and stated as fact by Kind David who had received the desires of his heart. The desire of King David’s heart was the Lord! There are many promises made in the word of God and God who cannot lie is truthful in all the promises He makes. Yesterday I read a prayer request from a women who is obviously hurting, she is evidently going through some major tribulation in her life, but as she is going through this tribulation her faith in God is wavering, not only that, she blames God for what she is going through stating why is God putting me through this. My heart goes out to her and I know that she is hurting, I have prayed for her. She like so many other people are doing and have done; are losing faith in their God, but while they are losing faith in their God, I fear that their God isn’t The God, The God of the bible. I would like to talk today about God’s promises.

What has God promised believers?
1. Temptation: We as believers are all promised temptation! In explaining the parable of the Sower and the seed Jesus explains that those who have a shallow faith when they are tempted will fall away. “But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away” ~Luke 8:13. But as a believer we hold on to God through every temptation if your delight is in the Lord He Shall give you the desires of your heart. “No temptation has ever taken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” ~1 Corinthians 10:13. Is there a way out? Through God always, the question is who do you love more God or the pleasures of sin?
2. Tribulation or Trials: We as believers are promised many trials! “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” ~John 16:33. Jesus talked about people without root in Him He said: “yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles” ~Matthew 13:21.
3. Persecution: We as believers are promised persecution for our faith! Most of the epistles of the Apostles where written in one way or another to God’s people who were being persecuted with encouragement to help them endure. This is the promise as Paul wrote to Timothy. “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” ~2 Timothy 3:12.

Now how does that sound? Does it sound like something you might want to sign up for? The problem isn’t God, the problem is us. People are being told come to God for love, joy, peace, and fulfillment; while those are fruits of salvation they are not the reason to come to God. If you come to God expecting love, joy, peace, and fulfillment but all you get is temptation, tribulation, and persecution you will soon be diluted, angry, and better and rightly so you didn’t get what you were promised but you did get what God promised. Well then you say why should I come to God if what I get is temptation, tribulation, and persecution? Jesus didn’t come to give you a happy life, He came to save you from the wrath of God, yeah that’s right the wrath of God himself. We are sinners, we have broken God’s laws and He is angry about that, so angry He demands punishment for our crimes and that punishment is death in Hell. You don’t think you have broken His laws then carefully look at his commandments. Have you ever lied? The ninth commandment says “you shall not lie”. The bible says “all liars their part is in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death” ~Revelations 21:8, and that is just one of his commands with many more to Go. God does love us all and while He demands punishment He is also merciful, instead of pouring his wrath out on you and I He poured it out on His sinless Son Jesus instead and offers us instead of the death we deserve eternal life as a free gift and all He asks is that we believe and place our faith in the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. What better offer is there than that? We deserve death in Hell but instead get eternal life with God in paradise! That is the source of the fruit. You’re filled with joy because you get to go to heaven, you’re at peace because your sins are forgiven, and you know you are loved because He died for you, you are fulfilled because your desires are God and He gave you Himself! My hope and my prayer for you all is that you will trust yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ not for the things of this world but to escape the wrath that is to come!


Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation,
Mike Peek

You Keep the Change I’ll take the Hundred

When my children were very young I would occasionally give them some money in the form of change: pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. They held tightly to this money as a prized possession. They enjoyed the color, how it was shiny, the noise it made when the change rattled together, and how you could stack one upon another. They wouldn’t part with the money because to them it was their prized possession. One time while shopping at a store my daughter saw a toy she wanted, I told her that if you give the people at the counter your money they will give you the toy, well she would have none of that, she wasn’t going to give up her money. One time I tried to offer my son and daughter each a one dollar bill in exchange for their one dollar in change, they wouldn’t have it, the change was shiny and the dollar was not, besides the change was many and the dollar was one. I think had I offered them a one hundred dollar bill in exchange for their one dollar in change they would have denied it as well.

Now this is a story about two children 2-5 years old with no understanding of the purpose of money, but are you not yourself holding on to something of little value when God is offering you everything. God offers everyone a free gift and that gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ, but instead many chose to keep their sin rather than accepting the gift of God, and God promises that whatever you give up in this life you will receive a hundredfold as much in the life to come, and receive eternal life (ref. Matthew 19:29); are you not just holding on to a small amount of change when you could have one hundred dollar bills. I carry around with me at all times a gospel tract; on one side it says “God Loves You” referencing to Romans 5:8. This verse defines the way in which God loves us, it says: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” ~Romans 5:8. That is the way in which God loves you, He doesn’t want to see you perish, but His desire is to save you and that is why Christ died. On the back there are three verses, the first verse is Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. When it says all, it means every one, you and me both. What is sin? Have you ever lied? I have, how about you? The ninth commandment of God says; “do not tell lies”. The bible tells us that “Sin is lawlessness” ~1 John 3:4, meaning sin is breaking God’s law, and if you have ever told a lie even one time you have broken God’s law. The second verse I have listed is Romans 6:23. The first half of that verse says: “For the wages of sin is death”. That is what we have earned for sinning, for breaking the law, we have earned death. And it’s not the death of your body we all know that each of us will die at some point, the Bible says: “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” ~Hebrews 9:27. When God judges you, will you be innocent or guilty? Your innocence or guilt is based on this; did you break the law are not? If you have ever lied; than yes you have broken the law. Since you have broken the law and are guilty; what will happen to you? This is what the Bible says will happen to you; “all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” ~Revelations 21:8. That is what we commonly refer to as Hell, but there is a second part of Romans 6:23 “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. You have earned death in Hell for breaking God’s law but God offers the free gift of eternal life and it is a gift because you didn’t earn it, the wage you earned was death in Hell. This verse tells us the way in which we receive this gift, “in Christ Jesus our Lord”; you must accept Jesus as Lord. The final verse I have on that Gospel tract is Romans 10:9 – “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved”.

Jesus said: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” ~Matthew 16:24. This is how to be saved. To deny yourself and take up your cross is to give up the sins in your life that you hold tightly to. Is it easy? No, but God offers you a hundredfold as much in exchange and you will receive eternal life. Come to God, confess your sins to Him and forsake them (turn away from them) and accept Jesus as Lord!


Repent and trust in Jesus Christ alone,
Mike Peek

The Year of Our Lord

For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” ~Romans 10:13. The Lord gave me a really interesting and wonderful year in ‘The Year of Our Lord’ 2010. I say ‘Year of Our Lord’ because it is very interesting, that in early documents by the founders of America, if they stated a year, they would say “The Year of Our Lord”, basically confessing Jesus as Lord, acknowledging the fact that something incredible happened in the past, and that something incredible is, God’s only begotten Son Jesus Christ came into the world. The Bible says “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” ~ Romans 10:9. You can’t deny it, this country was founded by Christians, you can state otherwise but the truth is the founding fathers believed, but that is a debate for another time. So ‘The Year of Our Lord 2010’ was one of the most interesting years of my life.

I am a member of (Central Baptist Church 1343 East Grande Blvd, Tyler, Texas) on the last Sunday of 2009 my Sunday school teacher Dan Sala gave us a challenge, he wanted us to write down goals for 2010 and seal them up in an envelope opening them up after the completion of 2010, I opened mine yesterday. What I had written, I didn’t think of as goals but instead what I knew God wanted of me. There were two things I wrote down:
1. I would give God complete Lordship, I would follow Jesus were ever He lead me.
2. I would love my neighbor as myself.
The Lord had already been working on my heart to be a witness for him but I really didn’t know how to go about it and I was for the most part a shy man, keeping to myself, trying not to bother anyone. My wife mentioned to me something about someone handing out gospel tracts, I have to confess I didn’t know what a Gospel tract was and I confessed this to her, she laughed of course but told me what one was. I had seen them before but didn’t know the word tract.

I have heard Christians talk for years about (callings). They would say things like: I was called into the ministry, or my brother got called into the mission field, my calling is to work with troubled teens, or to work with homeless children. I had often wondered about all of this calling stuff, is this for real? Looking back over the past year I discovered this. We are called once, and the calling is the same for everyone, we are called to Repentance and to follow Jesus, then He will lead. If you follow Jesus He will lead you wherever He wants you to go. “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance” Luke 5:32. He walked up to Matthew the tax collector and said, “’follow Me’. So he left all, rose up, and followed Him” ~Luke 5:27-28. Matthew became one of His twelve apostles, he wrote the Gospel of Matthew.

Now I said that 2010 was an incredible year, I followed Jesus and here is where he led me. If you had told me one year ago what God would have done through me in 2010 I would never have believed it.
• One year ago I didn’t know what a Gospel tract was, in 2010 I handed out somewhere near 2000 Gospel tracts.
• I had never really had a one on one witness encounter with anyone; in 2010 I directly witnessed to somewhere around 3000 people.
• English classes where always my worst subject in school I barley passed through high school and in college my stomach turned at the thought of writing a research paper. At the end of June God lead me to start writing about Him and thus this Blog was born, as of this writing, this Blog has been down loaded 1013 times and has been accessed by people in 10 different countries around the world.
• I said earlier that I was a quiet man keeping to myself, Paul told Timothy “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” ~2 Timothy 3:12 and that statement is as true as it gets. I would never have imagined how violently angry people can become at the name of Jesus Christ, and most of the time, it is not from the people you expect it from, but God has made me bold in 2010.

Every bit of this is God, I am not capable of even doing one of these things, and God is responsible for all. Jesus is the Lord of Lords, and the King of Kings. He is the one that was, and is, and is yet to come. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. All glory to Him. Lord thank you for this past year, it has been an absolute wonderful journey serving You. You have never left me or forsaken me, You walked with me hand and hand every step of the way. You are my Lord and Savior. My hope is this to all that read this blog. That you will come to know Jesus as your Lord, your God, and your Savior. Jesus said: “I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the father except by Me” John 14:6. Jesus is the Way, all other ways are false. Lord Jesus I look forward to wherever you lead me in your year, “The Year of Our Lord 2011”

Repent and Trust in Jesus Christ alone,
Mike Peek