Tag: Messiah

Trust Beyond You

​You know, I was just thinking…. I was thinking of a man of faith who isn’t really recognized all that much, and that is Joseph, husband to Mary and step Father to Jesus. This man wasn’t married to Mary yet, they had never slept together and he gets hit with the news that his future bride is pregnant. Not only is she pregnant, but he is told she has been inpregnated by Holy Spirit. 

I don’t know about you, but if I were Joseph, I would have a hard time processing that information. There is no way that he wasn’t even the least bit suspicious that Mary had slept with someone else….. 

How easily Joseph could have bailed on Mary if he was a man without faith. For myself, if I didn’t know how the story played out….if I hadn’t had so many very real experiences with Holy Spirit I honestly don’t think I would have or could have believed what had happened. 

But Joseph chose to believe…. he chose to believe that God was working and that He was more than capable of doing something beyond Joseph’s understanding….. what if Joseph chose to bail? Say he did choose to believe the worst, he leaves her and Mary dies not being able to take care of herself and as a result Christ wasn’t born.

It really is amazing if you think about it. A man who really didn’t play a huge role in the story was in fact crucial to it. If he did not chose to believe God past his own understanding, we could still be living in darkness, waiting for the Messiah that was able to come because Joseph believed. I don’t know about you, but I find that very encouraging.

Don’t be fooled into thinking your role isn’t important. If we chose to trust God beyond what we can explain, understand or feel, then He will use us. 

So I guess my question is, Do you believe? 

Written by: Justin Ludwig 

Mindblowing Prophecy Within the Names of the First Men in Genesis

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You may or may not know this, but names in the bible hold a lot of significance. It could be a character trait of this person, a plan God may have for them, etc. With that said, I wanted to share something incredible with you. Something so comforting and beyond human reason that the only response I can come up with is “Wow”.

In Genesis 5:3-32 it gives a brief genealogy of the first 10 men on this earth.  There was Adam who gave birth to Seth, to Enosh, to Kenan, to Majalalel, to Jared, to Enoch, to Methuselah, Lamech and then Noah. At first glance this appears to be another boring tedious list of names. But upon further study something absolutely amazing is revealed to us. The meaning of each of these men’s name are as follows…

Adam: man
Seth: appointed
Enosh: Mortal
KENAN :Sorrow
Mahalalel: the blessed God
Jared: Shall come down
Encoch: teaching
Methuselah: his death shall bring
Lamech: the despairing
Noah: Rest or comfort

So the genealogy of the first men on this earth by what their names mean is as follows.

“Man (has) appointed mortal sorrow; (but) the Blessed God shall come down Teaching (and ) His death shall bring the despairing comfort”……

I don’t know about you, but this absolutely blows my mind.  Nobody had any idea how Jesus “the Messiah’s” salvation plan would play out. That is what must have been so devastating for the disciples when they saw their conquering Savior bloody beaten and dead…. apparently defeated.

How could they have known that His death was exactly the saving grace that God had planned for us from the beginning. It wasn’t until Jesus rose from the dead and the Holy Spirit was sent to us that it became clear.
And here it is, right from the very beginning, in a book written approximately 1440 B.C. which tells us exactly what God had planned for us from the very beginning.

This awesome truth brings to mind something that one of my professors told me once that really stuck with me. He told me “Justin, be sure you don’t miss it, God is in the measurements”.

Meaning, from something as tedious as the measurements of Noah’s arc to the seemingly endless genealogies, not to mention the mundane day to day routine of our daily lives. God is always speaking to us. If we wait and wait for the miraculous signs or a burning bush, we very well could miss something life changing… something life inspiring that is being whispered right into our ear.
There is no way this is a coincidence or a “setup” as some skeptics could argue, because there is no way Moses had a clue when he wrote this what God’s plan was, nobody did…..

Like I said folks, our faith is no fairy tale, it’s as real and true as it gets…. let’s be sure to live, love and act accordingly

Justin Ludwig

Photo from:http://myfaithnutrition.com/it-is-finished/

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I find it so incredible how the Spirit speaks to us. I was walking into work this morning and as I am walking up the stairs, I dropped my keys. As soon as I heard them hit the ground I froze. I heard something, it was an almost audible voice in my head saying,

“You are not immune.”

I kid you not, I stood there for atleast a minute, staring at those keys, mumbling to myself, “I am not immune.”  It didn’t hit me right away, but about an hour into work it clicked and I understood what He was showing me.

For as long as I can remember, every time I would see someone drop something, I would  joke in my head
That if I was holding it, I wouldn’t of dropped it. It’s silly, I know, but what can I say, I’m weird. And when those keys hit the floor, with that joke as far from my mind as could be, I found myself recognizing that even I couldn’t stop myself from letting those keys drop out of my hand. Which guided my thoughts to a verse.

“Test me, Lord, and try me, examine my heart and my mind.” -Psalms 26:2

That’s when I realized that the Spirit was both reminding and warning me about the severity of my condition. The bottom line is that I/we have a sinful, selfish and destructive heart. As a human we were just born that way, with this sinful condition passed down through Adam, and we will remain that way until we are glorified with Him.

There are so many things deep within me that can throw me off track in my walk with Christ. Selfish, sinful motives, my pride. Dare I say unintentional distortion  of God’s word perhaps from past hurts, or points of view that had been ingrained into me since birth. We all have things like this. If we didn’t then there would be no need for a Savior.

What the Spirit was reminding me was that if I don’t remain vigilant with the knowledge that I am not immune to this sin condition…. That if I am not vigilant in inspecting myself against the word of God daily, then I will surely become one of those Christians who lost their way.

I am not talking about the ones who turned away from God. I am talking about those who still truly believe that they are perfectly in God’s will, but their sin has changed their path. Their pride skewing their perceptions and intentions … and they just can’t see it.

Before we know it, we have become modern day Pharisees, proclaiming God’s greatness for our own glory.

Until we are face to face with Christ we are at war. With the powers of darkness and with the darkness within ourselves, and they both seek to destroy us. We must remain vigilant, humble, and seek His face, always

Justin Ludwig

Photo from: Google Images