Devotionals

Weekly Devotionals from Pastor Mike Fabarez

Living Sacrifice

After an extended and detailed explanation of the amazing transaction that obliterates our debt before God, and graciously grants us the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, Paul calls for a simple yet profound response: “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” (Rom.12:1). How strange and extreme it must have sounded...

Church Attendance

The Bible is very clear about God’s expectation regarding “church attendance” – to use our modern terminology. Christ commissioned the establishment of churches, the Holy Spirit inscribed instructions about how they operate, and God requires that our...

Forgetting the Past

The Apostle Paul’s mindset in his sanctification was to always be “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead” (Phil.3:13). When we think about the advantage to our spiritual progress in “forgetting the past,” likely the first things that...

Generosity

We all love generosity—that is, when others are generous to us. Christians, of all people, should appreciate the value of generosity, being the recipients of the most extravagant and undeserved generosity from...

Payoff of Holiness

With so much in the Bible about our call as Christians to live holy lives, I find that we often focus on the challenge and the obligation, but forget to ponder the payoff. Even when we hear the word “payoff” our minds tend to...

Who’s a Pharisee?

When the modern Christian finds himself under conviction in a conversation that has turned into a disagreement, he can usually get quick relief from his Bible-quoting “opponent” and call checkmate on the whole dispute, simply by calling the other...

Shrewd Evangelism

One of the most important and timely observations concerning the record of Paul’s evangelism in first century Athens, is to take note of the distinctive way the gospel was presented. Unlike previous scenes in...

Live for Christ

Peter motivates his readers to pursue godliness and holiness by reminding them that the world’s enticing temptations are a part of a value system that God has promised to destroy. He poignantly describes the complete decimation of the current...

Cultural Pressure

Falling to the temptation to be “conformed to the world” (Rom.12:2) rarely had such an immediate judgment as it did when the newly inaugurated King Jehu set up a sting operation, and called together all those who wanted to continue in the status quo of worshipping the false god Baal. In his ruse...

Sacrificial Love

When we read the word “love” in the Bible we should always be careful to remind ourselves that it bears little resemblance to what passes for love in today’s world. When the people of our culture speak of “love” they are usually referring to something that impulsively springs from feelings of happiness, warmth, attraction, affection or pleasure. But the Bible uses the word...

Spiritual Famine

God spoke to a spiritually declining nation through the prophet Amos, predicting a terrible disaster which was fast approaching the borders of Israel. It was not an earthquake, flood or storm, but rather it was the worst kind of calamity that could ever befall a people. His forecast called for...

Where Do I Fit

To maintain a proper view of God we have to work to regularly affirm God’s sovereign and authoritative role as the King and Shepherd of our lives. We cannot think accurately of God without consciously adjusting our view of ourselves. If God is the exalted Director and Guide, then we must purpose...

Christianity Attacked

It seems that almost daily we Christians have to endure a new barrage of attacks against the Christian faith. Tirades on websites, new books pitted against the Bible and angry dissenters continually grabbing microphones and keyboards to unleash their latest arguments against the Christian God.

While their presentations are delivered in intellectual terms...

God’s Justice

If God is not just, God is not good. If God does not respond justly to the unrighteous decisions of his creatures, then God cannot be holy, good or righteous. In the same way earthly judges cannot be good while perverting justice in their courtrooms, the perfect Judge cannot be perfect if he ignores sin. His perfect love does not negate...

Distracted Prayer

We live in a “noisy” world. It seems that every waking hour is filled with an onslaught of clamoring sights and sounds that relentlessly bombard our eyes and ears. Around the clock, something is always vying for our attention. New Testament times weren’t as different as you might think, particularly for Jesus. Luke records that he had to...

Wishing vs Truth

Whenever we study the Bible we have to do our best to let the text speak for itself. The goal is to excavate God’s message, ascertain God’s values, and comprehend God’s perspective. We may have many ideas and expectations about what we hope to uncover and what we wish to find, but the Bible has to be approached with...

Worship

A.W. Tozer was right when he observed that “a low view of God is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us.” It makes sense that our specific view of God will determine the quality of our Christian life. If we view him as casual about sin, then we probably won’t care much about it either. If we...

Who’s Responsible?

Ask any police officer (or watch any reality Cops show) and you’ll see just how creatively we humans can string together a list of excuses for any and every deviant behavior. From the inner-city streets to the therapist’s couch we have become experts in rationalizing why we do what we do, and why what...

Transformation

Unwittingly we often come to church expecting to hear the preacher affirm what we already know and commend what we already practice. And for the growing Christian that is sometimes the case. But more times than not, the word of God forthrightly preached will in some way and to some extent...

Disturbed by Sin

The society in Israel had become compromised, corrupt and forgetful of God. Ezekiel was God’s mouthpiece to point out to them just how far they had regressed into worldliness, and what the divine consequences of that regression would be. Of course not everyone...

Your Conscience

As we seek to proclaim the gospel and uphold, defend and establish the truth of God’s word, it is helpful to remember that God has implanted a witness to the truth within each person’s heart. While those who don’t want to hear our message may protest, the reality is that...

Hate Evil

Psalm 97:10 says it as succinctly as it can be said: “O you who love the Lord, hate evil!” This terse exhortation may come as a bit of a surprise to many Christians. “Hate” after all is something we modern followers of Jesus never want to be associated with. We prefer to be described as loving...

Our Mindset

The Bible persistently calls us to fix our attention on Christ (Heb.12:2), to set our minds on Christ’s agenda (Col.3:1-2), and to keep thinking about and praying for the triumph of Christ’s return (Mt.6:10, 33). Add to this a long list of exhortations for Christians to be mindful of the needs of others and thoughtful regarding...

Praying

Reading through the Psalms can yield enlightening insights regarding what constitutes a godly prayer life. As we read these lines from God’s inspired Psalter we might expect lofty and refined theological ideas encased in polished and pietistic lyrics. Instead, we often encounter the raw emotions of...

Amazing Grace

The doctrine of God’s grace reminds us that not only do we not deserve God’s love and forgiveness, but we actually deserve nothing from God but his exacting judgment. And not the kind of judgment which we would incur were we to sin against a fellow citizen, some high ranking diplomat, or even an exalted and holy angel...

Christian Outreach

I recently read in the paper about a “successful Christian outreach” where many “accepted Jesus as their savior”. The problem, as with most of our modern culture’s take on “salvation”, is that there is little clarity about what these folks are acquiring “salvation from”. The article described the “celebration” as giving some people

Being Separate

There are many who use the statement that Jesus was “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Mt.11:19) to rationalize their social alliances and “after-work” camaraderie with immoral and ungodly people. They do this without any concern or attempt to harmonize the clear statements of Scripture which warn that “bad company ruins good morals”

Evangelism

God’s desire is to see people repent of their sins and place their trust in Jesus Christ. Nothing in all the world could be more urgent or important. Amazingly, God has granted us the privilege of being the avenue through which he does this work.

Loving God With All

Many today suppose that a periodic acknowledgment of God or a half-hearted recognition of Christ should be sufficient to avoid any concerns come Judgment Day. “As long as I am not an atheist or a murderer and I believe in the Man upstairs,” they presume, “then I should be okay.” Perhaps we are partly to blame

Scripture

One big challenge of the Christian life is to courageously stand our ground regarding the veracity of God’s word, while living in a world which makes a sport of mocking, maligning and ridiculing it. It is helpful to regularly study and frequently recall how the Bible stands apart from all other
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