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Devotionals

Bible Abuse

If only we could see how often we abuse the Bible (and therefore, its Author) in an effort to bolster and justify our personal views and proclivities. The process is called “isogesis” – presupposing our own interpretation and views and “reading them into” a passage of Scripture when they...

Getting It Right

Rightly understanding and properly responding to the gospel is of paramount importance. Nothing could have broader or more profound consequences than being right or wrong about the content and demands of the message that determines our placement in eternity. While that seems

Acquiring Wisdom

Some think that learning about God should be easy. But the Bible warns us that real wisdom and insight will require a great deal of effort on our part. While some prefer to call their innate impressions and their subjective feelings...

Authority of Scripture

Without an unswerving resolve to affirm that God has inscribed his authoritative voice on the pages of Scripture we are hopelessly lost on...

Bible Study

Second Timothy 2:15 records God’s call to “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” This well-needed reminder shows us that...

Smallness

While the world works desperately to bolster our sense of personal significance and individual importance, biblical truth drives us in the opposite direction. A hallmark of biblical humility is the realization that we are infinitesimally small, juxtaposed with a growing

Doubt

It’s not just Thomas; every Christian has moments and even seasons of doubt. But the best prescription when doubts arise is to go back to Christ’s credentials and the reliability of the biblical documents. Consider the fact that our confidence...

Worldly Wisdom

We are far too easily impressed with the “wisdom” of this world. What our society lacks in truth, it tries to make up for with confidence. But with all the assertiveness of our culture, they have yet to settle the disparity between what they sense they need and what they actually have. In the words of

Daily Struggle

While we would all love to imagine a Christian life that is tranquil and calm, the truth is it’s not. The Bible is clear that this side of heaven every Christian has been drafted

Humble Prayer

The Bible tells us that the prayer of Solomon “pleased the Lord” (1 Kings 3:10). It’s a simple phrase that we can read without giving it a second thought. But we ought to. Consider what a big statement that is. The content of Solomon’s prayer evoked pleasure in God’s heart. To imagine that something we ask for can have an impact on the way the Almighty God feels is a remarkable

Creation

While many of us affirm the truth that God made the world and that it displays his handiwork, and while some of us go so far as to say that it is God’s strategic source of “general revelation” to mankind, it is unfortunate that most of us take so little time to utilize God’s creation as a catalyst for

Let There Be Light

Sometimes the important analogies presented in the Bible are so frequently echoed in our worship, our prayers, and even our conversations, that God’s intended meaning gets lost in our minds somewhere along the way. Consider the frequent...

Passing It On

The Bible has much to say about our responsibility to pass on our spiritual gains to those who will be here when we are gone. This is more than a parent’s responsibility to teach their kids the Bible. It is much broader and much deeper than simply communicating biblical data to children. In Scripture, the call...

Righteous Anger

While most Christians are chasing a modern fantasy of an irenic and affable day-to-day Christian experience, may we recognize the truth that we cannot be godly without regularly feeling and periodically expressing righteous anger...

Boldness

When we think of what it means to be a godly person, several virtues are likely to come to mind...

Don’t Drift

Hebrews 2:1 tells us that “we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” Much like a leisurely float down a meandering river, if we choose to relax in the Christian life we can be assured that the tide of our culture...

Preparing for God’s Word

Responding appropriately to God’s word, whether it is being read or it is being preached, requires an important preparatory step that is often neglected. God’s word is said to be “living and active” and sufficiently able to have a transforming...

Conflicting Voices

One of the unpleasant things about being a Christian is the experience of being perpetually bombarded by conflicting “Christian” voices trying to convince us of what God would have us think and do. All these instructors will claim to be

Love

Love is not as easy or pleasant as it sounds. It is effortless to say “I love you” but so hard to demonstrate in real life. The Bible calls Christians to love “not with words or speech but with actions and truth” (1Jn.3:18). It is not that the words are wrong, but they...

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...

Funerals

It is remarkable that non-Christians, agnostics and staunch secularists turn into weeping and hope-filled theologians at their loved ones’ funerals. People that rarely give God a thought or ten minutes of contemplation take up the microphone and tearfully recite their poems about the fishing, feasting and frolicking in “heaven”. They speak confidently of

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...

Right Side of History

These days we often hear cultural pundits speak about the need for everyone to get “on the right side of history.” Now there’s some media commentary I can get behind. I am all for it! In a fundamental sense, calling people...

Fear of God

Here is one of the most simple, yet most serious warnings found in the Bible: “God is opposed to the proud” (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). The last thing we as God’s children should want is to dabble in the archetypal sin that was the initial cause of all the rebellion and corruption in the universe (Ezekiel 28:14-17). We are shown in God’s word that pride’s antithesis and remedy is the fear of the Lord (Romans 11:20; Jeremiah 44:10; Proverbs 8:13). For those who have repented of their sins

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...

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...

Prayer & Evangelism

Prayer and evangelism go hand in hand. Many of us hope that our lives will be used by God to lead people to the place of repentance and faith in Christ. But if we learn anything from the example of the evangelists in the New Testament, we learn that this is not likely to ever happen unless

The God Who Is

God, by definition, is “Almighty.” In our desire to “humanize” God and relate to the softer and gentler side of Deity we often lose sight of the fact that the God who actually exists is a God who possesses all authority, all power, and all dominion. He is a Being who is unchallenged in his rank, sovereignty, and supremacy. He speaks things into existence, and at will chooses things to come to an end. There are times in life when we sense the profundity of

Regret

It is not uncommon to hear people say that they have lived their lives with “no regrets”. They often state that they would live just the same if they had it to

Get Wisdom

The Bible repeatedly tells us that God’s wisdom is readily available to us and would enhance our lives in countless ways, including the expansion of our lot in eternity, but sadly we choose to leave much of it unclaimed. The diagnosis? We love our sin way too much. We’re told that...