Questions in this episode: – Do we know what Paul’s thorn in the side was? – Some Christians say abortion and homosexuality are okay because Jesus never spoke against either? – How can we be sure that we will be going to heaven and not think that we need to do more good deeds to …
We as Christians should understand the important role God has graciously allowed us to currently have in preserving, protecting, and improving the concentric spheres in which we live.
Questions in this episode: – Should we fast and pray for unsaved family members? What is appropriate to fast and pray for? – If God needs nothing why did He create us? – Why would God want to create something to enjoy and praise Him if He’s self sufficient? – How am I supposed …
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…
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…
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…
The concern for most Christians isn’t “How far from sin can I get?” but rather, “How close is okay?” Anyone who is thoughtful about obedience and wants to distance himself from temptation and sinful behavior is sure to incite the charge of being “a misguided legalist” – as if the accuser knows what biblical legalism is. He usually doesn’t. But it sounds like a good
The newspaper recently reported that what people are looking for these days is a “spiritual” experience without any “religious” guidelines. That’s nothing new, so were Adam and Eve. We tend to want a relationship with God our way. The problem is “our way” is “sin” – which by definition is
Our God is a God who knows and perceives all things. He intimately knows all things past, all things present and all things future. He is a God for whom nothing is concealed. With him there are no secrets, there is no darkness and nothing is shrouded from his total awareness and full comprehension. God would
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…
Some have tried to avoid the concept of “Christ’s life for me and my life for Christ” depicted in the gospel exchange (cf. 2Cor.5:15; Mt.13:44-46; Lk.14:28-33; Mt.10:37-39; et al.) by imagining a dichotomy in the Christian life. They suggest that there are…
God’s grace is the theme of the New Testament and yet with all this scriptural emphasis it seems we are still slow to rightly understand it. We either tend to think that it is some kind of extra credit that adds to our goodness, thus making us acceptable to God. Or we secretly tend to believe it is a “get out of jail free” card that allows us to dabble in sin without consequences. Both are obviously a…
“The pursuit of happiness” is certainly our heart’s default position. Every day we, by nature, want to experience feelings of pleasure, gladness and enjoyment. Unfortunately, at the present time, we live in a corrupted world, encased in corrupted bodies, pitted against a very powerful corrupted enemy who is bent on
This is a set of messages delivered to the high school group True North at the Revival 2021 summer camp.
Without the historic and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have no hope. The Bible contends that without the veracity of this single event recorded in the four biographies of Christ, we’d be wise to walk away from this entire movement we call Christianity. In the New Testament we are told…
We must be ready to endure the disapproval and hostility of many to fulfill our purpose in restraining evil around us and winning some for Christ.
he Bible has a lot to say about God’s “good purpose” (Phil.2:13, Heb.6:17). It seems that on every other page we read of another instance of God working out his predetermined plan…
Psalm 18 states the obvious when it proclaims that “as for God, his way is perfect” (v.30). What may come as unexpected is that the psalmist is quick to testify that God in turn makes David’s way “perfect”…
The dictionary defines “expletives” as “words with no meaning.” They are those words we blurt out as our impromptu expressions of pain, joy, frustration, or surprise. They are words fueled by our emotions and not our intellect. They may not “have meaning,” in the sense that they don’t intelligently add to the conversation, but they …
We must learn to appreciate the great exchange of our redemption wherein Christ’s perfection is granted to sinners like us while the entire penalty for our sin was borne by him in his suffering and death.
In light of Christ’s imminent return for his Church, Christians must be actively focused on prayer and God’s word, being careful not get entangled in the distracting sins of this world.
Our lives will be motivated and calibrated as we remain mindful that this current age will culminate with an unprecedented display of God’s wrath on the earth and its wholesale transformation at Christ’s second coming.
It is normal and expected that we intensely long for Christ’s coming kingdom as we seek to undistractedly obey the teachings of Christ in a deteriorating and rebellious culture.
If we love Christ we will love what he loves and hate the sins for which he died and which cause such great damage to the body of Christ.
In our evangelism we must do the difficult and often uncomfortable work of exposing sin by presenting God’s holy laws in the context of expressing true compassion and sacrificial love.
To present Christ accurately to our generation we must relay a clear sense of Christ’s authority and power both to direct and to judge our lives by his standards.
Closeness with God is more than being saved, it is a relational intimacy that grows as we learn to love and increasingly practice what is good, right and holy.
As we learn to think and live biblically we experience an increasing sense of joy in light of the security and significance that God grants us in Christ.
We have the privilege and the responsibility to support, correct & encourage one another, utilizing God’s truth and employing pure & selfless motives.
We should pursue progress in our sanctification by imitating Christ’s forceful and strategic response to sin and temptation.