Questions in this episode: – What does Mark 13:30 mean? – Is it possible to not sin for a day? How often do we sin? – Is it possible for a believer to love God completely and at all times? – If God is our master, can’t He do whatever he wants with us …
Even in our fallen messed-up world we must recognize and respond to God’s sovereign use of governments to accomplish his will for his people.
God graciously works through a variety of means to bring us to repentance, both at the outset of the Christian life and throughout it, so that we might walk in fellowship with him.
We need to understand God’s amazing grace and sincerely respond to it with our whole hearts in light of the sinfulness of our sin.
When we recognize our sin before a holy, just and loving God, we will feel the pang of sorrow for our offense. But the happiness of knowing we are forgiven through repentance and trust in Jesus, our savior, should bring joy.
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…
Pastor Mike answers questions about God, the Bible, and Christianity. Questions in this session: How do we deal with a professing Christian about sin that they are unwilling to acknowledge? Is AI/machine learning dangerous? And what about pastors who use it to create sermons? What happens to us immediately after we die? In the Millennial …
One of the challenges of living a godly life in an ungodly world, is the pressure we face when the world perpetually exalts those who are evil, and expects the rest of us to applaud. As with Isaiah, we live in a culture filled with “those who call evil good and good evil” (Is.5:20). Jesus made it clear that
We need wisdom to discern the larger movements of society that rise up with hostility against the gospel and the values of God, knowing the Holy Spirit is graciously at work to defend us.
The Bible instructs us to “confess” our sins (1Jn.1:9). While many think that means to say “I’m sorry” to God, the word actually precludes most forms of modern apologies. The word confess in the Greek New Testament is a compound word which is made up of the words “the same” and “to speak”. The idea is that when we
We must understand the gravity of our sinful plight to realize how gracious God is to draw us to himself through the means of his word.
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
King Asa was a righteous leader of God’s people. This ancestor of Christ and third king of the divided kingdom was a devout reformer who abolished the worship of foreign gods, put an end to cultic prostitution, and even dethroned his family members who disdained obedience to Yahweh. The Bible says God brought…
Pastor Mike answers questions about God, the Bible, and Christianity. Questions in this session: Is it a sin for professing Christians to not read the Bible? Is belief in the sign gifts a secondary issue in the Christian life or is it salvific? How do we navigate friendship versus a dating relationship between Christian men …
Jesus said that people prefer darkness rather than light because people don’t want their sinful deeds exposed (Jn.3:19-20). Of course this is an analogy. Your willingness to sit in the sun or your desire to dim the lights in the family room has nothing to do with…
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…
We must work to identify the sin of envy, longing with God’s empowerment to experience freedom from this insidious and corrosive problem.
God’s forgiveness is complete. Because God is too pure to approve or tolerate what is evil (Hab.1:13; Ps.5:4-5; et al.), to say that we are God’s beloved children because we are accepted by God in Christ, is to make a gigantic claim that assumes that our…
The Bible says we are all born with a built in double standard – the one we apply to those around us and the other we apply to ourselves. We are innately proficient in detecting the sins and transgressions of others, but we are inept in perceiving our own. Consider the freeway foibles…
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…
We are motivated to boldly proclaim the gospel when we understand the horrendous problem of sin and death, prizing the gracious forgiveness God made possible through the risen Christ.
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…
This is a set of messages delivered to the high school group True North at the Revival 2021 summer camp.
Pastor Mike answers questions about God, the Bible, and Christianity. Questions in this session: 1. How do you transition from knowing about God to knowing God? 2. What is the best way to help people find the right path to live a life God wants them to live. (My paraphrase) 3. What is the best …
Pastor Mike answers questions about God, the Bible, and Christianity. Questions in this session: 1. Question on same sex attraction. 2. Do all pastors at Compass agree to all 5 points of grace. 3. Question related to understanding the differences between dispensational and Covenantal theologies and can they be reconciled. 4. How does a woman …
People use the word “Tolerance” in a variety of ways. In today’s culture we hear it a lot. But what does tolerance mean and how should Christians practice it?
To fully appreciate the grace of Christian regeneration we need to recall the futility and plight of our pre-Christian rebellion against God.
Clearly not every health crisis or sickness is a result of someone’s specific sin (cf. Jn.9:1-3; Job 1:1; et al.). On the other hand, sometimes they are. According to Hebrews 12, God’s protective and parental love is demonstrated…
As we advance the gospel, we must be ready to faithfully confront and correct those we lead to Christ, knowing that everyone will be tempted to fall into costly and corrupting sins.
