Fruit Bearing is NOT Optional

Luke 13.6-7 warns, what’s going on here? For three years now I’ve come to this tree expecting apples and not one apple have I found. Chop it down! Why waste good ground with it any longer?

God expects His people to bear fruit. It is to His glory He said, that we bear much fruit. Since the beginning of our inception, when He spoke into existence the first man and the first woman, God has commanded that we be fruitful and multiply. (more…)

0 Comments

The Depth of Our Love Determines the Depth of Our Service

Luke 7.47 observes, if the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal.

Public education has spent the last 50 years teaching us that we are born good but due to poor environments go bad. This is why everyone is a winner and we work so hard to keep anyone from feeling like a loser. All are given a trophy for attendance rather than performance. God teaches us something different in His biography. (more…)

0 Comments

Approaching God is Easier Not Easy

Mark 15. 37-39 observes, Jesus, with a loud cry, gave His last breath. At that moment the Temple curtain ripped right down the middle. When the Roman captain standing guard in front of Him saw that He had quit breathing, he said, This has to be the Son of God!

Christians recognize the significance of the temple curtain being torn down the middle. The curtain was used to separate the holy of Holies from the holy place. The priests went daily to the holy place but only annually into the holy of Holies. It was in the holy of Holies that God ‘dwelt’ being present in the ark of the covenant that existed there as the reminder of God’s law and God’s judgement. (more…)

0 Comments

Jesus is the Unity of God’s Love and Severity

Romans 11.21-22 describes God this way, if God didn’t think twice about taking pruning shears to the natural branches, why would he hesitate over you? He wouldn’t give it a second thought. Make sure you stay alert to these qualities of gentle kindness and ruthless severity that exist side by side in God—ruthless with the deadwood, gentle with the grafted shoot. But don’t presume on this gentleness. The moment you become deadwood, you’re out of there.

God is both immensely kind and intensely severe. He Who is love is He Who is holy. These two seemingly opposite qualities exist seamlessly in the One True God. How? (more…)

0 Comments