James 2.1 commands, my dear friends, don’t let public opinion influence how you live out our glorious,
Christ-originated faith.
What is the public opinion of Christianity? For too many it is seen as a constraint upon societal behavior. Why is this so? (more…)
Hebrews 1.8-9 describes, God the Father saying to the Son, You’re God, and on the throne for good;
Your rule makes everything right. You love it when things are right; You hate it when things are wrong. That is why God, Your God, poured fragrant oil on Your head, marking You out as king, far above Your dear companions.
This country was founded by people who were seeking a place to worship God as they believed best, free from government rules and regulations, in order to live lives pleasing to Him. So many came and so many worshiped Him in so many different ways. The one common denominator among them was their focus upon Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords.
2 Kings 13.22-24 records, Hazael king of Aram badgered and bedeviled Israel all through the reign of
Jehoahaz. But GOD was gracious and showed mercy to them. He stuck with them out of respect for his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He never gave up on them, never even considered discarding them, even to this day. Hazael king of Aram died. His son Ben-Hadad was the next king.
The world has no idea how fortunate we are that God is good. Seriously, if God were really evil think of how awful our lives would really be. (more…)
Hosea 4.8 observes, you can’t tell the people from the priests, the priests from the people. I’m on My
way to make them both pay and take the consequences of the bad lives they’ve lived.
One of the major doctrinal shifts that came out of the Reformation is the empowerment of all Christians to live and serve God as priests – the priesthood of all believers. This teaching throughout the New Testament and modeled by God in Jesus whose twelve disciples were not from the religious class but from the working class, was finally implemented during the Reformation after a long hiatus beginning around 300AD. (more…)
Proverbs 3.27-29 commands, never walk away from someone who deserves help; your hand is God’s
hand for that person. Don’t tell your neighbor “Maybe some other time” or “Try me tomorrow” when the money’s right there in your pocket. Don’t figure ways of taking advantage of your neighbor when he’s sitting there trusting and unsuspecting.
There is an old Christian song that teaches us we are God’s hands and feet. The famous parable of the Good Samaritan reiterates this truth. Here the Scripture teaches, we are God’s hand for helping people. (more…)
1 Kings 13.33-34 describes, after this happened, Jeroboam kept right on doing evil, recruiting priests for
the forbidden shrines indiscriminately—anyone who wanted to could be a priest at one of the local shrines. This was the root sin of Jeroboam’s government. And it was this that ruined him.
Jeroboam’s root sin should be so familiar to us because it is so prevalent among us. What was his root sin, the sin we see everywhere around us and perhaps even within us? (more…)
Ephesians 2.1-6 describes, it wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You
let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
We have to decide what we believe about ourselves and God for what we believe about these things determines how we live, and how we live, if there really is a God, determines our eternal destiny. (more…)
Ezekiel 21.13 describes, testing comes. Why have you despised discipline? You can’t get around it.
Decree of GOD, the Master.
The human condition is filled with trials and tribulations, some worse than others but none are immune from such experiences. It is because the world rebelled against God so many years ago, now the seed of disobedience reigns within it. Weeds grow, things break, animals attack, people hurt one another, hurricanes occur, the list goes on. Testing comes to all and all of us are tested at various times. (more…)
2 Corinthians 2.9-11, reminds us, the focus of my letter wasn’t on punishing the offender but on
getting you to take responsibility for the health of the church. So if you forgive him, I forgive him. Don’t think I’m carrying around a list of personal grudges. The fact is that I’m joining in with your forgiveness, as Christ is with us, guiding us. After all, we don’t want to unwittingly give Satan an opening for yet more mischief—we’re not oblivious to his sly ways!
The health of the church is the responsibility of each of the members. The key to church health is each member seeing themselves as having an ownership interest. How does a church remain, become and develop it’s health? By living according to God’s Word. (more…)
1 Corinthians 3.1-3 observes, I’m completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and
with God. You’re acting like infants in relation to Christ, capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast. Well, then, I’ll nurse you since you don’t seem capable of anything more. As long as you grab for what makes you feel good or makes you look important, are you really much different than a babe at the breast, content only when everything’s going your way?
Selfishness and self-centeredness are the signs of immaturity in the Christian life. Immaturity runs rampant in the Church. We are hard pressed not to find an overabundance of selfishness and self-centeredness among those who claim Jesus as Savior. (more…)
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