faith / Prayer

Receiving What We Want in Prayer

Matthew 21.22 promises, you can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it. image

This verse makes many Christians nervous because on the surface it appears God is promising us anything we ask for in prayer. This is what we want His words to mean for there are many things we wish we had but don’t have but if having them was only a matter of asking for them then that would be awesome.

Our experience however tells us this is not what He meant for we have all asked God for things in prayer and did not receive them. So what does this verse mean? (more…)

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January 22, 2016
Christian Living / faith / heaven / Judgement

God has Always Preferred Certain Worship

Genesis 4.4 describes Abel also brought a gift—the best portions of the firstborn lambs from his flock.
The LORD accepted Abel and his gift.

The first religious service recorded was of the first two brothers born on earth bringing their offerings to God. God rejected the offerings of the first brother but accepted the offerings of the second brother. This account is immensely instructive on the nature and ways of God considering it occurs on page 5 of His story without any indication that He had previously prescribed certain requirements for worship of Him.

The clear message from this story is that there is a right way to worship God and a wrong way. (more…)

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January 5, 2016
faith / Theology

Who is This Jesus?

John 12.45 describes the one who looks at Me is seeing the One who sent Me.image

Jesus is unique among all historic figures and religious leaders for He declared Himself to be God. Here Jesus says when we look at Him we see God.

Jesus is God visible. Jesus is God tangible. Jesus is God recognizable. Jesus is God identifiable.

What do we see when we look at Jesus? (more…)

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December 22, 2015
faith / Prayer

Learning to Pray by Watching Your Children

Luke 18.42 comments your faith has healed you. God begins His teaching in this section by telling us toimage pray with perseverance.

When Jesus makes His comment it is to a man who persevered in crying out to Him despite rebuke and demands to stop, in the end, His perseverance was rewarded. What’s interesting is that God said it was the man’s faith that healed him. Jesus did not say it was his persevering prayer or the power of God but faith that caused his healing. (more…)

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December 5, 2015
faith / Theology

Being Convinced of God

Luke 16.31 warns if they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even ifimage someone rises from the dead.

Jesus rose from the dead. This is the most fundamental and crucial teaching of the Christian faith. It separates Christianity from all other religions. (more…)

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December 2, 2015
faith / Judgement / obedience

God is Tolerant but Not Religion

Romans 16.26 describes the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the imageGentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith.

Tolerance is the new desire among those who speak about world religions. The espoused perspectives are that God cannot really be known and that all the religions basically teach the same things.

This worldview leads to every person creating their own religion, their own perspective of Who God is and what God requires. The result of tolerance is ignorance, disobedience and confusion.

God is tolerant. (more…)

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August 26, 2015
Christian Living / faith / obedience

Knowing and Doing the Will of God

1 Samuel 3.21 The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there He revealed Himself to Samuel imagethrough His word.

Knowing God’s will is not complicated.

The difference between the Christian God and all other gods, including Allah, is the clarity by which He makes Himself known and what He requires. This only makes sense if God is truly loving and just.

A God Who desires a relationship with humanity must by virtue of the desire reveal as clearly as possible His personality, intentions and will to those with whom He desires a relationship. (more…)

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August 17, 2015
faith / obedience

God’s Work is in Our Hands

Judges 6:14 records, The Lord turned to him and said, Go in the strength you have and save Israel out imagesof Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?

Amazing that God does not say, go with the strength I will give you. Instead God encourages Gideon to use what little he has to accomplish the overwhelming task God has set before him.

Why? (more…)

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July 24, 2015
faith / obedience / Suffering

Why We Must Do Hard Things

Judges 3:2 explains He did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience.  God left people in the promised land for the Israelites to remove by imageforce.

It seems like God would simply send a plague to these inhabitants then Israel could just easily walk into the promised land and occupy it as their new country. Instead, God made Israel strap on a sword, grab a shield and go daily into battle if they were going to realize His promise for them.

Why did God do this? (more…)

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July 20, 2015
Christian Living / faith / obedience

How to Know God Better

Isaiah 43.10 describes ‘You are My witnesses,’ declares the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He.image

How do we get to know God better and more personally is the universal question among those who truly believe in God. Religion provides a means to that end sometimes and in some ways. The disciplines of Bible reading and prayer are certainly helpful to knowing God better.

God wants us to accomplish our objective so has given us two clues for knowing, believing and understanding Him. (more…)

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June 11, 2015