John 5.14 records, after this Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “Look, you have become
well. Don’t sin any more, lest anything worse happen to you.”
What could be worse than being paralyzed for 38 years? What could be worse than living in a prison while watching everyone else around you enjoy freedom? Jesus found this prisoner and asked him if he wanted to get well. (more…)
1 Thessalonians 2.4 describes, we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we declare it, not to
please people but God, Who examines our hearts.
Christians have been commissioned by God to make Him known in the world. This is the purpose for the Church in this world. The Church’s foundation is the declaration of Who Jesus is; the Messiah, the Savior of the world. This declaration is to be the proclamation of all those who acknowledge Jesus as God, Savior and Judge. (more…)
2 Corinthians 12.21 records, I will grieve for many of those who previously sinned and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and licentiousness that they have practiced.
The knock on Christianity from adherents of other religions is the ease by which Christians are able to get to heaven. Christianity is the only religion that claims it’s means to heaven is the receiving of it freely from God as a gift imparted by God’s grace through faith in His love and kindness. (more…)
Acts 25.19 describes several points of disagreement with him about their own religion and about a man named Jesus who
was dead, whom Paul claimed to be alive.
Herein lies the rub Christianity has with every other religion. The founders of every religion except Christianity are dead and their adherents agree those founders are dead. What separates Christianity from the rest is that it claims Jesus, it’s founder, is not dead but alive having risen from the dead after being crucified by men. (more…)
Matthew 12.50 promises, whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.
It is interesting to note what God DID NOT say made people His brother and sister and mother. His relations are not among those who believe in God but is among those who obey God.
Jesus, as God, did not say everyone who believes that there is a God or that God is good, or that God loves everyone or anything else people believe about God, make people His relatives. Certainly Jesus believed in God since He is God. (more…)
Matthew 10.39 promises, whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life because of Me will find it.
At one time in our not to recent past it was popular to ‘find yourself.’ The remnant of that objective remains in all of the self help and self absorption we still see encouraged today. Everything is about personal happiness and fulfillment.
It is why we have come to espouse that your truth and my truth can both be true while being totally opposite from one another. This narcissism has created a culture without shame and without purpose. (more…)
Matthew 6.33 commands, above all pursue His kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as
well.
God does want more from us than mere acknowledgement of His existence. He promises us eternity and then tells us to prepare for that existence by storing up eternal treasure. Presumably that treasure will be either necessary or a determinant for our quality of life to come. This is not dissimilar from investment brokers pleading with us to invest today so that we have something to live on tomorrow when we are no longer able to work but must subsist on what we saved. (more…)
Revelation 11.18 promises, it is time to judge the dead and reward your servants the prophets, as well as your holy people, and all who fear your name, from the least to the greatest.
In the end everyone stands before God to be judged. Those who lived in relationship to the Father through the Son by virtue of the Spirit will be rewarded for their deeds accomplished for God’s glory during their lifetimes. Those who denied the Son, ignored the Father and lived apart from the Spirit will be condemned to live forever in torment with all those who choose to live the same. (more…)
John 4.24 describes, God is Spirit, so those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and in truth.
One of the ways we know there is a God is that humanity from all time in all places has worshiped a god. The Bible explains this propensity as the One True God placing within us a deep knowledge that our Creator lives and beckons us to Himself. (more…)
1 Chronicles 28.7 requires, if he continues to obey my commands and regulations as he does now, I will make his kingdom
last forever.
The Jews understood and still believe, that they are God’s chosen people. Indeed, He did choose them thousands of years ago when God selected one man from all those living on the earth to be the one through whom He will build a nation culminating in His arrival as one of us, Jesus the Messiah.
God’s choice was His own, it wasn’t based upon the merits of the man nor of the people to come from the children born through that man and his wife. Today, the protestant church believes it too is the chosen people of God. (more…)
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