James 3.13 observes, if you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life,
doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom.
Everyone wants wisdom, or at least we always want to make the right decision. Always making the right decision is not really wisdom from God’s perspective. (more…)
Ecclesiastes 12.13 summarizes the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty.
Biblically speaking the wisest person to ever live was king Solomon. He was made wise by God in response to his request of God for ruling over the people of God.
The book of Ecclesiastes is king Solomon’s observations from a long life guided by wisdom. His conclusion is the summary verse for today: fear God and obey His commands. (more…)
Leviticus 18.3-4 commands, do not act like the people in Egypt, where you used to live, or like the people of Canaan, where I am taking you. You must not imitate their way of life. You must obey all My
regulations and be careful to obey My decrees, for I am the LORD your God.
The other day I was accused of not being very Christian. The accusation was from a person who did not claim to be a Christian. This person, who didn’t use the ‘product’ seemed to know how the ‘product’ was to be used and according to him, I was doing it wrong.
While I wont get into the details the point is that people, in addition to God, expect Christians to live differently. Christians too believe this but struggle to differentiate their words, behaviors or habits from the rest of their culture. (more…)
Mark 12.34 observes, realizing how much the man understood, Jesus said to him, You are not far from
the Kingdom of God.
Knowing and doing are not the same. We inherently know this in our dealings with people, especially family. We know our spouse loves us but sometimes their actions are hurtful. We know our children know what they are to do but they often fail to do what they have been made responsible to do.
On and on it goes in our experience of the gap between knowing and doing, both in our own lives as well as the lives of others. (more…)
1 Thessalonians 1.10 promises, Jesus is the one Who has rescued us from the terrors of the coming
judgment.
Recently I was listening to a man describe why he rejected his Christian upbringing. He served as a soldier in Vietnam and couldn’t understand how a good God could allow so much suffering. He has since become a Muslim. I didn’t understand how switching ‘gods’ helped him especially to one who doesn’t describe himself as love. (more…)
Philippians 2.12 commands, work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep
reverence and fear.
Easter has just passed for most Christians: it is the time for celebration of the life, death and resurrection of God in Jesus the Savior. It is a celebration because humanity no longer is required to be perfect in order to get to heaven. It is a celebration because humanity is no longer measured by their own performance for earning heaven. It is a celebration because God is offering a pardon for all disobedience against Him by every person who has ever lived who will simply ask God for His pardon through Jesus the Savior. (more…)
John 13.34 records God saying, I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should
love each other.
The current definition of love is to tolerate any belief or behavior by another individual even if that belief or behavior is offensive to the first person. The person engaged in the offensive behavior is not considered unloving when they continue in their behavior that is offensive to the first party.
Love seems to mean toleration today but only for those engaged in non-traditional behaviors. Those holding traditional values are not to be loved by those not holding such values as demonstrated by curbing their behavior when with the ‘traditionalists.’ It is the traditionalists who need to change their thinking if they are to be loving. (more…)
Luke 9.60 comments, let the spiritually dead bury their own dead! Your duty is to go and preach about
the Kingdom of God.
God requires only a few things from us but He appears fairly adamant about those few things.
First is to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. While we look to make the adherence to this command a feeling within ourselves God measures it by His second command which is to love our neighbor as ourselves. (more…)
1 Corinthians 3.18-19 commands, if you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to
become a fool to be truly wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, “He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.”
Recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia put it this way, ‘God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools…and He has not been disappointed. Devout Christians are destined to be regarded as fools in modern society. We are fools for Christ’s sake. We must pray for courage to endure the scorn of the sophisticated world. If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.’
Justice Scalia’s challenge is immensely timely for this generation of Christians. (more…)
Mark 11.17 describes, My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations . But you have turned it
into a den of robbers!
What is the purpose of Church?
If the Church is the world wide ‘body’ of Christ, the faithful followers of Jesus, then it’s mission is the Great Commission. If the Church is the local building where the followers of Jesus gather then…..it gets a bit more nebulous, at least to the followers. (more…)
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