The Best Way For Gaining Influence

1 Corinthians 9.19-23 records, even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!

The purpose of the Christian life, the work we are to do, is to win people to Christ in order for God to accomplish His purpose of not seeing anyone perish but for all to come to eternal life. (more…)

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The Key To Successful Relationships

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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Living as Wise as the Thief

Luke 16.8-9 observes, here’s a surprise: The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right —using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.

This passage has made Christians wonder for centuries. God praises a thief, a liar, an embezzler. What? (more…)

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The Best Way to Love God and Love Our Neighbor

Luke 12.8-9 commands, stand up for Me among the people you meet and the Son of Man will stand up for you before all God’s angels. But if you pretend you don’t know Me, do you think I’ll defend you before God’s angels?

One of the evidences for the truth of Scripture, that the Lord alone is God and that Jesus is the God-Man, the only Savior of the world, is the difficulty we have in identifying with Him before men. (more…)

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Sharing Jesus With People Can Get You Hurt

Luke 10.3 warns, On your way! But be careful—this is hazardous work. You’re like lambs in a wolf pack.

I find it ironic our God would say, be careful. Our prayers are offered in hopes that we wouldn’t need to be careful, that He would be watching over us to protect us so that nothing bad happens to us. Isn’t that the point of our prayers? Especially, when the prayer and the work is centered around doing His will! (more…)

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Are You Living As Though God Were Not Watching?

Judges 21.25 records, at that time there was no king in Israel. People did whatever they felt like doing.

‭‭There really was a King in Israel, the problem is that He was and is invisible. The invisible King, which also really isn’t true, a better description would be bodiless, for His handiwork is everywhere if we have eyes to see.

The bodiless King is slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness which gives the allusion that our sins are being ignored since the consequences for our disobedience are not immediate. All of this: the invisible King and delayed consequences, resulted in everyone doing what was right in their own eyes. (more…)

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How Do You Measure Obedience To God?

Jeremiah 13.8-11 mourns, GOD explained, “This is the way I am going to ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem—a wicked bunch of people who won’t obey me, who do only what they want to do, who chase after all kinds of no-gods and worship them. They’re going to turn out as rotten as these old shorts. Just as shorts clothe and protect, so I kept the whole family of Israel under my care— GOD ’s Decree—so that everyone could see they were my people, a people I could show off to the world and be proud of. But they refused to do a thing I said.

God’s description of Israel is certainly apropos to many in the Church today. We don’t obey God, we do what we want to do, we chase after and worship no-gods. (more…)

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The Most Appropriate Response to God

Joshua 5.14 observes, Joshua fell, face to the ground, and worshiped. He asked, What orders does my Master have for His servant?

When we encounter God our response to Him is simple, what would you have me to do? It’s not complicated really. He is God, our Creator, our Sustainer, the One Who brought us into His world and allows us to live upon it. If we chaff at this idea of responding to God humbly and obediently it is because we are poor in at least two areas. (more…)

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Do You Want What God Wants?

1 John 2.15-17 commands, Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity. (more…)

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Wisdom is More Doing Than Knowing

James 3.17 describes Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others.

We believe wisdom means knowing things; God equates wisdom with doing His things. We seek wisdom so that we might make the right decisions; God gives wisdom so that we might do the right things. We want wisdom so that we don’t lose time, money or possessions on earth; God gives wisdom so that we will not lose eternal life with Him. We look for wisdom from successful people; God gives wisdom in the Scriptures.  (more…)

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