Christian Living

Blessed by God

Matthew 5:3 proclaims blessed are the…image

Most likely there is no one on the planet who doesn’t want to be blessed by God. There is an entire Christian industry claiming wealth and health to all those who know God and have faith in Him (and give generously to His messengers).

The thinking we associate with blessing is always around money, influence and power, not the things God identifies as blessing when He lived among us in the Man, Jesus. God has told us what it means to be blessed by Him.. (more…)

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January 5, 2015
Christian Living

Life is a Marathon

2 Chronicles 36:13 records Zedekiah was a hard and stubborn man so far as obeying the Lord God of Israel was concerned, for he refused to follow Him.images

The Bible does a lot of recording of how people finished their lives.

Any of us can run a ten yard sprint. Some of us can run a 100 yard dash but very few of us could run a marathon. What’s the difference? Focus, commitment, training.

Living on earth is a marathon and not a sprint. (more…)

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December 31, 2014
Christian Living / evangelism / obedience

God’s goal for 2015

Malachi 2:6 describes he passed on to the people all the truth he got from me. He did not lie or cheat; he walked with me, living a good and righteous life, and turned many from their lives of sin.images

In this description of one of God’s favorite people, Levi, He is describing the role of the priest. At least among the Protestants, the belief is held that all Christians are now priests. The tribe of Levi has been replaced with the Spirit filled people of God who walk by faith and obedience under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. (more…)

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December 29, 2014
Christian Living / Free Bible Reading Plan / obedience

Seeing More of God

John 14:23 reveals I will only reveal Myself to those who love Me and obey Me.th

God loves everyone but God does not treat everyone the same.

God loves everyone as He demonstrated by coming to earth as a man to die as a sacrifice so that all humanity might be pardoned for all their evil done against God and one another. Yet not all of humanity will receive God’s pardon nor will all recognize Jesus as God the Savior while they continue in this life living selfishly and ignoring the commands of God.

It is only those who love God as demonstrated by obedience to God that see God and experience His presence in their lives. (more…)

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December 24, 2014
Christian Living / Theology

The Purpose of Communion

John 6:54 promises anyone who does eat My flesh and drink My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him at the Last Day.image

We call this symbolic participation in the body and blood of Christ the Eucharist, Communion or the Lord’s Supper. The earliest church practiced this event at every gathering, a tradition still in place by some of the Church.

But what is this eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood?

Many of the first disciples who heard God say this walked away from Him thinking He had lost His mind. Muslims find this teaching barbaric even cannibalistic proving in their minds the falsity of the Christian religion.

So what is God inviting us into when He invites us to supper with Him and He is the main course? (more…)

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December 16, 2014
Christian Living

Being a Good Example

John 5:17 records “My Father constantly does good, and I’m following His example.”images

Whoever claims to live in Christ must walk as Jesus did the beloved Apostle John wrote in his first letter to the church. How did God the Son walk? He followed the example of God the Father.

How should we as the children live? We should follow the example of God the Son. Simple really but not easy for the requirement of putting others first before ourselves is immensely difficult and to know what Jesus did we must be students of Who Jesus is.

God in Jesus set before us the example of seeking God the Father diligently through the Scriptures and through prayer. (more…)

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December 15, 2014
Christian Living / obedience

True Love

Revelation 2:5 Think about those times of your first love (how different now!) and turn back to Me again and work as you did imagebefore; or else..

While we all have felt love we all know that love is doing more than feeling.

In romantic love the feelings are overwhelming and they cause us to do many acts of good toward the one we love. When those feelings diminish over time too often the acts diminish as well sometimes resulting in a termination of the relationship.

God describes love in a couple of different ways. (more…)

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December 11, 2014
Christian Living

Proving we are Children of God

3 John 1:11 reminds us that those who do what is right prove that they are God’s children; and those who continue in evil prove imagethat they are far from God.

In Christianity, getting to heaven is easy, at least for us, but living as though we are residents of heaven is hard. God made getting to heaven easy by offering freely a pardon to us through His Son Who sacrificed Himself as payment for us.

It cost God His most precious possession to secure His most precious creation: His Son for you and me. For those of us who believe God, He has given us the right to be declared children of God; forever forgiven and forever sealed for spending eternity with Him in heaven and upon the new earth.

Christians don’t have to do anything because everything that was required for getting into heaven has been done by the Son and has been credited to those who humble themselves before God in submission to the Son of God Who is Jesus Christ the Lord. (more…)

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December 8, 2014
Christian Living / Prayer

Why Pray?

Luke 18:1 declares Jesus told His disciples a story to illustrate their need for constant prayer and to show them that they must imagekeep praying until the answer comes.

Prayer is a mystery to most of us and therefore a difficult thing for us to consistently engage. On the one hand we think God knows everything so why should we pray?

Because God told us to pray doesn’t help us become more motivated to pray, we need a more compelling answer to our question. Because God modeled a life of prayer doesn’t help us either, we tend to dismiss some of Jesus’ activity because He is God and we don’t believe we have any chance of measuring up to Him anyway.

So why pray if God already knows everything anyway? (more…)

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December 5, 2014
Christian Living / evangelism

Loosing the Warrior spirit

1 Chronicles 19:13 commands be courageous and let us act like men to save our people and the cities of our God.image

Most men like a good fight and are willing to engage one as long as we can win!

There’s something of the warrior spirit deep within the male psyche. Yet we are trained to suppress, deny and eliminate this inherent nature of what it means to be male.

The Bible describes God as a warrior in certain places and many find His actions in and through Israel to be a stumbling block to their better judgment of right and wrong.

Nevertheless, the Bible paints a picture of a universe at war: first the angelic host against God, then man against God, then man against man and finally God against all those who oppose His will being done on earth as it is in heaven. (more…)

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November 24, 2014