What Does YOUR God Require From You?

Joshua 4.23-24 observes, Yes, GOD, your God, dried up the Jordan’s waters for you until you had crossed, just as GOD, your God, did at the Red Sea, which had dried up before us until we had crossed. This was so that everybody on earth would recognize how strong GOD ’s rescuing hand is and so that you would hold GOD in solemn reverence always.

Holding God in solemn reverence always. What exactly does that mean? It certainly means honoring Him. How do we honor God? (more…)

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What Do You Think About Who God Is?

John 20.30-31 records, Jesus provided far more God-revealing signs than are written down in this book. These are written down so you will believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and in the act of believing, have real and eternal life in the way he personally revealed it.

Most conversations about God begin with, ‘I think.’ Everyone has an opinion it seems about Who God is, if God is and how God operates. Where do these ideas come from and how do we know they are true? (more…)

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Intimacy With God Occurs Where He Is

1 John 4. 15-16 describes, everyone who confesses that Jesus is God’s Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.

Doing the work of God keeps us in intimacy with God. The work of God is this: to make known the Father and the Son in Whom we receive forgiveness of sins and life forever. (more…)

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What Is Eternal Life?

John 17.3 records,this is the real and eternal life: That they know You, The One and only true God, And Jesus Christ, Whom You sent. I glorified You on earth By completing down to the last detail What You assigned Me to do. And now, Father, glorify Me with Your very own splendor, The very splendor I had in Your presence Before there was a world.

Most Christians would define eternal life as living with God in heaven. The particularly biblically astute might even add living with God on the new earth. Neither would be correct. (more…)

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What Priority Does Church Have For YOU?

Ephesians 1.23 observes, the church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.

Oh that we as the Church, the people who claim Jesus as Savior,  would embrace this truth: the Church is not peripheral to the world but the world is peripheral to the Church. (more…)

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Are YOU Offended by God’s Priorities?

Luke 15.7 records, Count on it—there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.

For many Christians, God’s words in this lesson are offensive. God in Jesus, in this chapter of the Bible, tells three stories all making the same point. In the last story, the Christians portrayed by the oldest son, are offended by God’s doings. What is offensive to Christians in these stories? (more…)

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Jesus is the Unity of God’s Love and Severity

Romans 11.21-22 describes God this way, if God didn’t think twice about taking pruning shears to the natural branches, why would he hesitate over you? He wouldn’t give it a second thought. Make sure you stay alert to these qualities of gentle kindness and ruthless severity that exist side by side in God—ruthless with the deadwood, gentle with the grafted shoot. But don’t presume on this gentleness. The moment you become deadwood, you’re out of there.

God is both immensely kind and intensely severe. He Who is love is He Who is holy. These two seemingly opposite qualities exist seamlessly in the One True God. How? (more…)

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Short term or Long term Investments?

Ezra 9.10-12 says, and now, our God, after all this what can we say for ourselves? For we have thrown your commands to the wind…Whatever you do, don’t cultivate their good opinion; don’t make over them and get them to like you so you can make a lot of money and build up a tidy estate to hand down to your children.

We should want to cultivate the good opinion of men but for the singular purpose of glorifying God. Our lifestyle, our morals, values and behavior, should reflect the character, nature and ways of God Himself for we are His adopted children and we call God our Father. (more…)

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