Christian Living / heaven / Theology

The One True God Really is Good.

2 Kings 13.22-24 records, Hazael king of Aram badgered and bedeviled Israel all through the reign of Jehoahaz. But GOD was gracious and showed mercy to them. He stuck with them out of respect for his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He never gave up on them, never even considered discarding them, even to this day. Hazael king of Aram died. His son Ben-Hadad was the next king.

The world has no idea how fortunate we are that God is good. Seriously, if God were really evil think of how awful our lives would really be. (more…)

0 Comments
November 1, 2018
Prayer

Effective Prayers

Daniel 9.15-17 laments, Master, you are our God, for you delivered your people from the land of Egypt in a show of power—people are still talking about it! We confess that we have sinned, that we have lived bad lives….We know it’s our fault that this has happened, all because of our sins and our parents’ sins, and now we’re an embarrassment to everyone around us. We’re a blot on the neighborhood….Act out of Who You are, not out of what we are.

Daniel read God’s word so he could know God’s will, then he prayed for God’s people to be restored to God’s will as described in God’s word. Daniel understood from God’s word that God’s people were disobedient to God’s will which explained their current calamity. (more…)

0 Comments
October 24, 2018
Christian Living / Judgement / obedience

What is your religion?

1 Kings 13.33-34 describes, after this happened, Jeroboam kept right on doing evil, recruiting priests for the forbidden shrines indiscriminately—anyone who wanted to could be a priest at one of the local shrines. This was the root sin of Jeroboam’s government. And it was this that ruined him.

Jeroboam’s root sin should be so familiar to us because it is so prevalent among us. What was his root sin, the sin we see everywhere around us and perhaps even within us? (more…)

0 Comments
October 15, 2018
Christian Living

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…)

0 Comments
August 29, 2018
heaven / Judgement / obedience

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…)

0 Comments
August 9, 2018
Christian Living

What A Godly Father Looks Like

Acts 10.1-3 describes, a man named Cornelius who lived in Caesarea, captain of the Italian Guard stationed there. He was a thoroughly good man. He had led everyone in his house to live worshipfully before God, was always helping people in need, and had the habit of prayer. One day about three o’clock in the afternoon he had a vision. An angel of God, as real as his next-door neighbor, came in and said, “Cornelius.

Cornelius was a rock star. He was a warrior for both men and God. That’s what most Christian men desire to be: strong before men, holy before God. Cornelius was great not because of his position before men, which was considerable. Cornelius was great because of his position before God. (more…)

2 Comments
July 23, 2018
Christian Living / Judgement

July 4th Reflections

Jeremiah 2.1-3 records, GOD ’s Message came to me. It went like this: “Get out in the streets and call to Jerusalem, ‘ GOD ’s Message! I remember your youthful loyalty, our love as newlyweds. You stayed with me through the wilderness years, stuck with me through all the hard places. Israel was GOD ’s holy choice, the pick of the crop. Anyone who laid a hand on her would soon wish he hadn’t!’” GOD ’s Decree.

We just finished celebrating the 4th of July, the birth of America, the greatest nation on the earth. Great because it allows its people the greatest freedom to be who God made them to be and to exercise the gifts and talents that God gave them. It is the greatest nation because it is the most free nation for worshiping the One True God, without constraint or control by the government – or at least it used to be. (more…)

0 Comments
July 9, 2018
Judgement / obedience

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…)

0 Comments
July 2, 2018
Christian Living / faith

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…)

0 Comments
June 7, 2018
Christian Living

We Were Made To Live Passionately

1 Timothy 6.11-12 commands, you, Timothy, man of God: Run for your life from all this. Pursue a righteous life—a life of wonder, faith, love, steadiness, courtesy. Run hard and fast in the faith. Seize the eternal life, the life you were called to, the life you so fervently embraced in the presence of so many witnesses.

The successful businessman, the Olympic athlete, the small child on Christmas morning, all know the meaning of run hard and fast toward the goal, to seize the day and to fervently embrace the desire of their affection. This picture is to be the normal Christian life. (more…)

0 Comments
April 17, 2018