Christian Living / obedience

Tested or Tempted?

James 1:13 teaches us, when someone wants to do wrong it is never God who is tempting him, for God never wants to do wrongimages and never tempts anyone else to do it.

What is the difference between a temptation and a test?

The Bible declares that God has tested people but that He does not tempt people. Likewise, the Apostle Paul commands us to test ourselves to see if we are still in the faith.

Neither temptation nor testing is wrong only our response to them. God was tempted while living among us as a Man by His enemy the devil and passed those temptations without compromise. God never fell to temptation because it is not in His nature to do so which is also why He never uses temptation against a person.

So what is temptation? (more…)

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December 18, 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 / 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
Christian Living / Judgement

Are we ‘all-in’ for God?

Luke 3:7 proclaims you are trying to escape hell without truly turning to God!image

If we are honest this is the state of most of us, we want to go to heaven but we don’t want interference from God over how we run our lives. We take the minimalist approach to God trusting that He is loving like grandma and giving like Santa Claus.

The reason for this hypocrisy is because we really want to be god, totally in control without accountability, for everything we do, think and say. This reality says a lot about us and little about God. If we knew God better we would think more highly of Him and live more trusting of Him.

What kind of a God are we worshipping Who finds acceptable our minimalist effort at pleasing Him? (more…)

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November 19, 2014
Christian Living / evangelism

Praising God on Monday

Hebrews 13:15 commands to continually offer our sacrifice of praise to God by telling others of the glory of His name.image

Most people think of praising God in terms of singing songs or giving Him thanks. God describes praise as declaring to others the glory of His Name. It is easy to give thanks and sing songs in church but much harder to declare the need all people have to love God and obey His commands in the marketplace. This is true for a myriad of reasons.

First, we lose focus on Monday from the God Whom we worshiped on Sunday. Like those who don’t follow Jesus we become consumed with the pursuit of success or overwhelmed by the responsibilities to produce at work. We forget the Christian command to work as though Jesus were the boss, because He is for the Christian, which means keeping our focus on honoring Him all day while we do the tasks we are assigned by people. We mustn’t let our desire for success and acceptance overwhelm our neighbor’s need for a Savior. (more…)

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November 18, 2014
Christian Living

Undefiled by Sinners

Hebrews 7:26 records God in Jesus is holy and blameless, unstained by sin, undefiled by sinners, and to Him has been givenimage the place of honor in heaven.

In a pluralistic world Christianity is maligned because it denies any means to heaven besides Jesus. This is because if the Christian story is true, that God sacrificed Himself as payment for the disobedience of humanity, then no amount of good works by humanity can be sufficient otherwise God wasted His effort.

While Islam also makes exclusive their religion for obtaining heaven, theirs is based upon obedience to their way rather than the love of God demonstrated in His personal sacrifice. Another similarity between these two religions which also demonstrates their marked contrast is the idea that God remains undefiled by sinners. (more…)

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November 12, 2014
Christian Living / heaven / Judgement

God is not Bad

Hosea 11:9 declares I am the Holy One living among you, and I did not come to destroy.images

God is good but we don’t always think so. We like the freedom to make our own decisions, to do what we want but we don’t always like the consequences of those decisions or the choices others make which impact our lives.

We blame God for the bad things that happen without considering that most of those bad things are the result of our own or other human choices. We want a god who will intervene in our lives to keep us from injury but not to command us to do good.

When bad things happen not as a result of human choice we still blame God for it feeling that He is disinterested in our affairs. This is not the picture the Bible paints of Who the One True God Who is love in character, nature and ways.

The God in the Bible is the God Who is full of compassion, abounding in mercy and unlimited in love. (more…)

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November 5, 2014
Christian Living / obedience / Titus

The Importance of Good Works

Titus 2:1 teaches that there is right living that goes along with true Christianity.image

One of the problems with Christians defining themselves as ‘believers’ is the disconnect that occurs with the responsibility to live ‘rightly’ as a result of right belief. This disconnect is furthered when we discuss our acceptance by God through grace by faith and not by our good works.

While true, it wasn’t that no good works occurred giving humanity the opportunity to be forgiven, Jesus Himself earned our pardon through His perfect obedience to all the will of God. Without His good works we would have none appropriated to us for us to be forgiven. (more…)

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November 3, 2014
Theology

Who is this Jesus?

2 Timothy 2:8 describes Jesus Christ a man, born into King David’s family; and God, as shown by the fact that He rose againimage from the dead.

The Trinity is wholly unique within Christianity. No other religion, not Islam, not Hinduism, not the Jehovah Witnesses, not Mormonism nor Buddhism make that claim that God Himself became and is both God and Man.

Why is this one truth so important to Christianity and so despised by Muslims, Witnesses and Mormons particularly? (more…)

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October 30, 2014
Christian Living

Christian Jihad

1 Timothy 1:18 commands fight well in the Lord’s battles. Is this justification for Christian Jihad?image

There has never been a Christian version of the Muslim Jihad. What about the Crusades? The Crusades were a response, albeit not always godly, against Muslim expansion into Europe and not a mandate to force all infidels into the faith or perish by the sword.

The Christian version of holy war is the battle against principalities and powers in high places that seek to keep people ignorant of the saving work of God through Jesus the Christ.

In plain English, Christian holy war is a verbal defense against all world views that deny the existence of God and His coming in Jesus Who commands all people everywhere to repent and receive Him freely as their Lord and Savior.

The means for waging this war is humble service, a willingness to be maligned by men and persecuted physically for proclaiming the Truth that there is one God and one means for pleasing Him, a reconciled relationship with Jesus. As God surrendered His life to become the Savior, His people are to surrender their lives in the proclamation of Him as Savior. (more…)

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October 23, 2014