https://youtu.be/LgT6xJF4DQs "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even the tax collectors do the same, don't they? And if you only greet your brothers,…
https://youtu.be/3HoyGP4qg_c “"He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters…… "For whoever does the will of My Father who is in…
“For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you to be not what I wish and may be found by you to be not what you…
Mark 12.34 observes, realizing how much the man understood, Jesus said to him, You are not far from
the Kingdom of God.
Knowing and doing are not the same. We inherently know this in our dealings with people, especially family. We know our spouse loves us but sometimes their actions are hurtful. We know our children know what they are to do but they often fail to do what they have been made responsible to do.
On and on it goes in our experience of the gap between knowing and doing, both in our own lives as well as the lives of others. (more…)
Deuteronomy 6:25 promises if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.
The Christian perspective of righteousness, right standing with God, is both a matter of being and doing. God requires righteous doing, without someone obeying Him perfectly no one can be right with God. The problem is no one can do what God requires perfectly all the time, maybe, none of the time.
Jesus did obey perfectly and can transfer His perfection upon everyone who calls upon Him for mercy. (more…)
Luke 18.17 records God promising anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child
will never enter it.
This is a very familiar warning to us but few take it seriously because most of us don’t understand what He means to receive the kingdom like a little child.
We usually begin by thinking of sweet and innocent children all of whom will go to heaven because it only seems fair. Those of us who have children however know they are often not so sweet nor innocent but are rather quite overt in their selfishness.
This takes us back to ignoring the meaning of God’s warning because it fails to make sense to us. (more…)
Romans 2:4 explains that God’s kindness is intended to lead us to repentance?
God is good.
Not everyone believes this and some have life experiences such that it is indeed hard to believe. Yet not one of us gets treated in this life as our rebellion and disobedience against God deserves. Herein lies the problem. (more…)
John 12:25 warns if you love your life down here—you will lose it. If you despise your life down here—you will exchange it for eternal glory.
For a long time I understood this instruction from God to mean I was to despise the way I lived in disobedience to Him. I thought if I was really connected with God my disobedience to Him which is so consistent, would grieve me to such a degree that I would despise myself.
My logic flowed from understanding the opposite of this thinking. Those who ignore God have a good time doing those things that displease God without regret or concern (much of the time), so the opposite must be true as well. Those who seek to please God but find themselves constantly falling short must despise themselves for their poverty of godliness. (more…)
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 that 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…)
1 John 2.5 promises those who do what Christ tells them to will learn to love God more and more. That is the way to know 
whether or not you are a Christian.
Imagine taking a test where any answer given is deemed correct. We would not think much of the test nor of the subject. Every teacher expects their students to give them the same answer on their test if they wish to pass the test.
Every team expects all of the players to know the plays and perform them the same way if they are going to be successful. Every company expects their employees to know their procedures and perform them the same way so that everyone can more effectively work together.
God has given to us the Bible so that we can know the correct answers to the questions Who is God and what does He require of us. (more…)
