faith / Prayer

Learning to Pray by Watching Your Children

Luke 18.42 comments your faith has healed you. God begins His teaching in this section by telling us toimage pray with perseverance.

When Jesus makes His comment it is to a man who persevered in crying out to Him despite rebuke and demands to stop, in the end, His perseverance was rewarded. What’s interesting is that God said it was the man’s faith that healed him. Jesus did not say it was his persevering prayer or the power of God but faith that caused his healing. (more…)

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December 5, 2015
Christian Living / obedience

Maintaining Integrity with God

image1 Chronicles 10:13-14 explains, Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord; he did not keep the word of the Lord and even consulted a medium for guidance, and did not inquire of the Lord. So the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.

Imagine being hand chosen by God to be the first king over His people. Pretty high honor. You would also think the vetting process would have been the best. Yet, like the first man created, Adam, this first king was a failure. (more…)

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November 18, 2015
evangelism / heaven / Judgement / obedience

God’s Definition of Greatness

Luke 1.15 promises he will be great in the sight of the Lord.images

Few men don’t desire to be great. Its inherent to our nature. It comes from our origin: we are made in the image of God.

God is great and ever increasing in glory so too those made in His image aspire to greatness. Since being kicked out of paradise for our rebellion we have perverted the object or goal of our greatness. Most of us want others to see and recognize us as great, the reason our natural desire is perverted. (more…)

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November 16, 2015
heaven / Judgement / money

Building Heavenly Treasure Part 2

1 Timothy 6.19 promises, in this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for imagesthe coming age. God encourages us to create and store treasure for ourselves in heaven. Think of it as the ultimate retirement savings account.

To earn heavenly treasure we have to think in the economics of heaven. We also have to choose which priority we will live for: short term this life existence or long term eternal life existence.

God warns us we cannot love money and God: we will focus on accumulating either the treasure of this world or the treasure of the world to come. In the passage today God lists additional means for us to accumulate heavenly treasure besides working at reconciling people to Jesus as Savior of the world. (more…)

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October 28, 2015
evangelism

Earning Eternal Wages

John 4.36 promises the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life.image

God warned us, while living among us, as one of us, not too place our life pursuit upon things that didn’t last like houses, clothes and money. God might have added cars to this mix had they been invented while He lived among us.

These are the very things most of us pursue for defining our success and significance in the world. God is not opposed to working for reward. (more…)

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October 20, 2015
Christian Living / heaven / Judgement / obedience / Theology

Believe, Receive and Cleave to Get to Heaven

Colossians 2:6 commands, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in imagesHim. What makes a person a Christian?

The debate has long raged because unlike all of the other religions, there are no ‘3 steps’ to making oneself a Christian. There are however 3 principles that if not evident in our lives should cause us much concern about our belief that we truly are Christians. (more…)

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October 14, 2015
Judgement / obedience

Living Life with the End in Mind

2 Corinthians 5.11 warns since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others.images

The problem is we really don’t fear God. We live our lives silently knowing that we are not always doing what is right while believing God doesn’t really care because He doesn’t give us immediate feedback for our actions.

We deceive ourselves into believing that because God is love He overlooks all wrong. (more…)

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September 16, 2015
heaven / Judgement / obedience

Can I Get to Heaven Being Mostly Good?

Ezekiel 3.20 describes when a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before them, they will die. The righteous things that person did will not be imagesremembered…

While the love of God should move us toward Him the wrath of God should cause us pause. We have heard much of the love of God. Most non church attendees can quote John 3.16 about God so loving the world that He sent His ONLY Son etc. (more…)

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August 31, 2015
faith / Judgement / obedience

God is Tolerant but Not Religion

Romans 16.26 describes the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the imageGentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith.

Tolerance is the new desire among those who speak about world religions. The espoused perspectives are that God cannot really be known and that all the religions basically teach the same things.

This worldview leads to every person creating their own religion, their own perspective of Who God is and what God requires. The result of tolerance is ignorance, disobedience and confusion.

God is tolerant. (more…)

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August 26, 2015
Christian Living / faith / obedience

Knowing and Doing the Will of God

1 Samuel 3.21 The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there He revealed Himself to Samuel imagethrough His word.

Knowing God’s will is not complicated.

The difference between the Christian God and all other gods, including Allah, is the clarity by which He makes Himself known and what He requires. This only makes sense if God is truly loving and just.

A God Who desires a relationship with humanity must by virtue of the desire reveal as clearly as possible His personality, intentions and will to those with whom He desires a relationship. (more…)

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August 17, 2015