Isaiah 33:22 describes the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; it is He
Who will save us.
How do we see God? What role does He play in our lives?
The great prophet Isaiah working in a culture similar to ours many years ago reminds Israel that God acts in four ways in our lives. (more…)
2 Peter 1.10 exhorts us to make every effort to confirm our calling and election.
Most evangelical Christians define a person’s salvation by whether or not they believe they are going to heaven if they were to die today.
The answer they are looking for is the confession that the person invited Jesus into their lives to forgive their sins and believe His promise to receive them into His heaven forgiven because of His gracious pardon obtained through His shed blood. Satisfied they believe a person is saved because they made the proper confession they move on never to think again about this salvation we or they supposedly obtain. (more…)
Numbers 22.32 observes I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before
Me.
When God’s not happy ain’t nobody happy!
The problem with the One True God is that He cares as much about how and why we do something as He does with what we do. This makes sense actually if there really is a God.
All the other religions, including Islam, place all of their emphasis upon outward behavior without regard for the motive of that behavior. In reality, we all have this propensity. (more…)
Psalm 68.19 declares, praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, Who daily bears our burdens. God
bears our burdens.
Does that really make any sense? No other religion other than Christianity makes such a claim.
Surely allah doesn’t bear anyone’s burdens. Most gods place burdens on humanity forcing us to get better by their impossible demands.
Our idols have the same burdensome propensity. We beat ourselves because we are not strong enough, smart enough, rich enough or pretty enough so we keep working trying to pacify that voice in our head that is never satisfied. (more…)
Hebrews 10.17 proclaims their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.
What if seeing God for the first time really was a welcome home party, sort of like when your parents welcome you home after having not seen you for months? What if God really did treat us like He knew nothing of our faults or failures?
How would truly believing these things transform our behavior now? Wouldn’t we begin to treat God like we do that person in our life who just loves us for who we are and cares nothing about our performance?
That is the kind of promise God makes to us; to welcome us into heaven as though we had lived a perfect life having never ever done anything wrong. (more…)
Hebrews 2.10 claims Jesus, God as man, was made perfect through what he suffered.
When we think of God suffering we think of the cross upon which He was crucified as the sacrifice for our sins, the payment God the Father required in order to pardon all who love God from their disobedience toward Him.
No doubt the greatest suffering occurred at the separation of God the Father from God the Son when the sins of humanity were all transferred to the perfect One. A mystery difficult for us to understand. (more…)
Mark 9.50 encourages have salt among yourselves.
The modern translation of God’s admonition to have salt in ourselves might be, ‘suck it up buttercup,’ or ‘cowboy up,’ or ‘man up,’ or any of a number of sayings that mean stop being a sissy and own the solution to whatever problem we are facing. The wussification of the current culture is over the top.
Everyone has a malady, no one is responsible for their problems, blaming others is common and looking to big brother for meeting our needs is the new norm. Our grandparents shake their heads at us as they endured the great depression, rationing of basic necessities and the effects of two world wars. (more…)
Acts 17.31 declares He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man He has
appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.
The crucifixion marked the end of heaven being earned by good deeds. In the crucifixion of the Perfect One God made clear that all the good deeds of all people were insufficient for getting them to heaven.
All religions and all people from all time have always tried to measure themselves by their good deeds hoping those outweighed their bad deeds by just enough to get them to heaven. God says all of our good deeds are as menstrual cloths to Him, that no one is good not even one. (more…)
John 21.15 asks do you love me more than these?
What are the ‘these’ God was contrasting Peter’s devotion with His love? Fish.
Its not that God was asking Peter if he loved fish more than Him but rather if he loved the fruit of working for himself more than the fruit of working for God.
Peter was hand chosen to be a fisher of men. The cost to accept this calling was to cease seeing himself as a fisher of fish. Succeeding in fishing meant a life of personal gain, good living, great reputation, worldly opportunities.
Succeeding at fishing for men would mean eternal life for some at personal sacrifice even to the point of death. Peter said he loved Jesus more so God told him to go to work building the church. (more…)
Proverbs 11:29 promises whoever brings ruin on their family will inherit only wind.
Any male can marry and procreate but not all males become men, especially men who lead their family to greater generational impact for God than they themselves experienced.
There are at least three key ingredients to impacting our families for greater good than we experienced. (more…)
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