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…)
Acts 16:34 describes he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God.
What’s the difference between being happy and having joy?
I would suggest happiness is a result of circumstances and joy is the result of attitude. Feelings tell me whether I am happy or not but conviction tells me I have joy.
Interestingly, God promises joy but not happiness. (more…)
Matthew 13:11 Jesus taught the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to
them.
With an ideology that God loves everyone so everyone is welcome in heaven, the idea that God is withholding information about heaven from some and revealing it only to others is frightening.
Certainly the Creator loves everyone He has created. Absolutely God wants everyone in heaven.
Regrettably, He never gives the impression that everyone will be in heaven despite His love or desire. (more…)
Matthew 12:30 observes whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me
scatters.
On occasion in the gospels, Jesus, God Who has become man, throws down the gauntlet and demands we choose sides. This passage is one of those times when Jesus invites us to separate ourselves into wheat or chaff.
What does it mean for us when God demands we choose but we refuse to even engage the discussion? (more…)
Matthew 6:19 commands ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.’
When God lived among us He said, ‘do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth.’ We need to read that again slowly, thinking carefully about His words. God said, ‘do not store up treasures on earth.’
Yet most of us ignore Him. We are like the Israelites we read about in the Bible who constantly ignore God’s commands so we find ourselves shaking our heads at their disobedience and subsequent negative consequences. (more…)
Matthew 5:3 proclaims blessed are the…
Most likely there is no one on the planet who doesn’t want to be blessed by God. There is an entire Christian industry claiming wealth and health to all those who know God and have faith in Him (and give generously to His messengers).
The thinking we associate with blessing is always around money, influence and power, not the things God identifies as blessing when He lived among us in the Man, Jesus. God has told us what it means to be blessed by Him.. (more…)
Matthew 2:11 records they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold, frankincense
and myrrh.
The Christmas story ends with pagan god believers giving gifts to Him Who is the One True God.
As we prepare for a new year, what gift will we who love God offer Him?
At one level, we are free from the burden of having to come up with some sort of elaborate offering to appease our God. Our God is not so vain that He requires gold, silver or any other material thing for He Himself needs nothing from anyone. (more…)
2 Chronicles 36:13 records Zedekiah was a hard and stubborn man so far as obeying the Lord God of Israel was concerned, for he refused to follow Him.
The Bible does a lot of recording of how people finished their lives.
Any of us can run a ten yard sprint. Some of us can run a 100 yard dash but very few of us could run a marathon. What’s the difference? Focus, commitment, training.
Living on earth is a marathon and not a sprint. (more…)
Revelation 2:5 Think about those times of your first love (how different now!) and turn back to Me again and work as you did
before; or else..
While we all have felt love we all know that love is doing more than feeling.
In romantic love the feelings are overwhelming and they cause us to do many acts of good toward the one we love. When those feelings diminish over time too often the acts diminish as well sometimes resulting in a termination of the relationship.
God describes love in a couple of different ways. (more…)
Luke 18:1 declares Jesus told His disciples a story to illustrate their need for constant prayer and to show them that they must
keep praying until the answer comes.
Prayer is a mystery to most of us and therefore a difficult thing for us to consistently engage. On the one hand we think God knows everything so why should we pray?
Because God told us to pray doesn’t help us become more motivated to pray, we need a more compelling answer to our question. Because God modeled a life of prayer doesn’t help us either, we tend to dismiss some of Jesus’ activity because He is God and we don’t believe we have any chance of measuring up to Him anyway.
So why pray if God already knows everything anyway? (more…)
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