Christian Living / Free Bible Reading Plan / obedience

Seeing More of God

John 14:23 reveals I will only reveal Myself to those who love Me and obey Me.th

God loves everyone but God does not treat everyone the same.

God loves everyone as He demonstrated by coming to earth as a man to die as a sacrifice so that all humanity might be pardoned for all their evil done against God and one another. Yet not all of humanity will receive God’s pardon nor will all recognize Jesus as God the Savior while they continue in this life living selfishly and ignoring the commands of God.

It is only those who love God as demonstrated by obedience to God that see God and experience His presence in their lives. (more…)

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December 24, 2014
Christian Living / obedience

Feeling Bad

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.image

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…)

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December 23, 2014
Christian Living / Theology

man as God or God as man?

Luke 1.35 proclaims the child to be born will be called the Son of God.images

Christmas is the Christian holiday of celebrating the arrival of God to earth as a man in order to become the human sacrifice for God.

The original sin, and all sin since then, can be boiled down to the single issue of man wants to be god. Our anger is a direct reflection of this inherent bent for our angry feelings reflect our unhappiness with the fact that all is not going according to our sovereign will.

Buddhism, Hinduism and Mormonism all have as their end game the divinity of their adherents if they are faithful to follow their religious teachings. This is the ultimate expression of that inherent desire to be god; the all controlling, all powerful, all worshiped, all adhered to, all envied being we wish we would become. (more…)

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December 22, 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 / obedience

True Love

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 imagebefore; 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…)

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December 11, 2014
Christian Living

How to Know God

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 imagewhether 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…)

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December 3, 2014
Christian Living

Giving rather than Getting

Luke 12:15 warns, “Beware! Don’t always be wishing for what you don’t have. For real life and real living are not related to how imagerich we are.”

Its black Friday, the day we justify spending hundreds of dollars in order to save hundreds of dollars to give people gifts they want but don’t need. I know, Christmas is about giving. That’s the point though, focusing on giving rather than upon getting. Easy for a few, difficult for most of us.

This annual event called Christmas is the celebration of God coming to earth to live among us as one of us in order to die for us so that He could spend eternity with us. (more…)

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November 28, 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 / obedience / Prayer

The Temptations of Jesus

Luke 4.1-13 records the temptations of Jesus.image

These were not His only temptations but while they literally occurred they also represent three areas where we struggle to obey God.

First is the temptation to be independent. Jesus had the power to miraculously feed Himself but He waited on God to supply His needs His way. The Christian life is a process toward dependence upon God and away from being independent rebels. We are to look to God for our provision and direction while daily obeying His every command. Christianity is an evolution of doing what we know while learning to know God more. (more…)

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November 20, 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