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…)
1 Peter 5.8 warns be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion
looking for someone to devour.
The Bible tells the story of God and His work in the world. In that story is an enemy, one who wishes to be like God but cannot since he too is created and not the Creator. His frustration results in his attack upon creation, particularly humanity, that part of creation the Creator made in His own image and which He most loves.
This enemy of God is a liar and deceiver, inviting people into beliefs and actions that promise them benefit but always bring remorse. The enemy of God is an integral part of the story for his role allows humanity to reveal their free will to love God on their own. (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…)
Isaiah 1.13 commands, Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me….I
cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
The problem with the One True God is that He is not fooled by religion.
Religion is to be a means by which we express our love and worship toward God. Religion is not God, neither does it’s rituals please God, unless the life of the one performing the ritual is consistent in living a life pleasing to God.
We just finished the season of Lent where many Christians perform the duty of sacrifice in an effort to identify with Him Who sacrificed His life for humanity. I am always amazed how we equate giving up chocolate or beer with Jesus’ death on the Cross for sin. The disconnect seems pretty extreme to me. Is this even something God wants or expects from us? (more…)
Psalm 40.8 declares, I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.
Most of us who claim to be seekers of God want to please Him, the breakdown occurs in determining what it takes to please God. It seems only fair that if there is indeed a God that He would make clear what He requires from us.
Fortunately, that is exactly why God had His thoughts, words and deeds recorded and preserved in a book. In this way, all peoples for all time in all languages could know what the One True God requires of us. (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 14.38 commands watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing,
but the flesh is weak.
Watch means read the Book, understand what it says so that when you see things happening you can interpret them properly. Pray, so that the Spirit within is able to overpower the flesh without that is unwilling to obey the prescription found in the Book.
While Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for humanity’s disobedience, this was not done to give license to the children of God to disobey the commands of God. (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…)
