Christian Living

Real Men Wanted

1 Corinthians 16.13-14 commands, be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Do imageseverything with love.

This may be my favorite verses in the Bible. I am particularly drawn to the admonition to act like men. We need more of that today particularly in this highly feminized culture where the woman of the year for 2015 was/is a man.

Most Bible translations change the phrase ‘act like men’ to ‘be courageous.’ I like that change because it equates manliness with courage. (more…)

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March 1, 2016
Christian Living / obedience

Holiness is God’s Will for His People

Luke 11.2 records, Jesus said, this is how you should pray: Father, may Your Name be kept holy.image

The human manifestation of God asks us to pray that the Name of the Spirit of God be kept holy. This was not a request from concern that God would possibly lose His holiness. This was a concern that those who claim to know God would not fail to represent God in harmony with the character and nature of God.

What is holiness? (more…)

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February 25, 2016
evangelism / Judgement / obedience

What God Requires From Us

Luke 9.60 comments, let the spiritually dead bury their own dead! Your duty is to go and preach aboutimage the Kingdom of God.

God requires only a few things from us but He appears fairly adamant about those few things.

First is to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. While we look to make the adherence to this command a feeling within ourselves God measures it by His second command which is to love our neighbor as ourselves. (more…)

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February 23, 2016
Christian Living / faith / Judgement

Who Defines Wisdom?

1 Corinthians 3.18-19 commands, if you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to imagebecome a fool to be truly wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, “He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.”

Recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia put it this way, ‘God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools…and He has not been disappointed. Devout Christians are destined to be regarded as fools in modern society. We are fools for Christ’s sake. We must pray for courage to endure the scorn of the sophisticated world. If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.’

Justice Scalia’s challenge is immensely timely for this generation of Christians. (more…)

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February 16, 2016
Christian Living

The Power of Weakness

1 Corinthians 2.3 observes, I came to you in weakness—timid and trembling.image

Weakness is a despised attribute in the world even among Christians. We try and pretend its not something God honors but it is.

We turn this godly virtue on its head when we quote the Bible’s promise, ‘when we are weak then we are strong.’ We like that ending strong part pretending we are never really weak. But the verse really means when we are really weak that’s when we are really strong in the eyes of God not man.

The problem is our God models for us weakness and humility over and over but we try and try to ignore it. (more…)

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February 15, 2016
Christian Living / evangelism / Judgement / work

God Defines What is Good so We Can Do Good Works

Romans 7.4 states because you are united with the One who was raised from the dead, we can produceimage a harvest of good deeds for God.

Everyone wants to do good. Its in our nature to want to do good deeds that generates recognition of our goodness. We have this nature because we were created in the image of God Who is good.

Our original design was for us to always do good for the glory of God but now that we have been corrupted through generational disobedience to God we seek to do good to obtain esteem from one another. What we recognize is this inherent need and desire to do good. (more…)

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February 4, 2016
heaven / Judgement

What Does it Mean to be Good?

Romans 4.25 describes that He was handed over to die because of our sins, and He was raised to life toimage make us right with God.

Religion is the attempt to make people right with God. Performance is essential for success.

Even the agnostic plays this game by convincing themselves they are essentially good people deserving of heaven if there proves to be a god in the end. Being right with God by the agnostic and the religious is defined as doing more good in life than bad.

But what is good? (more…)

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February 2, 2016
faith / Prayer

Receiving What We Want in Prayer

Matthew 21.22 promises, you can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it. image

This verse makes many Christians nervous because on the surface it appears God is promising us anything we ask for in prayer. This is what we want His words to mean for there are many things we wish we had but don’t have but if having them was only a matter of asking for them then that would be awesome.

Our experience however tells us this is not what He meant for we have all asked God for things in prayer and did not receive them. So what does this verse mean? (more…)

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January 22, 2016
heaven / Judgement

How Hard is it to Get to Heaven?

Acts 13.39 observes everyone who believes in Him is declared right with God—something the law of imagesMoses could never do.

The One True God has made entrance into His eternal dwelling place quite easy really: repent, believe and receive. Every other religion including atheism and agnosticism, are trying to accumulate enough good works so that God is forced to accept them. (more…)

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January 13, 2016