Worldliness means being preoccupied with temporal matters so that spiritual concerns are crowded out of our thinking. Paul wrote, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” This is not easy to do, given the pull of this world.
We spend our lives leaning on props rather than God. We’re hiding from the truth, of course, but as long as our props are in place, we don’t worry about our alienation. Deep down, our hearts are a lonely void, but we’re too busy to think about it.
Even if we allow Christ to bring us into a redeemed earthly relationship with God, our connections in this world will only be a foretaste of the fellowship that waits for us later. Yet this hope is the single thing in life most worthy of our pursuit.
Our foolishness has worn us out. But God has made possible our return to Him, and it’s only in such a return that the prospect of real joy can spring to life. Here is where our homesick hearts should rest. Here is where we find a perfect Friend.
Real faith has no need to pretend or run away from difficulty. Faith embraces doubt with honesty, recognizing that troubling questions are inevitable in a world where our sins have hidden God’s face from us. Doubts are what make faith, faith.
Our response both to fear and to our ignorance should be simple reverence — reverence that is determined and decisive. Whatever may happen or not happen, whatever we may know or not know, we must always say, “Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears.”
When we are emphasizing the graciousness of God’s forgiveness, we may lead people to think that salvation has nothing to do with our conduct. But, in fact, it has very ...
If we don’t turn around, we’re going to spend eternity in a place where, without any hindrance from God, we’ll be completely “free to be ourselves.” And it will be ...
Becoming Christians, we are crucified with Christ, so to speak. As Paul describes it, the thing that is put to death is our “old self.” The “body of sin” is ...
In the widest sense, the words “people of God” apply to every person created by God. But in the Scriptures, the phrase often refers to a subset of the human ...
The Christian truly has “been brought from death to life” (Romans 6:13). And there is a wonderful irony in this. It was, after all, by dying that Jesus “abolished death ...
As long as we believe that we’re doing all right — and that any remaining problems are within the power of science and psychology to solve — we will cut ...
I know of no part of the plan of salvation that is any harder than this. It is gut-wrenching. But look at the doors that are opened. Humbled, we are ...
However unlikely, implausible, or even impossible it may seem, the gospel story must be judged on the basis of the evidence. So if our sense of likelihood tells us that ...
“All we want in Christ, we shall find in Christ. If we want little, we shall find little. If we want much, we shall find much; but if, in utter ...
It takes a person of uncommon honesty to say simply, “What is the truth? That’s what I want, period.” But that is the very essence of faith and humility, the ...
Given our tendency to drift away from Christ, our only hope is in our willingness to be warned. Christ loves us too much not to call us back to the ...
It is from the bondage of untruth that Jesus wants to liberate us (John 8:32), and if we don’t let Him set us free from the untruth in our own ...