Hunger is not always a bad thing. There is an old saying that “hunger is the best sauce.” Perhaps our hunger needs to grow more intense before we can properly appreciate the feast. If so, God may withhold the feast until we are ready.
Trifling is undesirable even in worldly matters. Those who dabble, acting superficially and without any serious intent, rarely accomplish any lasting good. But the worst trifling is to trifle with God. That is not only undesirable; it is deadly.
Godly love can only be possible when we grow in our appreciation of the goodness of God’s holy character. As long as our delight depends upon His conforming Himself to our wishes, that delight will be small. We must learn to love the truth about God.
With Paul, we need to be able to say, “For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2 Timothy 1:12).
Somehow we sense that God will require changes in our character so radical that we find it safer to stay where we are in the lowlands, far from the adventure of real life with God. Confronted by disturbing, unpredictable truths, we retreat.
Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “All of us, Lord, from the moment we are born feel within us this disturbing mixture of remoteness and nearness.” Although we’re cut off from God, He is still not very far away. God is near us, waiting to be found.
To live life at its best, we must learn to combine three things: what is good, what is right, and what is true. Learning to recognize these things is no small challenge, and learning to balance them harmoniously is an even greater challenge!
God is to be our only real “possession.” All other things must be loved with a love we can let go of, and if our attachment to anything other than God is so strong that we can’t let go of it, then that thing, whatever it is, has become an idol to us.
No matter how formidable our difficulties, the right step to take at any moment will always involve the doing of something that is quite doable. Freedom means that we can take this step, and responsibility means that we should take it.
Our conscience should move us to act in ways that are consistent with our principles. But often, we fail to act. Afraid of making a mistake, we do nothing. And consequently, we learn nothing — and lose the opportunity to grow in our understanding.
The great emphasis in Acts 2 is on the content of the preaching. We would seriously fail in our appreciation of this text if we were so amazed by the ...
The truth is, we can’t help ourselves where we need help the most. Yes, we can “science” our way out of some of life’s lesser problems, but the potential of ...
God’s way often goes against our opinions, and eventually the honest person will have to admit, “Well, I didn’t think such a plan would work, but I was wrong. Although ...
Our sinful past will try to pull us back — and sometimes the pull can be very strong. We wouldn’t have been what we used to be if there weren’t ...
The more we learn to love our Father, the more our hearts are going to hurt when we realize we’ve failed Him. The person who rarely sees any sin in ...
“Nominal” Christians are Christians in “name only.” They are the modern embodiment of the mentality God spoke of in Isaiah’s day: “[They] draw near with their mouth and honor me ...
God will help us and discipline us (Hebrews 12:5-11). But having been disciplined by God, we will have to discipline ourselves. We will have to exert ourselves to go uphill ...
When we start following our own will in the “secular” parts of life, we tell ourselves that we won’t let these “other things” get out of hand. But we are ...
Wonder of all wonders, God is willing to forgive us of our treason against His rightful rule over us. But His grace requires that we begin doing what we have ...
Very people few are willing to “seek first the kingdom of God,” even among professed believers. Especially in the modern culture of so-called “Christian nations,” very few do more than ...
Confession of sin comes from “a broken and contrite heart” (Psalm 51:17), and it hurts. But the joy of forgiveness is on the other side of this sorrow, and the ...
Are we willing to accept God in general matters like love and faith, but when it comes to His instructions in the Scriptures about how these principles are to be ...