Answers to our questions about God can’t always be found by philosophical inquiry. We have to weave our inquiries into our dealings with other human beings. It is in the giving and receiving of love that truth has its best chance to occur to us.
Christ’s love has a “compelling” effect on us, even before we receive the forgiveness of our sins. It is our recognition of His love and our joyous anticipation of gratitude to Him that move us to respond to the gospel in the first place.
As painful as it is to admit our total bankruptcy before God, there is no other way to be receptive to Him. It is only when our vessel has been drained of its last dregs that it is ready to be filled anew. “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
In God’s providence, each of us is confronted each day with facts that ought to move us. The whole issue of spiritual growth hangs in the balance as we make the daily decisions that determine our responsiveness, the sensitivity of our hearts.
God gave us hearts with several dimensions, and we were designed to seek Him in all of these. To some extent, is this not wholeheartedness? To give God less than all three — our intellect, emotions, and will — is to be less than a whole person.
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.
As Paul reminded Timothy, the Scriptures are able to make us “wise for salvation” (2 Timothy 3:15). Whatever may seem right to us, we would do well to listen humbly ...
“There are two freedoms: the false, where man is free to do what he likes; the true, where a man is free to do what he ought.” Freedom is not ...
Paul described the Christian’s new life in Colossians 3:1-17. We have new goals, thoughts, and habits. With Christ as our Lord, we live under a new authority. And having been ...
The stability of the promised kingdom would be such that it “shall stand forever.” The ups and downs of history would not faze it, and no enemy could conquer it. ...
God said to David, “Your throne shall be established forever.” The kingdom of which God spoke would not be geographical but spiritual (John 18:36) — and this is the very ...
The path to heaven passes through the territory of repentance, and that is a painful place to be. But the horror of our sins has to become real to us. ...
It is in the gospel that God has revealed His plan. The righteousness He is willing to provide is based on faith in His Son. We might have preferred some ...
Real faith involves more than accepting the facts of the gospel intellectually. As it grows to maturity, faith turns into confidence and trust — a trust that will risk everything ...
Whether in the operation of his intellect, emotions, or will, Abraham’s point of departure was always this: what has God said? And he continues to be the spiritual forefather of ...
The gospel does not deal in superficial solutions. According to Jesus, the problem is not just our dysfunctional behavior — it is us. It is in the deepest depths of ...
It is simply not true to the Scriptures to say that a prayer like the “Sinner’s Prayer” is sufficient. We don’t find in any of the conversions to Christ in ...
For eternal salvation, where else can we go but to Jesus Christ? As Peter said when Jesus asked him if he and the other disciples were going to turn away ...