As we acknowledge our failures and our sorrows, various forms of self-righteousness can creep into our thinking. Secretly, we may come to look upon those whose lives appear more trouble-free as being somehow less spiritually mature than we are.
Let us not praise our present “clothing” more than the facts warrant. If we’re among His faithful people, Christ will one day clothe us in perfect glory. Our rags will be turned into riches. Until then, we need to be honest about our raggedness.
Events can seem so overwhelming it’s hard to not to feel like “dust in the wind.” And yet there remains within us a will that is free. When we make even a single choice to do what is right before God, we alter the course of history for the better.
The drastic rehabilitation Christ envisions is certainly not the work of one day. But just because we require more than a quick fix, that doesn’t mean we’re locked into our mistakes. “Beware of succumbing to failure as inevitable” (Oswald Chambers).
Jesus not only felt the full range of emotions that are the lot of humanity, but He felt them intensely and vividly. Genuine discipleship to the Son of Man will not turn us into unfeeling, insensitive robots. It will teach us to feel what God feels.
If we live in a “spiritual” climate where pretense is rewarded and honesty is frowned upon, we may conceal the heartache of deep needs that God allows to remain unfulfilled right now and cover up the reality of our continuing struggle with sin.
As we learn to pray, we must learn to want the higher things that relate to God’s rule and His righteousness — and want them for higher reasons than those that usually motivate us. We must seek, above all, the things that redound to His glory.
God is willing (and eager) to lift us to planes higher than we can yet imagine. Our need is for a bigger desire, a greater sense of what can happen if we’re willing to submit to God as He removes from our hearts the things that hold us back.
We must delight in God’s holiness. We are to love Him because He is our Creator, simply for His own sake. Love’s joy has to do with giving, not getting. The moment our main focus shifts from the Beloved to ourselves, true joy begins to disappear.
The sense of rightness and goodness present in moments of real worship ought to tell us that the adoration of God fills a very deep need within us. We have been made such that praising God is as much a joy to experience as it is a duty to fulfill.
Can God be known? Yes, He can. God has, in Jesus Christ, made it possible for us to know Him (John 1:18; 17:3). Sin robbed us of the truth about ...
The portrayal in Isaiah 53 of Jesus’ silent, lamb-like suffering is part of the depiction of what would happen to the Messiah as He underwent the punishment for our sins. ...
All of the phrases in Isaiah 53 say what many other Scriptures affirm: the Messiah’s death was vicarious. He suffered FOR us — substituting Himself on our behalf at the ...
When God entered the world as a human being, He did so in very lowly circumstances. He wanted those who would be attracted to the gospel to be people who ...
Immersion in water wouldn’t produce the forgiveness of sins if somebody did that in a rote, mechanical way, with no genuine penitence or faith in Christ. Nevertheless, Peter says that ...
In Acts 8:34-36, the Ethiopian saw that Jesus fulfilled Isaiah 53. Then he concluded that Jesus, as the Messiah, was his Savior. Next, he listened to how the gospel must ...
We don’t know why God linked baptism to the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38; 22:16) — nor why He required faith and repentance. But those are the requirements that He ...
If we believe our hands can achieve anything our minds can conceive, we’re telling ourselves a horrible lie. We’re not invincible, and and we’re not the masters of our destiny. ...
While life lasts, we are free to change paths (and that’s what the gospel implores us to do), but when we die, it will be too late. God’s judgment will ...
If the Scriptures are correct, a day is coming that will be the greatest of all judgment days (Acts 17:30,31). Until then, the worst mistake we can make is thinking ...
We may admit to having made some mistakes or having some dysfunctional habits, but we don’t see ourselves as sinful people who need the forgiveness of our Creator. We think ...
The thing that is wrong when we sin is not merely that we do something that gives us subjective feelings of guilt — it is that we transgress an actual ...