Organization multiplies the good we can do. We don’t have to be neatness freaks, but organizing our lives increases our output in good works. It’s not the whole journey, but ordering our resources is a step that has to be taken on life’s pathway.
There is no middle way. Either we gather with those who are building up or we scatter with those who are tearing down. So which will it be: destructiveness or constructiveness? Of all our choices in life, very few are more far-reaching than this.
We get better at making judgments by exercising our powers of discernment again and again. As we grow older, making useful distinctions gets easier. And that’s good. Because in a mixed-up world, there are many things that have to be sorted out.
Someone has said that one of the most exhausting things in the world is the continual hanging on of an unmade decision. All of us are familiar with the burst of energy that comes from finally making a decision we’ve been running away from.
Remember this: with every talent comes responsibility. Right now, it may seem far in the future, but eventually there’s going to be an accounting in which every one of us will face the question, “What have you done with what you were given?”
We may enjoy a feeling of kinship with many others besides our physical family. For every person on our physical family tree, there are many more people to whom we are related by sharing common joys, sorrows, interests, experiences, and places.
At the thinking stage, we should take plenty of time, and if our decision is to yield to another, then we should yield. But if our decision is to take a stand and oppose something that is wrong, then that should not be done weakly but firmly.
“What we must decide is perhaps how we are valuable rather than how valuable we are.” When you’ve made yourself useful to other people by conduct worthy of your calling, you won’t have any trouble sleeping at night. You’ll know what you’re worth.
We need to take a long look at (1) what we want most, and (2) why we want it. Is our goal honorable and worthy of aspiration? Are we committed to our quest with all our hearts? Is the quest we’ve embarked upon one we’d give our lives to achieve?
Strategy has to do with expediency. It thinks not only about what is to be done but how it may be done in the wisest way. It considers ways and means, pondering the possible consequences of reaching the goal by different paths.
Today, if we go back to the teaching of the apostles and use that as our template, the congregations that you and I worship with will resemble congregations in the New Testament in the very same ways that those congregations resembled one another.
God can't be other than what He is. He couldn't reconcile Himself to us in simply any way that "felt good" to Him; it would have to be in a way consistent with His divine attributes, which are fixed and very definite: hence, "the Way" (Acts 9:1,2).
God's people "bear" His name. In a sense, God has put His reputation in the hands of those who are "a people for his name." Knowing that the world is watching, we live so as to reflect favorably on God's character and His power (Matthew 5:13-16).
"I will be their God" had reference in the old covenant to Israel, but in the new it would encompass people from every nation. And amazingly, even this had been anticipated in the Jewish prophecies of the Messiah's reign, like Daniel 7:13,14.
Reconciliation can only be through the atonement of God's Son, Jesus Christ. But in Christ, let us not undervalue what it's possible for us to be: a people set aside for God to possess. There is no higher privilege than to be a part of this people.
If God has a people, which He certainly does in Jesus Christ, it was not without purpose that He made them His people. God dwells with us in order that we may know Him -- and knowing Him, that we might experience the joy of living within His wisdom.
Reminiscent of the Passover lamb in Israel, Jesus was a greater sacrifice, enabling God to justify mankind from its sins. John the Baptist said on one occasion as he saw Jesus, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
Christ gave Himself up for the church in order that "he might sanctify her." The whole plan by which Christ was able to have a "set apart" people depended on His dying for those people. The Messiah had to die for our atonement (Isaiah 53:4-6).
The church in Philippi had begun in unusual circumstances, and they had been a great encouragement to Paul. The salutation of his letter to them (Philippians 1:1) is a good snapshot of what a local congregation was in the days of the New Testament.
Let's consider the fascinating group which Paul addressed as "the church of God that is in Corinth." Together, the two letters that we have from Paul to Corinth take up more pages in the New Testament than we have from him to any other congregation.
Christ's resurrection proves that God can be counted on to help us. His power will guard and keep us until our hope is finally realized. So when discouragement hits us (as it surely will), one thing is to be recalled: the resurrection of Christ.
What if you become a Christian? In America, as Christians become a shrinking segment of the population and our views become despised by the mainstream culture, it is likely that you will be mocked and demeaned, even if you are not physically harmed.