Jesus is described as “the faithful witness” (Revelation 1:5), which means He told the truth in everything He reported to mankind about God. He claimed He came from God, had direct knowledge of Him, and bore accurate testimony about Him.
I’m mighty glad that God’s love is steadfast. Were it not for His lovingkindness, this weak child of His would have been disinherited long, long ago. And, in Christ, I yearn for the sweet day when I shall be able to thank Him more properly.
If we reject “organized” religion, where does that leave the Lord’s Supper? Are we really “Christians” today if we don’t take seriously an observance that, in the New Testament, was so extremely important to Christians in the New Testament period?
Creating beings with a free will is exactly what God did when He created us. And the result is that those who accept Him, whether many or few, do so freely and lovingly — rather than under the compulsion of any “irresistible” programming by God.
It was surely God who chose whom He would save, but what He chose was a class of people defined by a criterion: the “obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5). This group is open to all who will obey. No one is barred by an eternal, unchangeable edict of God.
To say, as Calvinism does, that even as infants we are guilty of Adam’s sin — and are in a lost spiritual condition because of what Adam did — is to make a cruel joke out of Ezekiel’s statement, “The wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.”
Naaman’s obedience certainly did not “earn” him the cleansing of his leprosy. It had no “merit” that would cure him. Nevertheless, if he had not been humble enough to accept the conditions that were stipulated, his leprosy would have remained.
The hope of the gospel is that in eternity we will be with God. Having lived all our lives in this broken world, frustrated by our inability to have direct, face-to-face access to our Father, imagine what it will be like to actually be with Him!
Our “personhood” can’t be explained from below itself — its origin can only be from above itself. The non-personal could not have produced the personal, no matter how many trillions of years it had to work with. Our Creator must be a personal Being.
The Scriptures are no ordinary documents. To disregard the authority with which God speaks to us in the Scriptures is to do a very foolish thing. In all the great issues of life, it is the standard of the Scriptures to which we should appeal.
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The rule of the Messiah does not come about by physical revolution (or even democratic voting). He breaks the nations not by dismantling them (for now, at least) but by ...
Without a humble recognition of how needy we are, we will have no interest in the gospel. Indeed, we will be angry. How dare this ignorant peasant from ancient Galilee ...
If, as rationalists, we rule out the possibility of God revealing Himself, then we should get used to the idea of having no God at all. The only God that ...
If Christ bought the church with His blood, it is not our church to do with as we wish; it is His church. May we never quit calling it what ...
After having refused His rule, the saved are those who have returned to their rightful King, sought His forgiveness, and sworn allegiance to Him from now on. Christ is truly ...
If we view God wrongly, we’re going to have wrong beliefs about the reality of sin and the question of our fellowship with God. The gospel will mean little if ...
Jesus makes possible our reconciliation with God because he “gave himself as a ransom for all.” In other words, He paid the price for us to be released from our ...
In Christ, we begin to know God, and we have what might be considered a foretaste of eternal life — or a down payment on it (Ephesians 1:14) — but ...