In one way or another, all have suffered. But those who have grown toward God are those who, when faced with suffering, have chosen the upward path rather than the downward. Transformation to greater glory is not automatic. It’s a choice.
Many of us may be happier than we think we are, based on the abundance in our lives of the little things that happiness is really made out of. Let’s not despise the little sources of happiness. Let’s not miss what is available to us.
Some of our tasks seem impossible. And so we do nothing. Fearing failure, we fail to act at all. But like the unfaithful servant who was rebuked for having done nothing with his master’s money, we may hear our Lord’s rebuke for what we didn’t do.
There is an irony here. The less time we have to think, the more we need to think! So I recommend to you my discovery: I’ve found that I need an hour each day just to think — except on extremely busy days, when I’ve found I need two.
Most of us are made the tiredest not by activity but by the avoidance of activity. We are worn out by the constant pressure of what we don’t do. After all, procrastination is a very hard road to travel — its emotional toll is exceedingly high.
Belief in the resurrection is not an appendage to the Christian faith. The resurrection is the indispensable fact of the gospel. Without it, the gospel is not good news. It is not even helpful religious philosophy. It is simply nonsense.
Faith and hope are important, but without patience all is lost. Since the beginning, many have put their faith in God, and some even their hope. But few have had the patience to wait until He is ready to make all things beautiful . . . in His time.
As we near the end of life, there are some unique difficulties to be dealt with. But the years of our greatest maturity should be the culmination of what we have learned and done. Autumn is not the downside of spring — it is the fruition of spring.
We need to see time as a resource over which we’ve been made stewards. This treasure has been committed to us with the understanding that we are to use it to the best advantage, and that we will eventually have to give account for our stewardship.
We need to aspire to more than comfort in this world. The really good things almost always lie outside our comfort zones, and they involve risk. But a life with no risk is a life with no accomplishment, so let’s quit putting such a premium on safety.
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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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 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, ...
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 ...
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 ...
In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus used the analogy of four kinds of soil to teach that hearers have different hearts — just as the seed sown by a ...
Who’s to say what is “impossible”? It’s a strange world, is it not? Let us, then, be open-minded enough to admit the possibility that the resurrection COULD have happened — ...
In addition to being our High Priest and King, Christ is our Judge (John 5:26,27). For those who have accepted the gospel faithfully, the coming judgment holds no fear, only ...
Either we should accept that the resurrection occurred and obey the gospel that is based upon it — or deny the resurrection and dispense with the gospel as nothing more ...