The war between good and evil, many will be defeated because they didn’t have what it takes: the will to conquer. This does not diminish our reliance upon God’s help at all; it simply emphasizes the need for us to do our part with all our might.
If the Lord returns today, we’ll be accountable for our use of the abilities we’ve acquired up to now. But what if He doesn’t? Tomorrow, will we be content to have no more ability than we had today? Isn’t there something new we could learn to do?
In the New Testament, as in life, there are many pairs of concepts or ideas that seem contradictory but are actually complementary. In order to get what the gospel of Christ offers us, we have to learn to balance complementary concepts.
When we find ourselves longing or yearning, it’s usually because there is something we need which we, at that moment, don’t have. There is nothing wrong with longing. Paul did it. The Lord did it. And so will we, if we’re honest.
Christianity is about receiving the crown of righteousness — so we ought not to dread the day of our death (or that of the Lord’s coming) any more than a runner dreads to cross the finish line. To get to the finish is why we run!
We must emulate the reason for Jesus’ endurance as well as the fact of the endurance itself. And why did He endure? It was “for the joy that was set before Him.” The pure, priceless joy on the other side pulled Jesus through this world.
Even when the spirit is full of strong love, the flesh is often too weak to carry out the will of the spirit. It needs to be trained. So we have to build into our daily lives a training regimen that progressively makes the flesh our servant.
We can’t live lives of self-indulgence and still get all the benefits of self-denial. Spiritual strength comes at a price. There is no quick-fix you can figure out that will let you have an easy life and still get the results of spiritual discipline.
We often focus on the passing pleasures and fleeting accomplishments of this world. But majoring in minors always turns out to be a losing proposition. No one can reach for “profit” in this world and not be disappointed at how unprofitable it is.
What is the point of this “vain” life? Solomon summed it up: “Respect and obey God! This is what life is all about” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). Any way you translate it, the point is basic: only in reverence and obedience to God can we accomplish anything.
As Christians we will fall short and our only hope of salvation is in God’s grace. But forgiveness requires godly sorrow and repentance. In the absence of “a broken and ...
If the gospel is true, it is the most important truth in the world — and it is worth being defended. Just as surely as the gospel is preached, there ...
In regard to God, we must say a decisive Yes! — or we’ll not like where we end up. As I heard someone say, “God lives upstream from us, and ...
Confessing Christ goes beyond saying the words “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God.” Truly believing it, that truth must be confessed in our deeds as well as ...
Our motivation today needs to like Paul’s. My own prayer is that I obeyed the gospel in order “that I may gain Christ and be found in him . . ...
What Jesus showed His disciples from the Hebrew Scriptures is that (a) the Messiah would suffer, (b) He would rise from the dead, and (c) repentance for the forgiveness of ...
There is not one of us who won’t have to account for himself or herself before Christ at the judgment. That accounting will be an absolutely accurate assessment of our ...
It takes faith to accept whatever the Lord commands in cases where what He requires goes against our preferences. But if we don’t trust the Lord enough to comply with ...
There is nothing about our broken relationship with God that Jesus Christ cannot repair, no void in our hearts He cannot fill. He is God, who came from heaven to ...
God, our Creator, loved us and saved us, not from a distance but by becoming one of us. Jesus, as God in the flesh, is our Lord, but He is ...
When we study Jesus, is it not His combination of passion and purity that is so powerful? As with all His other characteristics, the blend of these two in such ...
Christ is even more fair than the creation which He has made. And the grandest truth of all is that the One who created all this beauty is able to ...