The Christian gets the most out of this life that can be gotten. And when the goodness of this temporal world has been experienced and used to the Father’s glory, the Father Himself waits for us in eternity with His arms open wide.
The path of least resistance is what makes rivers crooked, and it makes men and women crooked too. The easy path never goes anywhere but downward, and spiritually, that is not the direction we want to go. Worthwhile destinations take extra effort.
Life isn’t always be easy. When we encounter serious obstacles on our way to heaven, we shouldn’t be surprised. This happens to be a hard world, and godly people aren’t going to get through it painlessly. Jesus certainly didn’t.
Our sorrow for past sins must be godly sorrow rather than the sorrow of the world. And a little defiance of the devil will help us. Our adversary wants us to be consumed and destroyed by our painful memories. He must not be allowed to get his way.
We can’t have the greater blessings without trading in some lesser things for them, and we should be willing to do that. As we grow, we should have a clearer vision of what we would relinquish in order to gain what we don’t yet have.
The crucial question is never “What have I done?” but “What does God have in mind for me in the future?” And more important, “Am I cooperating with what He has in mind for me?” That way of thinking about things can make all the difference.
If Jesus truly was the Son of God, we would not expect that truth to be obvious to us if our “eyes” can only see things that this world considers ...
In the biblical account, we are dual creatures who straddle the physical and spiritual worlds. We have a brain, but we also have a mind — a reasoning faculty that ...
While there is a need for patience, we also need to be diligent. Our transformation will not take place automatically, by divine decree. We have to embrace the process actively ...
If faith without works is insufficient (James 2:14-26), so is baptism without conversion. If we do not make the decision to walk in “newness of life” (Romans 6:4), it is ...
All the good things in life require committing ourselves to them. Hesitancy, doubt, and tentativeness will cut the very heart out of our discipleship to Christ. Distrusting God, we will ...
However “nice” my outward life may be, when I measure my heart (my thoughts, attitudes, and intentions) against Jesus’ teaching, I am ashamed. His teaching disturbs me greatly, if I ...
If the congregation we’ve been a part of is not faithful to Christ, we need to worship elsewhere. But even if we’re surrounded by others who are faithful to Christ, ...
We want the “way of God” (Acts 18:26). The path that leads to God — the one He has laid out — will often seem narrow and illogical to us ...
The great emphasis in Acts 2 is on the content of the preaching. We would seriously fail in our appreciation of this text if we were so amazed by the ...
The truth is, we can’t help ourselves where we need help the most. Yes, we can “science” our way out of some of life’s lesser problems, but the potential of ...
God’s way often goes against our opinions, and eventually the honest person will have to admit, “Well, I didn’t think such a plan would work, but I was wrong. Although ...
Our sinful past will try to pull us back — and sometimes the pull can be very strong. We wouldn’t have been what we used to be if there weren’t ...