It’s not wrong to indulge in nostalgia, but we must be careful not to overindulge. “Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For you do not inquire wisely concerning this” (Ecclesiastes 7:10). Life in Christ is about progress.
One of the worst aspects of hell will be the helplessness of the whole situation. Not having wanted to see the truth, we never did see it . . . until it was too late. And at that point, nothing can be done but to agonize over the truth. Forever.
We were created to live within God’ will, but we have rebelled against our King and tried to set up our own kingdom. In this “kingdom of self,” the rule is “Not Thy will but mine be done.” Free to choose, we have often chosen our own will over God’s.
If we persist in our rebellion against God, despite His pleas for us to do otherwise, we are setting ourselves up for eternal despair. In hell, there will be no more chance of “reaching forward” — no chance of ever being anything but lost.
Hell will be the final abandonment of those who have rejected God: God will turn away, for eternity, from those who have turned away from Him. And the anguish of hell will be knowing it could have been otherwise, if we had not refused God’s love.
When we long for something and that longing ends up being disappointed, the worst thing we can do is close up our hearts. That type of play-it-safe conservatism is deadly to the human spirit, and no one is pleased with it but our spiritual enemy.
Faith does not ignore questions or minimize their importance, but it does exercise patience. Faith is willing to wait and see what happens. History is, after all, a story, and in a story, the conflicts don’t usually get resolved until the end.
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 ...
The more we learn to love our Father, the more our hearts are going to hurt when we realize we’ve failed Him. The person who rarely sees any sin in ...
“Nominal” Christians are Christians in “name only.” They are the modern embodiment of the mentality God spoke of in Isaiah’s day: “[They] draw near with their mouth and honor me ...
God will help us and discipline us (Hebrews 12:5-11). But having been disciplined by God, we will have to discipline ourselves. We will have to exert ourselves to go uphill ...
When we start following our own will in the “secular” parts of life, we tell ourselves that we won’t let these “other things” get out of hand. But we are ...
Wonder of all wonders, God is willing to forgive us of our treason against His rightful rule over us. But His grace requires that we begin doing what we have ...
Very people few are willing to “seek first the kingdom of God,” even among professed believers. Especially in the modern culture of so-called “Christian nations,” very few do more than ...