The mark of a truly humble person is not just that he has a moderate view of his own abilities, but also a moderate view of his own wisdom. If we trust God and are willing to rely on His higher wisdom, we will grow in true wisdom.
There is not a single consequence of sin that is not the result of erroneous thinking somewhere back up the line. These consequences can be undone only by replacing the untruth that produced them with the truth that can liberate us.
If we don’t try our best to distinguish between right and wrong, a progressive darkening of our understanding will take place. God will allow us to become deluded, and we may have a hard time recognizing even basic moral distinctions.
This week, let’s consider the honor and the trust that enable a marriage to be what God would want it to be. In the real world, the marriage covenant may not always be easy to keep, but keeping our promise will be well worth the effort.
There is a great deal of peace in realizing that giving honor to God is the highest activity in life. When we show the proper respect for God, we are doing the very thing we were created for. We find our destiny and our fulfillment in God’s glory.
We can be thankful that, as those who have obeyed the gospel and received the forgiveness of our sins, “all things have become new” for us. We are living a “new” life, one that was made possible by Christ’s death and resurrection to life everlasting.
Peter’s answer was right when the Lord asked if he and the other apostles were going to leave Him like the others who had turned away: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Jesus is the “preeminent” source of our salvation.
Integrity means that there is a unity to our character: we live in our daily lives by the same principles we say we adhere to in our hearts. One popular way of describing integrity is to say that we “practice what we preach” (or we “walk our talk”).
By withholding our time-schedules from the Lord, are we not refusing to give up our lives for Him, one day at a time? Jesus was never involved in anything that He was not willing to lay aside in order to serve our needs. We need to think as He did.
We must believe that Jesus is who He claimed to be: the Son of God and Savior of the world. If we are to be saved by Him, we must turn to God in real trust and believe in His Son, committing ourselves to the truth that He can save us from our sins.
Heaven won’t be for those who have earned it by their own success in being good people; it will be for those who have been rescued by the Great Redeemer. ...
For all Job knew, he was going to die from his afflictions, but if so, he was unconcerned: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he ...
Confronting the awfulness of our sin, without self-pity or evasion of responsibility, we should grieve how we’ve rebelled against God’s love. And we should yearn to be with Him in ...
We tend to see people only through the lens of their past. And unfortunately, if a person’s past is so sinful that we deem them unfit candidates for God’s grace, ...
Human beings have always faced an ultimate choice. Do we lay aside our self-sufficiency and trust in our Creator, or do we double down on our self-sufficiency and trust in ...
Rather than dismissing the distinction between godliness and ungodliness by saying, “Only God knows who His people are,” we need to be growing in our ability to make this distinction ...
Let’s avoid thinking that “eternal life” is different only in that it lasts longer than our earthly life. It is indeed “eternal” because it is unending, but more than that, ...
The fact that, as Joseph knew, sin is always against God should weigh more heavily in our thinking than any social consideration. Social consequences are serious, no doubt, but separation ...
We can stay where we are, which is easier, at least in the short run, or we can let the Great Deliverer begin to break our chains. Between now and ...
As with Israel’s deliverance (Exodus 12), our salvation from sin depends on doing certain things God requires before He delivers us (Acts 2:37,38). The gospel must be obeyed to be ...
When we ourselves are among the unfaithful, what is our response? Hearing the message that we are under the penalty of death for our sins, are we tenderhearted enough to ...
There is no damage to our souls that Christ cannot repair. But He will not be manipulated by fake repentance on our part. If we expect His forgiveness and help, ...