Before our lives are done, we will have had the opportunity to “buy” many things, some of great value and some of much less. But there has always been “one pearl of great price,” a treasure of such magnitude that it defies comparison.
Few things are of more practical value than the simple ability to make decisions and to make them stick. Starting with little decisions and working our way up to the big ones, we must gradually build the strength of our decision-making muscles.
Texts like Micah 6:8 call us back to the center of what really matters most. It is good to be against what is wrong in the world, but God is looking for people who will be for what is right — things like justice, mercy, and humility.
Teaching us to “deny ungodliness,” grace says “we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age.” Grace is the most motivating force in the world. Forgiven of our past acts of rebellion against God’s love, we respond gratefully.
We must move away from self-centeredness. Holiness, like happiness, is a by-product of seeking something more important than concern for ourselves, namely the glory of God. Our principal focus must be kept on Him and on serving others in His name.
Our needs are known to our Heavenly Father before we ask Him. But He wants us to have the humility to recognize those needs ourselves and to ask for His help. The deeper our gratitude for His grace, the more faithfully we will ask and seek and knock.
The time will come when the best of the good ideas that we’ve had will come true. We’ll find ourselves not merely thinking about God but knowing Him. And in God, what we’ve always wanted to be is what we actually will be!
God will not be misled. He is not looking for verbiage but for hearts willing to be transformed. And if our hearts are not willing to be turned toward Him, then no amount of “image management” will get us where we want to go.
If we’re not comforted by the availability of God’s grace, we bog down in despair. But if we fail to be humbled by the necessity of God’s guidance and help, we bog down in something even worse: the illusion that we’re doing better than we really are.
Having a need for God, as every human being does, we need to admit that need and feel it. As the years go by, we should more truthfully understand, more lovingly feel, and more honestly acknowledge that we need our God.
If we preserve our flattering self-image with denials of the truth, there is nothing but death in that cave. To be forgiven, we must come out of hiding. In Jesus ...
If commitment, confession, and repentance are not a part of our daily walk with God, we need to go back and remember the “death” we died when we were baptized. ...
What if you have not yet obeyed the gospel? You need to hear all of the truth that God has revealed about Himself. So study all of the Scriptures. You ...
Obedience requires discipline, which comes from deciding what is most important to us. Valuing our hope more highly than anything else, we’ll pursue that hope with passionate discipline. Turning back ...
God has a great goal: not merely to rescue us but to reform us. For all who will accept His plan, God intends to repair the damage sin has done ...
Have we been truly converted to Him, discarding our old life and clothing ourselves with the fresh, clean garments of our Lord’s heart, mind, and character? If not, perhaps our ...
By coming penitently to Jesus — seeking first the forgiveness of our sins and then committing ourselves to live by His example — we become an example that helps other ...
The Scriptures must be our guide. Our feelings may err on the high side or the low side, but the only reliable basis for our confidence is God’s promise. And ...
Given the problems that confront us (no less today than in the first century), it would be dangerous not to guard our faith carefully — there are none more vulnerable ...
In Christ, we live in great anticipation. And since we live in anticipation, we also live with focused concentration and resolute patience. Excited, enticed, and intrigued by the foretaste of ...
If we fail to use the opportunity which God’s grace has provided, the word “regret” will crush us with horrible force. There is no love more painful than the love ...
“Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Christ is the key to the ...