When we’re young, we haven’t lived long enough to look at events from anything but a very short perspective. Later, we can judge the value of things much more easily, because we can see them within a larger context. Age widens the lens of life.
We should pray that God will bring to naught any course of action on our part that is inconsistent with His purposes. And we ought never to be more grateful than when He has defeated the foolish little kingdoms that we set up in defiance of His.
Canaan was different than anything Abraham could have imagined in Ur, but the result of sojourning there was also better than anything he could have enjoyed elsewhere. He “waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”
We need to live life with death in mind. Our minds should be governed by neither a morbid fascination with death nor a gloomy fatalism, but simply a healthy understanding that we have only a few days in which to get our work done.
With our words we may say God is our most pressing priority, but if our schedule books show that on most days we spend very little time on that pursuit, who are we fooling? Where our heart is, there our “To Do” list will be also.
We need something superior to us to reach toward. Though we often suppose that independence, autonomy, and equality are the things we need, what we really need is a Being who is higher than we — One in whose supremacy and sovereignty we may rest.
If God hasn’t yet judged the world that doesn’t mean He is indifferent to evil; it means He is still holding the door of salvation open. His longsuffering is nothing less than our salvation. We are the world’s greatest fools if we don’t see that.
Any goal less powerful than being with God in eternity will fail to keep us going. We must fix our hearts upon our Lord and determine that we are going to run the race, come whatever may. There can be no question or equivocation about it.
We should reject our pre-Christian past decisively. If thinking about “Egypt” tempts us to go back, even if it’s just in our hearts, we must determine not to do it. After all, it is not backward but forward that we are reaching. To the Promised Land!
Your activities must be motivated by love, first for God and second for your neighbor. If that’s the case (and God knows whether it is or not), then discouragement will not defeat you. Other motives may falter, but “many waters cannot quench love.”
Sacrifice is what shows the extent of love. Christ did more than say words of love concerning us; He gave Himself for us. So let’s celebrate Christ’s sacrifice. And let’s ...
In its universal sense, the church consists of those who have been saved by Christ. Sometimes, however, the church forgets that it has been saved — or even that it ...
Christ’s glory is closely related to the glory of His people. These people — broken and fallible, but forgiven and growing in holiness as they learn from their mistakes — ...
If we’re thinking rightly, we will drink in every bit of truth that God has shared with us about Himself, eagerly wanting not only to know it but to act ...
The godly sorrow that leads to repentance is critically important. It requires humility, certainly. But if we’re willing to bow before God in the honest recognition of our sins’ seriousness, ...
Although the apostles are no longer preaching in person, the foundation has been laid and the record stands firm. The gospel, as preached and confirmed by the apostles, is just ...
Here is the truth: we haven’t really been liberated or “saved” if, for all practical purposes, we continue to live in “Egypt.” God requires that we leave our chains behind, ...
Theoretically, a person might change his ways for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with God. Repentance, however, is the reformation of one’s self because of godly ...
When mankind rebelled against Him, God subjected the world to “futility” (Romans 8:20,21), preventing us from controlling everything we want to control. He lets us learn from the humbling experience ...
The fact is, we have to be taught what our greatest needs are. We think we know what these are, but our priorities can become dangerously disordered. We have to ...
Often our words serve the purpose of saying what we WANT to be true. Yet we need to be careful. Surrounded by other religious people, it’s easy to say nice ...
Converted to Christ, we set Him apart as our Lord. But living consistently under that lordship takes time. We must yield our hearts completely to His direction. At our baptism, ...