No Abstract Love
To love my neighbor is an expression of my love for God. This keeps my love for God from being abstract or sentimental. We like to receive God’s love, not always knowing that it calls for a commitment from us. We receive God’s love so that we might give it away. His love is
Resentful Service
There is a kind of service, which one may think is for the Lord, but that is done resentfully. The service is rendered, but loathed in the process. The ones served do not sense love nor concern with this attitude. It does not draw them to the Lord. There are certainly times that we
Misery
Miserable people are not available to serve other people or to serve the Lord. Their misery and self-focus has them sidetracked. They do not know that if they serve others, then joy would not pass them by. They have not learned that when you comfort another, then comfort comes back to you. They have
God as Father
Do we yet know God as Father? Is this knowledge imprinted on our minds and hearts? Do our emotions sometimes doubt it? Have we ever been lost in His kind embrace? Have we heard His Spirit in us crying out, “Abba Father”? The Spirit and the Son seek to draw us toward the Father’s
Let God Be God
Baal worshipers served a god who could be manipulated. Theirs was a fertility/prosperity cult. If people did the right things then Baal and his wife would become stimulated to intimacy, then the land would produce fruit and the cattle would multiply. God was revealed to Israel as the One who will not be used
Divine Fellowship
Jesus prays that “The love wherewith You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” We dwell in Him and He dwells in us in a mutual indwelling. To have Christ in us is to have the love of God “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” Rom 5:5. By this
Confess It
We must balance “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us” (Luke 11:4a, NIV) with “Whoever is born of God does not sin” (1 John 3:9). The key is intentional sin. The Father’s children want to obey Him. They have in themselves the seed of the Father because they
The Failure To Love
Measure sin by the law, and it leads to self-righteousness and legalism. The Pharisees were a glaring example of that. Jesus taught us that the essence of sin is the failure to love; it is the message of the whole Bible. When I examine my heart by the Great Commandment, then I find there
The Workings Of Death
The working of the flesh (i.e. the body controlled by sin) is death working itself out in opposition to the principles of life. “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I
The Workings Of Life
If we have eternal life, we have the principles of eternal life working in us. Jesus in us is the Life of God working His Life out through us. This is living in the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, and manifesting the fruit of the Spirit. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love,
Fan The Flame
Timothy apparently did not grow up in an “ideal” Christian home. His father was a Greek, and maybe not a believer. He was taught the Christian faith by his mother and grandmother. He was mentored by Paul, who was his spiritual father. He became His traveling companion and a trusted tender of the flock
Teachable
Apollos was a Jew born in Alexandria, Egypt, a major cultural and intellectual center of the ancient world, second only to Rome. It was one of the five major centers of early Christianity. Apollos was an eloquent preacher with a large following of Christians who wanted to be identified with him. He defended the
A Comprehensive Salvation
We often attempt to narrow our salvation and the atonement to the cross and resurrection. What we must understand is that everything that Christ was in His person and everything that He did was to accomplish our full rescue. His incarnation, the life He lived, the teachings he gave us to follow, the temptations
Constantly Changing
Your skin, muscles, bones and brain are constantly changing. This process of maintenance and rejuvenation requires physical exercise and nutritious foods if the change is going to be healthy. Spiritually, we are constantly changing. That change can be positive and progressive, if we are being nourished by Spirit and Truth. We become what nourishes
I Picked Me
The forbidden fruit: Was it an apple? A pear? I heard of one man who speculated that it was a watermelon. He said that it must have once grown on trees, but was cursed as was the serpent to crawl on his belly, hence it was a watermelon. Of course, he was not serious.
The Workings Of Grace
I heard Dr. A. B. Mackey, President of Trevecca Nazarene College, say, “Some people are sweeter by nature than others are by grace.” We all laughed, because it was a true-to-life kind of statement. We had seen non-professing Christians outside the church who were sweeter than some inside the church. However, what we have
A Good Life
Want to have a good life? “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8, NIV). Doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with God is the key to a
Live From Christ
To live from Christ is to allow the life of His Spirit in you to be expressed through you. It is to live from the teachings of Christ that are laid out for us in the gospels. It is to live out our lives from where Christ sits on the throne of our heart.
The Dead Oak
The majestic oak was over 100 years old; now it was lying in a state of decay. The forest ignored it as an eyesore. Some said that its day was over for this old matriarch of trees. Look further. Within a mile of mamma oak, there were hundreds of descendants, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren,
Mortality And Immortality
Every time we stand at an open grave, we are reminded of our own mortality. Death wants us to think that it has the final word, but it does not. Christ has shown us by His own resurrection that He will see to it that Life has the final word. What is mortal of
Rising Dust
We were made out of dust to praise the Creator. Can those who go back to dust ever rise in joy to praise? Isaiah and Daniel saw the day. “Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew,
Dying and Rising
Built into creation is dying and rising. We see it in Winter and Spring. We see it in germinating seeds. We see it in dormant flowers that spring to new life. The Word came to live among us. We did not expect Him to be so gruesomely murdered, but He was. We mourned at
A Borrowed Tomb
Jesus rode a borrowed donkey. He borrowed an upper room for His disciples to eat the Passover. At last, He was buried in a borrowed tomb. Joseph of Arimathea freely gave his own burial place, expecting nothing in return, not knowing that he was merely lending it. Jesus did not need it as a
Tomb Waiting Time
He was our Messiah King, even on the cross. He was our Messiah King when He was raised by His Father. But He was still our Messiah King while in the grave. He was down. He was dead. He appeared defeated. Pause here. Since we are His, when we are down, we are not
The Smitten Crowd
When Jesus’ sordid crucifixion was over, even many in the crowds “returned home, beating their breasts.” This action not only showed extreme horror, but also the understanding that something had gone terribly wrong. When the great empire can crush its most innocent citizen, when ruthless power can kill the weak to make a statement,