With divorce and remarriage rising, and the very definition of "marriage" being debated, it's time we review matrimony's biblical origins. Scripture reveals marriage two ways: God's and man's.Genesis unveils marriage God's way. Perceiving man's need of a loving...
As we embark on another New Year, do you wonder what tomorrow will bring? Do you find it hard to maintain your peace about the future when most of what you hear is bad news?By steadily trusting Christ and obeying His Word in daily circumstances, we maintain our peace,...
One of the unofficial names given to Christ's followers in the New Testament was "all that call on thy name" (Acts 9:14). What does this unofficial but inspired label say about us?It reveals Jesus's followers are a praying people. Some folks worry, reason, or imitate...
Are you faithfully following and serving God, yet find yourself in the fight of your life, opposed and slandered by unreasonable believers or backslidden Christians?Is your authority as a pastor, elder, husband, parent, teacher, employer, etc. being ruthlessly...
The most precious thing in Jesus’ earthly life was His union with His heavenly Father: “I and my father are one [one in essence or nature; also at one, or unified]” (John 10:30). It was everything to Him.That sacred bond preceded all His other relationships, sustained...
After bringing children into this world, Christian parents should help them find their way through it. How may we do so?We show them the way by directing and redirecting them to the One who said, “I am the way” (John 14:6). Such godly guidance requires three primary...
God is constantly searching for great hearts and when He finds them, giving them great help. He revealed this first to King Asa. God’s prophet informed Asa: “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those...
Overwhelmed and undone, Job cried, “Have pity upon me, O ye my friends” (Job 19:21). His present problems were twofold: his awesome troubles and awful self-pity. Let’s give some thought to the latter.An unhealthy, obsessive sorrow for oneself arising from a selfish...
If we humbly
confess our sins and failures, the Lord faithfully forgives us and
immediately restores our fellowship with Him: “If we confess our
sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). But He doesn’t stop
there. He immediately schedules another chance for us to obey,
providentially arranging another situation spiritually similar to the
one in which we failed.
Why? To punish us further by cruelly
reminding us of our failures? No, His kind purpose is just the
opposite. He wants us to be able to forget our failures completely.
So He provides us with another chance that we might avenge our
spiritual defeats and live thereafter in the joy of overcoming rather
than the frustration of failure. He wants us to be more than
forgiven; He wants us victorious! Joyful! Soaring!
Not
surprisingly, our Creator understands our deepest thoughts. He knows
that even when we believe that we’re forgiven, the memories of our
past failures tend to linger and vex us. Like David, we sometimes
feel as if our sins are always before us (see Ps. 51:3).
Pointedly, persistently and passionately, in both Old and New Testaments, the Bible calls us to humility.
In Deuteronomy 8, Moses told the Israelites three times that God tested them in the wilderness for the express purpose of humbling them: “The Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee…and he humbled thee…that he might humble thee” (Deut. 8:2-3, 16, KJV, emphasis added). By inspiration the apostle Paul added that their trials were recorded as examples to us in this Christian era: “Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition” (1 Cor. 10:11). In his epistle, therefore, James exhorts Christians everywhere, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord” (James 4:10). Peter orders the same in his general epistle, “humble yourselves…under the mighty hand of God” (1 Pet. 5:6).
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