Do you have Jesus in your heart? Good for you. But do you have inside out faith? Does your faith get an outside expression too? Does the workings of Jesus in your heart get you also work out your faith? These are fundamental questions. When our faith becomes an inside out faith, we are truly experiencing the joy of salvation. Sure, we are saved only by grace through faith in Jesus. But that is not the end of it. We…
Oh, how sweet the light of day, And how wonderful to live in the sunshine! Even if you live a long time, don’t take a single day for granted. Take delight in each light-filled hour, Remembering that there will also be many dark days And that most of what comes your way is smoke. (Ecclesiastes 11:7-8, MSG) Summertime seems to be an on-going bliss in our household. Life is easy and worries are small. Thanks be to God! The…
Over and over again the Bible proclaims that if we repent, God will forgive us. This grace feels too good to be true. Yet it is true. Love, grace, and forgiveness form together the very essence of God. Because we are not able to become holy on our own, God sent his only son to redeem us. Because Jesus died on the cross for our sins, we can be forgiven by grace through faith in Jesus. But if we confess…
Some people assume that God tries to take our freedom and restrict our joy. But they’ve bought the lies of the devil and they could not be further from the truth. Because God made us free. But we have been abusing the freedom by making bad choices from the start. Like Philip Yancey has said “God’s terrible insistence on human freedom is so absolute that he granted us the power to live as though He did not exist, to spit…
Do you live in Me-Me land? Are you only looking for self-fulfillment in this life? Or are you living for something bigger? This world around us tries to teach us to solely look after ourselves and seek self-gratification. Like that would bring us happiness and fulfillment in the long run. But seek (aim at and strive after) first of all His kingdom and His righteousness (His way of doing and being right), and then all these things taken together will…
Are you feeling lost in your life? A bit overwhelmed and disoriented? Then take a pause. Get away for a few days. Or take an evening stroll somewhere. Seek silence or solitude. But know that the main thing is to know that even though you feel lost….you are not lost from God. God’s love is meteoric, his loyalty astronomic, His purpose titanic, his verdicts oceanic. Yet in his largeness nothing gets lost; Not a man, not a mouse, slips through…
Have you ever made huge plans and been so excited about everything? But then your plans have unexpectedly come crashing down? I’ve been there, done that. At that moment, it feels like the end of the world. But just like the scripture says: Mortals make elaborate plans, but God has the last word (Proverbs 16: 1, MSG,*). It might sound a bit cruel but it isn’t. God’s purpose is not to crash our plans but give us something better. Let’s continue…
Do you know how to get to know God? Do you know how to take care of yourself? How does these two questions tie together? In a very organic way. We can’t know ourselves without knowing God first. We can’t be well if we are not made right with God. We are not flourishing if we do not know God’s will in our life. With the words of J.I Packer: “What were we made for? To know God. What aim…
Do you know that you were created in Christ Jesus to do good works? We tend to forget that our sole purpose is not to please ourselves and have fun while here on earth. Even as Christians we label any talk about doing good works as legalistic or pious. But the Bible is pretty clear about this. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way…
Today – being Friday the 13th and all – I want to remind you to take up the shield of faith. Above all, carry the shield of faith so that you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one. (Eph. 6:16, CEB) We are saved by grace through faith. But so often we forget that through faith we also receive God’s protection. God’s your Guardian, right at your side to protect you— Shielding you from sunstroke, sheltering you from…
