“We have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as the natural and expected thing.” wrote A.W. Tozer. I find this to be too true these days. Anyone who tries to lead a holy lifestyle seems to be ridiculed. But Tozer died almost 50 years ago! We tend to think this unholy living is recent history. But no. Tozer talked about this and the Bible talked about it all the time. Just think of King…
Whenever you feel small… …remind yourself that God thinks the world of you. Whenever you feel down… ….remind yourself that God things you are to die for. Literally. God sent his own son to die for your so you had a way to spend eternity with him. Joyfully. God did not save you grudgingly. He saved you in his joy. Lovingly. God loves you. He is not going to take his love back. There’s nothing you can or leave undone…
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…
We can’t force holiness on people. No matter how we would like to do it. There’s no way we can dictate how people should act. That’s not how grace works. That’s law all over again. That’s living like Christ had not died for our sins. That’s like saying Christ died in vain. When we force outwardly changes on ourselves or others, we have not truly understood grace. If we could create a living relationship with God by good behavior, then…
Are you so busy that you don’t have time to fit God in your life? We tend to get so crazy-buzy sometimes that it feels that we barely have time to breath. It might feel an added burden to find time for God. But guess what? There’s no way you can ever fit God in your life. God is way too big for that. God can never fit in your life. If we want to experience God, we need to…
Is life worth living? Is there purpose for your life? The writer of Ecclesiastes seeks answers for these existential questions. And most of us ask them at some point in our lives. Why on earth are we here for? What’s there to show for a lifetime of work, a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone? One generation goes its way, the next one arrives, but nothing changes—it’s business as usual for old planet earth. The sun comes up…
We all know the the story of Jonah. We chuckle, we might find Jonah even endearing. We might marvel how God caught this runaway and especially how Jonah moved from being prayerless to praise-filled in the belly of the whale. Jonah experienced first-hand God’s mercy right then and there, probably for the first time in his life. Jonah knew God, we might even say that he had a relationship with God. But yet he was a stranger to grace. Suddenly…
One of the biggest reasons why people keep from truly following Christ is the belief that then life would be boring and, at least, all the fun would be cancelled. People are not ready to bury their dreams. It might seem that is what God wants us to do. But when you dig a bit deeper you find out that God wants to give us life and more life. God wants to bring our dreams into his service. That doesn’t…
The Bible is the Living Word of God and it does surprise us time and time again. Sometimes I wonder who has added a story there because I have missed it before. But the Word of God speaks to us when we are ready to listen. We pass things that puzzle us or are somehow irrelevant to us and later on we cherish exactly those verses like new gifts. The key into reading the Bible is prayer. We need to…
Do you remember the Bible story of Jesus coming back to separate people from each other like a shepherd separates his sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:31-)? At the first glimpse it looks like the reason why some are saved is based on their works when Jesus reveals ‘I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you…
