Why do Christians want to extend peace to each other? What’s the big deal with peace? Those are interesting questions. Everybody thinks peace is nice but God’s robust peace is much more than nice! Let’s find out why. The Amplified Bible provides a neat definition for this heavenly peace: And God’s peace [shall be yours, that tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot…
Ignoring God leads to an empty life. We can try to fill our lives with different things. But because we were created to God’s image we long to be with God. That’s why we can’t find happiness outside of God. Like Blaise Pascal has said “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.” The stronger the dissonance between…
Do you ever wonder why on earth Jesus gave such a hard time for Pharisees? They were decent folks, weren’t they? Here’s how Jesus saw it: Frauds! Isaiah’s prophecy of you hit the bull’s-eye: These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their heart isn’t in it. They act like they’re worshiping me, but they don’t mean it. They just use me as a cover for teaching whatever suits their fancy.” He then called the crowd…
Are you feeling blue? Has life sucked all energy out of you? Do you need a little boost? Here’s an important verse (used in two different psalms!) to lead us into the right path on our search for spiritual adrenaline into our souls: Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you crying the blues? Fix my eyes on God— soon I’ll be praising again. He puts a smile on my face. He’s my God. (Psalm 42:5…
Is your soul satisfied? How do you feed your own soul? What does shape your soul? It does make a huge difference what we let enter into our souls. We can harm our souls with wrong choices. “We work to feed our appetites; Meanwhile our souls go hungry. (Ecclesiastes 6:7, MSG) “Don’t dabble in the occult or traffic with mediums; you’ll pollute your souls. I am God, your God. (Leviticus 19: 31, MSG) “Look at that man, bloated by self-importance—…
Do you have prayer requests? Good news! We have a prayer hearing God who lovingly responds to us. One day he was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said, “Master, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” So he said, “When you pray, say, Father, [How wonderful it is to approach God as Father! This never happened in the Old Testament. What a gift it is to be a child of…
I love the Bible. But it does condemn me pretty much on every single page. What to do then? Do I have any chance 4 eternity? Do you remember the story of the rich man who asked what he needs to do to get eternal life? Jesus lovingly told him to sell everything, give it to the poor and follow him. The man’s face clouded over. This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked off with…
Do you sometimes wonder whether God is late? Do you sometimes ponder whether his timing is off? It is hard to wait for God’s timing. It might seem God’s timing is off. But we can rest assured God knows what he is doing. When we read the whole Bible we get a better glimpse of what God is doing in the world. Jesus came into the world exactly at the right time. The world was not ready for the Messiah…
Don’t you just love how God works? How he gives us a fresh start time after time? How he pulls us out of chaos and shows us the right way to go? But me he caught—reached all the way from sky to sea; he pulled me out Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos, the void in which I was drowning. They hit me when I was down, but God stuck by me. He stood me up on…
Yesterday we talked about how we all need Christ because we are fallen. These two verses from the letter of Paul to the Colossians sum up the previous post pretty well: For he [God] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Col.1: 13-14, NIV) Let’s continue to look at what living in this freedom really means to us, how…
