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…
Persistently people assume you need to do something bad in order to end up in hell. They are very surprised when I tell them “all that’s already taken care of”; they don’t need to do anything and they will end up in hell. Yes, humankind lost its innocence back in the garden of Eden: 1The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not…
What is the name of the ruler of your heart? Shame? Fame? Game? Or a significant other? Sometimes shame keeps us from coming to Christ with the mess we’ve made. We think we are not worthy of God. So we keep away from Christian gatherings and God himself. But here’s the news flash: no one is worthy of grace! Just listen to Jesus: “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? I’m here inviting the sin-sick, not the spiritually-fit.”…
The amazing message of Christianity is that God has prepared a way in Jesus for all the people to be made right with him. There’s nothing we can do to earn salvation or anything we can do to put us out of reach of God’s grace. But we are to accept the gift of grace in order to be saved. Faith receives and embraces grace. Unbelief sends the gift right back to the Giver. Our choice. Our decision. Our…
Often people think that they’d get more out of life if their goal was simply to satisfy all their needs and wants. But the opposite is true! It might first look like that people who pile up most material goods win. But that’s little short-sighted. When you grab all you can get, that’s what happens: the more you get, the less you are. (Proverbs 1: 19, MSG) Isn’t that the saddest thing? People who want to “create themselves” by buying…
How do you know whether you are a legalistic or not? Mike Taylor provides us a simple test to check whether you are prone to a legalistic thinking: “ask yourself, “How does God feel about me today?” If the answer is anything other than, “He is passionately in love with me,” then you are falling into the trap of thinking that God’s attitude towards us is determined by our performance rather than by his essential loving character. In other words,…
Legalism is one of the worst enemies of grace. It tries to steal the joy of salvation. It tries to make us believe that somehow our salvation is depending on something we should do or leave undone. Legalism tries to tell us that if we follow certain set of rules we will be somehow saved. As human beings we were born sinful; there’s nothing we need to do to stand in need of salvation. There’s nothing we can do to…
My last post was about repentance, forgiveness and becoming holy by God’s grace. I still stand behind those words but God has been teaching me some more on the subject during the weekend. I don’t want anyone to think that salvation depends on anything but God’s grace. Even though the Holy Spirit brings some matters to our attention so that we could repent (and we are wise to do so) we can never be fully aware of and hence repent…
Lately God has been waking me up (literally) to see my sinfulness. God has reminded me of some choices I have made in my life and led me to repent for them. Even though during that time of my life I did not even think they had been questionable. I did not know any better then. Selfishness does not produce good fruit. Selfishness paves the way to destruction whether we realize it or not. Go home and wash up. Clean…
Picking up your cross is not popular. This world talks about everything but the cross of Christ. Even Christians would like to take the good and easy parts of the gospel and leave the tough ones out. We all would just like to hear about God’s love and leave the carrying your cross part for others. Francois Fenelon asks us a hard question: “He asks nothing but death, and you desire nothing but life. How can you put up to…
