Are you feeling the effects of Monday? Are you in need of a fresh supply of hope and encouragement? If yes, let’s turn our eyes on God. That’s where our help comes, day after day. God will never let us down. I’m homesick—longing for your salvation; I’m waiting for your word of hope. My eyes grow heavy watching for some sign of your promise; how long must I wait for your comfort? There’s smoke in my eyes—they burn and water,…
It’s no secret I love quotes. There are quotes that capture my heart right away and then there are quotes that puzzle me and I need to let them sit for awhile and ask God to reveal the true meaning of them. This quote of Martin Luther is one of the latter kind. Not that I did not like it from the very beginning. But it left me wondering anyhow: God created the world out of nothing; so as long…
Do you want to grow in wisdom? I think we all do. But do you know how that happens? The Bible gives us a very clear answer: Skilled living gets its start in the Fear-of-God, insight into life from knowing a Holy God. (Proverbs 9:10, MSG) I knew this and I try to live it out every day of my life. But that’s not all, folks! This very morning I read from the Acts how the church throughout Judea, Galilee,…
Every time I come across this quote by Jim Elliott I cringe. Does this convict you too? “Unwillingness to accept God’s ‘way of escape’ from temptation frightens me what a rebel yet resides within.” When we pray that God would help us….that God would rescue us from our temptations…..and then do exactly the opposite even when God is providing a way of escape….that is rebellion against God. The God-rebel tunes in to sedition— all ears, eager to sin. He has…
My godfather was buried last week. The verse I chose to him was 1 Corinthians 13:13: And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. That tells you a lot about what kind of man he was. But even I was in for a surprise at the funeral. All his neighbors were telling stories after stories how he had helped them. How he had served them. How he had loved them. I was floored…
It is great to live in a free country. It is great to be independent. But even that is nothing if we have not been set free by God’s grace. People don’t think they are slaves in a free country. But if you just have to have that new gadget or you can’t live out without the new cute outfit in the mall, you are a slave. If you just have to watch the latest Hollywood production or you just…
The Bible says that eternal life lies in knowing God. There must be something really special about knowing God. How can we do that? We can’t do it without Jesus. But Jesus died for us so we could know God. If we receive this gift of grace, we are free to get to know God. Other religions teach that we need to first become good to approach God. But Christianity boldly proclaims that all we need is Jesus. Jesus looked…
God’s word is a mirror. We just need to dare to look at it. What do I mean? We could take, for example, any story Jesus told to his disciples. If we dare to ask the Holy Spirit to read our heart and show us what we need to know, God’s word will be a mirror for us. The picture that we see in our hearts is God’s message for us. Keep this in mind when you read the parable…
Robust peace might sound a bit odd first. That’s because we’ve learned to think of peace as of lack of something. Peace is a lack of hurry or lack of pestering people. The peace the world ever is able to give is this kind of peace: a removal from busyness or a subtraction of something from our lives. But this kind of peace is not lasting and it diminishes our lives. This kind of peace is not robust peace. This…
What’s the big deal of the Holy Spirit? Why do we need the Holy Ghost? Why should we be excited about the Spirit of God? I’ve collected here my big five reasons why the Holy Spirit is an essential part of spiritual life. 1) The Holy Spirit is a person. For real. The Holy Spirit is not just an abstract thought or impersonal wind. The Holy Spirit is a person who hears, speaks, feels and thinks. The Holy Spirit loves,…
