December 2011
23 posts
3 tags
The Mockery of Ministry
We are called to be God’s representative, God’s emissaries in the world. When carrying out this calling, the Christian will often find him or her self around people in pain, conflict, or sorrow. To limit a response to nothing other than pity, sympathy, well wishes, or even prayer, is to make a mockery of our calling and to pervert the meaning of ministry. In other words,...
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The Grandeur of the Christian Faith
Nothing in this world compares to the grandeur, the beauty, and the grace of the Christian faith. Like Jacob’s ladder, it reaches from earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth. The Christian life finds its foundation in the Divine lighting the path which is walked each day. The Christian faith, through trials and tribulations of life, reveals God’s plan for us, and brings comfort...
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The Need For Church
A lot of people in the contemporary world have given into the seductive belief that a person can me a good Christian away from the church. They are allured into believing that by being out with nature, or enjoying a quiet, relaxing day, they can become moral. But no fishing pole has ever produced morality, nor has catching up on sleep brought about spiritual literacy.
There is a dependence...
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The Inocent Suffer
The innocent suffer because of the guilty. To walk through a hospital, the stand in a cemetery, to read a newspaper is to know the truth of this. It is a mystery to which many shattered lives attest to — an injustice which the virtuous proclaim. “Why?” is the question that arises out of this. “Why does evil exist?” “Why does God allow the innocent to...
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The Light Of God
As the sun is the most universal benefactor of nature, in the same way God gives to us. However, with the sun there are variables: due to the earth’s rotation we say that it rises and sets; from one season to the next it provides various degrees of warmth; clouds block the view or smog reduces it’s brightness. However, the sun never changes, rather it is the earth which is in...
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The Father's Love
Those things which humanity calls affliction - anguish, pain, grief, and suffering - can bring out the best of love. A parent’s love is never so great as when a child is in distress. Concern and care for the child’s well-being becomes the most important thing in the heart.
It is also that way with the love of God. By virtue of our having fallen, our being in peril of becoming lost...
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The Greatest Knowledge
The greatest and most valuable knowledge which can come into the mind of any person is that of eternity. All the other words and concepts of the faith become empty of any meaning if there was no “forever.” Words like “God,” “prayer,” “grace,” ”redemption,” and “salvation” become meaningless when eternity is removed from...
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The Mystery
“Mystery” is a word not used much in Christianity these days, but it is an appropriate word of our faith. So much of God is hidden from us until a time of God’s choosing, and it is revealed to us only in His determined amounts.
Christianity is dependent upon one fact — Jesus was God. For Christ to be our Savior and Redeemer, no created mortal could accomplish that. ...
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The Need For Getting Personal
The contemporary world is fond of saying that we are both more enlightened and more skeptical than were our ancestors. In reality, the opposite is true.
The modern world also asserts that science, technology, and life in general have crowded out, if not replace, our need to believe in God. Again, this is a symptom of our condition.
It is quite misleading, if not plain wrong, to assert that...
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The Quiet Feet Of God
Those who lived long ago had a saying, “The feet of the gods are shod with wool.” This says that life often happens to us quietly and quickly. Out of nowhere things come at us which are neither planned nor anticipated. We are taught to believe that we make our own decisions and plans, and that we are responsible for determining the course that our own life will take. But life...
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The Reconciliation of God
People believe that humans are basically good. Our words, our actions, our decisions are all of God because we are born out of love and God is love. But the truth is that this is nothing more than a disguised attempt to justify what is wrong.
God came to reconcile the world to Himself. Therefore, the truth is that we are in need of being reconciled. In other words, our words, our actions,...
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I Am
“Before Abraham was, I am” John reports Jesus to say. “I am,” present tense. Jesus is always “present tense.” The Jesus who is with me today is the same Jesus that was with my father, and my father’s father…back through all of history. There is no Jesus who “used to be” but “now is not.” Neither is there a Jesus who “is not today” but “will be tomorrow.” There is no past with Him and...
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The Surrendering Of Self
To truly hunger and thirst for an answer; to realize that there is no where left to turn for help; that no person, including yourself can bring to pass what is so desperately sought after; is to finally know that the work belongs to God, and God alone. But what if that which is so desperately sought after and worked for, with much time devoted to it does not come to be? That is when the work of...
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The Sanctity Of Commonness
Sometimes the reasons are obvious, but more often they are not. Yet when God puts a person in a particular place it is for a specific purpose. There is something definite which we are created to do at this time in history: some task to perform, some deed to accomplish, some soul to touch. There is something very humbling and encouraging about this. It affirms God’s presence, and gives...
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Heaven
The old images of heaven are those of gold paved streets, pearly gates, jeweled walls, and the River of Life flowing like crystal through the center of it. But in truth, heaven is not a place but rather it is a state, a condition — a condition of unbroken agreement with Divine Providence and perfect obedience to the Spirit of Love. It is a state which first must be inside of the Christian...
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What We Represent
The Christian represents Christ to the world. We represent the way of Christ living among us as well as within us. We represent the human heart in relationship with the divine. Therefore, the Christian life is a lyrical representation of the soul; it speaks a sermon in the ways of sorrow, hope, love, and joy. That is why it is said that the human heart, and the Christian life, essentially...
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Saving Self
The Town Of Morality is a place born in the mind of John Bunyan and is brought to life in his work Pilgrim’s Progress. Its existence is to show that there are many people who live under the belief that they can save themselves. Their reliance rests on self rather than on Christ. Their major claim in life is that they live good, decent, honest lives. Yet, all persons have sins and...
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The Tyrant's Downfall
The history of the world shows that tyrants, dictators, and oppressors have always failed to understand the fear of God which is contained in the heart of the believer. Such is the power and providence of God that men and women have long stood against and defeated transgressors such as these. Those who would wield pain, suffering, and fear upon a populace bring with them great power, but so...
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The Wicked Don't Seek Heaven
It is often asked why evil, corrupt people do not seek out the Kingdom of God. The answer is really quite simple: the Kingdom of God, heaven, is a state of perfect holiness, of continual love and praise of God. This is something quit unappealing to the corrupt, the wicked, the diabolic. The perfect love, praise, and holiness of which heaven consists is something of which they do not desire to...
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The Wind Of Life
To have life is to know storms. Other than the wrenching of birth, the first of life is generally calm — the air is soft, the breeze is gentle for most children. But the day comes when the gentle placidness begins to rage and a hurricane begins to blow. Sometimes the winds affect belief; sometimes the winds bring discouragement; sometimes sickness and tragedy sweep across those who we...
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Done For Us
Centuries before Christ was born, the prophet Isaiah said, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” ( Isaiah 9:6 ) As hard as it is for us to believe that Jesus was God — that God did become a person like us, perhaps the harder truth is that He is ours. That this child belongs to us. That through this child, born at Christmas, God gives forgiveness and peace to a...
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The World's Allure
During our course through the journey of our faith, we each have strong days and weak days. There are days when the desires of the world sway us toward compromise. Yet just as sure are the days when we are strong enough to stand with Christ against the common vulgarity of the world. None of this is an easy task for the Christian, because the allure of the world causes our defenses to drop; then...
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Salvation
A shop which sells finely crafted, hand-made, highly value guitars is burning. Someone rushes into the building and saves several of the instruments from destruction. This is salvation.
However, the guitars have changed, the heat has altered them. The master craftsman lovingly and expertly restores them to their original state. This too is salvation.
An expert guitarist takes one of the the...
