Oh, we long to be in control. We love rules that we think we can achieve. Legalism is a list of those rules and the suggestion that if we strive a little harder we can control even God and guarantee his acceptance. However both God and the devil want us to feel that our efforts […]
God loves passion in his people. We are to hate sin, hunger for righteousness, pant like a deer for the water of his word, delight in his word, weep over the ravages of sin, grieve over our sins etc. So what is the difference between passion that provokes to righteousness and passion that kills? Healthy […]
I remember listening to evangelists who had lived dramatically messed up lives and so could testify to God’s saving power and grace. The apostle Paul was a great evangelist, in part, because he has such a dramatic story. If God loved him and turned his life around, God could help anyone! Peter was pretty messed […]
It is sad to fight and die in a battle when the war is already over. Such was the battle of the war of 1812 that was fought near New Orleans, between English troops and US troops after the war was over? Communication was so slow that they did not find out that the war was […]
I was talking to someone today who was moaning and groaning about having to shovel his sidewalk. His whining, reminded me of the attitude of most of my fellow doctors during training. They constantly whined and complained about the long hours, the difficulty, the anxiety etc.I wondered what they gained from all the whining. Whining […]
2 Timothy 2:3,4 YOU, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Do not let yourself be entangled with the affairs of this life, strive lawfully in order to please Jesus who has chosen you as a soldier. In Exodus 13:17-18 God decided that his people were not ready for battle. He knew that […]
Recently there was a blind lady who won a Special Olympics race on a circular track and stayed in her lane the whole way running at full speed. How? She trusted and placed her hand in the hand of the guide who could see. We only need guidance for one step at a time. If […]
In the poem by Francis Thompson, The Hound of Heaven, he flees the Lord, running to anything else to meet his needs because he fears, “Lest, having Jesus, I must have nothing else.” Obviously he felt that Jesus was not enough and that he had to have something to relieve his needs and that something […]
Many “godly” people seem to deny that sin has any pleasure attached to it, any relief of stress, any sense of control, any feeling of being loved and worthwhile. However the devil loves to take God’s delicious worms and put an invisible hook in it. The wine dances in the cup and is beautiful and […]
Aside: Remember that when the devil grabs God’s sweet fruit and talk us into using these good things in wrong ways, God does not instantly cause the fruit to rot and stink. No, it tastes good going down. The sin is seldom in the pleasant thing but the sin is in our using it to […]
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