Build Character, Not To-Do Lists
2024 is here! Do you have new year’s resolutions? … At the end of his life, the apostle Paul joyfully proclaimed: ‘I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith’ (2 Tim.4:7-8). Have you ever stopped to ponder whether you are running the race well? If your life ended today, would you be able to say you finished well? The apostle Peter helps us understands what it means to live an effective or fruitful life in Christ, not wasting the time God gave us.
God In the Mundane
Christmas Day is just around the corner. During this Advent season, I have been reminded of how much waiting God's people have been doing throughout history. Waiting on the Lord is a major theme in the bible and the Christian life. It is the confident, active, prayerful, patient, and hopeful anticipation that God will fulfill his promises and bring a positive outcome out of a situation […] When waiting on the Lord, are you expecting him to work in the mundane things…?
Will Heaven Be Boring?
The New Testament regularly encourages us to eagerly, hope-fully, and expectantly wait for the return of Jesus Christ. …. God will restore all things, including our physical bodies which will be resurrected, redeemed, and fully conformed to Christ’s image. We will see his face and know him fully as he knows us. He will make a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Despite these lavish promises, it seems many Christians imagine that *heaven will get boring at some point.
Who Is the Real Jesus?
There are many false Jesuses that we have created throughout church history.
Come take a look with me at who the real Jesus is, as revealed in the Word. See His unmatched Glory. See that he is the only one who can save. See that he is the strongest, most beautiful, and better than any other.
Mourn
What was it like for Jesus, the Righteous One, to walk in a fallen world where sin infected everything and everyone? What was it like for Jesus, the Lamb of God, to see the hearts of fallen Man and our ability to commit the worst sins against God and each other? What was it like for Jesus, the Bread of Life, to watch those he loves run after broken cisterns?
Looking in the Mirror
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (James 1:22-25, ESV)
God Thinks About You …Very Much & Very Deeply
Do you realize how much and how deeply God thinks about his children? Do you know that he watches you carefully every day with the purpose of doing good to you, to protect you and to lead you in the way of life? Sometimes I unconsciously think that God is too busy running the universe to care about why I am crying on my couch or that he has ‘holier’ people to pay attention to. The inspired David shows us in Psalm 139 that this could not be further from the truth. But what even David could not fathom, ‘things into which angels long to look’ (1 Peter 1:10), is a God who put on human flesh, dwelt among us and gave his life for us so that we might have eternal life in him.
Why We Struggle to Pray
For many of us, having a consistent prayer life is challenging. Why is that? Why is prayer not always our first response to sin, doubt, fear, pain, and even joy? Is there a spiritual battle to prevent us from praying? Is it because of false beliefs or unbelief about prayer?
The God Who Answers the Questions You Didn’t Ask
Have you noticed how Jesus interacts with certain individuals in the Gospels? He seems not to answer the question(s) asked or he seems to address a completely different topic. It’s almost like something was lost in translation, but it is not so. Jesus is intentional in how he interacts with individuals. Not only does he know how, but he also knows what to answer each one of us. He knows how to get us to understand God better, ourselves better, and our utter need for him….