He knows that people are worriers, back then and even more so today. Anxiety is the chronic pandemic of our age, countered with medication and therapy. However, medication and therapy are not the ONLY resources that we have. Christ’s counsel is sorely needed, and what He says can profit every one of us.
October 2020 PDF October 2020 ePub
Paul says these selfish desires lead to temptations, snares, destruction, perdition, and sorrow. Wealth doesn’t add to happiness; it adds to sorrow. The desire for wealth or the appearance of wealth leads to bad decisions and the inevitable consequences. So says Solomon in Proverbs 28:20, “A faithful man will abound with blessings, But he who hastens to be rich will not go unpunished.”
Spiritual blindness is different from eyes that are not functioning properly or are ruined. Spiritual blindness has to do with allowing our lives to be the final authority on what is accepted and true. It is blindness because we are not the authority. When we make ourselves the authority, we can only reflect upon our projections of reality. So, we surround ourselves with a type of knowledge limited to ourselves. This excludes knowing what is beyond us because we cannot admit contradictions to the biases of our fleshly mind. Being impressed with ourselves is a little like being in a room of mirrors, wowed at the seeming infinite, while after all being in a small room.
The love of God determined that Christ depart the realm of glory to make Himself of no reputation. The result was redemption and a return to glory. It was done for our sakes. This was and is the supreme compromise. By following Jesus, we are clothed to reflect that great love. We do this by finding a meeting point, a compromise with our neighbors in the world and with our family in Christ….
Failure is an inevitable part of the human experience. Everyone fails: in small things and even in the biggest things. Some of these failures are inconsequential and easily forgotten, but failures in the spiritual life are not so simple. As we deal with these spiritual failures, understand that God is dealing with them too…
“Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he.” I was introduced to this odd little song with accompanying gestures somewhere between my twenty-third and twenty-eighth birthday. I had never heard children’s songs like this. What a fascinating character, this wee little man. Zacchaeus “was a chief tax collector, and he…
What are the chances that your children and grandchildren will remain faithful in the church? Not that good. It’s a disturbing reality, but the facts are hard to deny. Academic studies on denominational churches show that about 70% of all young people will quit attending church within 2 years of leaving the home. In the…
“Do you look at things according to the outward appearance?” (2 Corinthians 10:7). Much of the denominational world uses the Law of Moses as a reference for its standards and practices. Often, there is a mix of the ten commandments, buildings referred to as temples or tabernacles, rooms or places accorded a special degree of…
We, as the Lord’s people, are continuing to see our society spiral down into spiritual darkness in many avenues. Over the past generations we have seen our country disregard the Lord’s Word time and time again as the very fabric of our society continues to tear away in regard to common decency, morality, even marriage….