People worth praying for

If someone is worth praying for, they are worth praying for well.

A good conscience

You can’t put a dollar value on a good, pure and clean conscience before God. All the money in the world can’t buy it, and neither can all the good and charitable deeds in the world purchase it, nor all the tears in the world. It was purchased by the precious Blood of Christ.

INFINITE GOD

INFINITE GOD

Ten thousand burnings is enough

Ten thousand burnings is enough to reveal the nature of this particular institution.

In those days the RCC was the equivalent of ISIS.

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Spoken Worship

There’s no rule in the Bible which says that worship must be limited only to singing. There can also be spoken worship. It’s a very liberating experience, by the Spirit, to speak out your worship of God in the midst of the congregation of God’s people. It’s a great blessing. Oftentimes there is more substance to this worship than with some of the shallow modern worship songs. This should be encouraged.

And an appropriate musical accompaniment to the spoken worship would surely glorify God.

What kind of “relationship with God”?

These days a lot of people talk about their “relationship with God”, but when you look at their lives it makes you wonder what kind of relationship they have with God.

Participatory

A participatory church assembly helps us learn to dialogue and think in an orderly way, but sitting in the audience does not usually help someone grow in this.

These go hand in hand

When i meet a Christian with deep personal problems it’s usually the case that they are not in real fellowship with anyone. They may go to church but they are not in fellowship with anyone.

It’s nice to say thank you

When someone gives you a gift it’s nice to say thank you. When we realize that everything we have in this life we have received as gifts from God it’s nice to say thank you. We like it when people say thank you, and God likes it when people say thank you.

The foolishness of preaching

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. I Corinthians 1:21

God is Love

Since God is Love, and He created us, and we are His blood-bought children, then every aspect of our life on earth, every facet of our being, must have “God is Love” as its reference point, as the meaning of our life, and the reason we live.

As you have received…

Those who have received mercy plead mercy for others.

Those who have been forgiven forgive others.

Those who have been loved love others.

Those who have received the truth teach the truth to others.

The business of pushing the right buttons

Holy and Pure songs of worship DO touch your emotions, but not in the same way in which worldly “Christian” music touches your emotions. With holy things, things from God, it is the Truth in Jesus which touches and moves your heart, and your heart and emotions are not manipulated into feeling or experiencing something apart from the revelation of Christ. Any music has power to “push the right buttons” – to induce an emotional state. Holy music uses the power of the Truth in Jesus, the Word of God, to do this, and does not try to manipulate the emotions by musical devices, and put the Truth as secondary. The Truth should “push our buttons” and not a certain chord progression.

Even a musician who is not born again, but understands musical theory, can compose worship songs which will pull at the heartstrings. If your goal is to create an emotion or manipulate emotions then that’s easy to do musically without any involvement of the Holy Spirit.

Righteousness or Unrighteousness

Righteousness means the rightness of something. It can refer to right-standing with God, as in right relationship to God, and it can refer to the nature of something, whether it is right or wrong.

God is righteous, He is not unrighteous. It means God is always right, He is never wrong. If you look into God you only find rightness, or goodness, and nothing less.

Certain people are righteous, most are unrighteous. A good work is a righteous act, and sin is an unrighteous act.

Christ is the righteousness of God revealed in the world. He encompasses both aspects of righteousness: right standing with God, and also the rightness of God. These are both inseparable, and just as inseparable as The Son is from the Father: The Son is in right relationship to His Father, and He shares the right nature of the Father.

And the Good News is that both these aspects of the righteousness of God, existing within the Godhead, are freely imputed to the believer in Christ.

The righteousness of God

The righteousness of God, and confidence in the flesh, are mutually exclusive. Our confidence is either in the righteousness of God freely imputed to us by faith in Christ, or our confidence is in our own righteousness which we have accomplished by ourselves. So, even the morally upright man, whom the world would call a good man, outside of faith in Christ has no righteousness, for he does not have the righteousness of God. Only the righteousness of God is acceptable to God. Only the righteousness of The Son of God is acceptable to the Father. (see Philip. 3, Rom. 1:17-18, 3:22)

Sensual or Spiritual

“Sensual” is experiential in regard to what our five senses experience. “Spiritual” is in regard to what our spirit experiences. Spiritual supersedes sensual, or the five senses. Therefore, anything in Christianity which is sensual and not spiritual is only temporary and never lasts.

Just a little bit of pride

Even just a little bit of pride is offensive to Jesus, for He has none.

Back when worship wasn’t so cool or hip

Asaph made music with cymbals (1 Chron. 16:5b). Now, if we could travel back in time and listen to those clashing cymbals it might not exactly fit our musical taste. Or the trumpets blasting. But the main point is THE MOTIVE: that is, WHY they were blowing trumpets and clashing cymbals, and TO WHOM they were doing it. Important to keep this in mind today.

Tired of serving

Sometimes we are discouraged bcos we get tired of being a servant, tired of serving God’s children, and we want them to serve us just a little, we get tired of loving and serving people who don’t return the love.

We sometimes get tired of being a lowly servant and want a position of honor in the sight of men: one notch higher than “servant”.

If this is the reason we are discouraged at times, then it’s good to re-examine our motives, and follow again in Jesus footsteps, and fellowship with Him in His sufferings, and know the joy of His resurrection.

Substitutes

Any substitute for God is infinitely inferior to God. Idols are substitutes for God.