Spiritual tiredness

For physical tiredness, sleep.

For spiritual tiredness, wait on the Lord and renew your strength.

Avoiding a trap

It’s only when you claim to be somebody that you fall into the trap of having to justify yourself to others.

Whom we learn patience from

Trying to have the same kind of patience with others which Jesus has with us…

Uncomplicated gifts

A gift of the Spirit is as uncomplicated as breathing.

Incomprehensible love

A comment i made on FB:  It needs to be clarified that God so loved this lost, rebellious world and gave His Son to die for it not because it was worth anything, but the fact that Christ loved and died for worthless sinners indicates an amazing, incomprehensible love. If man was worth dying for it would not be the same incredible love.

There’s also the futuristic aspect,  though man lost everything by the fall,  God could see into the future  what He could do with the vile and reprehensible, transforming them into the image of His Son, so surely redemption  rests not upon what man is,  and his worthlessness, but what he can be as a new creation in Christ.

Fallen man does indeed have value to God (more value than many sparrows) but this value is not derived from any spiritual worthiness. So it would be unjust to tell unregenerate people they do have some righteousness of their own, that God loves them because they are not so bad after all, etc.

When we preach the good news we also mention why the good news is so good, because there’s the bad news also, the fact that the wrath of God remains on the unrepentant unbeliever, so if preachers tell the unrepentant they’re special to God, they also need to tell them the fact that if they don’t repent it is Jesus who is going to judge them and cast them into the lake of fire. So then the hearer, in light  of these facts, can decide how “special” they are.

Grace means unmerited favor. It means natural man has no natural merit. If he did he would not need unmerited favor. So, whatever value sinners are to God, this value is not determined by merit, it is an unmerited value, and as such no one can boast.

Only two views

There’s basically only two eschatological views: either the Kingdom comes painlessly, or with much tribulation and suffering. Guess which one is true to Scripture.

What He is worthy of

If we give the Lord Jesus the time He is worthy of we will not live according the flesh. (See Galatians 5)

Wiping the spit

Mrs Wurmbrand asked her husband to wipe the spit off Jesus’ face. Jesus doesn’t need anyone to defend Him, but it would be nice if more Christians had the character to at least try and wipe some of the spit off.

I’m all for being nice, but let’s also help wipe the spit off Jesus’ face.

Deal with fear, don’t rewrite the Bible

A comment i made on FB: The Bible is unambiguous about what is yet to happen prior to Christ’s return, and  the real issue is fear, so such people then only see what they want to see in Bible prophecy, according to their fear, even changing what is written to make it less scary, but of course this is foolish, they need to deal with their fear, not rewrite the Bible. The suggestion that a literal reading of Bible prophecy means Jesus failed is so far off the wall, and it must be sickening for Jesus hear such bile.

The mind

The human mind is such a technological marvel with no equal in creation, way more vast and complex than its ability to explain itself to its owner, that is, we understand with our mind that our mind is too vast to understand, and this knowledge should humble man, the knowledge of how much he doesn’t know about his own mind, but man’s nature is not like that, he gets a little knowledge then thinks he’s wonderful.

It’s a paradox. The greater someone’s intellect the more they acknowledge the limitation of their intellect to understand itself.

 

Yes, man is a wonderful creation, but this means his Creator is wonderful, not him.

David said he was wonderfully made, he didn’t say, I am wonderful!

Perpetual discovery

The Christian life is a perpetual discovery of what it means to love God with all your heart.

A question of honor

While scripture says we are to conduct ourselves honorably in all word and conduct if we honor evil people we dishonor God.

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The Bible says to honor kings but never false prophets or teachers.

We can honor kings as respect and acknowledgment that God has sovereignly allowed them to rule for a reason, but this doesn’t mean we personally honor their way of life or beliefs, there’s a huge difference.

Paul had respect and honor for Caesar as king, but zero respect for his beliefs or actions.

I won’t rail against “the pope” calling him names or mocking him, BUT if i were to honor what he stands for and believes in i would be spitting in Jesus’ face.

We see in scripture we are not to mock (rail against) the devil and demons, yet we are not to honor them either.

Walk the narrow line.

The path of compromise

A path where the only way to your destination is by compromising the truth of God’s word is a wrong path.

When it’s merely emotion

If your coming to Christ was merely an emotional response then when those emotions are gone so are you.

Using “love” as a clever device

You never want to use “love” scriptures as a clever device for avoiding responsibilities plainly spelled out in other scriptures.

The power to choose

A comment i made: Truly born again people have been given the power to choose correctly and therefore have no excuse if they use their freewill to make wrong choices.

Prognosis

The word “foreknowledge” of God : Gk. “prognosis“, has come up a few times this last week, and as i thought about it i was filled with wonder, just to think, He knows exactly what will happen tomorrow. It highlights how very limited our capacities are compared to His. Just amazing. He knows the future. He already knows who will choose or reject Him. How can that be? He is omniscient. There’s nothing He doesn’t know. He’s God. We should love Him even more as we learn more and more of His glory.

The Name

Using Jesus’ name as an expletive is a mockery of Him. And when you consider that out of the millions of names which exist they choose this particular name it indicates this one name has touched their conscience more than any other.

Believe with all your heart

Know what things you should believe about God then believe with all your heart.
Either believe with all your heart or don’t believe at all.

Renewed mind

A renewed mind (Rom. 12:2) should be able to think better than an unrenewed mind. You would think so.