Category: Christian Living

Hebrews 1:3
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power…

He upholds the universe by His powerful word. He upholds everything in this created world by virtue of His spoken word. Not one atom is out of kilter; not one particle performs outside its designed purpose. Every single cell, every single organism, every single creature acts out the purposes God created it to do. And all these they do according to the spoken word of God that binds them all together and ordered them to exist in perfect ecological unison.

Don’t you think it amazing that the power that holds the planets and the smallest particles together is the same power that saved you from the fires of hell and the temptations that damage the soul? Don’t you think it praiseworthy that the power that ordered the universe to existence is the same power that sustains your weary heart in its darkest, most trying moments? Continue reading Sustained

Myles Kantor on nominal Christianity:

[Today], religion is often about personal sentiment and preference instead of doctrine and obedience. The preacher Paul Washer has stated in this vein:

“When you take a look at American Christianity, it is based more upon a godless culture than it is upon the word of God.”

“Most of our Christianity is based on cliches that we read on the back of Christian t-shirts. Most of our Christianity comes from songwriters and not the Bible. Most of what we believe to be true is dictated to us by our culture and not the Bible.” Continue reading Bumper Sticker Christians

The Christian religion is neither a set of intellectual convictions nor a bundle of emotional feelings. It is a compound of both, the intellectual giving birth to the emotional aspect.

This means that your emotional responses to the gospel should be properly guided by your correct understanding of the teachings of Christ. You can’t just go crying or shouting because you feel warm inside. That’s pure emotionalism.

If you ever get emotional, it should be because you first understood something liberating. People who scream too much and dance too much in their worship should make sure that their reason for doing so is based on a clear understanding of the gospel and not on the false hype the preacher or worship leader incited them to. Continue reading More Than Just Emotions

Matthew 4:18-20

18 While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

There is one unmistakable lesson we could gather from this passage: God calls us by families. When He thinks of us, He lumps us together with our family units.

We can see this from Genesis to Revelation. Everytime the name of Abraham is brought up, Isaac and Jacob’s names tag along. When Moses was commissioned to deliver Israel, his sister Miriam and brother Aaron were in the picture. Continue reading Bloodlines and Families

One of the pervasive marks of our times is emotional fragility. I feel it as though it hung in the air we breathe. We are easily hurt. We pout and mope easily. We break easily. Our marriages break easily. Our faith breaks easily. Our happiness breaks easily. And our commitment to the church breaks easily. We are easily disheartened, and it seems we have little capacity for surviving and thriving in the face of criticism and opposition…

When you are surrounded by a society of emotionally fragile quitters, and when you see a good bit of this ethos in yourself, you need to spend time with people–whether dead of alive–whose lives prove there is another way to live. Scripture says, “Be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” ( Hebrews  6:12 ).

John Piper on Brothers, We Must Not Mind a Little Suffering, a biographical sketch on Charles Simeon

Oswald Chambers on spiritual destitution:

We have to realize that we cannot earn or win anything from God; we must either receive it as a gift or do without it. The greatest blessing spiritually is the knowledge that we are destitute; until we get there Our Lord is powerless. He can do nothing for us if we think we are sufficient of ourselves, we have to enter into His Kingdom through the door of destitution. As long as we are rich, possessed of anything in the way of pride or independence, God cannot do anything for us. It is only when we get hungry spiritually that we receive the Holy Spirit.