How does God get your attention? Does the house have to burn down? Sometimes the life-changing events we experience (loss of a job, health issue, financial setback, family problem, etc.) are only necessary because we haven't been listening to God -- we've blocked Him out.
"Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. It is the belief that God will do what is right." — Max Lucado
If we say that we believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, then we must also accept the authority of those He sent. We must accept and believe the entire New Testament as the final authority on our faith. If we do not, then we question the authority of God.
It is interesting how many solutions, to what seem to be insurmountable problems, present themselves when the divorce alternative is taken off the table.
“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.” — C.S. Lewis
Our ministry and testimony are always primarily unto the Lord. We who believe in Jesus Christ are to be "finding out what is acceptable to the Lord" (Ephesians 5:10). We are not here on earth to please ourselves.
“God creates out of nothing. Wonderful, you say. Yes, to be sure, but He does what is still more wonderful; He makes saints out of sinners.” —Soren Kierkegaard
I encourage you to step into your identity. Embrace the fact that you are God’s precious child, His son or daughter—and yes, a saint.
God is never unrealistic about us. He knows us. He sees our hearts better than we can. But out of His love for us, He chose to pay for the dark and wicked side of human nature. When we are believers in the sacrifice of His Son, when we are cleansed by the blood Jesus shed on the cross, His view of us is filtered through His Son and His love, and He sees us as nothing less than saints.
Putting our spouse’s needs ahead of our own makes for a healthy and enjoyable marriage.
“Millions of couples,” writes author Gary Thomas, “have pledged ‘to love and to cherish, till death do us part.’” Most of us understand the love part and the implied vow to serve and commit to one another, but it is the act of cherishing, Thomas says, that “turns marriage from an obligation into a delight. It lifts marriage above a commitment to a precious priority.”
“Real romance,” writes Ann Voskamp, “isn’t measured by how viral any wedding proposal goes — and viral is closely associated with sickness — but it’s the moments of self-forgetfulness: Setting the table at the end of a long day and rustling up some hearty dish for those who have your heart, and then — without any cameras rolling or soundtracks playing — clearing the plates to make your own love perfectly clear — this is the way of robust romance.”
All of us want to have healthy, vibrant, joyful marriages and serving is a wonderful way to cherish your love and strengthen your marriage.
Prayer and fasting activate our longing to be free and help us let go of unforgiveness and bitterness. Then the Holy Spirit can flow into our lives like currents of living water, freeing us to love, forgive, and hear God’s voice with clarity.
The chances of becoming a pro-athlete: .02%. The chances of standing before a holy God: 100%. Sports can be good for your kids, but they can’t be God for your kids. Help them keep their priorities in order.
It’s not unloving to say that Jesus is the only way to Heaven. It’s unloving to pretend there are other ways. “The arms of his goodness are as large to embrace all creatures as the eyes of his omniscience are to behold them.” — Stephen Charnock, Divine Providence, 100.
Sin does not want part of us. Sin wants all of us. The devil lies to us and tells us that a little sin will make us more of a person, more of a manly man, more of an attractive woman. But the truth is that sin wants mastery over you. Kevin DeYoung, Don’t Be True to Yourself, 34.
“Seeing God is a promise for the pure in heart—but seeing God is also the means by which our hearts are purified.” — J. Garrett Kell, Pure in Heart, 32
“If one dear saint of God had perished, so might all; if one of the covenant ones be lost, so may all be; and then there is no gospel promise true, but the Bible is a lie, and there is nothing in it worth my acceptance.” — Charles Spurgeon
“What more could our souls be made for than to dwell in the meditation of the beauty of God?” — Richard Sibbes
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