If you don’t take your stand for Christ, you will be on the wrong side, and someday when it is too late, you’ll cry out, “I’ve taken the wrong stand!” You’ll be in the devil’s trap! You can’t lick the devil.
Taking this “servant” attitude of thankfulness in all of life’s circumstances will help you react as old Matthew Henry did when he was mugged. He wrote in his diary, “Let me be thankful first because I was never robbed before; second, although they took my purse, they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.
The devil is alive and kicking. But if you are in Christ and follow the rules of daily Bible study, prayer, and witnessing, he has no power over you.
Man is precisely what the Bible says he is. Human nature is behaving exactly as the Bible said it would. The course of human events is flowing just as Christ predicted.
Our Father and our God, my finite mind cannot fathom Your infinite nature. My physical body cannot comprehend Your spiritual being. And my ever-changing mind cannot grasp Your never-changing ways. Still, I believe You are all these things. Help me to believe even more through Jesus, through whom I pray. Amen.
The influence of sin touches the innocent as well as the guilty.
In a decadent society the will to believe, to resist, to contend, to fight, to struggle is gone. In place of this will to resist, there is the desire to conform, to drift, to follow, to yield, and not give up.
We do not have a paradise on earth; it is riddled with so much sin and disease.
Be a good witness by the way you live. The way we live is often more convincing than the words we say.
Sin is rebellion against God.
So when you sense a still, small voice in your soul – and you have or you will – it is the Holy Spirit of God telling you that you’re not right with Him. Do not ignore the Voice. God is drawing you by His love – don’t pull away. When you quench the fire of conviction, you have rejected the Holy Spirit. So when you feel that tug, do not resist. Take hold of the living Christ, who will come and dwell in you.
Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate the Christian from the man of the world. In America, for example, churchgoing has become popular, but churchgoing may not necessarily be accompanied by genuine depth in prayer and Bible study or a change in lifestyle.
How often do you cave in to the pressures of the crowd, seeking the approval of others instead of the approval of God? We all like to be liked – but that can be a very dangerous thing. Make it your goal to live for Christ and be faithful to Him, regardless of what the crowd demands.
Many of the mysteries of God – the heartaches, trials, disappointments, tragedies, and the silence of God in the midst of suffering – will be revealed in heaven.
Become grounded in the Bible. As Christians, we have only one authority, one compass: the Word of God.
Nothing can alter the fact that God calls perversion sin.
No area of human life is so full of difficulties and heartaches as relationships. If you listed everything that upset you during the past week, I suspect most had to do with other people. People can be selfless and kind, but they can also be difficult, stubborn, ego-driven, thoughtless, mean, selfish, manipulative. But the problem is not just other people; it’s also ourselves.
Sin’s masterpiece of shame and hate became God’s masterpiece of mercy and forgiveness. Through the death of Christ upon the cross, sin itself was crucified for those who believe in Him.
Disappointments are part of life; we can’t always have our own way, and we need to learn to separate what is significant from what is merely annoying. Only in heaven will we be free of all disappointments and failures. A friend of mine says, “Oh well, a hundred years from now it won’t make any difference!
If we who have the Holy Spirit living and working within us falter and fail, what hope is there for the rest of the world?