Luther said that every Christian is “simul justus et peccator, comprehensor et viator” – “simultaneously righteous and sinful, a man who has reached the goal and one who reaches out toward it.
A man who visits a barber to be shaved, or who orders a suit from a tailor, is not a disciple, but a customer. So one who comes to the Savior only to be saved is the Savior’s customer, not His disciple. A disciple is one who says to Christ, ‘How I long to do work like Yours! To go from place to place taking away fear; bringing instead joy, truth, comfort, and life eternal!
How many Christians of the free world visit communist countries and other nations where Christians are persecuted but never ask permission to visit a jail and encourage their brothers and sisters in pain?
It is a miracle, with no logical explanation, that even amid the fierce anti-Semitism of Hitler’s oppression, there were Germans who believed with all their hearts in the crucified Jew as their Savior.
Faith in God is the sole answer to the mystery of evil.
Hammer away, ye hostile bands. Your hammers break; God’s anvil stands.
Where do you flee when facing darkness and shadows in life? Find a favorite photo of a mountain or hill. It could be a photograph from a vacation, nearby sites, or even a postcard, magazine cut-out or greeting card. Put it in a place where you will see it whenever you face difficulties. Then envision Jesus carrying you up the mountain of myrrh where He will bring you refreshment and healing so that you can return to bring His fragrance to others.
Many persecuted believers have thrived in the desert of prison. Perpetua, a third-century Christian who was imprisoned and martyred for her faith, said of her prison cell: “The dungeon became to me as it were a palace, so that I preferred being there to being elsewhere.” Do not be fearful of dry times in your spiritual life. Tap into the Bridegroom, seeking only His living water and you will thrive.
My brothers and sisters, you also must believe that your lives are clay in the hands of a wonderful Sculptor. He never makes mistakes. If at times He is hard on you, it is because He sometimes has what we could call negative successes. He loses a pawn in order to win the chess game. He loses a battle in order to win a war. He causes his Son to endure suffering in order to save a world. Just trust. Don’t live on another’s messages, but discover the message for which He is molding you.
If the embryo could reason in the womb, it would wonder why it grew hands and feet, and it would surely conclude that there must be another world to play and run and work.
Worms, fire, or the sea might consume my body. But my spirit will live in a world with no more wanderings and trials. I do not have to pass through many painful incarnations. Beyond death lies paradise.
Often, preachers comment on debates Jesus had with men two thousand years ago regarding problems of that time, instead of providing answers, in the Spirit of Christ, to the problems of modern man. Therefore, many come to the conclusion that religion is irrelevant.
We will respond, even in the face of irony and slander, with the sweetness of love. We can afford to take this attitude because good anvils do not fear the blows of many hammers.
Where there is love, it is Jesus that will surely triumph.
The value of the Bibles smuggled in by these means cannot be understood by an American or an English Christian who “swims” in Bibles.
The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe. When a man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil, there is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil that is in man.
God is “the Truth.” The Bible is the “truth about the Truth.” Theology is the “truth about the truth about the Truth.” Christian people live in these many truths about the Truth, and, because of them, have not “the Truth.” Hungry, beaten, and drugged, we had forgotten theology and the Bible. We had forgotten the “truths about the Truth,” therefore we lived in “the Truth.
People are so inoculated in childhood with small doses of Christianity that they seldom catch the real thing.
The tyrant of Syracuse once went to the slavephilosopher Epictetus and told him, “I’ll pay the ransom for you and you will be liberated ” Epictetus replied, “Why do you care about me? Free yourself.” “But I am a king,” said the amazed tyrant. “This I contest,” was the answer of the philosopher. “He who masters his passions is a king even while in chains. He who is ruled by his passions is a slave even while sitting on a throne.
So at last when I believed Christianity was dead, I said, “Even so, I will believe in it, and I will weep at its tomb until it rises again, as it surely will.
Bible verses remain true, even if the devil quotes them.