WHAT WE CAN KNOW Have you ever been asked how you can know that God has saved you? The question may come from someone who lacks assurance of salvation themselves, so they want to understand from where you get your confidence. Or the question may come from an agnostic who wishes to challenge the basis
TALKING TO OTHERS ABOUT JESUS Why is it easier to invite someone to church than it is to invite them to follow Jesus? Talking about church is not the most comfortable thing in our modern culture. It signals a shift in our everyday generic conversation with neighbors and coworkers, for it moves from that which
DOES EVERY CHURCH HAVE EVERY SPIRITUAL GIFT IT NEEDS? Paul told the Corinthian church that it already had every spiritual gift that it needed. Is this true for every church? Does God give every local body of believers every spiritual gift that they need to stand faithful until Christ’s return? Perhaps it is an overstatement
RESPONDING TO THOSE WHO CAUSE DIVISIONS AND UPSET Paul gives two commands concerning those who cause divisions and upset people’s faith: 1) Watch out for them. Literally, keep an eye out for them. And 2) Stay away from them. Avoid such people. The prayer of Jesus in John 17 was that we would be
THE CHURCH IS THE PEOPLE NOT THE STEEPLE In Paul’s letter to the Roman believers, he gave greetings to the church that met in the home of Aquila and Priscilla. In those days there were no church buildings, so the church met in homes or in public meeting facilities, such as the Hall of Tyrannus
DO YOU HAVE CONFIDENT HOPE? What is this “confident hope” and how can we obtain it? Confident hope is Christian hope. This is different from the hope we express as a wish. When we say, “I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow,” we are expressing a wish without any promise of fulfillment. But Christian hope is
THE GIFT OF SPIRITUAL RECEPTIVITY One can have ears and eyes, yet still be deaf and blind. The Lord has made both the physical and the spiritual ability to hear. Both are grace. The physical we all understand, but few recognize the spiritual. The first offers wisdom of the physical world, the second makes one
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE CLOTHED IN CHRIST? What does it mean to be “clothed in Christ?” This is a most worthy meditation. First, isn’t there the necessity of putting off our old clothes? Certainly, this is what the Word teaches us. Some of the articles of the old clothes are listed by
LEARN TO ENJOY THE COMPANY OF ORDINARY PEOPLE Look for someone “ordinary,” or as in the KJV, someone of “low estate” to sit with next Sunday at church. Stop avoiding those that you feel are beneath you or who make you feel uncomfortable by their lower social status or awkward demeanor. And if you notice
EVERYTHING IS FROM, BY, FOR, AND TO GOD! Paul’s benediction at the end of Romans 11 is all encompassing. It declares that all things come from God, for He is the Creator. All things exist by God, for He is the Sustainer. All things are made for God’s glory, for creation displays His “invisible attributes,