Don’t isolate yourself. We need each other. When Jesus called His disciples to follow Him, He also called them to be together with each other. Get connected! Vertically and horizontally. First to God. Then to others.
Don’t isolate yourself. We need each other. When Jesus called His disciples to follow Him, He also called them to be together with each other. Get connected! Vertically and horizontally. First to God. Then to others.
Sin and foolishness are synonyms in Proverbs. Wise parents recognize their God-given responsibility to discipline their children to obey. This is hard work. Yet, God has given us this holy stewardship. A parent’s discipline becomes the child’s self-discipline later in life. Better to root out the seed of foolishness in your 3-year old, than to wait and deal with the tree of rebellion in your 13-year old. Parents, do your job!
My prayer as WCC’s pastor is not that our members would brag about our preaching, our band, or our building, but that they would boast of how the Lord is moving in our midst and changing hearts. We want to make Jesus famous, not ourselves.
God’s question for Job is still relevant. “Where were you?” when the Creator spoke and the stars began to sing?
This “light” is the glory of the abiding Christ in us. As we walk by faith through this world our bodies become increasingly fragile, yet the glory revealed in us increases. We learn to preach Christ, and not ourselves. We learn to lean on Christ, not our own strength.
Job’s “eye covenant” is needed today more than ever. In our sex-saturated culture, young men are constantly bombarded with images that warp their view of women. And young women are damaged by our culture’s over-sexualized view of beauty. We’ve lost the idea of “pretty.” We teach our little girls to be “hot” and “sexy,” then wonder why they struggle with low self-image. We need an “image covenant” that aligns with God’s design for human sexuality.
This is a profound question: Do we “spread the the knowledge of Christ everywhere?” And the second: Are we like a “sweet perfume” as we do so? Do all of our relationships know of Christ because of us? Do we present Him in attractive ways? Does the fragrance of God’s love permeate where we pass? Are you yet so captivated by Christ that you live to tell everyone of Him in the most beautiful ways possible?
Parents, discipline your child and teach them the right way while they are still young. It’s much easier to correct a 3-year old than a 13-year old. Focus on heart change, asking the Lord to help you, and perhaps someday you will know the joy of having your 30-year old walk beside you, holding the hand of their 3-year old doing the same.
God gives us an excess of comfort in the places where we have suffered. Once we are comforted, we are able to comfort others who have suffered in the same way. Have you been healed of a deadly disease? Delivered from an addiction? Found peace after losing a loved one? Your greatest hurt may now be your greatest gift to others. Let God’s comfort overflow to those who hurt where you once did.
Christ had not yet interrupted history by His death, burial and resurrection, yet Job already hoped for such a “Redeemer.” Job placed his hope in this future Messiah as one peering through a veil. However, we can gaze fully at our Savior with the revelation of the gospel shining as in the light of day. If Job could “know” that his Redeemer liveth, then we should know all the more!