“Now, what’s wrong with this picture? Simply put, the people of God feel nervous if all they have is God. So they’re fawning before the bullies of worldly power, that’s what’s wrong. Today we profess that we have taken refuge in the King of kings and Lord of lords. At the same time we sometimes stoop to curry favor with …
“Repentant people see their sin, hate their sin, and prayerfully seek to reject their sin and walk with God. While some of our sins are obvious to us, we comfortably ignore others. We all must prayerfully ask the Holy Spirit to lead us in repentance as we examine our lives in light of the Word and seek to lay aside …
“If we aren’t careful, we’ll follow Jesus on our own. Failure to grasp the community focus of the gospel can cut us off from the grace God gives through the church. This reminds us that discipleship is a community project because the gospel redeems a people. Jesus created and redeemed us as people in relationship, not individuals in isolation. Instead …
“Jesus came close enough to bear our sin. Close enough that when he died, we died with him. When he was raised, we were raised with him. We are at this very moment seated with him in the heavenly places (Eph. 2:6). We are-present tense-hidden with him in God (Col. 3:3). If he is closer to us than our very …
“Although I didn’t understand it at the time, my motivation for obeying Jesus had shifted from grace to works. It progressed from attempting to earn God’s favor, to gaining the favor of my disciples. “Discipleship” had become a way to leverage my identity and worth in relationship with others. I was comfortable on the pedestal dispensing wisdom and truth.The more …
“All believers are spiritually united to Christ in such a way that our spiritual life comes from Him. We are not completely passive, however, in this relationship. Rather we are to abide or remain in Him by faith. That is, we are to actively rely on Christ for the enabling power we need to wage war against the sin that …
“Our generation is overwhelmingly naturalistic. There is an almost complete commitment to the concept of the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system. This is its distinguishing mark. If we are not careful, even though we say we are biblical Christians and supernaturalists, nevertheless the naturalism of our generation tends to come in upon us. It may infiltrate our …
“If we want healing from God, thorough repentance is the way to receive it… It is not enough that we see our sins and feel bad about them. It is not enough even to stop sinning. True repentance comes all the way back to God, back to our original relationship with him, back to our first love, back to the …
“Most people think of Jesus as a good example: a good man, a good teacher. And that He is! While Jesus is more than an example to follow, He is the perfect example of what humanity and obedience to God look like. Jesus not only commands us to be servants of one an-other, but also shows us what humble service …
“The resurrection was, and is, the great vindication of Christ’s work. To the naked eye, Jesus merely died like every other crucified criminal. The resurrection, however, serves to attest that his death for our sins was successful! The resurrection is God’s seal of approval for the gospel. By the resurrection, Jesus triumphed over death and the powers of sin and …
