Idols

We have idols in our hearts when we pursue wealth, leisure, education, friends and acceptance, sensual pleasure or anything else with the intensity and commitment that should be exclusively reserved for seeking and following God. All people have something or someone as the object(s) of their heart's devotion - but it may not always be God.

Weeding Pride

If you are going through a humiliating experience, consider that God may be using that experience to weed out the pride in your life.

Reflecting Holiness

Because God is morally perfect, He can help us live above our human tendency to compromise with the world. When we focus on His greatness, He gives us the power to overcome sin and to reflect His holiness in our lives each day.

Darkness & Light

Just as darkness cannot exist in the presence of light, so sin cannot exist in the presence of our holy God.

Praise & Worship

Praise is the heartfelt response to God by those who love Him. The more that you really know God and realize His great works in your life, the more compelled you are to respond to Him with true praise. Praise is at the heart then, of worship. It is not a function we can outsource to others on a stage or listen to on a CD.

Offensive Sin

Sin doesn't have to be shocking or disgusting to us to be offensive to God. all sin should be considered offensive by God's people. All sin offends God.

Degrees of Sin

There are not any degrees of sin. But people who know better and still sin are considered the worse sinners by God. (He has much more compassion for the ignorant.)

Evil Alliances

An unholy alliance (partnership, friendship or membership) is an uneasy alliance. Evil operates on a very predictable pattern --- that somehow seems to surprise us anyway. Destructive by its very nature, evil discards its own adherents if and when they cease to serve its purposes.

Fairness

It is not God who must live up to our ideas of fairness. Rather we must live up to His.

Lies & Liars

Lies are often attractive, and liars may have large followings. Even the liars find their own lies more attractive than the truth. That's why they tell them.

Role of Vision

Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint. In other words, without guidance from God (usually through His prophets), law and order disappear. Without vision, people perish.

Leading People

People tend to exceed expectations when they are led by someone who cares about them and has their best interests in mind.

Knowing God

Those who know God well enough to fear His wrath also know God well enough to value and desire His grace.

Miracles

True signs and miracles point us to Jesus Christ. But miracles alone can be deceiving. (Satan and his demons can perform miracles too!) That is why we must ask, with respect to each miracle, whether it is consistent with what God says in the Bible. For a true miracle from God will never contradict Scripture.

God Breaks

God sometimes has to break a person in order to bring them to true repentance. They don't change until He breaks their hearts with humiliation, pain, suffering and defeat.

God Prevails

Despite the sorry state of our current times, God's sovereign strength still prevails. He will judge His enemies and those that rebel against Him. He will restore His true people - who obey Him too. Do you know the difference?

Responsible To God?

We cannot be excused from our responsibilities to God. We are accountable to Him for our choices.

Punish or Tolerate

God will always punish sin, whether we believe it or not. In fact, because God is righteous and holy, He must punish sin. There is no other alternative for Him - for if He didn't he would have to tolerate sin ... and that is not an option for God. Ironically, it is not an option for people either. (We just think it is.)

Slippery Slope

People don't usually just fall into an evil lifestyle or some level of immorality all of a sudden. they gradually slip into it a little bit at a time. Hardly realizing what is happening, they become irrevocably mired in their wicked ways.

Temptation entertained today becomes sin tomorrow. But then it becomes a habit, then death and eventually separation from God. (Revelation 9:20-21 & James 1:15).

Medication

Medication can of course be important - but do not conclude that a pill dissolving in your stomach is necessarily more powerful than a healing thought dissolving in your mind.

Authority

As Christians, God is willing to empower us with all the authority that is under heaven. However, God only gives authority to those who willingly submit to authority.

Get Even

No matter how strong the desire to get revenge or retaliate against those who offend us, our responsibility is to pray to God and ask for His justice. Vengeance belongs to Him alone.

God Breaks

God sometimes has to break a person in order to bring them to true repentance. They don't change until He breaks their hearts with humiliation, pain, suffering and defeat.

Cause for Worry

Wars, natural disasters, political strife, famine and other calamities tend to make the world fret. They produce great anxiety and fear. but for Christ-followers, they should be a sign that the end is near and Christ's return is imminent. So we should have a different response.

Calling vs. Lifestyle

A high calling coupled with low living results in deep suffering. What is God's purpose in you? How are you living? What is the result of your life?

Our Prosperity

We must always be careful not to take glory in our prosperity - or we will fall into spiritual poverty.

Speaking & Listening

When we pray, we speak to the Father. When we read the Bible, He speaks to us.

Communication

Real communication skills are most often learned in conflict and its resolution.

Belief Problems

Sometimes our problem is not in false beliefs - but rather we suffer from incomplete beliefs.

Offended Mind

Whatever offends our mind reveals our heart.