“For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus” Philippians 1:8 Whose Testimony Validates Your Actions Witness – If you needed to call on a character witness, could you make the same claim that Paul makes? Could you call on God to back your stand without reservation? …
“sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it” Genesis 4:7 Desire – Why should we be stewards of our emotions? Who cares how we feel as long as we behave correctly? Ah, there is a deep answer here, but it is not the answer we might…
“sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it” Genesis 4:7 Master – God can’t do everything. No, it’s not blasphemy to say this. God can’t do what He intends you to do without violating your freedom of choice. And since His purposes include your freedom of…
“All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.” 1 Corinthians 6:12 Mastered – The Declaration of Independence got it wrong. Liberty is not an inalienable right. From the Bible’s point of view, liberty exists as a gift…
“to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen.” Jude 25 Authority – What is authority? It’s not the same as power. I may use power to force you to act in a certain way, but that does not…
“Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.” Hebrews 5:11 Dull – Do you remember learning to drive? Do you remember how hard it was to parallel park the first time? Do you remember the mild panic when you first drove in traffic? …
“And you shall love the LORD your God, and keep His charges” Deuteronomy 11:1 Love – Ahav is one of three Hebrew verbs about love. It’s not a “feelings” verb. It is an obedience verb. It calls us to action, not necessarily emotion. That’s why it can be a command. That’s why it is quite…
“For whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” Romans 10:13 Name of the Lord – Now it’s obvious, isn’t it? After we discover that “His name’s sake” (yesterday: Acts 9:16) is really a question about who is the king, then it becomes quite clear that calling on the name of the…
“for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.” Acts 9:16 Name’s sake – It’s hard to understand what this means. We don’t use the expression “name’s sake” very often, so it leaves us with a sort of puzzled confusion. But if we see the literal Greek, we get a…
“that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” Philippians 1:6 Good work – Not all of it counts! God doesn’t take “bad” work and make something of it. Nor does He take just “work”. He begins a good work and then He makes sure it…
