All posts tagged: Theology

Discover the Seven-fold activity of God in Psalm 23

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God is perfect and everything he does is perfect. Take a fresh look a this timeless psalm again today… It’s the seven-fold perfection of God in our imperfect lives. he satisfies our hunger… There is a promised reward for all those who hunger after God and His righteousness – They shall be filled. he leads us by the still waters; There is a promised reward for those who would allow God to take them to still waters – They shall find rest he restores us when we have fallen away There is a promised reward for those who repent and turn from their wicked ways – They shall be restored. he guides us in the way of righteousness There is a promised reward for those who would look to God and His word for what they want to do – They shall find guidance. he abides `with us’ even through death There is a promised reward for who do not fear when life is hard, dangerous and even tragic – They will never be alone in …

You are being build into a Spiritual House

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Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:4-5 God is on a mission. Through the hands of the master carpenter he is building a temple. Only this time a spiritual power house. As we draw new to Him, our foundation is the chief cornerstone – Jesus himself. I love the way C. S. Lewis describes it in mere christianity: Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth …

John 1:4, 5

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Light in Dark Places Life, what is it, where did it come from, how is it sustained? Contrary to popular thinking, life has its origin in God. He is the maker of everything – the giver of life. When He made man, “He breathed into him and man became a living soul.” If we want to talk about life, its origin and how it is sustained, Jesus should be at the center of that discussion. The scripture says, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Everything, this world, human life, depends on Jesus for survival. “In Him we live and move and have our being.” Though most men do not recognize this, it still is the truth. Jesus is not only the sustainer of physical life he is also the giver and sustainer of spiritual life. When he stepped out of eternity into time, into this dark and evil world, he was on a mission to lay …

Human life is a pilgrimage between two moments of nakedness

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There was a wealthy lady who died, and everybody in the community was extremely curious as to the extent of her fortune. One person was brash enough to come up to the pastor immediately after the funeral and whisper in his ear, “How much did she leave?” The pastor had the wisdom to reply, “She left everything.” The apostle Paul also calls us to a lifestyle of simplicity and contentment. I have learned,” he said, “in whatever state I am therewith to be content Paul said, Godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into this world and we shall take nothing out of it. Or as Job put it, Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I shall return. Have you ever considered, brothers and sisters, that human life is a pilgrimage between two moments of nakedness? We would be wise to travel light because there is no doubt that we shall leave everything behind. Let us be content. Covetous people always fall into a traps. The love of money is a …

Holy Worldliness

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The church has a double calling: on the one hand to live in the world, and on the other not to conform to the world. The first is a call to worldliness, as opposed to other worldliness—getting involved in the life of the world around us. The second calling is the call to holiness. We have no liberty to respond to one call without the other. Indeed, we may neither preserve our holiness by escaping from the world, nor may we sacrifice our holiness by conforming to the world. Escapism, on the one hand, and conformism, on the other, are equally forbidden to Christian men and women. Instead we are to combine both callings to involvement and to separation. We are to develop what Dr. Alec Vidler, an Anglican scholar of the former generation, in his book “Essays in Liberality called “holy worldliness.” Ezekiel 11:12? “You have not followed my decrees. You have not kept my laws. But you have conformed to the standards of the nations around you.” 2 Kings 17:15: “They imitated the …

The “Coca-Cola-nization” of the world

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And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthian 3:18 There is a quest for transcendence, a recognition that the human spirit will never be satisfied by the material order. It’s the main reason for the collapse of Euro-Marxism. Marxism was offered as an ideological substitute for religion, and Marx confidently predicted that religion would wither away and die. But the human spirit cannot be satisfied with the material. As Jesus said, quoting Deuteronomy, “The human being doesn’t live by bread only but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Theodore Roszak, although he lived and wrote before the New Age began, wrote about this. He couldn’t bear what he called the “Coca-Cola-nization” of the world. He hated the pseudoscience that claims to explain everything, and he couldn’t bear the undoing of the mysteries. When science gets its hand on something, there are …

Tabitha Arise

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The raising of the dead to life is something humanly speaking too difficult to even comprehend. Is it really possible for a dead person to live again? Many a few doubt that it is possible. But for those of us who have faith in the one who Made the heavens and the earth, it is not only possible, it should be expected in this life and for the life to come. The raising of the dead to life is something only God can do. It is exclusively reserved for God. He alone holds the key to life and death. He alone can give it and he alone can take. There are several places throughout the bible about the dead being raised to life: The widow’s son in 1 Kings 17:17-24, God used Elijah. The Shunamite’s son in 2 Kings 4:20-37, God used Elisha. The dead man tossed into Elisha’s tomb in 2 Kings 13:21, God used bones of Elisha. The widow’s son who lived in Nain in Luke 7:11-17, raised by Jesus Christ The Synagogue ruler’s daughter in Mark …

In Christ Alone

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I will not boast in anything No gifts, no power, no wisdom My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. On Christ the solid Rock I stand All other ground is sinking sand On May 28, 1972, the Duke of Windsor, the uncrowned King Edward VIII, died in Paris. On the same evening, a television program recounted the main events of his life. Viewers watched film footage in which the duke answered questions about his upbringing, his brief reign, and his eventual abdication. Recalling his boyhood as Prince of Wales, he said: “My father [King George V] was a strict disciplinarian. Sometimes when I had done something wrong, he would admonish me, saying, ‘My dear boy, you must always remember who you are.’ ” It is my conviction that our heavenly Father says the same to us every day: “My dear child, you must always remember who you are.” The record shows in Colossians: He is my all in all! 1:14 in Christ we have redemption 1:16 in Christ all things were created …

The Uninformed Evangelical vs The Uncompromising Orthodox Theologian

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We know that “all of us have knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up and causes us to fall into the condemnation of the devil… 1 Cor. 8:1; 1 tim. 3:6 Getting doctrine right is a matter of life and death, but holding that doctrine in the right spirit is essential too A great deal of damage is done by those who hold the truth of Christ with the spirit of satan One of the mistakes Christians often make is that we learn to rebuke like Jesus but not love like Jesus But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first Revelation 2:4 I bought Joshua Harris’ Humble Orthodoxy last night and it is really a great book. In a chapter in he calls “With Tear in our Eye,” (Page 243), he retells a story found in the gospel of Luke chapter 18: One day two men went to church to pray. The first man was a shallow, uninformed evangelical. Everything about him shouted of squishy theology. He didn’t know or use …

Why does God approve war and violance in the OT?

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Frankly, parts of the Old Testament are sometimes difficult to accept, especially as they relate  to God’s character. Take his command to King Saul of Israel: “Now go, attack the Amalekites  and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women,  children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys” (1 Samuel 15:3, TNIV). Camels and  donkeys? Children and infants? Or how about this statement regarding Israel’s destruction of  Jericho at God’s prompting: “They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword  every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys” (Joshua 6:21,TNIV)? Is the God of the Old Testament a lover of war and destruction? Is God a warmonger who  arbitrarily takes out his frustration? Reading certain passages, one could get this impression. This issue presents quite a challenge for Christians who have come to believe that love is the defining attribute of God. Even more so, these passages often propagate the doubts of non-Christians who are skeptical of God …