Topic > Christian Beliefs
It Will Be Worth It All
We wondered why a friend of ours kept traveling to Hobart, Tasmania. Recently she invited us to join her there. From the airport we drove over a bridge and through the city and suburbs. Nothing outstanding—but we kept on traveling. After a few difficult hairpin turns that took us slowly and sharply uphill, we saw the outline of the coast below. Still quite ordinary looking.
The sacrifice Jesus paid in order for us to have an intimate relationship with God
Monday, August 13, 2012, Part 2
“In this manner, therefore, pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.’” (Matthew 6:9)
IDEA: When we address God as Father, we do so because Jesus who spoke to God that way invited us to do so.
PURPOSE: To help listeners to be motivated to pray because they are talking to God who is their “father.”
Doubts And Faith
Can a believer in Jesus who has occasional doubts about matters of faith ever be effective in serving the Lord? Some people think that mature and growing Christians never question their beliefs. But just as we have experiences that can build our faith, we can also have experiences that cause us to temporarily doubt.
The privilege of calling our Lord by a personal title, Father
Friday, August 10, 2012, Part 1
“In this manner, therefore, pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.’” (Matthew 6:9)
IDEA: When we address God as Father, we do so because Jesus who spoke to God that way invited us to do so.
PURPOSE: To help listeners to be motivated to pray because they are talking to God who is their “father.”
The radical nature of calling the Creator of the universe Father
Thursday, August 9, 2012
“In this manner, therefore, pray:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours in the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen” (Matthew 6:9-13).
IDEA: When Christians talk to God in prayer, they can address Him as “Father” because Jesus did.
PURPOSE: To help listeners understand the privilege they have as sons and daughters of a heavenly Father.
The Lord’s Prayer is a foundation for our communication with God, but not the final word on it
Wednesday, August 8, 2012, Part 2
The Lord’s Prayer:
“In this manner, therefore, pray:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours in the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen” (Matthew 6:9-13).
IDEA: The Lord’s Prayer can guide us as we pray.
PURPOSE: To help listeners see how the outline of the prayer can make prayer more meaningful.
Heavenly Exclamation!
In August 2011, NASA released a composite image from the Hubble telescope that left people smiling. The image is of two galaxies beginning to collide. The collision looks like a heavenly exclamation point (!). The latest statistic I’ve read says there are about 100 billion observable galaxies in the universe. Each galaxy has hundreds of billions of stars, and more galaxies are being discovered.
Totally Clean
A friend was updating me on his past year—a year in which he had been receiving ongoing medical treatment for cancer. The smile on his face was a powerful testimony to the good news he had just received. He said that at his one-year checkup the doctor announced that the test results all pointed to one thing: “You are totally clean!” What a difference two words can make! To my friend, totally clean meant every trace of the disease that had threatened his life only months before had been wiped from his body. We rejoiced to hear that he was totally clean!
Not A Myth
I’m fascinated with history, so I eagerly watched a television special on England’s great King Arthur. A theme surfaced as each historian acknowledged that there were no eyewitness accounts nor historical evidence to support the story of King Arthur, his knights, and their Round Table. Repeatedly, the story was referred to as “legend” or “mythology.” It appears that the story is merely a legend woven together over centuries from fragments of other stories.
From Mars?
Microbes from Mars fell on the very early Earth . . . , and the offspring of those microbes are still here—and they are us.” That’s how one astronomer speculated about how life originated on Mars and then came to Earth.
The way God chooses people, and enables them to reflect His glory to the world
Thursday, July 26, 2012, Part 1
“For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God – and righteousness and sanctification and redemption – that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31).
IDEA: If we are proud of being chosen by God, we must boast in the Lord.
PURPOSE: To help listeners see ourselves as we really are.
Abide With Me
One of the highlights of English football (soccer) each year is the final match of the annual FA Cup Final. For more than a hundred years, the day has been marked by excitement, festivity, and competition. But what fascinates me is how the game begins. It starts with the singing of the traditional hymn “Abide With Me.”
Have you ever asked if it’s possible to lose your salvation?
Friday, July 20, 2012
“For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put him to an open shame” (Hebrews 6:4-6).
IDEA: In the Christian life you can’t go back to the beginning and be saved a second time.
PURPOSE: To help listeners understand how the word repentance is used in this context.
Blunders To Wonders
Artist James Hubbell says, “Mistakes are gifts.” Whenever he’s working on a project and something goes wrong, he doesn’t start over. He looks for a way to use the mistake to make something better. None of us can avoid making blunders, and all of us have favorite ways of dealing with them. We may try to hide them or to correct them or to apologize for them.
What’s The Trouble?
There was something wrong with my lawn. I couldn’t see what the trouble was, but I knew something was causing damage.
