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Can We Have Jesus but Not the Church?
“I love Jesus, but not the church.” This is what someone recently told me, and it left me puzzled.
Have You Seen Jesus?
After that, He appeared in another form to two of them… —Mark 16:12
Being saved and seeing Jesus are not the same thing. Many people who have never seen Jesus have received and share in God’s grace. But once you have seen Him, you can never be the same. Other things will not have the appeal they did before.
You should always recognize the…
His Resurrection Destiny
Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? —Luke 24:26
Our Lord’s Cross is the gateway into His life. His resurrection means that He has the power to convey His life to me. When I was born again, I received the very life of the risen Lord from Jesus Himself.
Christ’s resurrection destiny— His foreordained purpose— was to bring “many sons…
The Truth About Relying On Ourselves
During a recent family vacation near a beach, I stumbled upon a picture-perfect stretch of sun, surf, and sand one day. Without an extra thought, I jumped into the water with my boogie board in tow.
Why We Lack Understanding
He commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen, till the Son of Man had risen from the dead. —Mark 9:9
As the disciples were commanded, you should also say nothing until the Son of Man has risen in you— until the life of the risen Christ so dominates you that you truly understand what He taught while here on earth. When you grow and develop the right condition inwardly, the…
The Surprising Way God Spoke To Me In My Grief
I felt betrayed. Maybe God had forgotten about me? How could He let grief wreak such havoc on my family? It just didn’t make sense. I, like everyone else in the family, had believed for so many months that my mother would get better.
The Collision of God and Sin
…who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree… —1 Peter 2:24
The Cross of Christ is the revealed truth of God’s judgment on sin. Never associate the idea of martyrdom with the Cross of Christ. It was the supreme triumph, and it shook the very foundations of hell. There is nothing in time or eternity more absolutely certain and irrefutable than…
Oh Dear, Am I Ashamed of the Gospel?
It’s that season of the year again. My church calls it the “evangelism season”. My Pastor tells us to rise up in evangelistic fervor, saying that it’s the best time to invite friends and family to church.
His Agony and Our Access
Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples….”Stay here and watch with Me.” —Matthew 26:36, 38
We can never fully comprehend Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, but at least we don’t have to misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and man in one Person, coming face to face with sin. We cannot learn about Gethsemane through personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary represent…
The Way to Permanent Faith
Indeed the hour is coming…that you will be scattered… —John 16:32
Jesus was not rebuking the disciples in this passage. Their faith was real, but it was disordered and unfocused, and was not at work in the important realities of life. The disciples were scattered to their own concerns and they had interests apart from Jesus Christ. After we have the…
Stop Regretting, Start Remembering
Whenever I think about my past mistakes, I end up wasting the rest of my day by wallowing in self-pity. There’s no hope for me. I’ve made too many mistakes, too many regrets.
“If You Had Known!”
If you had known…in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. —Luke 19:42
Jesus entered Jerusalem triumphantly and the city was stirred to its very foundations, but a strange god was there– the pride of the Pharisees. It was a god that seemed religious and upright, but Jesus compared it to “whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of…
The Glory That’s Unsurpassed
…the Lord Jesus…has sent me that you may receive your sight… —Acts 9:17
When Paul received his sight, he also received spiritual insight into the Person of Jesus Christ. His entire life and preaching from that point on were totally consumed with nothing but Jesus Christ— “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians…
Heaven Isn’t Our Final Hope
When I was a kid, my aunt told me that everyone who dies becomes an angel, is given wings and lives in a perfect place called heaven. Secular society has built up this idealistic fantasy of a place that’s floating in the clouds somewhere, where all “good” people go and spend forever in paradise.
Helpful or Heartless Toward Others?
It is Christ…who also makes intercession for us….the Spirit…makes intercession for the saints… —Romans 8:34, 27
Do we need any more arguments than these to become intercessors– that Christ “always lives to make intercession” (Hebrews 7:25), and that the Holy Spirit “makes intercession for the saints”? Are we living in such a relationship with others that we do the work of intercession as a result of…
