A Call to Holy Living“Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” (2 Timothy 2:22) Timothy, whom the apostle Paul called his “true son in the faith”, received these clear instructions. The words are strong and the message is clear. Paul wasn’t offering suggestions—he was commanding action. In just one verse, we’re...  Read More

We are now on the other side of Holy Week, where Christian believers all over the world prepared to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We focused our worship on the empty tomb as the culmination of God’s plan to defeat sin and death. The cross on which Jesus died also receives much attention, and not without good reason. Paul describes the cross as the “righteousness of one” that...  Read More

The month of March has been filled with plenty of bad weather and for some of us a lot of bad news. Just this past week I have had two friends lose unborn children to miscarriages. Several brothers and sisters in Christ, close to our family, have passed from this life all too suddenly. Even the daily news brings images of earthquakes and continuing wars that tear at our emotions. And in these circ...  Read More

In a previous post from Matthew 5:3 we learned something that is still true today: the indispensable condition of receiving the kingdom of God is to acknowledge our spiritual poverty and surrender ourselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. For God still sends the proud away empty because the way up in God’s kingdom is the way down. This is countercultural wisdom.In the next verse of the Sermon on ...  Read More

In the Sermon in the Mount, we read the first of 8 beatitudes or blessings: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. (Matthew 5:3 NIV) In the Sermon on the Plain, Luke’s version of this beatitude Jesus simply says, “Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.” (Luke 6:20).It is interesting that some have dropped “spirit” from Jesus’ words and interpreted the ...  Read More

I have been spending a lot of time in the Old Testament these past few months where there are so many examples of what the Lord expects from His people. Case in point, King Saul’s story that reminds us of the importance of obedience and humility before God. We will see that he started out well but ended in tragedy as a result of pride that led him to disobey God over and over again.Saul’s story be...  Read More