Self-righteousness can blind us from seeing ourselves in our true condition. Paul was a self-righteous man who was blinded with his own pride and the knowledge of his religion until Jesus healed him and transformed him! …
Jesus turned our perception of God and religion upside down and made it personal and intimate! …
Sometimes, we tend to attach ourselves to the past because we don’t know how to move forward. That is an unnecessary attachment that can cause repeated disappointments and will not produce good fruit. …
Many talk about peer pressure in the teenage years, but in truth, peer pressure continues to follow people long into adulthood. Peer pressure plays on the need to feel secure in our relationships and to be accepted. The need to feel secure in our relationships leads us to expect others to be like us, or we feel the pressure to be like others. …
John the Baptist gave a clear message about the need and the urgency of repentance followed by the evidence of fruitfulness. He called out the religious people for putting on a show but not having a substance to the claim in their faith in God. …
The Israelites who came out of Egypt desired to see the land of promise, but only Joshua and Caleb made it from that generation. What was different about these two? What was about Joshua and Caleb that gave them success!? What allowed them to have a sustaining faith in the face of the same trying circumstances that the others experienced!? …
Jesus invested three years of His life in His disciples. Now it was their turn to reproduce in others what was deposited in them. Making disciples is an awesome assignment that belongs to us as well, and it reveals God’s heart for people and how we should help them to grow up in God. …
Resurrection Sunday is a day of celebration and rest. Just as God rested after He created the world, there is a rest for us in knowing that God did all the work through Jesus to pay the penalty for our sins. We no longer have to be in fear and torment of sin but we are freed by the blood of the lamb. However, following the resurrection, there is work for us to do. Jesus appeared to His disciples after He was resurrected, and He assigned them the Great Commission, which became their lifelong purpose. …
If education and reading a library full of books could have made us wiser, we should have seen it by now. However, we see the opposite. We may have gained much head knowledge and information, but it has not made us any wiser or given us a better understanding. People have a hard time getting along with each other, and there are misunderstandings everywhere. So how do we gain the kind of wisdom that helps us to live a life of peace, stability, and understanding!? The Lord’s answer has not changed; it is simple yet powerful! …
Jonah knew the Lord as gracious, merciful, patient, and abundant in lovingkindness (See Jonah 4:2). These are all amazing and powerful characteristics of God. However, this time Jonah was displeased because the Assyrians (the people he didn’t like) were going to benefit from them. So the Lord used an object lesson to teach Jonah about loving others. …
