Man does not live by bread alone . . . Feed me, O God. Feed me yourself, that I might know you more closely, love you more strongly, walk with you more constantly. I need to hear and to heed your words – not mine, not those of my friends or family or government or culture. I need to hear from you. How my soul thirsts for the living God and for a word from Him! A growing boy needs to eat. When I was a child, I remember my mother saying, “Now eat your dinner. If you want to…
I mentioned in the previous blog that the church is necessary to your spiritual life. When I talk like that, I occasionally get pushback from people who feel they can walk with Christ apart from His body. Here are some reasons people give for separating from the body of Christ. The church is dysfunctional. Of course it is. And so are you. Some churches are more dysfunctional than others, and some churches you should get out of, but let’s not throw away the church with the dysfunction. Trying to follow God all by yourself is dysfunctional. If you, thus, abandon…
As iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen another (Pr 27:17) Lord, I praise you for your people. I thank you for surrounding me with them. If you want to be good at something, it helps to see others who are good at it. Doctors do residencies so they can follow other doctors. They don’t learn medicine all by themselves. Instead, good doctors build good doctors. The Christian life is like this. A basic principle of the Christian life is that it requires a church. You cannot live the Christian life all by yourself. You grow in Christ…
If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. (Lk 9:23) . . . I die daily. (I Cor 15:31) Father, grant me the heart to give up my very being to you. Living the Christian life is the hardest thing you will ever do. It is also the most fulfilling thing you will ever do. But isn’t that normal? Aren’t the hardest things in life usually the most rewarding? Sometimes people act as if God made us just so He could forgive our sins, and then we could go…
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (I Cor 6:19-20) Praise you, Father, for you have made me a dwelling place for your Spirit, unworthy though I am. Christianity calls you and me to live a life that seems impossible, and, indeed, would be impossible if it was not for the fact that Christ makes us new and indwells us through His Spirit. He makes us new…