About
Website
Location:
Zipcode:
Country: AU
Stats
Denying Self
"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23).
Jesus left heaven and humbly denied Himself all things to become God's greatest servant. In Luke 9:23, He said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me" so if we want to follow Jesus then we also must deny self. The Bible tells us of many great men and women of faith who, like Jesus, denied themselves all things to serve God. These saints humbled themselves and turned their backs on worldly power, position and wealth to serve the living God whom they loved more than life. The following examples highlight the self-denial we...
Unity In Truth
"Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth."
(John 17:17)
Within Christianity there is a lot of pressure to ignore doctrine and to unite with churches which clearly have false teachings. Some people say that we all love the same Jesus so we should put aside our differences and simply look at what we have in common; basically they are saying that believing in Jesus is all that matters. At first, this would seem to be a good thing because Jesus prayed for all believers asking, "that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you" (John 17:21). However, when we take a closer look at what Jesus was saying, we see that a few verses earlier He said, "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth"...
Saved By Grace
What does it mean to be saved by Grace?
In Matt. 1:21 we are told that Jesus will "save his people from their sins." The word 'save' means to deliver, to protect, to keep safe or to rescue from, so Jesus did not come to save us IN our sins or WITH our sins but to rescue us FROM our sins. In Rom. 7:24-25 Paul said, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? [and then he continued on to answer his own question saying,] Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!" So, in the same way that Jesus rescued Paul from his sinful body of death, He wants to rescue you and I from our...
Faith That Saves
"Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Heb. 11:6).
What is faith? We often say, "I have faith" or "I'm saved by faith alone," but what do we mean when we say this? Are we living up to what faith really is? Hebrews 11 speaks of many men and women of faith; what was it about their lives that earned them the right to be known as people of great faith? It's important for us to understand what faith it is because Heb. 11:6 tells us that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” So, if we want to please God, in fact if we want to be saved, then we must have faith that saves because it is through our faith that we are saved. Eph. 2:8 says, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith."
...
God's Wrath
Today, much is said about the love of God but very little is heard about His righteousness and justice. No one doubts the great love God has shown us through Jesus nor the love He pours into our lives each day but so little is said about the fact that, at the Judgement, God is going to pour out His wrath on all who continued in sin. For this reason, we need to be careful to "worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, our God is a consuming fire" (Heb. 12:28-29). This is not a popular subject but the awful truth is that most people are going to face God's righteous judgment and go to their eternal destruction in the lake of fire. Jesus left no doubt about this when He said, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it....
Sunday Christians
Many believers have very little to do with God outside of their time in church on Sunday morning. Very few churchgoers seem to have a good understanding of scripture and, in fact, not many even take their Bible to church so the preacher can tell them almost anything and they will nod their heads. After the service, it is often hard to find people who are interested in discussing biblical matters as their interests are more in sport or whatever else is going on in the world. They are not being very wise as, firstly, they are putting their eternal salvation in the hands of a preacher who could be misleading them and, secondly, they clearly show that they have put God in second place to the things of the world. James 4:4 speaks harshly against this where it says, "You adulterous people, don't you know that...
Israel's Saturday Sabbath-Keeping
And The Christian Sabbath-Rest
Keeping the Saturday Sabbath was part of the Law of Moses. It was a day of rest for the people of Israel; a day in which they worshipped God and did no work. In Col. 2:13-17, we are told that the written regulations of the Law were nailed to the cross and therefore we are not to let anyone judge us regarding food, drink, festivals, Sabbaths etc as they were mere shadows of what was to come – Jesus is now the reality. He is the real thing, not just a shadow so, in Christ, a person is free from the Laws relating to food, drink, feasts, Sabbath-keeping etc.
The following passage in Hebrews tells us that today the people of God (Christians) have their...
You Don't Have To Take It Any More
"Sin shall not be your master." (Rom. 6:14)
I don't think that there can be greater heartache than knowing Jesus and yet still be a slave to sin. It's common knowledge that there are many churchgoers secretly addicted to pornography, alcohol, drugs and other sins. They don't want to be that way but don't know how to overcome their slavery to unrighteousness and their hearts ache because of the darkness that is hidden within them. They feel great shame but put on happy faces. Only they, and God, know the awful shame that is deep within their souls. They want to change but remain as they are because no one has ever told them that they don't have to take it any more, that is, they don't have to take sin any more. Jesus came to set the captives...