No matter how difficult the fiery trial may become, a Christian always has hope. In his first epistle, Peter gave reasons for this hopeful attitude. • We have God’s grace. Our salvation is because of His grace. He called us before we called on Him. We have tasted that the...
Why does the Lord want your body? To begin with, the believer’s body is God’s temple; God wants to use it for His glory. But Paul wrote that the body is also God’s tool and God’s weapon. God wants to use the members of the body as tools for building...
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18). This verse says that you and I can share the image of Jesus...
The deepest kind of fellowship is not based on race or family relationship; it is based on the spiritual life we have in Christ. A church fellowship based on anything other than love for Christ and for one another simply will not last. Where there is true Christian love, there...
What if an army were run with the same lack of obedience, order, and discipline that we often see in the local church? It would never win a war. If soldiers attended drill whenever they felt like it, they would never be equipped to face the enemy. If recruits disobeyed...
A faith that cannot be tested cannot be trusted. New believers must expect their faith to be tried, because this is the way God proves whether or not their decision is genuine. Faith, like a muscle, must be exercised to grow stronger. Tribulation and persecution are God’s ways to strengthen...
A famous British writer leaving Liverpool by ship noticed that other passengers were waving to friends on the dock. He rushed down to the dock and stopped a little boy. “Would you wave to me if I paid you?” he asked the lad. The boy agreed. The writer rushed back...
Paul instructs that Christians should pray for “all men” (1 Timothy 2:1), making it clear that no person on earth is outside the influence of believing prayer. This means we should pray for the saved and the lost, for people near us and people far away, for enemies as well...
To reckon means to “put to one’s account.” In Romans 6:11 it means to believe that what God says-is true in His Word is really true in your life. Paul didn’t tell his readers to feel as if they were dead to sin, or even to understand it fully, but...