Posts from January 2023 (Page 3)

If your church has weathered the last few years well, it is probably because all of you did a lot of things right in the preceding years. If the Bible, fellowship, prayer, and good works were up front and central, it shoIuld come as no surprise that Satan struggled to get a foothold. However, the disruptions to face-to-face fellowship have taken their toll on many churches. Satan found their pre-existing weaknesses and capitalised on them. Strain was put on already…

Be careful that that nagging voice in your head isn’t fear dressed up as wisdom. If there is one thing that the Lord takes off the table is our need to fear for the necessaries of this life and the next. But as much as Jesus tells his followers not to worry about food, shelter and clothing, believers ignore his word as much as anyone else. Tragically, much time and worry are constantly being ploughed into efforts to keep up…

We all know people who consider themselves to be Expert Detectives. And given that some do seem to have built in radars that pick up out-of-place things or verbal inconsistences, they may be seeing things that the rest of us are missing. These self-proclaimed super-sleuths are not hard to miss. They are the ones who often exclaim, “I told you there was something wrong with that person.” In fact, you and I have probably said this ourselves. However, sometimes lies…

More than one man has suggested that Paul went off to some sort of Arabian Desert School of Preaching shortly after his conversion. What exactly happened during that wilderness sojourn, we don’t know. But as much as I doubt that Paul went away to collect a Preaching Diploma, I am willing to concede that he probably needed time with the Lord to perfect his transformation from Pharisee to Preacher. Afterall, the other apostles spent three years with Jesus, why not…

The man who was the golden head of the statue didn’t care about the rest of the image. Future kingdoms didn’t exist in his mind. In fact, he went out and built his own 90-foot statue. However, if he had sat down and thought about that “Rock,” he would have realised that something greater than the power of any and all the kingdoms of this world was going to bring it all down. Nebuchadnezzar did acknowledge the glory of the…

No one would have blamed Esau for being angry at Jacob for conning him out of his birthright and later collecting the blessings of that birthright. But Esau’s anger had grown into murderous intent (Genesis 27:41). Thus, assuring that her favourite son would live to see another day, Rebekah sent Jacob north to her brother Laban. By all appearances Jacob took the journey to Haran alone. It was when stopping for the night at Bethel that he had his famous…

If a young woman of God were looking for the perfect husband, she would have found him in Joseph. He was absolutely godly, a man of great dreams, morally pure, selfless, hardworking, forgiving, and with good looks thrown in for good measure. But, as Jesus said, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, even more will be expected” (Luke 12:48). If any man will face judgement…

Esau would have been wise to remember why his brother was named Jacob. You can imagine Esau’s dismissive snare when being reminded that his brother came into the world with a firm grasp on his ankle. If he had said at the time, “Supplanter, my foot!” it would have indeed been the most ironic of sayings he could have come out with. But supplanted he was. Jacob was a schemer by name and by nature. Esau did not know how…

We all know men and women who have known the Lord and then turned away from Him. Brethren who spent years in dedicated service to the church, who one day completely cut ties with us. Whether they crossed over into that state of no-return, only the Lord knows. But one thing is obvious, Jesus is no longer their standard of absolute good and evil. It is true that some brethren seem to only see things in terms of Black and…

To hear some speak, you would think that the apostle Paul couldn’t preach very well and that he just got lucky in ministry. They quote Paul’s own words, “But even if I am unskilled in speech” (2 Corinthians 11:6), and suggest that Paul was some sort of patron saint of mediocre preachers. To further support their theory, they then quote Paul’s later statement: “For they say, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his personal presence is unimpressive and his…