Church Blog (Page 73)

In my earliest days of door-knocking, I was always afraid that I would meet an irate person who would ask me questions like: “Do you think I’m going to hell?” I was going door-to-door with Tommy Gore in Napier in 1978 and I told him of my concern. He said, “It will never happen.” When asking him why he assured me, “Even when asked directly about hell, no one wants to discuss the thought that they might be going there.”…

To be honest with you, I have read and thought a lot about Abraham and his title, ‘Friend of God,’ and I sometimes feel none the wiser. I know you are ahead of me here, and asking, “What about Jesus calling the disciples his friends?” Yes, that is true, and in John 15:15 Jesus counts all Christians as his personal friends when he says: “…I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I…

Strangely, it may come as a surprise to some, that our Friends, and our Foes, really do define us spiritually. Some individuals just aren’t that likeable, and some of them stay that way for a very long time. Enemies are easy to make and easier still to hang on to. In fact, get to know someone well enough and you will discover that they may have a list of individuals who really don’t want to spend time with them. The…

I have a funny feeling that the men who came to console Job were actually his dearest ‘Old Friends.’ Bildad, Eliphaz and Zophar may not be the ideal poster-boys to promote long-term friendships, but they are as real as it gets when showing how calamity causes a paradigm shift in the order of things. In their eyes Job went from being the man who was most blessed of God, to being the man who was most cursed. So, who else…

You don’t have to be in the church long to start noticing the high rate of Christians who return to the world. It is truly heartbreaking and depressing. Many converts just don’t count the cost. They grow weary and lose heart, and instead of growing in grace and knowledge, they return to their old lifestyles. I praise God for the millions of Christians who, in the spirit of the Prodigal’s father, stand watching and praying that hearts will turn back…

It has been often said, “The same crowd that cried, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,’ at Jesus’ Triumphal Entry, later screamed at his trial, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’” Public executions have been carried out for millennia. They served two basic purposes. Firstly, justice was being seen to be done, and secondly, fear of punishment was being instilled into the populous by the powers that be. The Jewish leadership wanted Jesus dead and discredited. Not…

God, by His grace, has put opportunities for joy into the lives of everyone. Hearts swell with pride and hope on wedding days, and greater still is the elation over a newborn baby. Spirits are lifted when old friends reconnect amidst a flood of memories. Everyone rejoices when a plan comes together; especially after a hardship. God has designed human beings to enjoy the happiness of a life well-lived. The greatest tragedy happened when sin in The Garden of Eden…

Every church claims to be a ‘church of Christ.’ Though they may go by other names, they all insist that their practices and beliefs originate in Christ’s teachings. In fact, every student of church history knows that almost all churches believe themselves to have been ‘reformed’ or ‘restored’ at one point or another over the last 2000 years. And, unsurprisingly, none of them sees their reformers, or restorers, as ‘adding to, or taking away, from scripture.’Calling yourself ‘The Church of…

No one ever won a prize for telling his readers to ‘go and look it up for themselves.’ However, space and time prevent me from listing the extremes of wealth that the king of Thailand owns and spends. This is a man who rules over a country where many families are so poor that they sell their children; many of them ending up in the hands of foreign paedophiles. How can a leader, in this day and age, be allowed…

“The Race” is about doing what God expects us to do between now and our last day on earth. I am perpetually amazed that Christians, who know better, can entertain the notion that “Salvation by grace” can be fully realized by saying “Jesus is Lord.” Proponents of the “Faith Only” doctrine will fight you tooth and nail on this point. Many passages contradict a “Faith Only” perspective, with this one being among them: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord,…