christianity

God, protect my tone.

God’s redemptive revelation in the Holy Scriptures is necessary to saving faith and peace with God. Faith in a risen Saviour is necessary if the vague stirrings toward immortality are to bring us to restful and satisfying communion with God. To me this is a plausible explanation of all that is best out of Christ.

Many volumes could be written on the meaning of faith, but in many messages, Phillips Brooks’s acronym Forsaking All I Take Him will suffice. Excellence in preaching is more often displayed by this kind of sermon-specific clarity than by academic complexity.

The price we pay is to face ourselves. That is humiliating and painful. It’s why we shun the light. There are episodes in our past that we don’t want to think about—harsh words, acts of betrayal, broken promises, and worse. We shove these memories down into the darkness of our excuses and blame-shifting. We refuse to call sin “sin.” We feel too

As the heart is revealed, people can learn how to live a “changed and being changed” life. To help people in these areas, you pursue four objectives: 1. Establish your personal ministry agenda. This provides a sense of direction. 2. Clarify responsibility. As people apply truth to life, the issue of who is responsible for what will always arise. 3.

Then the Holy Spirit begins forming us into the likeness of Christ, a process that takes a lifetime. But through it all, God looks at us and sees the potential of what is to come. He sees the image of his Son being formed in us.

(and the truth of our position with God is so lavish, and so scandalous).

Another change agent God uses in our lives is circumstances. The classic text for this is Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

This is the priceless hope given us in the Bible: “God himself will be with them as their God.