How was your weekend? As of a couple minutes ago, I discovered that it will be the Colts and the Saints in this year's Super Bowl game—my wife kept me up on both teams progress today. She goes nuts over football. It can get loud and crazy quick around our home when a game is on. Lookin' forward to when the saints go marching in.. for the first time ever! Don't you want to be in that number? You can be!
Qs: Do you have a devotional life in the Word? Specifically what's it like and what does this life include?
Had a great day praying with my awesome wife, then enjoyed fellow-shippin' (btw: that term is a verb) with old friends in Frisco Texas today and with that.. being strongly challenged ..I am stoked out to the max! That's what I love about Dallas (and about orange county California where I came from)—these are two places have a whole lot of real Christians who are sold out! And if you want Bible-based fellowship (which is to be an iatrical part of any Christian's life for God's glory and growth's sake), then you can always find this in these two locations.
Ya gotta visit here sometime! I find that the more Christ-centered fellowship I get, the more I want to pray and the easier it is to apply the Word in my everyday life.
There are sick fellowships and churches to avoid too, but I feel so grateful for real-peeps who make me think right—who say it like it is. Do you have friends like that who want to see you balanced, grounded and established in the Word?
Hey, I still am a learner that hates ignorance, especially in the area of how to live. Personally, I was raised in a so called church organization that was so stiff and formal.. I do not want to deprecate or blame anyone there, but they unfortunately did not teach God's Word.
They preached about being moral to gain God's favor and falsely to gain salvation. Sometimes they sermonized in a dead foreign language and other times in English. They told me that a lot of stuff I just couldn't know about (referring to stuff that God really wanted me to know about that He already made plain in the Bible), because it "was a mystery for all."
Don't get me wrong, there will be things that happen in our lives that we just don't understand until we get to Heaven, but I'm not talking those things. I'm talking about all the truth that God did reveal for you and me. I'd hate to go on without knowing ever the basics of what God really wants every Christian to know about ..in how to live in right relationship with the Lord down here. I did for years though. How about you? When the Bible talks about mysteries, it's because God is wanting to reveal a mystery to you!
Man, you know, it was a dark day in history when preaching n teaching the Bible took a back seat in the Church! These disciplines are always to be top priority in the church and done passionately as unto the Lord instead of done in a boring fashion.
When there is a mist in the pulpit, there is a fog in the pew. ~Howard Hendricks
When local churches get away from the Word, they quickly lose authority and significance in a community. What does your church give preeminence to in the services? Lots of churches are merely employing philosophy, political propaganda, religious opinions, rituals, traditions, entertainment, or strict moralizing in place of expository through the Bible verse by verse teaching. But listen; there is no spiritual growth apart from the Word of God.
God's Word shows us our personal sin and its serious consequences: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (See Rom. 3:23); "the wages of sin is death" (6:23). God's Word tells us of the Lord's great love and of his true salvation: "God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, . . . made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)" (Eph. 2:4-5). And then the Word grants us wisdom for daily living: "Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (Ps. 119:105).
Yes, no one can get saved independent from the Word. The person of God in faith shares the Word of God and that in turn produces the child of God. Are you His child yet? Do you have faith? Have you been made new inside?
Have ya really "been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever"? See 1 Peter 1:23. Do you really know Jesus Christ and love to talk about Him.. "His name is called the Word of God" (Rev. 19:13).
"So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." ~Romans 10:17
I have a companion, a wonderful Guide, a solace and comfort whatever betide;
A friend never-failing when others pass by, Oh, blessed communion, the Word and I. ~Knobloch
"And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." ~Ephesians 6:17
"Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith." ~Acts 6:7
The Bible stands like a rock undaunted 'mid the raging storms of time;
Its pages burn with the truth eternal and they glow with a light sublime. ~Lillenas
"For the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." ~Hebrews 4:12
"Forever, O Lord, Your Word is settled in heaven." ~Psalm 119:89
I'm not into Lordship-salvation at all, though I do believe that all Christians need to make Jesus Lord. Why? Cuz a sinner can not trust in the Bible Jesus as Lord, until he or she first trusts in Jesus as Savior.
You have not really believed until you've really repented, and you have not really repented until you have really believed in Jesus the living Word of God—biblically, repentance and faith always go together.
Don't ever try to make a gift cost anything—it's free! ~Chuck Swindoll
The psalmist said of the Word of God, "Your precepts . . . have given me life" (Ps. 119:93). Not "sold me life." Faith plus good works that are so called, meritorious, all combined together will not gain you any points or get you into heaven one day (I was false told this mixture would get me in, but I could never be sure until I was in). Have you been falsely hoping that your good deeds would, in the end, outweigh all your bad deeds so that God would somehow have to let you gain entrance into glory? That type of religiously earning-it-jive would make the bloody cross of Christ on Calvary be totally in vain, Amigo! Let it go.
Can't buy it, can't sell it, can't earn it!
Salvation Is Still By Grace Alone Through Faith Alone In Christ The Word Alone.. yup, with nothing added to it! Free, free, FREE!
