“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Have you ever had two bosses? How did that go? Unless it was a truly unique situation, the odds are that on some occasions you were happy with one, on other occasions you were happy with the other, and only rarely were you happy with both. Read the rest…
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
If you are a follower of Jesus, you have the Spirit of God living within you. Reflect on that for a minute. The power and presence of the God who created the universe is dwelling within you. That’s a pretty game-changing idea.
If you are a follower of Jesus and you don’t know where to go in life, you need merely to look inside of you. And I don’t mean that in some kind of a new-agey way as if you were somehow divine yourself. Rather, I mean this in the sense that if you are a follower of Jesus, you have within you the Spirit who can answer your questions. Now, He may answer by telling you to go and consult with His word and other believers, but you can at least start there. And His answers will not often come in the ways or times we would most prefer given our druthers, but they will come. We can count on it.
“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my reassured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine…” (ESV – Read the chapter)
One of the things we are called to (and by “we,” I mean “everybody”) over and over again in the Scriptures is obedience. We live in a day, though, when obedience is not a popular idea. We want to be free to do as we please. We want to loosen the restrictions on ourselves so we can pursue our hearts’ desires without any limitations. Nobody likes the idea of obedience…except for when they do. Read the rest…
“Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.” (ESV)
As much as many would like and have even tried to argue this is the case, one of the things the Bible does not teach is a kind of tit-for-tat giving arrangement whereby every time we give something, God gives back to us in equal amounts. Any preacher or teacher who has said otherwise is a snake oil salesman in disguise. But… Read the rest…
In part two of our new teaching series, Stand Up: How to Fight Injustice, we looked together at the next part of the story of Esther. Mordecai stands up to do the right thing…and everything goes wrong. Through this hard turn of events we are reminded that if we are going to stand against injustice, we are going to have to make a commitment to do the right thing regardless of the outcome. Keep reading to see how this unfolds.
Stand with Conviction
We live in a day when businesses are finding themselves needing to take social and moral stands in order to attract new customers. Have you noticed that? Used to be, companies and businesses focused on business. If they wanted to convince people to spend their money with them instead of with a competitor, they worked really hard to plant the idea in our minds that they were the very best at what they did. Their product was better than anybody else’s. They were going to take care of their customers better than anybody else would. They were the best…at their business. Today, though, as being socially conscious has gotten more and more popular, many businesses are worrying less about talking about how great their products are, and are instead spending more time telling us how socially conscious, or progressive, they are. Commercials often double as political statements. Some don’t talk about their products at all, they just take a stand on some social issue and assume that customers will be drawn to use their products on the basis of that social stance alone. Read the rest…
