Tag Archives: faith

Doing the Will of God

Jesus took a moment to make a correction we church-goers need at times. We may get so carried away with doing good things that we end up following our wills more than the will of God. Jesus corrects our notion … Continue reading

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Meditation: A Faith That Works, James 2:26

We’re familiar with James 2:26: “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” Do we know what it implies?  James is talking about living life in a way that bears witness to … Continue reading

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What More Could God Have Done?

Sometimes we can invest a lot of our time and attention on a person or group, only to see no good results come from it. In Isaiah 5:1-7, the Lord recounts the care He took to form a successful vineyard. … Continue reading

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Is Our Faith Real?

James 2:20-26 uses the story of Abraham to help us see if our faith is biblical faith, or if it’s something else.  God told Abraham to go and offer his son Isaac on the mountain. This is the same God … Continue reading

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Becoming a People of Faith

This is another article in the series that addresses how the Word of God changes us. We want to be people of God. How does the Bible get us there? Hebrews 11:1 gives us important traits about the biblical faith … Continue reading

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Letter to my pen pals, July 2019

Grace and peace are multiplied to us through knowing Jesus (2 Peter 1:2-4). In some way, the more we know of him, the more his power is given. We may know ourselves and our weaknesses very well. We may be … Continue reading

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Attitudes of Faith

What does faith feel like? How do you know when you have it? As I was praying about my faith, several aspects of my faith over the years came to mind. I had demonstrated faith in different ways, but they … Continue reading

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After the Easter Story: Resurrection Power and the Christian

Edited contents taken from Living with the End in View, book 2, by Steve Husting http://www.lulu.com/shop/steve-husting/living-with-the-end-in-view-book-2/paperback/product-753096.html The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the defining aspect of the Christian faith. No other religion has this story of God … Continue reading

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Sin Perverts the Law

A scribe asked Jesus which was the greatest of all the commandments. Jesus answered that these two laws are the framework upon which all the OT laws hang: love God with all you are and love your neighbor as yourself. … Continue reading

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Are we justified by faith, or by works?

James 2:14 begins a train of thought that has puzzled readers probably ever since it was written. Here is the beginning of the passage: What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have … Continue reading

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Our Righteous Standing in Christ

If I were reading the articles on my web site as a new Christian, I would have felt anxious. I would have examined my life and wondered if I’m good enough, if I’m working hard enough, or if I’m committed … Continue reading

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Accessing Grace for Help

“Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’” (1 Peter 5:5) When we think … Continue reading

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Saved, but not yet delivered

In Romans chapter seven, Paul agonized over his inability to do the good he expected to do as a saved person. At the end he poses the heartbreaking question, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me?” This … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Popular Handbook of Archaeology and the Bible

2013 Joseph M. Holden and Norman Geisler Harvest House Publishers ISBN 978-0-7369-4485-4 http://www.christianbook.com/popular-handbook-archaeology-and-the-bible/norman-geisler/9780736944854/pd/944854 Did you know that 25,000 archaeology artifacts give support for the Bible? Did you know that archaeology has unearthed historical details of the lives of over 60 … Continue reading

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Grace and Works Go Together

I fear we are limiting God’s grace in our lives. I’ve seen two different aspects of God’s grace testified to. We often emphasize salvation is by grace, not works (Ephesians 2:8-9). In this passage, grace is God being merciful and … Continue reading

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What is Faith?

First we start with faith’s source, which is God: Romans 10:9 Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God Faith comes as a the result of knowing that God has spoken to you. In the context of … Continue reading

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Leaving the Faith? Watch out for this logical fallacy

Many young people who leave home for college life end up abandoning their religion and moral constraints. (This is what the college professors and staff want them to do.) They are convinced by their professors that their religion was something … Continue reading

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Faith without proof is alive and well among the religious and secular

Many religious people trust in their spiritual authority for their religious beliefs. They don’t study the religious text for themselves. They don’t understand how their authorities came by their tenets, so theirs is a personal faith without proof. “All I … Continue reading

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To learn, unlearn; to believe, disbelieve

In Philippians 3:4-6, we have a list of beliefs Paul had to disbelieve in order to believe, to unlearn that he may learn. For instance, according to this list, he believed in God and country until God corrected it to … Continue reading

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The Bible and Atheist agree: Blind Faith is Wrong

The popular meaning for faith is to believe something without proof. This is the “popular” meaning, and as with the meanings of several other words, it doesn’t match up with its meaning used in the Bible. For instance, the popular … Continue reading

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The Faith to Endure Hardship

In Hebrews 11, we are introduced to a series of individuals who were known for their faith. Noah prepared an ark, expecting a flood. Abraham moved out of his country at the word of God, not knowing where he was … Continue reading

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How does the Christian overcome?

The Bible tells us that Christians have the victory, or that they overcome. What does that mean? What does that victory look like? How can we know that we are overcoming? First John 5:2-5 tell us that we have the … Continue reading

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Why should we read the Old Testament?

Is the Old Testament (OT) of any value nowadays? Many people say that we no longer have to follow all those laws and rules anymore, so why bother reading it at all? I’ve read through the OT many times along … Continue reading

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How do we Fight the Devil?

The Bible tells us how to address the one “who deceives the whole world” (Revelation 12:9) in several revealing passages in the New Testament. In none of them are we told to attack him directly. Rather, we remove the means … Continue reading

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The Salvation of the Soul

What is the salvation of the soul, and what does it look like? The first few verses of 1 Peter chapter one give us a strong sense of this salvation and then concludes with, “receiving the end of your faith … Continue reading

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The Neglected Deliverance

We tend to seek the Lord’s deliverance when we get into personal trouble. But there is a deliverance that keeps us out of the trouble in the first place. Which would you like – to fall into trouble and try … Continue reading

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Faith and the Spirit’s Leading

What is faith? A definition is in order. What is faith? If faith means to believe something without proof, as many claim, then how is it different from blind faith? What I find funny is that those who dislike faith … Continue reading

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What is intimacy with Jesus?

What does it mean when Christians talk about having intimacy, or a deep relationship, with Jesus? There are many ways to describe it and experience it. I will talk about one way of entering into that intimacy or fellowship with … Continue reading

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Why can’t we explain our faith to the skeptic?

I’ve had a hard time using logic to explain to skeptics why our Christian beliefs are true and defensible (and even logical). Why? Because some of the wisdom was gained through the logic of life experience, and no shortcuts exist. … Continue reading

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If I do many good works, will I go to heaven?

Think about what the question implies. It assumes that because of doing many good works, we’ve put God on the spot; the Creator of the universe is in our debt! We’re saying that He owes us heaven because of all … Continue reading

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