The choice we face is not, as many imagine, between heaven and hell. Rather, the choice is between heaven and this world. Even a fool would exchange hell for heaven; but only the wise will exchange this world for heaven.
We desperately need to understand something of the magnitude of sin, of evil, and of gross wickedness in this world if we are to appreciate our redemption. God's love, grace, and mercy shine all the brighter against the awful reality of evil. Indeed, the very existence of evil is a powerful proof of God's existence and holiness.
We are raising a generation on the spiritual junk food of religious videos, movies, youth entertainment, and comic book paraphrases of the Bible. The Word of God is being rewritten, watered down, illustrated, and dramatized in order to cater to the taste of the carnal mind. That only leads further into the wilderness of doubt and confusion.
Worship is not a repetitious exercise of rituals and formulas. These create a veil that actually prevents us from enjoying the presence of the Lord. Worship is the heart poured out in gratitude and awe, expressing our appreciation of who He is and what He has done for us by His grace through Jesus Christ.
Our love for God and our appreciation of His love and forgiveness will be in proportion to the recognition of our sin and unworthiness.
For God to forgive sinners without the full penalty being paid would contradict His justice and make Him our partner in evil. Christ fully paid that penalty for our sins--but the pardon must be willingly and gladly received. God will not force anyone into heaven.
The more clearly we see the infinite chasm between God's glory and our sinful falling short thereof, the greater will be our appreciation of His grace and love in bridging that gulf to redeem us.
Fervent seeking after God with the whole heart, without which no one can know Him, has always been the mark of His true followers.
God did not make us robots. In spite of the denial by Luther, Calvin, and many evangelical leaders today, God gave man a will to freely choose to love or to hate Him, to receive Christ as Savior and Lord or to reject Him.
To attempt to pay for salvation with church membership, prayers, or good deeds is an insult to Christ, who paid the full price-and is a rejection of the gift of God's grace.
Heaven has no place for the erroneous belief that Christ died because we are worth it. Christ's death in our place had nothing to do with our worth but with the depths of our sin, the demands made by God's justice, and His eternal glory.
To reverence the impersonal creation instead of the personal God who created us is a perversion designed for escaping moral accountability to the Creator. God indicts those who worship the creation instead of its Creator (Rom 1:18-23); and warns of the corruption of morals and behavior which results.
Not one piece of evidence has ever been found to support the Book of Mormon-not a trace of the large cities it names, no ruins, no coins, no letters or documents or monuments, nothing in writing. Not even one of the rivers or mountains or any of the topography it mentions has ever been identified.
The sad truth is that among today's evangelicals it is not loving and esteeming God but self-love and self-esteem that are presented as the pressing need!
Professors and students claim to be on a quest for truth while denying that it exists or that anyone could identify it if it did. Such is the nihilistic atmosphere in major universities around the world.
That the Father and Son would love sinners that much is beyond our comprehension--but it ought to awaken a response of love and gratitude within our hearts that will change our lives forever!
In Christ alone, and His payment of the penalty for our sins upon the Cross, we find reconciliation to God and ultimate meaning and purpose.
Atheism has become a major threat to the church. New Atheists tend to be articulate and belligerent. They are aggressively engaging in "atheist evangelism," determined to stamp out every vestige of belief in God, which they insist is not only "stupid" but "wicked."
Finally, if life happened by chance on this earth and evolved upward, then it could seemingly happen elsewhere in the universe. But if, as we believe, human life resulted from a purposeful act of God, and if sin is inevitable for such beings, and if the human soul is the prize for which Satan and God do battle, then it hardly makes sense to have this same process repeated on countless other planets throughout the cosmos.
The key to our lives as Christians today is how clearly we see by faith the resurrected Christ.
Tolerance sounds like a virtue, and at times it may be. [But should] a parent be tolerant of behavior that is harming a child? Or the police be tolerant of criminals who prey upon others? Should doctors be tolerant of disease, or public schoolteachers tolerant of any answer on an exam, no matter how wrong?
Atheism leads to numerous absurdities promoted by otherwise intelligent people.
Sirs, you are doubtlessly intelligent people, however, I have a problem understanding how you found a place in prophecy for those I know to be void of a even a single drop of Hebrew blood - without any cultural or historical ties to the Holy Land and in fact simple converts to a base form of Judaism. Clinton eulogized Rabinowitz (Yitzhak Rabin) as a son of David and a son of Solomon. You must know that this man was a Khazar of Turko- Mongolian lineage, and can in no way represent a 'return' since his southern Russian ancestors never made it down to Palestine until 1948.
One might just as well trust in the "good luck" of a rabbit's foot as to hope for spiritual benefit from a Catholic scapular, medal, crucifix, or relic of an alleged "saint."
The revelation of Christ, for which our souls thirst, thrills us increasingly as we more clearly understand who He is in all His fullness and what He accomplished to reconcile us to Himself.
