Can you honestly tell me that your great desire is to be holy? Can you honestly tell me your great desire is to not be like the world, but to be like Jesus Christ? Because if you cannot, you should be afraid. Those who love the world do not have the love of the Father (1 John 2:15).
There is no such thing as a great man of God, only weak, pitiful, faithless men of a great and merciful God.
We cannot convince a man to believe any more than we can raise the dead. Such things are the work of God's Spirit. Men are brought to faith only through the supernatural working of God, and He has promised to work-not through human wisdom or intellectual expertise, but through the preaching of Christ crucified and resurrected from the dead!
Instead of telling them God has a wonderful plan for their life - tell them who God is.
Repentance is simply giving up to stop fighting against God and to stop attempting to gain your own salvation through your own works; to literally give up and fall upon Christ. That is salvation.
You say, 'Well, I love secular music.' Let me just share something with you: I don't care. I'm not going to go there; this is what I'm going to tell you: It doesn't matter to me whether it's secular or Christian. My question is, what's being said in those words? Because if what's being said in those words contradicts the will of God, you're violating His will, and you're loving it.
We must not adopt the world's view and then tweak it to make it Christian. We must draw a line in the sand and stand firm in the radical teachings of Christ and His gospel. We must preach the truth and be the examples of the truth we preach.
The MORE you Trust in the Arm of the FLESH, the LESS you're going to see of the POWER of GOD.
The evidence of conversion is not a decision card filled out, it's a life being lived out.
A true Christian will be sensitive to the sin in their life and it will lead them to brokenness and genuine confession, but the person who says they are a Christian and are not sensitive to sin, it does not lead them to confession, a person who is that way is not a Christian.
If a person professes faith in Christ and yet falls away or makes no progress in godliness, it does not mean that he has lost his salvation. It reveals that he was never truly converted.
If you're going to choose your friends, you better choose them well, because when you look at your friends, you're looking at a mirror reflection. You're looking at you; you are looking at you.
The church is in trouble-that's what they say anyways. The problem is most of what they call the church is not the church, and the church is not quite as in trouble as everybody thinks. As a matter of fact, the church today is absolutely beautiful-she's glorious, she's humble, she's broken, and she's confessing her sin. The problem is what everybody's calling the church today isn't the church. Basically, by and large, what's called the church today is nothing more than a bunch of unconverted church people with unconverted pastors.
I would not trade the difficult years for all the prosperity in the world. God knows what each one of us must suffer in order to be conformed to the image of Christ.
Next, they'll say, "Do you want to go to heaven?" Have you ever had anybody say, "No, I'd rather go to hell." My friend, understand this, everyone wants to go to heaven. They just don't want God to be there when they get there.
How would you ever learn unconditional love if you were married to someone who met all the conditions?
It’s absolutely absurd to say you are a disciple of Jesus Christ yet not bear the fruit of Jesus Christ.
When God saves a man, He is regenerating his heart, turns him into a new creature, and the evidence is this ... he will live like a new creature and he will confess Christ.
Your best friend is the one who tells you the most truth.
If you want to follow Jesus because He'll fix your marriage, if you want to follow Jesus because He'll give you a better life, that's idolatry. Follow Christ for the sake of Christ; He is worthy!
To receive the gospel is to receive an entirely different view of reality where Christ is the epicenter of all things. He becomes the center of our universe, the source, the purpose, the goal, and the motivation of all that we are and do. When a man receives the gospel, his entire life begins to be lived out in a different context, and that context is Christ.
Persecution has never hurt the church ... only prosperity.
Sunday morning in America is the greatest hour of idolatry in the whole week. Why? Because most people who are even worshiping God, are worshiping a God they don't know. They're worshiping a god that looks more like Santa Claus than the God of Scripture. They're worshiping a god that is a figment of their own imagination. They created a god in their own likeness and they worship the god they've made.
A Christian who does not pray is like prince in beggars clothes who stands but a few inches from His father's throne and yet does not ask.
This Christianity is not a cultural thing. It is not something that should be just a small part of your life; it is not something that you do on Sunday... Christianity is not about you being just like the world all the time and then coming to church on Sunday. If that is your Christianity... you are not Christian.
