Thanks to Martin Luther (and others who followed him in the 16th century Reformation movement) good works have gotten a bad name in the religious world. Believing that good works have any place at all in the salvation of the soul is viewed as being unorthodox, and anyone who teaches such is deemed a heretic. […]
Four of Paul’s epistles were written while he was a prisoner in Rome. One of those epistles was sent to the church at Colossae. Colossae was a city in the Roman province of Asia, approximately 100 miles east of Ephesus and just below Laodicea. It seems the church at Colossae was doing okay from a […]
How do you love? If you are a Christian, I know you love others because you cannot be a Christian without doing so. The truth is, however, many Christians have an inadequate love. This is because their love lacks knowledge. Paul, being aware of this, prayed that saints would not only love others but have […]
In Matthew 16:26, Jesus asked, “For would it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” The obvious answer is that he will profit nothing. Why? Because the most important possession we have is our souls. The soul is eternal. We all will spend eternity in heaven (a place of […]
One of the problems of false doctrine is that God’s people sometimes overreact to it. What I mean by this is that some, in an attempt to avoid the error of the false doctrine, end up going to the opposite extreme. For example, Calvinism teaches that a person cannot fall from grace. This is clearly […]
Some people talk too much. They enjoy hearing their own voice so much that they are always blabbing about something. It is easy to grow weary of them. Even God does. “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” (James 1:19). Being a “loud mouth” is […]
The Bible often speaks of the will of God. Knowing, respecting, and ultimately doing, the will of God is essential to making it to heaven. Matthew 7:21 (ESV) 21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is […]
The church at Philippi was a very giving church. Their willingness to give was experienced firsthand by Paul, and he praised them for their generosity. In the book of Philippians, Paul thanks the brethren for supplying his needs while he was in Thessalonica (Philippians 4:15-18). Because of their willingness to help Paul financially while he […]
We should all do our best to avoid sin. Sin personified is our worst enemy. It is sin that separates us from God (Isaiah 59:1-20), and it is sin that leads to people spending eternity in a devil’s hell. The devil uses sin as bait to get us hooked on a life that is contrary […]
“Please yourself” seems to be the mantra that rings through the halls of society today. While doing good for others is applauded, putting ourselves first is the practical thing to do, at least that is what the world says. The shelves of bookstores (mostly found online anymore) are full of books on self (self-love, self-care, […]