Sometimes people make bad decisions. We all do this but one wrong decision should not necessitate a lifetime of poor choices or actions.
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Be sure that your commitments depend upon God’s promises, power, and faithfulness, instead of your own. Be doubly certain that you do not imagine keeping your promises is the way to salvation.
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Religious acting can take the form of doing worship, that is, not worshiping at all. This often takes the form of a ritual that does not come from the heart.
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The Word of God must be proclaimed with clarity, putting useless arguments aside in favor of the gospel. The best way to accomplish this is to cut a straight path through the Scripture.
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Watch your step. When going before God in worship and prayer, we must be very careful. It is easy to walk into false doctrine, hypocrisy, and useless rituals.
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Everyone who believes in Christ overcomes the world through faith. There is no need to leave the world in order to do so. There is no need for us to go to additional lengths in order to be forgiven.
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Jesus saw Matthew, a tax collector, and told him to follow: to be his disciple. How would there have been perfection if Matthew continued to sit there?
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Are you willing to follow Jesus? If it means you would lose the civil right to buy and sell, to make a living, to provide for your family, would you still follow Jesus?
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Easter 4B Easter 5B
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Having no bank account does not aid the spirit, though it may destroy the spirit if one takes pride in the so-called accomplishment of giving up money and property.
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I have known people who refused to work on Sunday. Some employers understood; others did not. I heard of one man who would not work on the Lord’s Day and as a result, lost his job.
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God does not command certain pietistic practices of giving up property, friends, family, food, and clothing. Indeed, Jesus tells us to not be anxious about such things.
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We must not forsake the gospel, even if it means loss of property, family, or even life. What is it that keeps you from following Jesus?
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A Bible study about the revelation of the Son of Man and his letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor
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God’s commandments forbid the forsaking of parents. Yet in this teaching of Jesus about leaving one’s family — even children — for him, it is clear that Jesus is using hyperbole to make his point.
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Does our virtuous lifestyle add anything to faith? To be sure, we are to furnish our faith with virtue, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, and brotherly and godly love.
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We are not justified before God because of a particular lifestyle, no matter how holy or special it may seem. God is able to make a child holy while that child, as yet, has no occupation.
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How may a person of faith be found on that Day “without spot or blemish”? Even more, how may one be certain that their life is so blameless that they are at peace with God?
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As we are not made impure by physical things that enter us from the outside, so we do not purge our impurity by doing physical things.
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How much faith is enough? Is there an admittance fee to heaven, but then you have to pay for any extras? Does a little more get you more once you get inside?
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Where is your confidence, your trust? Is it your bank account or perhaps, your pension? Maybe it is the government, its promise to protect you while lowering taxes and providing new jobs.
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What a joy it is to realize that God’s forgiveness and eternal life are gifts. Now, we all understand that one does not work for a gift; otherwise it is not a gift at all. Instead of a gift, it has become something we earned.
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Those who who do not believe in salvation for Christ’s sake, in other words, because of what God has done through his Son, are not only blind and witless, they have refused grace.
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Does Jesus mean that dishonoring parents and dismissing the fourth commandment are of such great virtue that they merit eternal life? How absurd.
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I take a bit of exception to Melancthon’s verb choice—although I agree with him if I understand what he intended to say. I do not wish, however, to put my words in his mouth.
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We easily see that Paul, himself of the pharisaic tradition, taught that Christians leave the faith when they devote themselves to legal requirements such as those under consideration.
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The most important commandment is greater than people are capable of apprehending in thought, let alone action. It is the height of theology.
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There are good religious traditions, and those that are no good at all. The good ones found and construct you in the faith. These traditions are learned in the pure Word of God.
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Adiaphora are matters in which we should look for neither sin nor righteousness. They are non-essentials, things that have nothing to do with one’s standing before God. These non-essentials are typically traditions or customs.
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The “power belongs to God.” We are incapable of securing our own forgiveness and salvation. Imagine the person who looks in the mirror and declares, “I forgive you of your sins.”
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Before the advent of radio, television, and internet, news traveled slowly. In some circles, it travels more slowly today.
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Scripture is clear: those who try to justify their sin by their works have fallen from grace. We cannot balance the scales by placing good works against bad works. It is not a matter of weights and measures.
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