In the modern age Americans and many others around the world are enjoying unprecedented wealth. Luxuries previous generations could not even dream of are taken for granted by today’s generation. But how are we faring morally and spiritually in the midst of such abundance?
Category: God
Thirst For Living Water
Without water you can’t live. In fact, your physical body consists largely of water. And the supply of water in your body must be constantly replenished for you to thrive. Usually we rely on our sense of thirst to tell us when and how much water to drink. Sometimes, however, for various reasons, our sense of thirst may fail us. And when that happens individuals may become sick or even die from dehydration. At other times, people may thirst, but seek to satisfy their thirst with impure water that, either slowly or quickly, produces disease and death. Do you thirst for living water, pure, flowing, abundant and life-giving?
The Spirit of God is analogous to water. “On the last day of the Festival–the great day–Jesus stood up and cried aloud. ‘Whoever is thirsty,’ He said, ‘let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, from within him–as the Scripture has said–rivers of living water shall flow.’ He referred to the Spirit which those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not bestowed as yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified” (John 7:37-39, Weymouth translation).
Jesus Our Savior
When the people of Israel were enslaved in Egypt they were living under a very powerful government. While in Egypt they were forced to live under the rule of Pharaoh – who was not only king but considered by the Egyptians to be a god as well. The Israelites were oppressed by the laws of Egypt and the whims of its ruler – Pharaoh (Exodus 3:7). To escape the oppression of Pharaoh in Egypt, they needed a Savior.
Egypt typifies the rule of sin – the law of sin which operates in the flesh – and in the fleshly mind (Romans 7:23). This law, rule or dominion of sin which operates in the flesh is something we must overcome in order to please God.
Yet within our own flesh, within our fleshly minds, we simply do not have the power of and by ourselves to cast out the law of sin that rules us. The fleshly mind is too weak to exercise dominion and power over sin, even if it wants to. That’s what Paul is referring to when he writes in Romans 7:23 about the law in our fleshly members warring against the mind, and bringing us into captivity to the law of sin.
Just as without God – without a Savior – the Israelites were in captivity, in bondage to the law of Egypt, so our flesh without a spiritual savior is in bondage to the law, dominion and rulership of sin. Even with the Old Covenant, wherewith the laws of God were written on tablets of stone, but not written in their hearts and minds, the Israelites were powerless to break the dominion of sin in their lives (Deuteronomy 5:29; 10:1-5; Romans 2:27-29; Jeremiah 31:33; Mark 7:6). In the same way, our human flesh of itself is powerless to break the bondage of sin.
Are the ‘Lost’ Predestined to Hell?
Traditional Christianity has taught that when one dies, whatever judgment awaits him is made and that is final. Some have gone so far as to teach that God chose and “predestined” some for salvation from the beginning of time, and that all others are destined for “hell.” Logically, this would mean many, even the vast majority, of humanity are “predestined” to be sent to hell for eternity (as hell is often imagined). Are the “lost” of this age predestined to eternal torment in hell? Continue reading
Who Made America Great?
In the 2016 Presidential campaign in the United States, Donald Trump campaigned with the slogan, “Let’s Make America Great Again.”
The slogan and the ideas behind it caught the public’s fancy enough that Mr. Trump was elected to become the forty-fifth President of the United States. But while it may be the desire of many Americans to “make America great again,” perhaps we ought to ask the question, who made America great in the first place?
Wherein lies America’s greatness? Who made America great? Continue reading
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