Serving God or Being Self-Serving? In reading about Balaam’s story in the post “The Error of Balaam, it’s difficult to see what he may have done wrong. Indeed, based on this record alone, he seems like an upstanding guy. Therefore, we need to dig into his story to what he did wrong. There are several […]
Our Reason for Doing Good Shouldn’t Be for Recognition but Because It’s the Right Thing to Do Mordecai, a noble man, raises his orphaned cousin, Esther. Mordecai’s nemesis is Haman. Though Haman has everything going for him, he doesn’t enjoy it. This is because Mordecai refuses to give Haman the respect he thinks he deserves. […]
Because of God We Can Anticipate a Better Tomorrow There are many reasons why I love the Bible, in fact I list thirteen. One of those reasons is hope. The Bible is filled with hope. It’s mentioned 180 times in both the Old and New Testaments. Hope in the Old Testament The word hope appears […]
Discover What the Bible Says about the End of Time Some Christians give a lot of attention to the end times. Others choose to ignore it. Interestingly, the phrase end times doesn’t appear in the Bible, at least not in the NIV. Though four subheadings, added later, do carry this phrase. The End Times These […]
Pursue the Right Priorities In the post about the effects of priority we saw that wrong priorities produces wrong outcomes, whereas right priorities results in God’s blessings. It is, however, worth it to consider the timing of these two events. The prophecy is given on the first day of the sixth month. The people respond […]
How We Start Doesn’t Matter, Because What Counts Is How We Finish Paul writes to the Philippian church to encourage them. He shares his personal ambition in hopes they’ll do what he does. He says he pushes himself to reach a goal and to win a prize, an eternal reward. In another place Paul talks […]
Some people who follow Jesus have a future focus, greatly anticipating heaven. They endure the present while waiting for what is next. Other people who follow Jesus have a present perspective, living boldly for today as his ambassadors to the world. The afterlife is almost an afterthought. Which is it? Is our reward for following […]
In my prior post, “Listen to Understand,” I noted that listening to Jesus results in more understanding; not listening produces confusion. This parallels Jesus’ teaching about the “talents” and the “minas” (both words refer to denominations of money). These parables, though differing in details (likely because they were given to different audiences at different times) […]