Whenever people ask me why I believe in God I answer, “I believe in him because I can’t help it.”
Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) was right when he said that man has an “incurable God sickness.” Atheism is of the lip rather than the heart. People may deny God with the tops of their heads but they believe in him with the bottoms of their hearts. Most atheism is a front—a...
“Everybody is doing it!” At least that is what people keep telling me to justify their conduct. Three things ought to be said about this kind of reasoning.
First, it is not true. Not everyone is doing anything in a moral sense. Some people may be doing it and most people may be doing it, but not everybody is doing it. It is far more likely that everyone you...
A. W. Tozer said, “To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men.” The scriptures agree. They tell us that those who would live godly lives will suffer persecution (2 Timothy 3:12). To be a Christian example then, we must have the right answers, armor, attitudes, and actions when we are criticized for our faith. The apostle Peter tells us what these should be in 1 Peter 3:13-4:...
We Christians have special responsibilities to one another. The apostle Peter sets out three of these for us in 1 Peter 4:8-11.
1. We are to love one another. Love is the distinguishing mark of a Christian. So we are told to have a fervent or an intense love for one another. This kind of love “covers a multitude of sins.” It causes us to overlook each other’s fail...
How strong is your faith? Can it stand the shock of a “no” answer from God?
I have long been fascinated by the story of the three Hebrew children in the Old Testament. The king of Babylon commanded all people to bow down and worship his golden image. These devout Jewish young men refused. When they were told that they would be thrown in a fiery furnace if they did not obey the order, t...
Several years ago a man became a Christian and a member of our congregation. Prior to that time he had been a heavy drinker. He drank every day, but the weekends were the worst. All he did was drink and carouse with the boys. But Christ changed all of that when he became a Christian. He quit his drinking and started going to church and living for God.
When his old pals would occasionall...
Learning that one has a terminal illness is about the most shocking experience a person can have. Former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey said, “The worst and most shattering day of my life was the day I learned I had cancer.”
Life was never intended to be lived as a solo but as a chorus. We must therefore stand ready to help one another through these difficult experiences of life.
...Sometime ago a survey was conducted asking people which was the greatest problem—ignorance or apathy? Sixty-five percent of the people said, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
Apathy means “no feeling.” It is the opposite of sympathy, which means to “feel with.” One of the greatest problems we have in our world today is that people just don’t care. That should never be said of Christians....
Dale Carnegie once said, “We have only four contacts with the world, you and I. We are evaluated and classified by four things: 1) by what we do; 2) by how we look; 3) by what we say; and 4) by how we say it.”
If that be true, and I think it is, then we must all give careful attention to these areas of our life, for through them we either become stepping stones or stumbling blocks for o...