Author: admin

Are salty? Salt has two primary functions. First, it preserves. In ancient days before refrigeration, meat would quickly deteriorate in the hot, Middle Eastern sun. Since meat was extremely valuable, every effort was made to preserve it. By salting it down, meat would last and provide food for its owners. Secondly, salt was used to bring out the taste of food. Food might not reach its full potential apart from salt being added to it.

In our world, sin is constantly working to deteriorate and destroy peoples’ lives. God has chosen Christians to be His divine preserving agents throughout society. When sin abounds in people’s lives, God places a Christian alongside them to halt the degeneration that is occurring. When we see people around us whose lives are falling apart, our first reaction ought not to be that of criticism or complaint. Rather we must ask ourselves why our life of salt was unable to preserve those near us. Sin pervades our world. It is continually degenerating marriages, families,friendships, and partnerships. The only effective restraining agent is God’s people acting as salt. God also intends for His people to bring out the best in others. Is your life bringing out the best in those around you?

If God has currently positioned your life in a place being ravaged by sin, take heart. You may be God’s instrument to stop sin in its tracks.

Our culture has persuaded us that if God is pleased with our lives, He will bless us by making us prosper and overcome those who oppose us. It can be puzzling when people criticize us or oppose us with immunity. Why can ungodly people be allowed to make our life so difficult at times? Why does God not bless the righteous and punish the ungodly?

Jesus turned this thinking upside down. He declared that when people oppose us because of our faith and when they are critical of our beliefs, we should be glad. For then we are sharing in the same fate that met our Lord. Being assaulted is not necessarily a sign that God is unhappy with you! The opposite may be true. It may be you have never been more pleasing to God than when people criticize and oppose you for your belief in Him.

The reality is that society is changing. Christians ought to prepare themselves for increasingly intense and relentless persecution. We need not recoil from it or hide in fear. Jesus Himself declared that our reward would be great, when we suffered for Him. Have you suffered because of your faith? If you haven’t, examine whether you have been joining Christ each day in His work. Where He is, suffering is inevitable.

We tend to think that repentance is intended for hardened sinners, not good Christians like us. But when Jesus began preaching this message, He was speaking to God’s people. In Scripture, the first words of repentance are always aimed at getting God’s people back where they need to be.

The Israelites had waited for centuries for the promised Messiah who would come and deliver them from their oppression. Numerous generations had come and gone while waiting for God to intervene in their world. Now, at last, the time had come. But when God came, in His Son, His people were unprepared. They needed to repent. Repentance involves stopping the direction we have been going in our life, and changing and going another way. It calls for a radical alteration, not merely a good intention.

When God is at work right next to us, it is critical that we make whatever adjustments are necessary to become involved in what He is doing. The disciples could not stay in their fishing boats and go with Jesus. Matthew could not remain at his customs table and be on mission with the Messiah. They had to make major adjustments. What changes is heaven calling for you to make so you can be right in the center of the advance of God’s kingdom, today?

God has ways of expressing His pleasure on an obedient life that are unmistakable. He may not speak audibly, but his affirmation is tangible. God is pleased when we resist the temptation to sin. He is delighted when we go out of our way to minister to someone in Christ’s name. God always honors our desire to draw near to Him (James 4:8). God does not remain indifferent while we seek to live for Him.

Have you sensed God’s pleasure on your life lately? Take a moment of silence before Him in prayer and allow Him to speak into your soul. As you read your Bible, be sensitive to a specific word God might have for you today. Listen to the feedback from those around you. God may choose to use their mouth to voice His pleasure in you.

Or, has it been a while since you last knew for certain that your life was honoring and pleasing to God? Glorifying God is why He created you in the first place! It was so you could live in a way that brings honor and glory to His name. What adjustments would you need to make in the way you are living so you could, once again, hear God’s “Well done” upon your life?

There is much about our appearance that we have no control over. Many of our physical attributes came from genes that were passed on to us and there is little we can do about them. Some people, however, spend inordinate amounts of time desperately seeking to alter what nature assigned to them.

Yet there are other aspects of our lives over which we have much control. Our actions and our use of time is something we determine. While the secular world worships people’s appearance, God focuses on their actions. Beautiful people can be selfish and thoughtless. Secular media often overlooks this and zeroes in on their outward qualities. In God’s view, however, an attractive appearance is no substitute for godly actions.

Those who deserve praise are the ones who use their time to contribute to others. Praise belongs to those who are productive, not pretty. Perhaps in no area of life is it more evident how the world colors our values and perspective than here. Entire magazines are devoted to people who are attractive, even when they have contributed nothing wholesome or helpful to society. But those who view things from God’s perspective are quick to admire people who use their time and energies wisely. Their lives make a difference. They invest their time wisely. Such people deserve your admiration and commendation.

The world is obsessed with women and their appearance. Billboards, television advertisements, movies, and magazines all highlight the dazzling appearance of women. As a result, women can feel enormous pressure to spend many hours working on their external self, while neglecting their walk with God. Yet in God’s eyes, it is the woman who has a healthy reverence for God that is beautiful. Having the fear of the Lord means she truly understand how awesome God is. It means she takes His commands seriously. It also provides a powerful sense of accountability to her life.

In the course of a man’s work, he may meet various women who have dressed professionally and attractively. In the workplace, people tend to look their best. Men ought to be focusing on what God looks at. A pure heart and devotion to God are beautiful in heaven’s eyes. Devotion to God ought to be much more praiseworthy than a designer outfit! Christian men must not let the secular world program them to value and look for the same things it does. Godly men ought to esteem godly women. Too often, however, we obtain our values and standards from the world.

The popular media has glamorized women based on their appearance (often altered electronically for pictures) and upon sex appeal. Yet the high divorce rate and unhappiness among media celebrities betrays the shallowness of such values.

Scripture knows that the godliness of a wife or husband is of far greater importance than their outward appearance. Some people spend untold hours sprucing up their exterior while carelessly neglecting their inner life. They may appear beautiful at first glance, but upon closer examination, their inner character is repulsive.

For those who have been blessed with a virtuous wife, they need to be treated as someone of great value. Unfortunately, they can be inadvertently taken for granted.Women of virtue do not always demand their rights or cry loudly at their neglect. Yet they deserve to be treasured. Has God blessed your life by granting you a virtuous spouse? Treasure her, for she will bring much joy and peace to your home.

No one is perfect. At certain moments, anyone can say foolish things or show indiscretion. The key is not that we always utter wise words with robotic regularity, but that when we do say things we shouldn’t have, we quickly correct the problem. At times we can hear words coming out of our mouth that we know are beneath us and that bring dishonor to Christ. We might be horrified to hear the self-centered or destructive words that are flowing out of our mouth.

That is the moment to bring that conversation to an abrupt end. It isn’t always easy. We may have already gathered an audience. Perhaps those listening are speaking in the same vein. Like stopping the flow of water after a break occurs in a dam, it can be difficult to bring conversations to an end once the words are flowing.

Yet while we cannot go back and retrieve words once they have been uttered, we can put an immediate stop to them once we realize we are sinning. Showing self-control at the end of the day is still better than demonstrating no self-control at all. If you have developed some bad habits in which you say things you shouldn’t, take decisive action today to put a stop to it. You are still the master of your mouth. You can stop sinful behavior any time you choose to.

Our world today assumes that it sets its own standards for correct living.

Well-meaning Christians are constantly making statements such as: “I just believe,” or “who am I to judge?” or “as long as no one get’s hurt” or “God loves us despite what we do.” We inadvertently set our own standard on what is right and wrong and, in the process, ensure that whatever behaviors we are exhibiting are conveniently placed in the “acceptable” category.

This is essentially what the ancient Israelites did when they built idols to worship. They crafted much more than a figure made of stone or precious metals. They also created the god’s value system. The gods that people created never condemned their immorality, in fact, they encouraged it. The false gods never rebuked them or challenged their hypocrisy. Values and standards were as fleeting as peoples’ moods.

Of course, when we set the standards for our behavior, we tend to find that our actions are always noble and good. After all, we know we meant well. We can minimize God’s word where it seems outdated or unreasonable and we can magnify biblical commandments that we feel we have mastered. Yet ultimately, we are not the ones who determine what God’s standards are. He does. God does not measure us by what we intended to do or what we believe are good behaviors to practice, but what we actually did. God has never delegated the supervision and amendments of His standards to anyone else. He certainly will not do so in your case.

There is much debate about those who wish to delete from scripture passages and verses that prove uncomfortable to them. Some wish to excise the accounts of miracles. Others would brazenly remove accounts of Christ’s divinity. Yet others would discard verses that contradict their professed theology. Such treatment of Scripture is anathema.

However, there is an equally abominable practice and that is adding things to Scripture that it does not explicitly teach. Just like the Pharisees of the New Testament, these people want to make verses of Scripture “stronger” than what is found in the actual text. These people seek to “fill in the gaps” for what the Bible does not actually say. They ban behaviors that Scripture does not explicitly condemn. They make certain practices mandatory when Scripture is silent on the issue. In people’s well-meaning attempts to “protect” the Bible, they actually deface it by changing what the divine author meant in the first place.

Some people add to Scripture because they want to make it stronger. But they accomplish the opposite. God’s word has proven the test of time. It has not required any amendments. While there may be some facts we wish the Bible had chosen to reveal, nothing is lacking when it comes to how we should live.

Be careful when people begin telling you facts and principles that are not found in the Bible. Anyone who feels a need to supplement Scripture’s teachings has too low a view of God’s word. God has already given us everything necessary for life and godliness (2 Timothy 3:16).