Grace killers cannot be mildly ignored . . . You can no more allow legalism to continue than you could permit a rattlesnake to slip into your house and hide.
Read MoreTag Archives: Galatians
Defining Legalism
In contrast to yesterday’s thoughts on liberty, what does it mean to say that legalism puts people under bondage? Legalism is an attitude, a mentality based on pride. It is an obsessive conformity to an artificial standard.
Read MoreClaiming the Package
This day—this very moment—millions are living their lives in shame, fear, and intimidation who should be free, productive individuals. The tragedy is they think it is the way they should be.
Read MoreA Sobering List
Following is an incomplete list of what you have in store after your immorality is found out: Your mate will experience the anguish of betrayal, shame, rejection, heartache, and loneliness. No amount of repentance will soften those blows.
Read MoreThree Promises Regarding Our Faithfulness
In several places through the New Testament, there are statements of promise from God to faithful servants. I’m thinking of three in particular.
Read MoreThe Fullness of Time
ANY SIGNIFICANT BIRTHS IN the year 1809? Here’s a list of a few: William Gladstone was born in Liverpool. Alfred Tennyson took his first breath in Lincolnshire. Oliver Wendell Holmes cooed in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Edgar Allan Poe began his brief but tragic life in Boston. A physician named Darwin named his firstborn son Charles.
Read MoreFor Generating a Gentle Spirit
If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another. Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 5:25–6:2)
Read MoreA Rare and Remarkable Virtue
THE RARE AND REMARKABLE VIRTUE OF patience is within the and-so-forth section in Galatians chapter 5. You know how we quote that passage . . . “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, and-so-forth.” That lazy habit has caused a very important series of virtues to escape our notice. Let’s read it together as a refresher: The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives:
Read MoreA Simple Season
THE WONDER OF AMAZON just continues to spread. Tens of thousands of employees and hundreds of thousands of square feet of operations all work with amazing precision to coordinate the receiving, packaging, and shipping of millions of products all around the world. Now then—if one man can come up with an organizational plan as complex as all that, think of how much more efficient God’s arrangement was almost two thousand years ago.
Read MoreSlow Down!
Part of the solution is to pursue the benefits of solitude and silence found in times of obscurity. For the first time in seven years, I took six weeks off one summer. No preaching, no writing, no counseling, no speaking engagements . . . no nothing.
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