Monthly Archives: April 2021

How to Know If God Loves You

Christians love because of who God is, but also (this is the second of the three reasons St. John gives in 1 John 4:7-12) because of what God has done. Verses 9 and 10 state: “By this the love of … Continue reading

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The Love of Your Life: Light, Fire, and Love

In 1 John 4:7-12, the Apostle of Love gives three reasons why Christians love each other. First, they love because of who God is (vv. 7-8). Second, they love because of what God has done (vv. 9-11). And third, we … Continue reading

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The Love of Your Life: The Three Tests

In St. John’s first letter, readers are given three self-tests that can make clear whether or not a person belongs to Christ and shares the life of the age to come. This, he says is why he wrote the letter: … Continue reading

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Why I Took the COVID-19 Vaccine

I’ve noticed that many people who fear the virus do not fear the vaccine and many who fear the vaccine do not fear the virus. I refuse to fear either. I wear a mask when necessary because our governing authorities have required it, because I want to protect others, and because doing so does not require me to disobey God. But I do not wear a mask because I fear contracting the virus. Continue reading

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Christian Hope: Does It Differ from Optimism?

He then told me something – and it was hard for him to talk, so I had to listen closely – that I have never forgotten. He told me that the last two months – since he had come over to Jesus’s side – had been the two best months of his life. I looked at him in wonder. Here was a man from whom everything had been taken. His former life was gone. His world was a bed. His body was a prison. And the last two months had been the best time of his life.

How was that possible? What had happened? Continue reading

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8 Things Hope Does for the Believer (part 2)

My son Kevin and I were once fishing in Quebec from a boat that was anchored about 100 yards above a small waterfall. (I say small, but it probably dropped 30 feet over a course of a couple of hundred yards.) Without that anchor, the current would have carried us into pain and loss. And without hope, the strong currents of this age will carry you and your family where you do not want to go. Continue reading

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8 Things Hope Does for Us (According to Scripture)

Hopelessness makes work seem pointless, but hope has the opposite effect. It is no wonder that the New Testament’s most hopeful chapter closes with these words: “Stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58). You know that when you have hope. Continue reading

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Hope – I Need Somebody (Hope- Not Just Anybody)

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“I Believe in the Forgiveness of Sins”

Many people find the extravagant breadth of Christian forgiveness objectionable. Should even Hitler, if he has expressed “repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ,” be forgiven? What about the sexual predator? The murderer?

I have had to be clear about this in my own mind. The forgiveness of sins is easy enough to believe when you are sitting in a church pew. It is another matter when you are sitting in a jail cell with a man accused of molesting a two-year-old child or a woman who shot her sleeping husband and then decapitated him so she could be with another man. In such situations, could I honestly say that I believe in the forgiveness of sins?

Yes. I have been able to believe in the forgiveness of sins – even in those cells – because I believe in the God of Jesus. I am, however, in doubt about whether the people I came to see believed. They didn’t stop making excuses long enough for me to find out, but people who believe in the forgiveness of sins make confession, not excuses. Continue reading

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Faith Is Work

Amy Carmichael, said: “The tests are always unexpected things, not great things that can be written up, but the common little rubs of life, silly little nothings, things you are ashamed of minding [at all]. Yet they can knock a … Continue reading

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