Title: God so loved the world
God’s love for the world is the strongest evidence that there is life only on earth. Where there is no life, God’s love would have no significance.
Material things have never warranted God’s affection, and must not ours.
Title: More harm than good
When the factions, the delineation between the rich and the poor, become shamefully marked in the economy of a congregation, the body writhes under the stigma of divisions and strife.
In this atmosphere, no one benefits from the flow of spiritual nourishment that is aimed at promoting growth and unity, which, to the Lord, are like the dew of Hermon falling, falling even on the mountains of
Title: The whole duty of man
Consider not a man happy until you’ve heard his last words.
Don’t conclude a man to be contented after winning a boxing championship, the lottery, or after being administered a Botox shot.
If he can afford not to serve God, he doesn’t know what happiness is. The full meaning of man’s existence is in the wholeness in his life of who God is (to be feared) and what he requires (to be obeyed).
Title: According to his purpose
As the showbread was kept continually before God’s presence in the tabernacle, so our agreement to the image of the Lord Jesus is more important than our quest for our daily sustenance.
We have to be aware that even suffering or persecution is essential in exhibiting the hand of God in uniting all the elements of life till Jesus is formed in us.
Title: Not by works
The perception that salvation can be gained by good works (i.e. observance of the law), is not represented in the Scriptures. Clearly, the problem is sin, and it had to be taken away before man can receive eternal life. The Bible reveals the solution to sin:
1] The Perfect Sacrifice (the life of Jesus)
(Leviticus 5:18; 2 Corinthians 5:21)
2] The death of the Perfect Sacrifice
(the death of Jesus)
(Hebrews 9:22; 1 Corinthians 15:3,4; 1 Peter1:18,19;
1 Peter 2:24)
3] The Perfect Sacrifice must resurrect Himself
(the resurrection of Jesus)
(1 Corinthians 15:14-17; John 2:19)
Title: This is how you should pray
Rather than view prayer as an act of communication with God to ask his favor, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to immerse ourselves in conversation with the Creator in order to know him more and more? In fact, prayer involves us in the character of the Lord Jesus. If our attitude were right in seeking Him, we shall come out of prayer with a touch of holiness, a sense of humility, an awareness of service and responsibility toward the needs of others, a determination to run away from sin, and an unflinching dependence of God.
Title: The nail marks in his hands
How would we like to be remembered? For sure not for the sins we’ve committed, our weaknesses, our failures in life. How about being remembered and identified for the marks and the scars of sacrifice and service? A Christian has to have a record of selfless servanthood so people would be persuaded of the authenticity of our faith, our testimony, our God.
Title: A solitary place
Whenever the Lord beckons us to a place of solitude, he is reassuring us that he is all ears to our prayers. The stillness of the place of quiet is for God. He wants no distractions while he listens to our groans, our tears, our fears, as we rehearse to him each step and turn of our journey in this pilgrimage called life.
The Lord is listening intently.
And he is listening to me alone.
And that is enough.
Title: I will follow you
There are two ways by which we could follow the Lord Jesus: accompany him or be like him.
Jesus knows the reason why we are following him. If we are doing so just to be an escort, because we saw the benefits of the miraculous meals and the healing of physical ailments, we would not last the entire journey. Simply said, we would succumb to the demands of his life, where even the natural amenities, like a bed to sleep on, would not always come naturally.
We are to follow the Lord Jesus, not merely as a travel companion, but to be like him.
Title: Called Christians
We are proud to be called “Christians,” but do we really appreciate the implication of that label?
To better understand the consequence of that title, let us replace the word “Christian” with its definition: “little Jesus”.
I am a little Jesus!
Need I say more?
Title: The disciples’ prayer
Looking into the depth of the disciples’ prayer, one would be amazed to know how little of material things we need to survive. This is not surprising, because a child of God who binds himself to the authority of the Father in the outpouring of the soul, in the manner, intensity, and purpose for which the Lord Jesus had sought the Father’s face, will have to become conscious of the spiritual nature of prayer to which the Father responds with our righteousness and the kingdom in view. Yes, we will be blessed with our daily needs, but also receive a greater spiritual blessing, which is the capacity to know, love, and serve God.
Title: Always learning
God is not the subject of study, but the object of love. In vain do people subject themselves under the influence of religious luminaries who themselves can never recognize that true revelation from the Lord can come only through love, and that love for God.
Title: The good news about Jesus
Everything about the Lord Jesus is beneficial to those who encounter him in the gospel. His was a life that consummated the perfect symmetry of creation and the natural course of love. Nothing about his person can be rejected as false; nothing in him was premature or tentative. And even in the wrath of his anger he can be praised for his judgment.
Title: We have this ministry
The ministry is not a right, but a privilege. It is not unlike a driver’s license that is issued to a qualified motorist who has pledged to abide by restrictions and rules of land transportation. The license remains government property until the termination of its validity or revocation for gross violation of regulations.
So a minister of the gospel stands subject to the Scriptures he teaches, not rule above it, because he is in leadership only by the pleasure of God, who is the only abiding authority.
Title: All you who are weary
When did the Lord Jesus ever place a burden on the shoulders of those who followed him?
We have become a burden to the Lord instead, with our self-confidence, selfishness, our rebellion, and even at the right hand of the Father, Jesus never ceases to carry the weight of our disobedience by pleading our case in his name.
Title: Before the world began
What was more mind-boggling than the creation of the heavens and the earth, man and angels? It was the moment before the world began, when nothing yet existed.
We are now aware of the vast emptiness separating heavenly bodies; the travel of the universe through time; that nothing in the cosmos could travel faster than the speed of light, that outer space is warped. We were amazed. We were perplexed.
But come to imagine the absence of matter, time, and space, just at the threshold of creation. There was only the eternal. But where was the everlasting when there was no space?
Now we are no longer only amazed and perplexed. We are now also afraid, fearful of the Being who exists in Himself, whose Word spoke matter, time, and space into existence.
And this Being we worship, we call Immanuel.
Title: Foxes have holes
As a Christian, I expect more in life than a grand villa in an exclusive subdivision; a low, fast sports car, a huge deposit in the bank, shares of stocks in a golf club, a comfortable bed, etc.
More than anything else, I expect to be able to serve God and his people with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my strength.
Title: Lord, if it’s you
Would we doubt the Lord Jesus overriding the laws of nature had we just witnessed a miraculous meal from five loaves and two fishes? Of course we would. We are no better than the disciples.
If Jesus were alive today, are we going to crucify him again? Of course we would. Actually, we wouldn’t recognize him at all. In fact, the Lord Jesus wouldn’t recognize our Christianity today. We have become like the world.
The Lord Jesus was in the world, but the world knew him not.
Title: This is how we know what love is
What love means and can accomplish is not without a historical and experiential model in the life of our Lord Jesus, so that our understanding of what love is rests solely in the demonstration of the ultimate act of sacrifice of ordaining our lives for our brothers, and similar acts of lesser magnitude. It can never be self-serving as it must not remain head knowledge. Love is a daily dose of action that may take us from an ordinary performance of mercy to the definitive surrender of mortal existence that others may live.
The whole year long
there are more private day
that we could covet
or let go
in public places,
but love
is the only sure way
out of our selves
and into each other.