'But I Say to You' (Part Four): Divorce
Summary: The etymology of divorce from the 14th century from Anglo-Norman French and Latin roots, emphasize "diverting" or turning from or turning from one course to another, ending insurmountable conflict rather than to cleave in two. Even though s... 

Christ's Mission Statement
Summary: A mission statement of a company is a short sentence used to explain its purpose for being, defining the company's ethics, culture, and agenda, enabling its employees to align their goals with the company. Luke 4:16-21 and Mark 1:14-15, statements fr... 

Do Not Judge
Summary: Judging is hardwired into the human nervous system; if we stop judging or evaluating, we will die. The thousands of decisions we make every day give us discernment enabling us to act. Judgment may encompass legal or judicial decisions, natural or inn... 

Impediments to Sanctification
Summary: Accomplishing great or noteworthy things is impossible without impediments; if it was not hard or difficult, it was not noteworthy. It seems as if the whole universe is against attaining the image of Jesus Christ, but we have been given a mandate to ... 

Jesus on the Holy Spirit
Summary: Jesus instructs about the function of the Holy Spirit to carry out God's work, including inspiring one to speak the words of God as a witness and to cast out demons and resist the power of Satan. To deliberately attribute these powers to the Devil (t... 

Jesus the Door
Summary: Our culture has accumulated a large reservoir of superstitions, many of which revolve around the door. Which door to use on which occasions, the color of the door, the proper side of the building to install the door, and whether it should swing in or... 

John 3:16: Does God Really Love the World?
Summary: God does not love everybody equally. Nowhere does He tell us to prefer the world of the ungodly, adopting the pagan customs of the world's religions. Though God commands us to love our enemies, He does not tell us to be kindly affectionate to them. T... 

Love Thy Neighbor (Part 1)
Summary: Loving God with all our heart and loving our neighbor as ourselves cannot be separated. One cannot obey one command and ignore the other without having violated both. We need to be a neighbor to the needy crossing our path. Christian living requires ... 

Private Religion
Summary: Over the years, the godless Hollywood movie moguls have enjoyed creating a stereotype or caricature of a religious zealot, sadly having a plentitude of real material to draw from, including the glossolalia performed by charismatic evangelicals. Every... 

Repentance
Summary: A major focus of John the Baptist's ministry was a call to repentance and turning to righteousness, a focus that Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul reinforced and magnified. In mainstream Protestantism, repentance has fallen out of favor and has been ... 

The Door of the Sheep
Summary: Jesus Christ, as the door to the sheepfold, fulfills the following functions: (1) Provides access to salvation, (2) provides protection, keeping predators out, (3) provides a boundary separating us from the world, (4) provides a venue for fellowship ... 

The Five Paraklete Sayings
Summary: The Holy Spirit is the essence, mind, and power of God and Christ in us, providing us assistance and counsel. Many of the definitions of parakletos, a verbal adjective in the masculine gender, connote distinctive legal or judicial dimensions: advocat... 

The Last Words of Jesus Christ
Summary: Both foes and friends of Jesus realized that He, having come as God incarnate, brought unusual insight and wisdom with authority and ethos not found among the religious leaders. Having become composed of flesh, Jesus could experience the same pulls a... 

The Prayers of Jesus
Summary: Even as as a craftsman could not function without the tools of his trade, a Christian cannot function without spiritual tools or a spiritual instructional manual. We have to learn to use the spiritual tools God has given us, including prayer. We need... 

The Pure in Heart
Summary: Those who had the privilege of seeing God in the flesh did not attain the spiritual fulfillment that those called with the gift of the Holy Spirit later received. Even though what Jesus did in His short ministry could not fill all the books in the wo... 

The Teaching of Jesus and Prophecy
Summary: God's called-out ones are so different from 'mainstream Christianity' that we have been branded as a crazy cult out of touch with the truth. Actually, members of God's Church are entirely in touch with the truth, assured that prophecies in God's Word... 

Why Did the Jews Hate Jesus?
Summary: When Jesus came to His Own people, the sects of Judah (e.g., the Herodians, Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes) rejected Him to a man; even His Own siblings could not accept His teachings. Yet, crowds of common people flocked to His healing ministry. T... 

Worry and Seeking the Kingdom
Summary: Worry is a wired-in proclivity of carnal human nature, an entity that the prince and power of the air has programmed in a perpetual state of discontent and distrust in God's purposes for us. Pessimism and stress can and will kill us over time. Our Lo... 




 
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