A LOOK AT END TIME PROPHECY THROUGH THE EYES OF AN UNWORTHY SERVANT

Daily Dig for February 28 Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt It is not at all a question of being better than you were before. The new life means that forces for life can now be seen within you, that something of God and of heaven, something holy, can grow in you. It means we can actually see that it is no longer the sinful desires that have power, but Christ’s resurrection, and his life, which leads you toward wholeness. Source:  Christ Rising    

Daily Prayer for February 28 Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth. Psalm 57:10-11, NIV Dear Father in heaven,  we thank you that you have always been gracious to us, revealing your great goodness and power in ages past and in the present. In this revelation we live, O Lord our God. You are the almighty One, who works wonders on earth and who rules the heavens so that we can be blest and helped on our earthly paths. Let your goodness and your justice be revealed throughout all the world. Arise, O Lord our God. Let your light shine in us who believe in you. Let your light shine into the whole world. Let your name be glorified. You are indeed our Father, both in heaven and on earth. You give our lives security now and in eternity. Amen.  

Mature Faith HELP ONE ANOTHER ON THE PATH TO MATURE FAITH Thursday, February 28, 2019 | In “Pilgrims to the City of God,” musician and writer Michael Card sang: “Pilgrims of passion, we follow the One Who holds out a cross and a crown. We travel a dark road that has but one Light, For we have here no lasting town. And sometimes we run by the power of His might. On our own at the best we can plod. What we hopefully look for is just beyond sight. We are pilgrims to the city of God.” As pilgrims, we’re not alone. We’re on this journey with a worldwide community of believers. To conclude his epistle, James encourages us to help one another on the path to mature faith. The path is not an easy one. It’s filled with trials, troubles, and temptations. The pleasures of the world beckon. Satan tries to use our sinful desires to entrap us. We continually need wisdom, humility, and self-control. Yet through perseverance and endurance our faith can grow to wholeness and completeness. There a...

February 28, 2019 Living in Freedom Romans 6:1-14 When Eve accepted Satan’s offer of greater independence from God, do you think she experienced more freedom? The answer is obvious. She, Adam, and the entire human race became enslaved to sin from that point onward. What looked like a great deal ended in deadly bondage. Although Christ has set believers free from slavery to sin, we, like Eve, oftentimes long for the “freedom” to do what we want. But whenever we give in to sinful desires, we’re behaving like slaves instead of living as free children of God. He’s given us the Holy Spirit, who empowers us to say no to sin if we’ll just yield to His leadership. The consequences of reverting to our old ways are devastating. We’ll sink deeper into bondage to sin, lose the peace and joy of fellowship with Christ, grieve the Holy Spirit, and find ourselves under the disciplining hand of the Father. We can also miss out on the blessing of helping to advance His kingdom—by falling in...

FEBRUARY 26, 2019 Has Your Hope in God Changed You? Article by  Matt McCullough Pastor, Nashville, Tennessee “Sojourners and exiles.” When Peter wrote his first letter to new believers living in Asia Minor, that’s how he addressed them. Not that they had relocated. For all we know, they were living in the same homes in the same towns that they’d always lived in. They hadn’t moved. But they had become resident aliens — living in one country, belonging to another. What exactly made them aliens? How were they meant to stand out? Christians aren’t set off by a specific sort of clothing. We don’t have our own styles of music. We don’t have our own language or even a distinct way of talking. We don’t belong to a specific class or ethnicity. We don’t have unique dietary restrictions. We don’t all live in or hail from a specific geographical area. We aren’t defined or distinguished by any of the things that normally mark off one people from another. So, what is i...

FEBRUARY 26, 2019 He Sold All His Pearls for One Article by  David Mathis Executive Editor, desiringGod.org Jesus told a one-sentence parable about a man who “sold all that he had.” He was a merchant who found something so  precious  that it far surpassed even the sum of all the other treasures he held dear. The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. ( Matthew 13:45–46 ) One supremely precious pearl. One single pearl of exceedingly great value. So great, in fact, so precious, that he sold everything, including all his other fine pearls, to buy this one surpassingly great pearl. Jesus Taught in Twos Jesus pairs this parable with another one-sentence lesson about treasure hidden in a field ( Matthew 13:44 ). Jesus often does this in his teaching: pairing two illustrations, each with their individual emphases, to make the same genera...

FEBRUARY 14, 2011 Willing God’s Will as a Way of Knowing Christ’s Word Resource by  John Piper   Scripture:  John 7:1–24     Topic:  Knowing God’s Will We have already devoted one sermon to this passage of Scripture. So let me walk us through it until we get to the portion that needs more focus, especially verses 17 and 18. The title of this message is taken from  John 7:17 : “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God.” I remember back to my college days when verse 17 landed on me with great astonishment. Willing is the prerequisite of knowing? Really? I thought you had to know the truth of Christ before you could let him shape your will. How can Jesus say, “Before you can know if Christ is true, you have to will God’s will”? There are very profound things for us to learn here about our own soul, and our knowing and our willing and how they relate to each other. That is where we are going....