While reading various commentaries and devotionals, here are some statements worth saving and thinking about.
Sin will take you where you don’t want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, cost you more than you can afford to pay, deafen your ears to the HolySpirit, and blind you to things of God.
Remember—God is always very near and working on our behalf. When we see immediate answers to our prayers, we should rejoice. When He doesn’t answer immediately, we should trust. The time we spend in prayer is precious because we are entering into and recognizing the presence of a God for whom nothing is impossible. Give Him time to work!
Paul said we labor and strive “according to His power, which mightily works within [us].” We are not striving alone or even side-by-side with God. Instead, we have God’s power working in us and through us to accomplish His purpose.
We are not born into this world spiritually neutral. The Bible says we come into this world separated from God. Yet He instigated a plan to restore that broken relationship.
There is no good news unless you understand the bad news. What you believe about sin determines what you believe about salvation. And Paul didn’t mince words. He wrote, “You were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds” (v. 21). You cannot fully appreciate what Jesus has done for you until you understand the desperate condition we are all in apart from Christ.
The only reason to know God’s will is so you can obey it for the purpose of honoring and glorifying Jesus Christ in all you think, say, and do. It is God’s will for us to trust, follow, obey, cling to, and rely upon Him, and to love others, be generous, help the widows and orphans, be joyful, rejoice, patient, and proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Many people today are discontent with traditional religious beliefs, so they’re constructing their own faith. Their beliefs are a curious blend of two parts Bible, one part pop psychology, and one part prejudice, sprinkled with a dash of superstition. Even many Christians today are engaging in what I call “religion by mathematics”: they add to what God has said in His Word, or they subtract anything they find distasteful or restrictive. They might reject what the Bible says about hell or sexual morality.
The starting place for knowing the will of God is knowing the Word of God. Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” It is impossible to apply God’s Word in your life if you don’t know God’s Word. In Hosea 4:6, God said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” You can never know God’s will apart from God’s Word.
Noah did not have to shut the door to keep anyone out of the ark; God alone did it. After the same pattern, it is never the duty of God’s servants to disqualify people from salvation. If the door is to be shut, God will shut the door. God’s servants may warn, but God holds final judgment – not man.
Some sort of comfort may, for a time, be derived from false trust in the worldly, but it is an empty comfort – and great is its grief when the failure is discovered to the soul.
