The Periodically

image from lifevesting.com An honest examination of one’s self will inevitably reveal the many flaws that characterize human beings in the present life. We are sluggish and sloppy, careless and calloused, ignorant and inadequate, negligent and needy. Yes, we are people fraught with weakness. Even believers, those who have been forever changed through the miracle of regeneration by the Holy Spirit (John 3:8), redeemed by the blood of Christ (Heb 9:12), and who are being kept by the power of God through faith (1 Pet 1:5), must readily confess the weakness of the flesh. Living the Christian life, we experience the tension that exists between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’. The ‘already’ being that we have indeed been created anew through faith in Christ and thus are able to obey our Lord (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 5:25). The ‘not yet’ being the struggles we face in this life, clothed in earthly bodies and longing for future and final redemption (Rom 8:23). What hope is there for the bel...

Introduction Our IMAGE high school group has been discussing the topic of relationships and friendships over the past couple weeks. One of these topics was about having unsaved friends and how to interact with them. I'm very excited for our kids to be thinking about this more as we want to have a youth culture in our church that is reaching out to others with the good news of Christ and inviting them into our group to experience the love of Christ while partaking of our community within the church. Where do we get the Idea of Relationships? Relationships were started from the very beginning of time and actually even before that in eternity past. We see in Genesis 1:26 that the triune God has relationship with Himself and from that He creates a man who is meant for relationship in His image (Gen 1:17). That God made man both for relationship with Himself and with other as well (Gen 2:18). Relationship are from God and are "very good" (Gen 1:31). Take a look at Eccl...

I just got an email from someone who is going through a bible study workbook. She asked about the veracity of following statement:                “Every circumstance of life is to be accepted willingly and joyfully, without murmuring,                               complaint, or disappointment, much less resentment. There is no exception” She raises a very important question. This is a very strong and all-encompassing. My first thought was “Is that really true?” It came from a very respected source and I wanted to be very cautious before I responded. Because if this is in fact true, there’s a significant amount of sins committed by God’s people that are undetected. If this is true, I have a lot of soul-searching to do. So, what does the Bible have to say about disappointment? ...