Category: Bible

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Bible

God Is A Great Story-Teller

We all love stories. And God is great at providing amazing stories. And He has even written you into the story!photo of old books - reminding us that we love a good story

By calling God a story-teller, I’m not indicating the Bible is fiction. Too often, we’ve said something like “that person is telling stories” to indicate that they are lying. But a good story-teller is able to make a true account into a great story – not by embellishing it with fiction, but with tying the story together in a masterful way. Some are better at this than others. And God is simply the best!

As we read the true accounts of history in the Bible, we become amazed with how God unfolds His story of love and redemption and rescue. For example, we can see masterful story-telling in the story of Moses. In the story of the birth of Moses, we see that God is in control. And this should teach us that our great God is sovereign, and we can trust Him completely.

In the opening chapters of Exodus we find that the reigning Pharaoh has commanded that every Hebrew boy that is born is to be thrown into the Nile River and drowned. But Moses’s family places him in a basket in the river. The command of Pharaoh caused the family to try to hide Moses, and the best place they could come up with is the very river that was supposed to be the place of his death.a picture of the story of Moses in a basket in the Nile River

When Pharaoh’s daughter comes down to the river to bathe, she catches a glimpse of the basket, and she pulls the baby out of the river to raise him in the luxury of the palace. The family that had ordered the death of all the baby boys in the river pulls a baby boy out of the river and saves him from death. In a sense, Moses is resurrected to life. And this baby boy will be the one God will use to rescue His people from their bondage and slavery in Egypt.

How ironic that the ruler who says “drown all the infant boys in the river,” has his own daughter rescue God’s chosen spokesperson from the very same river! And on top of that, she then gives Moses back to his mother to wean him before bringing him to the palace to be raised. This shows how God is sovereign and is actively at work in so many ways.

Later on, God will tell us the story of another baby boy born (in Bethlehem) who a new king (Herod) orders to be killed. But instead of dying in infancy, God rescues this infant too, and He is the one God uses to rescue His people from their bondage and slavery to sin.a picture of the story of the birth of Jesus in the manger

This rescuing of His people occurs through Jesus’s death on the cross. And then Jesus is resurrected to life, proving to us all that He is the Savior of the world.

God’s story of love for us is remarkable. So why don’t we trust Him more completely?

Whatever you are worrying about today, turn it over to the sovereign control of God. If we trust the heart of God, then we can leave every worry behind. He is the master story-teller, and you have been written into this beautiful story!

Thank Him for rescuing you today and including you in His story of love and grace and redemption!

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Bible

Bound to the Word of God. (Tied, Restricted, and Restrained.)

Bound means tied up. Binding restraints and restricts. It means we can’t do certain things because we are tied to something else. If you physically tie me — bind me — to my chair, I can’t go for a walk. I can’t drive my car. I can’t go to work. Physically binding me would keep me in one fixed location.photo of a ship tied to the dock - bound

But we can also be bound in other ways. I am bound by my vows to my wife, and therefore I am emotionally, mentally, and physically united to her. She and I chose this binding to each other. We willingly restricted ourselves to each other. I am not able to be tied to another woman nor even to be tempted toward another, unless I loosen the bonds that I chose when I said “I do” to Paige.

So… what are you bound to? The Old Testament prophet Ezra bound himself to God’s Word. And we are also to be bound by God’s Word.

When we become a Christian, we say that the Bible will be the standard by which we are bound. Which means we will be restricted from certain thoughts and actions because of choosing to be tied to the commands within this Book. If you think all this binding sounds restrictive… It is, but it is restrictive for our good.

We have a good Heavenly Father, who has defined what should bind us. He indicates that the binding in marriage of one man to one woman for life is for our good. Paige and I believed that to be true because God said it, but now we have also lived it. This May, we will have experienced the truth of the goodness of this binding for 25 years. We have discovered that God’s Word about binding is definitely true in this area of life.

And God indicates that the binding of ourselves to His Word is always for our good. I want you to believe it because God said it is true. But I also want you to experience it.picture of a Bible - to which we are bound as Christians

At a Pastor’s Conference, Seminary President Al Mohler said:

We are bound by God’s Word.

We are in the midst of a culture that is embracing and accelerating sexual immorality and the whole general environment of immorality. It is becoming institutionalized, and it is celebrating rebellion against the Word of God.

And yet here we are, bound by the Word of God.

Does your congregation know that you as a pastor are bound by Scripture? Do they understand that there are things you must preach simply because God has revealed these things in His Word?

Does your congregation feel bound by Scripture? Do your church members understand that when Scripture speaks, God speaks? And that when God speaks, it is the voice of God? And that they are bound by it?

The Bible is the very Word of God, and it binds me for my benefit.

And as a believer you are also restricted and restrained by Scripture – tied to think, speak, and act in ways that God commands in it.

I hope that you will set your heart to love being bound by God’s Word – because it is a binding that is for your good.

Is there any command(s) from God’s Word that was hard for you to obey at the moment, but now you realize that obeying it was good for you?

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The Most Important Book You Could Ever Read

The Most Important Book you could ever read is one that has influenced more people over more time than any other book in existence. It has influenced more literature, more morals, and more life-changes than any other book ever written. And of course, you know I am talking about the Bible.

The Bible is the most widely-read book. It is the best-selling book of all time. It remains the best-selling book every year. It has influenced literature, history, and lives. I won’t go into all the reasons for trusting the reliability of the Bible, but many skeptics have done so and have discovered the Bible to be the reliable document that Christianity has claimed it to be for 2000 years. There are many good apologetics websites (and people) that can help guide someone who wants to study more in this area. The ministries of Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, and Ravi Zacharias are all great places to start.
picture of the Bible - the Most Important Book ever written
I’m going to assume that you believe that the Bible is God’s Word to humanity to reveal Himself to us. That makes the Bible the Most Important Book you could ever read. The question is, “Are you spending any time reading this Most Important Book?”

I continue talking about the importance of reading the Bible to people around me, including my church family. But for some people, the idea of delving into the Bible seems a bit daunting.

I’m not quite sure why we have this feeling of inadequacy. Certainly, many of us read multiple novels, autobiographies, and history books over the course of a year. Adding up all the pages for most people will probably exceed the number of pages in the Bible. But perhaps you want a bit more hard data on what it takes to read the Most Important Book …

Well, most of us read at about the same rate that it takes to read out loud. So an audio Bible program that tells us how many hours it lasts will give us the amount of time it takes to speak the entire Bible out loud. The ESV audio Bible is just under 75 hours. An NIV one I saw was just over 79 hours. If we divide these out by 365 days, then that is between 12.3 and 13 minutes per day to read through the whole Bible.

Do you have 13 minutes a day this next year to learn what God has to say to you from His Word?
Do you have 13 minutes a day to read from the Most Important Book ever written?

Or if you haven’t read the New Testament through before, then how about making that your plan for this year? If you would give 5.5 minutes a day, you’d read through the entire New Testament in 6 months!

Isn’t that remarkable? That if you’d commit to six minutes a day, you could read through the entire New Testament twice in a year!

If you have never read the New Testament, it is time to do it. Start today!
And if you have already read the complete New Testament but you haven’t yet completed the whole Bible, then make the commitment to give 13 minutes a day to hear directly from God as you read His Inspired Word!

You won’t be sorry that you spent time studying the Most Important Book ever written.

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Bible

The Minimum Requirements of Being a Christian (Another Examination of the Nine Essentials)

So in my last post, I indicated that there are 9 Essentials of Christianity. These are the minimum requirements one must believe to be a Christian. Here is the list again:

1. Our Bible as Inspired
2. Monotheism (There is only One God)
3. the Trinity
4. the Deity of Christ (Jesus is God)
5. the Virgin Birth (Jesus is Man)
6. the Death of Christ for the payment of sins
7. the Resurrection of Christ
8. Salvation by Grace thru faith (Not by works)
9. Salvation is only thru Jesus

Non-Christian religions deny one or more of these essential doctrines. And because these are Essentials, then if a group or a person holds to all but one, then they are not Christian. Really? Just missing one knocks them out? That seems so exclusive.

True, but let’s think about something else to make the point. This isn’t a perfect analogy, but I think it will make the point about minimum requirements …
      What makes a fish a fish? A fish is defined by a number of essentials: cold-blooded, vertebrates (having an inner skeletal system), aquatic respiration (extracting oxygen from water), that primarily live in water. We can’t reduce it further (and we might even have to add a few more). But if an animal is missing just 1 of these essentials, then that animal is not a fish.

An animal might live in the water, but if it is warm-blooded, it is a mammal such as a dolphin or a whale. An animal might breath through gills, but if it does not have a vertebrate inner skeleton, it will be something such as a snail or a crab. For an animal to be a fish, they must meet some minimum number of essentials – which dolphins, crabs, and turtles do not meet. They live like fish in some ways, but they are not fish.

In the same way, there are people who have some of the beliefs of Christians, but who reject one or more essentials. But to be a Christian requires that you meet some minimum number of essentials. I have listed nine.

a photo of a boy reading the Holy Bible as a reminder that there is a minimum number of essential requirements to be a ChristianSomeone asked me about the necessity of the “Bible as Inspired” as an Essential of Christianity. The reason I provide this one as the first essential doctrine of Christianity is that if we do not believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God, then any “essentials” that we draw from the Bible cannot be held to as absolutely essential, because we wouldn’t be able to know if they are God’s Word or just fabricated by man. Therefore, the first essential is to declare our standard, our guide. A Christian holds to the essential standard that the Scriptures we hold as “The Holy Bible” are God’s revelation of Himself to man, written down by divinely-inspired men. Otherwise, I do not think we can logically have any discussion about the other essentials.

Certainly there are other important doctrines that teach us what to believe and how to live, but these are the ones that are indicated by Scripture to be essential requirements. Non-Christian religions and cults will deny one or more of these essential doctrines. If we can hold these 9 essentials in our minds, then we will be able to test other belief systems to find out if they are Christian or not.

And if you would like to look up some Bible verses that relate to the different essential requirements, here are a few to get you started:
1. Our Bible as Inspired (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:19-21)
2. Monotheism (Gen. 1:1; Deut. 4:35; Isa. 43:10-11)
3. the Trinity (Gen. 1:26; Gal. 4:4-6; Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14)
4. the Deity of Christ (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23; John 1:1-36, 8:58, 10:30-38)
5. the Virgin Birth (Matt. 1:18-25; Phil. 2:5-8; 1 Cor. 15:21-22; Heb 2:16-17)
6. the Death of Christ for the payment of sins (Rom. 5:12-21; Heb. 10:4; Ps. 51:5; Rom. 3:23, 6:23)
7. the Resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. 15:1-19; Rom. 10:9; Matt. 28:1-10)
8. Salvation by Grace thru faith (Eph. 2:1-10; Luke 18:26-27)
9. Salvation is only thru Jesus (John 14:4-6; Acts 4:1-12)

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Bible

The Essentials of Christianity: Examining Christianity’s Differences from other Religions

a photo of the page from a dictionary for the word "definition" to point out the need for knowing the essentials of ChristianityWhat defines Christianity? What are the essentials? And if we can determine them, what should we do with them? Well, if you make up your mind about any given issue and then you encounter a Biblical truth that is contrary to what you believe, then you have a choice to make: 1) reject the Bible and cling to your belief, or 2) cling to the Bible and change your mind. What do you do when this happens in your life? When this happens, many people determine some way to justify their own beliefs and therefore reject what the Bible says.

It certainly sounds nice to say things like, “If God is love, then a loving God wouldn’t send anyone to hell.” But that isn’t what the Bible says. What should we believe? Our feelings or the actual words in the Bible? Which do you think is more trustworthy?

It sounds more pleasing to the ear to hear something like, “If God is love, then there must be many ways to God, and Christianity is just one of the ways. It can’t be the only way.” But that isn’t what the Bible says. Again, what should we believe? Our feelings which can change with the wind or the Bible that has remained constant?

Jesus said that He was the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one could come to the Father, except through faith and belief in Him. If that is the case, then Christianity is an exclusive religion. It excludes all of those who will not come to God through Jesus. Therefore, the Christian religion clearly states that belief in Jesus is the only way to salvation. And if our religion is the only way because Jesus is the only way, then we need to know what is so unique about Jesus so that we can explain it to others.

So, what makes Christianity unique? What are the essential aspects of Christianity that set it apart from other religions?

My last two posts led up to this post, as they dealt with: “how do you know what is right theology?”
(If you missed them, you can click on them here:
      Doubt: How Do I Know that Christianity is True and Right?
      How do you know that what you are hearing and being taught is truth? )
Jumping off from what we began in those posts, let me now share with you the Christian Essentials.

The original lists that I worked from were found at CARM.org and GotQuestions.org, as well as from a fellow pastor.

Nine Essentials of Christianity
1. The Bible as Inspired
2. Monotheism (There is only One God)
3. the Trinity (God in Three Persons)
4. the Deity of Christ (Jesus is Fully God)
5. the Virgin Birth (Jesus is Fully Man)
6. the Death of Christ for the payment of sins
7. the Resurrection of Christ
8. Salvation by Grace thru faith, and Not by works
9. Salvation is only thru Jesus

I’ll share a bit more about this next time.
And while you wait for the next post, maybe you can look over this list and see if you think there is something else missing from the Essentials? Certainly there are other important truths in the Bible, but is there anything else that is Essential to being a Christian?

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