Grains of Sand

Reading: Romans 12-14 In the days of the early church, the followers of Jesus expected the imminent return of the Lord. In part that explains the urgency they felt as they spread the Gospel to the far corners of their world. The Lord had left them a commission, a task to fulfill, and they were certain that the time was short in which to do what Jesus had asked of them. The imminent return of the Lord is something that has been preached, taught, sung about, and argued over, for centuries. These days we hardly hear a whisper about it. Those who fought over pre-, post-, and A-, have mostly gone on to heaven where they could now care less exactly how the Lord is going to return. We don’t sing much about heaven or about the Second Coming. With the aid of modern technology we live in a fantasy world where someone, somewhere, will let us know via Skype or FACEBOOK when all the nations of the world have heard the Gospel and then we can worry about getting our house in order for the L...

I'm running a few days behind because, well, I'm running. The demands of this week have been super overwhelming but I couldn't pass up this verse coupled with a quiet Sunday morning. " If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever " —John 14:15, 16. I have an ongoing debate with one of the ladies in my Bible Study group about self-proclaimed Christians who show absolutely no signs of belonging to Christ (I guess you know from my use of the word "self-proclaimed" what I think on the subject!). Jesus is extremely clear about how to discern if someone is what they proclaim themselves to be. The person who truly loves Him, ie. a genuine believer, will obey Him. Sure there will be slips into the muddy puddles of sin, but for a follower of Christ those will be more exception than rule. This is a theme that Jesus amplified throughout those last moments with His disciples be...