A Christian is not merely a good person, a religious person, an Old Testament saint, or a church member, but one who has become a new creature in Christ — dead to sin and risen to new life through faith and baptism, a citizen of the…
Nothing can hurt us if we receive it as God teaches. No one can do us real harm if we remain faithful to God. The six categories of life experience that most commonly cause damage — temptation, sickness, pleasure, sorrow, slander, and the general experiences of…
Saving faith is never cheap or static; it always moves into concrete, costly obedience. Through Abraham and Rahab, James shows that faith which does not lay something real on the altar is dead and cannot save.
Everything in Christianity hangs on faith — “without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Heb. 11:6) — yet faith is one of the most misunderstood words in religion. Some make it a leap in the dark; some make it mere opinion; some make it a…
Pardon is not a vague benefit distributed in unspecified ways; it is a specific restoration to a specific condition, given through specific means authorized by the specific person who has the right to grant it. There are two laws of pardon: one for the alien sinner…
“Do they not blaspheme the honorable name by which you have been called?” (James 2:7). The name by which the church has been called is the name of Christ. The names the New Testament gives to those who bear that name — disciples, servants, soldiers, saints…
The word of God is not one power among others; it is the power through which God has always worked — creating the cosmos, sustaining it, ending it, and in the interval producing the new creation of souls through the gospel. “The gospel is the power…
The word “worship” in some form occurs in the Bible 191 times — 113 times in the Old Testament and 78 times in the New Testament. That frequency alone establishes its importance. But frequency of occurrence does not tell us what worship is or whether any…
The conflicts we see in homes and churches are only the smoke. James reveals that the real war rages within the human heart. Selfish desires, when left unmortified, produce quarrels, corrupt prayer, and spiritual compromise. James 4:1–4 exposes the internal battle between flesh and Spirit and calls believers to reject friendship with the world and return to wholehearted loyalty to Christ.
“Keep me as the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings” (Ps. 17:8). David wrote that under pressure. Jesus said: “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand”…