The last night of December, a man many years old settled down late in his bed. Not being one to celebrate the new year’s arrival with all kinds of raucous festivities and with individuals he had never seen before, or ever desired to see again, he had chosen to just reflect on the memories, good…
Category: Self-righteousness
When Inner Self Exalts Over God—the Smug Elephant in the Room
Do you feel like God is a million miles away? Do you pray or cry out to Him and nothing appears to happen, or it seems like no one is listening? Have thoughts crossed your mind that God has abandoned you, leaving you on your own? We all tend to feel like this at some…
Only the Accuser Gains in Condemning
Job (rhymes with “robe”) in the Bible was trying to be as righteous before God as he could be. Yet when sudden calamity struck his life none of this counted as his friends gathered around him and condemned him, saying that it must have happened because of sin in his life. But Jesus said, “Judge…
Where’s The Center Point of Our Faith ?
If a plumb line was held next to our spiritual position with God, how far off would we be in relation to His straight standard? Our center point must always be Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross. If we lean in any direction toward anything other than Him, the faith we are ‘building’…
Persevere to Shun Complacent Faith
How often we believers in Christ easily become spiritually complacent in our walk with God. Throughout the Old Testament we find many examples of complacency where the Israelites took God for granted. As a result, God would withdraw and let them find out that they were operating on their own. Through defeat in a battle,…
A Clean Heart by Our Own Efforts Will Fail
Do you realize that God sees each one of us as a perfect, sparkling, precious jewel? We usually see ourselves as dirty and blemished, constantly trying by our own efforts to make ourselves shine, as we will see in the following narrative. And we go through all kinds of programs and rituals, yet in the…
Unleashing God’s Victory: How One Hornet Reveals His Unstoppable Power
Many times in our walk with God He will use something small, or even unseen, to bring about a great victory for His glory. One example of this occurred thousands of years ago, after the Israelites had crossed the Jordan River and were entering the land that God had promised for many years to give…
When Doing Good Works Has No Reward
This world is filled with people trying to make it in this life without God mostly through doing good works of some kind. Some physically work themselves to the point of death in an effort to live comfortably when they retire. Others put on a front that leads many to believe they have prospered and…
A Relationship is More Valuable Than Good Works
Do you ever felt like you are making great efforts to do all of the right things (or at least what you were told were the right things) to please God, yet He still seems distant or unreachable to you? Do you feel that you are missing something in this relationship with Christ? Do you…
Loving Our Self Over God Is Foolish
Stan just stood there, staring at the edge of the lake with a gaze of uncertainty, almost to the point of daydreaming. “Hey, Stan!” he heard his friend shout, “The bus is coming just up the road.” “Uh, yeah,” Stan replied, with some hesitancy. “I’ll be right there!” He reluctantly wandered back to the bus…
Does Favoritism Fulfill God’s Plan?
Did you ever have that one person (or group of people) in your life who seemed to be treated better than everyone else, someone who often left you in teeth-gritting anger? It would seem like, no matter how hard you tried, you could never get the special recognition you felt you deserved—whether at work, at…
Our Best Ambitions Are as Useless as Wet Sand
Have you ever thought about the fact that our own ambitions we do for God are much like building fine castles with handfuls of wet sand? They ultimately prove to be futile, without any lasting merit. It doesn’t matter how much work we do on our own to try to make ourselves right before God….
