John MacArtur – Grace to You
Although women have traditionally fulfilled supportive roles in serving the church and gained their greatest joy and sense of accomplishment from being wives and mothers, the feminist movement has successfully influenced many women to abandon these divinely ordained roles.
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Colossians chapter 4 verses 7 through 18, and this is the part of the epistle to the Colossians that nobody bothers to read. They read, basically, through verse 6 and then it’s all sort of personal data thrown in at the end and it’s easy to assume that this is the dull part of the book. That this is just the ending and a few little amenities that don’t really have anything to do with us because we haven’t got the faintest idea who that ‘first guy is and we’re not too sure it even matters. But it does matter.
Introduction
The Christian life is a battle. It is warfare on a grand scale.
Jesus’ ministry began with a battle against Satan that lasted forty days (Luke 4:2). As Jesus’ ministry drew to an end, Satan besieged Him again in the Garden of Gethsemane. He hit Him with such force that our Lord sweat great drops of blood (Luke 22:44). Those two accounts alone teach us that the battle may not become easier as we grow in obedience to God. If anything, Satan will intensify his efforts against those who continue effectively serving the Lord. But God has not left us defenseless.
In its simplest definition, discernment is nothing more than the ability to decide between truth and error, right and wrong. Discernment is the process of making careful distinctions in our thinking about truth. In other words, the ability to think with discernment is synonymous with an ability to think biblically.
John MacArthur from Grace to You
Freedom or slavery—what’s the distinguishing mark of Christianity? In a generation fixated on freedom, fulfillment, and autonomy, the vote has been cast early and often for freedom. But the Bible is abundantly clear—slavery is the heart of what it means to be a true Christian. It’s time to reassert this unpopular notion: true Christians are slaves of Christ.
CLASSIFICATION IS ONE OF THE MOST DIFFICULT of all tasks. Even in the realm of religion there are enough lights and shades to make it injudicious to draw too fine a line between men and men. If the religious world were composed of squares of solid black and solid white classification would be easy; but unfortunately it is not.
It is a grave error for us evangelicals to assume that the children of God are all in our communion and that all who are not associated with us are ipso facto enemies of the Lord. The Pharisees made that mistake and crucified Christ as a consequence.
With all this in mind, and leaning over backwards to be fair and charitable, there is yet one distinction which we dare make, which indeed we must make if we are to think the thoughts of God after Him and bring our beliefs into harmony with the Holy Scriptures. That distinction is the one which exists between two classes of human beings, the once-born and the twice-born. Continue reading
MOST OF THE WORLD’S GREAT SOULS have been lonely. Loneliness seems to be one price the saint must pay for his saintliness.
In the morning of the world (or should we say, in that strange darkness that came soon after the dawn of man’s creation) that pious soul, Enoch, walked with God and was not, for God took him; and while it is not stated in so many words, a fair inference is that Enoch walked a path quite apart from his contemporaries.
Another lonely man was Noah who, of all the antediluvians, found grace in the sight of God; and every shred of evidence points to the aloneness of his life even while surrounded by his people.
“The Night Watches”
“Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Where shall I flee from Your presence?” Psalm 139:7
The omnipresence of God! How baffling to any finite comprehension! To think that above us, and around us, and within us — there is Deity — the invisible footprints of an Omniscient, Omnipresent One! “His Eyes are in every place!” On rolling planets — and tiny atoms; on the bright seraph — and the lowly worm; roaming in searching scrutiny through the tracks of immensity — and reading the dark and hidden page of my heart! “All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do!”
John MacArthur From Strength for Today Grace to You
“Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory
and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that
is in the heavens and the earth; Thine is the dominion, O
Lord, and Thou dost exalt Thyself as head over all.”
– 1 Chronicles 29:11
God has unlimited power and ultimate control over everything.
Taken from CH Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening, 12 February, Evening
“He shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.” – John 14:16
John MacArthur at Grace to You
This morning in our study of God’s Word together we return to the letter of Paul to Philemon, the epistle to Philemon. This brief epistle of 25 short verses, one chapter, is a living lesson on forgiveness. And this is our third out of four looks at this little epistle and we again this morning will sit at the feet of Paul and learn how to forgive. You remember the first three verses gave us the introduction. Then verses 4-7 showed us the characteristics of someone who forgives. And now in verses 8 through 18 we come to the action of forgiveness itself. We’re going to be looking at the very issue of forgiveness.
Know Thy Enemy
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Are you ready to kill?
That’s a stark question, and it demands qualification, but killing is a regular part of the Christian life. There’s an aspect of being a Christian that’s downright violent.
You see, God commands us to hunt down and kill all remaining sin—to terminate it with extreme prejudice. Want proof? Here’s what Paul said in Romans 8:
So then, brethren, we are under obligation. Not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God (vv. 12-14)
John MacArthur
For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, and abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon You. –Ps. 86:5
I know a young man (we’ll call him Jim) who believes he was mistreated by afellow Christian several yearsago. There was a dispute about who was wrong in the incident. Jim brought the matter to the elders of his church for resolution. The elders attempted to investigate the matter but ultimately concluded there was insufficient evidence to determine who was at fault. It was one person’s word against the other’s, with no other witnesses. The elders finally advised both Jim and the other party to forgive one another and put the dispute behind them.
For the Love of His Truth 