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Joseph’s Secret to Success
Tucked away in his father’s blessing is an illustration that the blessings of the Lord are greater than anything we can imagine on this earth. One commentator has said, “It is the Old Testament equivalent to John 15:1-17 where Jesus taught His disciples to abide in the vine. Whether the Old or the New Testament, the secret of spiritual fruitfulness is union with the Lord God through Jesus Christ.”
“Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branches climb over a w …
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Walking in the Flesh
“The sinful mind is hostile to God” (Romans 8:7).
It is impossible for a person who does not know Jesus Christ as their Savior to please God.
Two different mindsets have two entirely different end results. One produces peace with God and the other hostility toward God. Everyone needs to ask a critical question of ourselves: Is my mind dominated by “sinful nature,” or is it under the control of the Holy Spirit?
The sinful mind is hostile toward God. That is the result of total ra …
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Sleepless Nights and Stressful Days
What do you do when the pressures of daily life assail and assault you?
Since the LORD God has saved you by His grace from beginning to end, why should you tremble before the lesser dangers of this life?
King David tells of an experience how he was able to lie down and sleep in the midst of a sudden danger occasioned by his son Absalom’s rebellion (2 Samuel 15-16).
“I lie down and sleep; I awake again, because the LORD sustains me. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up agai …
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Be Imitators of God
“Be imitators of God” (Ephesians 5:1).
Those words are startling, upsetting, impossible. It is “the ultimate ideal.”
“Be imitators of God.” There can be no higher standard than that. The apostle Paul boldly tells us if we are to be like God we must imitate Him.
How is it possible for us depraved sinners to possibly imitate the sovereign LORD of the universe?
Once we get over the initial shock we realize that as children we are to imitate our parents. We should behave like …
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Who can be against us?
To be very honest there are days when I don’t have to look very far over my shoulders to give you the answer. The Apostle Paul suggests a most violent opposition: tribulations, distress, persecutions, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, death, principalities, etc.
The devil himself, Satan, is a powerful enemy of every Christian. He is “a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). At times, like in the Garden of Eden, he calls God a liar, and at other times he is …
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Power to Obey
How many times have you herd the excuse, “But I am afraid I can’t live the Christian life”?
The badge of the true disciple of Jesus Christ is obedient faith.
Jesus told His disciples, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).
He has commanded us to go and make disciples of every nation. And when we are obedient He gives us the power to obey His command (Acts 1:8).
He gives us Himself, and in the giving of Himself He gives us all that we need to obey Him. …
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Wisdom for Trials
In the context of a discussion on trials in life the apostle James tells believers to ask God for wisdom to understand and use them for God’s glory.
Divine wisdom gives us the spiritual ability to view trials form God’s perspective. But not only does He help us to understand our suffering, He enables us to apply the wisdom to our trials.
“But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives …
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A New Creation, Not Yet Perfect
“The believer is a new man, a new creation, but he is a new man not yet made perfect,” observes John Murray.
The born again believer still has to deal with indwelling sin. He still sins even though he is growing in Christ likeness and is the subject of the progressive sanctification of the Holy Spirit.
The believer is being transfigured into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18).
The emphasis the apostle Paul makes in Romans 6:14, 17, 18-20 is there ha …
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Privileges of the Child of God
The apostle Paul makes it very clear, if we are saved, we are “in Christ.” If we are “in Christ,” He is in us and His life within us will inevitably turn us from sin to a life of righteousness.
God loved us and Jesus died for us so that we might be holy. “God saved us that we who believed on Christ, once lost in sin, might live a holy life.” This new union of the believer with Christ produces holiness.
There is no higher privilege in life than to bear the name of Jesus Christ a …
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Yes, But God
We are totally depraved sinners who cannot earn or merit in any way, a right relationship with God. Before I became a Christian, I was “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). I “walked according to the course of this world, according to the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience” (v. 2). I too “lived in the lust of my flesh, indulging in the desires of the flesh and of the mind and was by nature a child of wrath, even as the rest” (v. 3).
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