• Christian Living

    How Christian Surrender Means Victory

    We don’t like patience and surrender! Why? Because the heart of sin, the heart of the fall is that we want our own way. This is the essence of all of our struggles against God and against each other. We are angry and scared about giving up our way, what we  think is best for us, what we want. Rationalize it as you want, Christian surrender is not something that we usually want to do. In our younger years, we have to have this one guy even though he’s not a Christian. Or he’s married. We want to go to this college. We want to have this career. Maybe we…

  • Christian Living

    Believer’s Independence Day

    Believer’s Independence Day Thanks to http://www.familyministries.com/independence.htm for several of the original references and headings. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 3:20 We recently celebrated Independence Day which is a fine thing to celebrate. I am deeply grateful to God for living in a country where I have religious and political freedom. But we are only secondarily citizens of the United State of America. We are first citizens of the Kingdom of God. What freedom and independence can we celebrate every day? Freedom from the bondage of sin that leads to death and eternal separation from God.  18 “’The…

  • Christian Living

    Why “Fear and Trembling”?

    Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Phil. 2:12b-13) I never understood these verses, never liked these verses, and ignored these verses. So of course God told me to teach them at my Bible study! Having been  forced to study them, I figured it out and feel much better now. ;> At first glance these statements seem contradictory! In v. 12, “work out your salvation” sure sounds like it’s up to us. Even worse, we’re supposed to do it with fear and trembling! Yet in v. 13,…