Posts from July 2023
Fear of the Lord leads to Sharing our Faith
How often do you think about fear? Maybe when you talk with young children about a bad dream that they had. Or maybe when you talk with a parent of a teen that’s about to move to a new city and start college. Or maybe when you talk with someone who is in an unstable work environment and their future seems unsure. In all those cases, the root idea of fear is that something, whether known or unknown, is coming…
Giving Faithfully
You already know this but the Bible teaches the Christ believer to give to God. This includes resources of all types such as our time, our gifts, our energy, and our talents. One of the most distinctive practices of the Christian life is, however, that he or she also gives financially to God. Not everyone in the world understands this behavior. We especially cannot expect those who do not understand what is the Christian faith to understand why Christians give.…
Spiritual Habit of Giving
We have identified 7 Spiritual Habits for a Christian that we are teaching all summer long. Most of us would all agree pretty easily that (1) Prayer and (2) Reading the Bible are an easy fit. We may or may not actually do it regularly, but it is easy to agree that we should and would like to learn to do it better. We would even easily agree that “Gathering” (or simply put — be at church gatherings regularly) fit…
Essence of Giving
What is Giving? Scripturally, we are to give of our time, talent and treasure. These are not mutually exclusive. Our Creator has blessed us with time, abilities and talents, and financial resources. Giving back in each of these areas is simply a recognition of our understanding that, without God’s blessing, we would have none of these! For purposes of this discussion, we will focus on the giving of our financial resources. Why is Giving important? We give to demonstrate where…
The Spiritual Habit of sharing
A couple decades ago, Matt and I were living in Dallas while I was in seminary. As a part of my evangelism class, he had agreed to come with me to the State Fair of Texas to work at a booth where people could ask questions about faith or have someone pray with them. It seemed non-intrusive enough—until one of our friends (a guy with a huge heart and a clear gift for evangelism) said, “Hey Matt, let’s go chat…
The Spiritual Habit of Gathering
Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 4 with the last few verses from each of these has always been a picture of what a church gathering should look like. I have heard teaching lessons all my life from these sections. I have also taught these passages many times dating all the way back to my high school days. Whenever church members have needed a good example of what a church gathering is to look like, this is where we most…