Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Another book

I'm currently reading through Who Speaks for God? by Charles Colson. It is a collection of very short essays regarding a variety of issues pertaining to Christianity. If you want to read a book that makes you think, you should check this one out. Although it is from the 1980s, it still discusses issues relevant for today's world.
One topic I found particularly useful was titled "In Search of Self". Basically, some people decide to abandon their commitments, such as spouses, jobs, friends, or churches, and decide to run off and try to find themselves by running a candy shop in Hawaii. Following some haphazard dream may sound great but as Christians we can't just dig deeper within ourselves to find the way. Our identity is in God and we need to seek after him wholeheartedly. Only in losing ourselves in God will we truly find ourselves.
That's just one of the topics Colson touches on in the book. Feel free to read further.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

More blessings take 2

I'm going to revise my position from the previous post. There's a verse somewhere in the bible that says that God sends rain on the good and bad alike. Rain is a blessing (when needed for crops).
I think that regardless of what you do, you will experience God's blessing in your life. Blessings are just one example of God's love that he bestows freely.

More blessings?

I'm currently reading a book by John MacArthur titled The Body Dynamic. In it, he says that no matter what we do, God will not love us more or less. I agree with this idea, but how about this - Will God bless you more if you do good things, like reading the Bible or helping others out?
I think so. Perhaps not because you're being a goody two shoes, but because living the way God planned for you to live IS such a blessing. Granted, evil always seems to get in the way and bad things do happen to good people, and those bad things certainly don't seem like blessings. So in the end, does God bless you more the more good things you do?

Friday, July 6, 2012

The sons of God

'Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us that we should be called the sons of God.'
These words from that old tune came back to me today as I was reading 1 John chapter 3. The NIV reads "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!"
In his book titled 'Be Real' Warren Wiersbe highlights the importance of this verse by linking it back to the passage in Ephesians that says that while we were still his enemies, God, through Christ Jesus, brought us near himself (Eph 2:12-13).