A sad young minister and his wife came to me for counseling recently. After four troubled years of marriage and two children, they were contemplating divorce. She was the saddest looking wife I have seen in years. Her husband, the young youth minister, stood nearby, shuffling his weight from foot to foot, while his teary-eyed wife sobbed out her confession to me.
The most difficult thing in all the world for Christians to do is forgive. For all the talk in the church about forgiveness, restitution, and healing, there is very little of it truly demonstrated. We all like to think of ourselves as peacemakers, lifters up of those fallen, always forgiving and forgetting. But even the most deeply spiritual today are guilty of wounding brothers and sisters by not showing a spirit of forgiveness.
Abraham is known to the church as a man of faith. Indeed, the Bible holds him up to us as an example of faith: "Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness" (Galatians 3:6). "So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham" (verse 9).
Not long ago, Newsweek magazine featured a cover story entitles, "A World Without Fathers." The focus was primarily on African-American families and the alarming increase of children being raised without father. Consider, for example:
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God....
"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1-2, 17).
[This message was delivered in the seventeenth century by Thomas Manton. We have paraphrased it in modern English, and its message is just as potent today as then. Composed Christians are those who have learned to rejoice in any and all circumstances.]
Phillips Brooks, a great preacher of the 19th century, said, "Sinners have no right to condemn Christianity - because it hasn't been tried yet...."
I agree! I don't think any human on earth has yet discovered the power and glory that is available in Christ, here and now!
There is a media blitz aimed at the destruction of the Christian home. Satan is out to wreck every marriage, to break up every Christian couple and destroy the God-ordained concept of "faithful...till death do us part."
“O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?” (Galatians 3:1, KJV). If you’re a devoted servant of Jesus, there’s something you need to be absolutely sure of. It’s that Satan tries to bewitch everyone who sets his heart to go deeper with the Lord. The enemy of our souls is constantly setting demonic traps for all who are desperate to know more of Christ.
The prophet Isaiah pronounced a woe on Israel: “‘Woe to the rebellious children,’ says the Lord” (Isaiah 30:1, NKJV). The Hebrew word Isaiah uses for “rebellious” means backsliding, stubbornness, a turning away. What, exactly, were God’s people turning away from? And what caused their backsliding?
