Donna is a wife, mother, grandmother, writer, and Biblical counselor. She has been blogging through the Bible each year since 2012. She loves God's Word and sharing how freeing and practical it is. She is certified through the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors.
Abuse is real and, sadly, it happens all too often. Abuse can be physical, sexual, mental, or even spiritual.
What does the Bible say about responding to abuse? Where does Jesus’ command to love your enemies fit in? Does it mean that we ignore or tolerate illegal, immoral, or abusive behavior or that we stay in a dangerous environment or relationship? Does it really require us to forgive and love those who mistreat us? And what if you or someone you know has been the victim of abuse, where can you turn for help?
Can you imagine waking up one morning and realizing all your Christian friends are gone, disappeared in the rapture? The world is in chaos, and you have been left behind. What if the rapture happened today? Do you know that you will go? How can you be sure?
Finishing well … it’s probably something we all desire. No one wants to fall flat on his or her face or bring shame to the name of Christ after serving Him well. And yet, if we read through the history of God’s children, we see numerous people who started out well but didn’t end so well. And it’s not just people we read about in the Bible. Hardly a month goes by that we don’t learn about someone who once followed Christ faithfully, led others to Christ, even pastors, sometimes well-known pastors, who have had a moral failure of some kind or who have walked away from Christ. It’s heartbreaking. What allows one person to finish well while another fails miserably? Find out what can make the difference.
Do you ever find yourself arguing for argument’s sake? Do you feel like it’s your job to point out the other side of the issue or like you have to have the last word? If so, could you be a contentious woman, at least at times? And if you see this tendency, what can you do to become more Christlike?
We were made to worship. And we all worship something. When we refuse to worship the One true God and acknowledge His authority, we simply create false religions that allow us to appease our consciences while we continue to live life our own way. But false religions never take us anywhere good. They simply take us farther and farther from God.
Ahaz was one of Judah’s wicked kings. Can you imagine a king so evil that he would sacrifice his own children in the name of his false religion? Yet, instead of repenting when God brought judgment, he turned to other ungodly people for help.
And sadly, the people of Judah as a whole became increasingly unfaithful until God, in His perfect judgment, allowed their destruction.
Our nation, too, seems determined to go down the road of increasing unfaithfulness. We shouldn’t think that if God judged His own covenant people, He won’t judge us as a nation, as well. The question is, will we heed the voice of godly people or continue in our unfaithfulness and false religions?
What is the one sin we all struggle with? And why is it so important we acknowledge and deal with it? It’s important because, as one writer said, “It is one of the most loathed sins in God’s sight.” “The question is not ‘Do I have it?’ but ‘Where is it?’ and ‘How much of it do I have?’” Our Old Testament reading gives us a great illustration of what this sin can do when not dealt with. So, what is it, and where does it show up in your life? You might be surprised.
What does your spending reveal about your heart? It’s easy to look at the lives of idolaters like the grandmother we’ll talk about today and see how their idolatry corrupted their hearts. But idolatry didn’t end with the Old Testament. And it isn’t exclusive to pagan people. The New Testament constantly warns believers about the idolatry in our own hearts.
And one revealer can be our spending. If we’re willing to pay $4 for a cup of coffee at Starbucks, $25 to go to the movies, or $80 or $100 for a pair of tennis shoes, but give grudgingly or not at all to the work of God, what does it say about our hearts and what we truly worship?
We’ll also look at:
How God protected the Messianic line of David and kept His covenant promise to him.
The value of godly counsel in the life of a leader.
And how God was able to use a brilliant and eloquent man who was willing to humble himself and receive truth from a couple of tentmakers.
Anger and an attitude of disrespect are running rampant in our culture. There is disrespect for cultural norms, disrespect for authority, disrespect for the law, disrespect for our history and its context, and disrespect for others. And anger seems to permeate everything. At the root of it all, is disrespect for God and His Word.
These attitudes have already cost us all a great deal and show no sign of stopping. That cost is more than temporal. There are eternal consequences, as well.
In the first century, a small army of believers turned the known world upside down in a matter of a few years without TV, radio, or mass media. They simply believed in the power of the gospel to change lives and the Holy Spirit working through them. And they did it in the face of intense opposition.
Today our world is being turned upside down but not by the gospel. How should we respond? What can we do? What is the ultimate answer? These are questions that haunt many of us.
In today’s post, you’ll also read about:
One of the greatest evils in our nation and our accountability before God.
And finally, we’ll look at one of the greatest prayers ever recorded. It was prayed by a man who fell short like us, but who understood where to turn for help.
How can we fight back against false accusations, suffering, and mistreatment? And what about the ordinary, everyday hurts that come to us all? How should we respond to them? Is there a way to fight back that is honoring to God?
