Colossians 3:8-15

For Reading and Meditation:     Ephesians 4:17-32

We must spend another day considering whether or not it is a condition of our salvation that we first forgive those who have sinned against us. We said yesterday that to believe this contradicts the teaching that we are saved by grace, through faith. What, then, is Scripture getting at when it seems to encourage us...

For Reading and Meditation:     Colossians 3:1-15

It is time now to focus more precisely on what Jesus meant when He said: "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." Meekness, as Jesus is using the word here, refers to an attitude of heart and mind that is entirely free from a spirit of demandingness and accepts the will of God in its entirety. I...

What cause to be thankful, what reason to be grateful have we!

Surrounded by mercies, both temporal and spiritual. If we look back, we ought to rejoice that God hath chosen us in Christ Jesus, before the foundation of the world; that He sent His only-begotten Son into the world, to be a propitiation for our sins; that He sent His Holy Spirit into our hearts, to convince us of sin, lead us to Jesus, and make us meet for heaven.

We have His word in our hands, His grace in our...

Yes: this is God's purpose, which cannot be frustrated, that Christ shall be all. He is all in our justification and sanctification, for we are justified and sanctified IN HIS NAME.

He is all in our preservation and glorification, for we are kept by His power, and enter heaven through His merits. He should be all in our pursuits, pleasures, hopes, motives, and aims. Many put their comforts in the place of Christ, and then God puts comfort out of their reach; others put their graces in...

It seems to me that the horse and the mule picture two wrong attitudes we might have when we are seeking the Lord's guidance. The horse wants to charge ahead; the mule wants to lag behind. The horse tends to be impatient, high-spirited and impetuous. The mule on the other hand is stubborn, intractable and lazy. The psalmist says that neither animal has understanding. Both have to be controlled by bit and bridle, otherwise they will not come near to their master.

God's desire is that we...

There is a tendency for us Christians to spend a great deal of our time looking for new spiritual experiences that will somehow guarantee permanent victory or freedom from the ups and downs of daily living. We rush around to conventions, conferences, seminars and workshops in search of the elusive magic formula that will smooth out the rough places of life. Glossy brochures assure us that Dr. So-and-So will share a great new breakthrough that will make us radioactive with the Spirit. Or some...

A thankful heart adds sparkle to all of life. At the close of a dinner, one of the children said, "That was a good meal, Mother." That remark created a new sense of warmth in an already happy house.

Too often we fail to express our thanks. The Lord Jesus healed ten lepers, but only one returned to give thanks, and that one was a Samaritan (Lu. 17:17). Two lessons emerge. Gratitude is rare in a world of fallen men. And when it does appear, it often comes from the least-expected...

Colossians 3:1-15

Paul said to The Colossians what to many must have seemed surprising: "If then you were raised together with Christ." How could these Colossian Christians have been raised with Christ? Of course, it was a spiritual rising. The people really had been spiritually dead, and they were now living a new spiritual life. Everyone who truly...