Truths to Live By - One Day at a Time

When God first called Abraham to be the head of His chosen earthly people, He promised to bless the friends of that nation and to curse its enemies. In the intervening centuries the Jewish people have suffered untold hostility and discrimination, but the curse of God has never been lifted on anti-Semitism.

Haman plotted the destruction of the Jewish people in Persia. He inveigled the king into signing an unalterable decree. For a while everything seemed to be moving in his favor. But...

Faithful people are an endangered species; they are rapidly vanishing from the human race. If David mourned their demise in his day, we often wonder how he would feel if he lived today.

When we speak of a faithful person, we mean one who is trustworthy, reliable, dependable. If he makes a promise, he keeps it. If he has a responsibility, he fulfills it. If he has honorable allegiances, he is staunchly loyal to them.

The unfaithful man makes an appointment, then either fails to...

God is far more interested in how we treat other people than in how many religious ceremonies we go through. He prefers mercy to sacrifice. He places practical morality above ritual. It might seem strange to read that God doesn't desire sacrifice, because it was He who instituted the sacrificial system in the first place. But there is no contradiction. While it is true that He ordered the people to bring sacrifices and offerings, He never intended these to take the place of justice and...

On the previous page, we noted three areas in which the cults expose themselves as being untrue to the Christian faith that has been once-for-all delivered unto the saints. There are other characteristics of the cults of which we should not only be aware but which we should carefully avoid in our own Christian fellowships.

For instance, their leaders build up what we might call a personality cult, setting themselves forth as virtual messiahs and wonder-men. Men with charisma often...

We live in a day when cults are multiplying with amazing rapidity. Actually there are no new cults; they are just variations of heretical groups that sprang up in New Testament days. It is their variety that is new, not their basic tenets.

When John says that we should test the spirits, he means that we should test all teachers by the Word of God so that we can detect those that are false. There are three fundamental areas where the cults expose themselves as being counterfeits. No...

If a man is a soldier of the Cross, he can expect to be attacked sooner or later. The more courageously he declares the truth of God and the more accurately he exemplifies the truth in his own life, the more he will be subjected to assault. An old Puritan said, "He that standeth near his Captain, is a sure target for the archers."

He will be accused of wrongs he did not do. He will be savaged by gossip, slander and backbiting. He will be ostracized and ridiculed. This treatment will...

In yesterday's study we saw that our conduct should correspond to our creed. But in order to balance the subject we must add two postscripts.

First, we have to acknowledge that we will never fully and completely live out the truth of God as long as we are in this world. After we have done our best, we still have to say that we are unprofitable servants. But we must not use this fact to excuse failure or even mediocrity: our obligation is to continually try to close the gap between our...

Those who teach and preach the Christian faith should practice what they preach. They should present to the world a living example of the truth. The will of God is that the Word should become flesh in the lives of His people.

The world is more impressed by action than by talk. Wasn't it Edgar Guest who wrote, "I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day"? And there is the well-known jibe, "What you are speaks so loud, I can't hear what you say!"

It was said of one preacher that...

No one can ever really call on the Name of the Lord without being saved. This call of desperate earnestness never goes unanswered. When we get to the end of our own resources, when we abandon all hope of saving ourselves, when we have nowhere to turn but up, if at that time we send a distress call to the Lord, He will hear and answer.

A young Sikh named Sadhu Sundar Singh determined that if he could not find peace, he would commit suicide. He prayed, "Oh God, if there is a God, reveal...

The brothers of the Shulamite maiden had sent her to work in the vineyard. She kept so busy tending the vines that she neglected her own vineyard, that is, her personal appearance. Her skin had become swarthy and dried, and no doubt her hair was unkempt.

There is always the danger of neglecting our own vineyard by becoming overly occupied with someone else's. There is the peril, for instance, of becoming so engrossed with the evangelization of the world that one's own family is lost....

Taken by themselves, the sufferings of this present time can be appalling. I think of the gruesome sufferings of the Christian martyrs. I think of what some of God's people have had to endure in the concentration camps. What shall we say concerning the horrible sufferings associated with war? The cruel dismemberment and paralysis connected with accidents? The unspeakable pain of human bodies racked by cancer or other diseases?

And yet physical suffering isn't the whole story. It seems...

Just as it is possible for us to quench the Spirit in the meetings of the church, so it is possible for us to grieve Him in our private lives.

There is a certain tenderness about the word "grieve". We can only grieve someone who loves us. The neighborhood brats don't grieve us, but our own naughty children do.

We hold a special place of nearness and dearness to the Holy Spirit. He loves us. He has sealed us until the day of redemption. He can be grieved by us.

But what...

We usually think of quenching in connection with a fire. We quench the fire when we throw water on it. In so doing, we either douse it completely or greatly reduce its scope and effectiveness.

Fire is used in the Scriptures as a type of the Holy Spirit. He is fervent, burning, enthusiastic. When people are under the control of the Spirit, they are glowing, ardent and overflowing. We quench the Spirit when we suppress the manifestation of the Spirit in the gatherings of God's...

A backslidden condition is often like cancer; we don't know we have it. We can grow spiritually cold so gradually that we don't realize how carnal we have actually become. Sometimes it takes a tragedy, a crisis or the voice of some prophet of God to awaken us to our desperate need. Only then can we claim God's promise, "I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground" (Isaiah 44:3).

I am in need of revival when I...