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| A person once told me that if he has to choose between love and the law, he will choose love. |
| I asked him how the will of God could possibly be adversarial to His love. The fact is, you can't have one without the other. |
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| A person's theology tends to be a reflection of their personal morality. |
| Perhaps we can compare this statement to the old question about which came first, the chicken or the egg. Though in a sense it goes both ways, I believe, generally speaking we are attracted to ideologies that complement or affirm our lifestyle. This explains why, if we have retained known sin in... Read More |
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| Beware of developing a golden rule gospel. Before we love our neighbor as ourselves, we must love the Lord with all our hearts. |
Golden Rule Christians are people who don't see Christianity in terms of beliefs and doctrines but simply in terms of a basic moral outlook on life, such as that expressed in the Golden Rule. These Christians define their faith in terms of practices, not doctrines. This new... Read More |
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| Beware of people who are continually talking about the evils of legalism. |
If legalism has slain its thousands, antinomianism has slain its ten thousands. If you are going to talk about the dangers of Pharisaism, you would do well to talk about the dangers of "Sadduceeism" at the same time. We mustn't forget that a coalition of what we might call liberals... Read More |
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| Don't become an expert in the gospel according to the apostle Paul until you understand the gospel according to Jesus as recorded in the first four books of the New Testament. |
Among many people, the teachings of Jesus are some of the most neglected of all the Scriptures. Serious Bible students who want to get into what they call the "meat of the Word" usually go straight to Romans or Galatians. However, it seems to me that the portions of the Bible where... Read More |
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| Jesus has no problem with people who keep the letter of the law as long as they also keep the spirit of the law. |
The reason the Pharisees were often the target of Jesus' severest rebukes was that they were sinners in denial. Jesus came to save sinners; and many, though not all, of the Pharisees considered themselves to have already arrived spiritually. Consequently, they thought that they... Read More |
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| Jesus saw everything in black and white. |
When people say that something is in the gray area, I take it to mean they're not sure whether it is right or wrong. Though the speed limit is seventy miles per hour, some people read it as eighty. We may know that if we consistently break the laws of health a day of reckoning will... Read More |
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| Let's talk about fruit, not about works. |
Jesus didn't say that it would be nice if we would bear fruit or that some can and some can't but we should all try if we want to. He said that good trees always bring forth good fruit, and bad trees bring forth bad fruit or no fruit at all. And He said that a tree that doesn't bear... Read More |
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| People can tell whether they have salvation by how they feel about obeying God. |
Some people say that obedience is our response to Jesus' love. But obedience is not something inherent in me. I of myself cannot produce obedience. Our obedience is like filthy rags. It would make a wholly unworthy gift. Therefore, obedience is not something I give... Read More |
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| The devil now speaks our language. |
| If you take over the language of your enemy, you make it impossible for him to communicate his ideology. |
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| The grace of God doesn't make obedience unnecessary. Rather, it affirms obedience as necessary and makes it possible. |
Lucifer was cast out of heaven for being disobedience to the will of God, and Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden for the same reason. So, Jesus has a problem. The problem is that if He took to heaven people who were knowingly disobedient to the will of God, the devil would cry foul,... Read More |
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| We can rise no higher than our concept of God. |
Unless our concept of God is growing in respect and reverence, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for us to come up out of the pit into which we are fallen. God is inviting those who call themselves by His name to come up to a higher standard. We must resist the tendency of our... Read More |
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| We must be careful not to play off God's attributes against each other. |
We have a tendency to pick out one thing that God has revealed about Himself and think it is more important than any other. When Christians decide that one particular truth about God is more important than any other, they can become fanatics. Moses wrote, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord... Read More |
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