christian living on Understanding

Dear Lord, I pray that You would open my mind to the truth of Your Word by means of the Holy Spirit. Open my eyes to see Jesus. Open my heart to love Him more and more. Open my will to do only that wh...

Though conversion may be pinpointed to a moment, salvation is a process that continues over a lifetime. I am still being saved from old ways of thinking and behaving and am coming to new understanding...

Grace is the wonderful spirit that imbues every fiber of our being when we practice the fruits of the spirit: kindness, patience, understanding, forgiveness, love, gentleness, fellowship and endurance...

It is impossible to conceive how different things would have turned out if that birth had not happened whenever, wherever, however it did ... for millions of people who have lived since, the birth of ...

Romans 6 shines a bright spotlight on the dangerous half-truth, currently fashionable, that ‘God accepts us as we are.’ Will ‘God’s acceptance’ do as a complete grounding of Christian ethics? Emphatic...

My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.

Give us, Lord, a clear vision of the truth, faith in your power, and confident assurance of your love.

God of power, love and wisdom: you’ve known us and loved us from before we even were, and extended your grace to us before we knew your name. You save us from ourselves – from our arrogance, rebell...

Human salvation demands the divine disclosure of truths surpassing reason.

Saul's Confident Error Last week, we considered Abram and the way that God may send us out on a journey, waiting to see his will without knowing the destination.  Today we move forward to Saul on...

O God, your mercy is infinite and in your will is our peace. We learn your way so slowly; we choose your will so reluctantly. In this season of learning the limit­lessness of your love, help us throug...

Gracious and loving God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: We praise you for how wide, how high, and how deep is Your vast love for all people. Incarnate in Jesus, You offered Your life for the healing ...

Living by grace inspires a growing consciousness that I am what I am in the sight of Jesus and nothing more.

Union with Christ is the starting-point for everything else to be thought and said concerning what makes the Christian a Christian.

Following the biblical pattern, the church has always assumed that God can communicate spiritual truths to people through their imaginations, especially through dreams and visions. Church history is r...

[If] Christ is not all to you he is nothing to you. He will never go into partnership as a part Savior of men. If he be something he must be everything, and if he be not everything he is nothing to yo...

Lord, may your glorious Majesty surround us, the blessed Trinity protect us, and the eternal Godhead preserves us. Your unlimited mercy support us; your loving kindness encompass us; your favor c...

Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth. Grace evokes gratitude like the voice an echo. Gratitude follows grace like thunder lightning.

‘Salvation’ is a wonderfully wide-ranging word and it would be a great mistake to think that it refers only to the forgiveness of our sins. God is as much concerned with our present and future as with...

We are suspicious of grace. We are afraid of the very lavishness of the gift.

In his excellent book on worship, The Dangerous Act of Worship , pastor and president of Fuller Seminary Mark Labberton shares a story of the transformation of one of his former congregants: Ben ...

At the heart of the Protestant faith is the conviction that there is nothing we contribute to our salvation but our sin, no merit we bring but Christ's, and nothing necessary for justification exc...

From his start in life, you would not have expected Andrei Borisovich Bloom to have ended up Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, founder of the Russian Orthodox diocese for Great Britain and Ireland. Bo...

In 1947 huge crowds came to hear a thirty-two-year-old Californian preach at mass evangelistic rallies throughout China. Although Bob Pierce had no knowledge of Chinese language or culture, his messag...

Grace is costly because it compels a person to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

We cannot will ourselves to accept grace. There are no magic words, preset formulas, or esoteric rites of passage. Only Jesus Christ sets us free from indecision. The Scriptures offer no other basis f...

Follow the Spirit. Walk in the rhythm of the Spirit. Sing in the Spirit. Pray with the Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit. Sow to the Spirit. Reap from the Spirit. Preserve the unity of the Spirit. Be ...

All who are called to salvation are called to discipleship, no exceptions, no excuses!

Grace is not simply about pardoning sinful behavior; it’s also about rewiring the sinners themselves. The grace the Bible talks about is power not just for justification but also for transformation.

God does not give us salvation because we believe. Our believing is only the normal way of receiving the salvation he freely gives.