Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The agonies of those who are falsely accused are of great concern to the living God, and He acts as their defender.
Believers should be more concerned for God's opinion of them than for what human opponents might do to their bodies.
Recalling what our lives were like before Jesus Christ entered them will help keep our daily problems in perspective.
When believers neglect the revealed Word of God, they are likely to turn to silly and unprofitable methods of insight.
Giving to God should come from the firstfruits of a person's labor rather than from what is left after the bills are paid.
Religious truth is not false for being narrow any more than mathematical or scientific truth is false for the same reason.
Those who serve God in vocational ministry must learn to trust Him for their daily needs before they can encourage others to do so.
God delights in providing His people with material gain and comfort, although prosperity can pose a threat to spiritual well-being.
God is concerned that Christians live consistent with their profession even in the seemingly small and insignificant areas of life.
Moses simplifies the whole duty of Israel (and of humanity) by crystalizing the moral law into a single command to love God supremely.
Attachments to older forms of worship may be comfortable, but they may contain elements of falsehood that make them unacceptable to God.
The fear of God does not come naturally to human beings; it must be learned through Scripture, worship, and the hard knocks of experience.
Israel's [as well as our] enjoyment of the land is contingent on their behavior. Blessings or cruses lie before them; the choice is theirs.
Since the success of believers is tied to our knowledge of and obedience to God's Word, the memorizing of portions of the Bible is advisable.
Fear of the right type can be beneficial to the people of God (see Prov. 1:7), but the fear of man's hostile intentions seldom fits that category.
Although spiritual growth puts our wills to the test, after the battle has been won, we recognize that the Lord is the true victor in the struggle.
If Israel is to please the Lord fully, they will live lives that are as distinctive among the nations as their Lord is different from pagan deities.
People sometimes punish to exact judgment for past actions. God disciplines in order to teach and always in the interest of those whom he disciplines.
Since all wealth ultimately comes from God, His people ought to acknowledge His primacy by offering Him the best of their wealth, time, and abilities.
Believers are inclined to attribute their spiritual successes to their godliness when it would be more accurate to connect them with God's faithfulness.
Believers have just as much to fear from legalism as from waywardness. The first detracts from the beauty of the message, while the second mars it content.
The thoughtful believer recalls God's faithfulness in the past when confronted by any new threat. Part of spiritual maturity is strong sense of one's own history.
All believers can increase their commitment to God by reflecting on His faithfulness and by considering the forms such commitment should assume in their experience.
Common sense religion emphasizes the human contributions that are supposed to move the deity. Valid worship always begins with recognition of what God has already done.
Rejoicing is the essence of genuine worship. A sad face (apart from remorse for sin or regret concerning the pain of others) is an affront to a gracious and generous God.
False teaching - anything that would weaken the believer's ties to his Lord - must be confronted wherever it appears, even if that confrontation requires painful correction.
Although their parents died in the wilderness for their stubbornness, Israel could profit from the older generation's failure by remembering that God had used adversity to train them.
Father, we ask that you give us a passion for the truth and not merely a hatred of falsehood. Keep us concerned for the spiritual health of people but open to your own rebukes from your mighty Word.
Conversion is essential, but it is a beginning, not an end. The believer in Jesus Christ is not simply rescued from the penalty of his sin; he is redeemed to love God and his neighbor so that others might come to know him.
Even the wisest people learn little from their successes; God warns His people against allowing their victories (which He will grant) to lead them into pride and spiritual indifference. Instead, they should pay close attention to God's Word.
The concept of freedom in Scripture differs from modern notions. Freedom is not a life lived free of restraints but a life that recognizes healthy limits, those that are concern to produce prosperity and order for the person who observes them.
Although God's people find many successes in the world, they must not fall prey to a spirit of pride. We succeed not because of our moral superiority but because of the faithfulness of our divine intercessor and because of the great mercy of God.
Worship is accomplished with the life as well as with the words and attitudes of people. Changed and transformed lives testify to the character and supernatural power of the God of heaven. Closeness to Him produces changes in character and holiness.
Moses warned them [Israelites] that the leading spiritual danger they would face on entering the [promise] land would be forgetting the Lord. What adversity would not do, prosperity and satisfaction could. They were to be on their guard against spiritual lethargy.
Intercessors constitute the greatest unseen group of spiritual heroes in world history. Their labors are not seen, but the results are. Those who pray for the spiritual needs of others do immeasurable good in the world, often preventing (at least for a time) divine judgment.
In Deuteronomy 11, God offers Israel a choice; either a life of productivity and enjoyment made possible by obedience to Him, or a life of difficulty and opposition made necessary by disobedience. The happiness Israel desires can only be theirs by being properly related to Him.
God wanted Israel, as He wants Christians, to learn to utterly abhor and detest anything that had the potential of coming between them and their God. The believer's enemies are typically internal rather than external, and they pose a powerful threat to spiritual health and progress.
Theological error is the most pernicious of errors; it strikes at man's center and separates him from his Creator and Redeemer. God insisted not only that Israelites should judge their own hearts and cast aside falsehood about Him but that they should also confront it wherever it emerged.
To know God and to find one's full satisfaction in that knowledge is the ultimate goal of Christian experience. The Lord's greatest delight comes when His people discover the ultimate value lies in the knowledge of God. Nothing in the material world can complete with the delights that are present in His Person.
By definition, if man contributes anything toward acceptance by God, he loses everything. God expects man to be the recipient, not the originator. Jesus paid it all, not 99% of it. Paul wrote, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast"
We dare not trim stones to make God an altar, for if we do we ruin everything. We would spend time bringing people to the altar and saying, "Look at those beautiful stones we trimmed!" We merely need to accept the work that God has done for us in Christ. The object of His restrictions is to help us see how wonderful He is and to spend the rest of our lives rendering true worship to Him.
God warned Israel, "And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it" (Ex. 20:25). To pollute something is to make it ordinary. God insists that any approach crafted by human ingenuity will produce a worship system just like all the pagan systems in the world. In other words, it will be common or profane - just like everyone else's paganism.
The heart that delights in God and longs only to see His glory advance will seldom be conscious of sacrifice. God in His wisdom asks that we first love Him and then live in keeping with that core value. He does not want His people to think of what they do as sacrificial, even though from the world's point of view it may be just that. Gratitude for grace of God will always be found near the center of the Biblical Christian's most powerful motivations.