Category: Interior Life

joy new earth

We Will Have True Life One Day

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After Jesus returns, God will create “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1, ESV). This New Earth is the consummation of the kingdom of God that Jesus brought to earth. This is what we now desire more than anything and the goal toward which God has been guiding his people for the entire history of humanity. God will flood his people with blessing so that they will fully delight in their God and in his creation, especially his people. We will prosper in a kingdom of people who are fully Christlike and fully able to form mutually edifying friendships. As fellow heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17), the Father will direct us to “take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world” (Matt. 25:34, NIV). How astonishing to think that God views us as his children and he made a kingdom for us to Continue Reading →

approval blameless

Are You Aiming For A Blameless Life?

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Scripture declares that “we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13, NIV); we “eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed” (1 Cor. 1:7, NIV). Are we eagerly awaiting the return of Christ? Do we love his future appearance? Master teacher Walter Hilton (d. 1396) eloquently expresses how much he values desire for Jesus (though he was not specifically referring to his coming): Certainly, I would rather feel and have a true desire and a pure longing in my heart for my Lord Jesus, even though I should see nothing of him at all with my spiritual eye, than have without this desire all the bodily penance of all men alive, all visions or revelations of angels appearing, songs and sounds, savors or smells, burnings and delights felt by the body—in short, all the joys of Continue Reading →

darkness dark night

Have You Been In A Dark Night?

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What do people experience in dark nights? Typically, one has been feeling some degree of consolation and faithfully pursuing Christformation for several years (usually at least five) before their Spiritual life goes dry and they enter a dark night. Some will feel more pain than others because there is a continuum of severity of dark nights. In this dark night, they cannot sense the presence of God or even have confident faith that he is present with them. Their past pleasurable experiences with God are gone and they cannot get them back. Of course, this is very puzzling. They will ask themselves: What went wrong? Have I been too lax in my pursuit of God? What is wrong with me? What doctrinal truth am I not believing? They will try to recapture past experiences with God and they may even be able to recapture a portion of them but then Continue Reading →

wealth

Does God Promise Us Prosperity?

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Sadly, many ministers all around the world today teach that God promises prosperity to all faithful followers and that believers should freely seek, and expect to acquire, wealth beyond their needs. This teaching appeals to the “lust of the eyes” (1 John 2:16), in other words, the materialism of the old self. The teachers often add that our tithing will lead God to bless us financially. We refer to these teachings as the “prosperity gospel”. The prosperity gospel has never been considered orthodox in Christian history; it would have been summarily rejected by all the great Christian teachers of the past. This includes the pioneers of Pentecostalism. Much of prosperity teaching relies on the Old Testament, which as we saw in our previous post on wealth is not legitimate because the New Testament teaches a new approach to wealth. Do we want to live under the old covenant? Do we Continue Reading →

wealth

Do You Have A Kingdom Attitude Toward Wealth?

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In the Old Testament God promised material prosperity to his faithful followers. He made Abraham wealthy with large flocks of livestock. Later, when God was bringing the Israelites to the promised land he promised prosperity if they followed the laws he had just given to them at Mt. Sinai. “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit” (Lev. 26:3-4, ESV). In the New Testament we find a new approach to material prosperity and possessions. In Matthew 6:19-34 Jesus teaches us how to relate to money and possessions: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth . . . but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven . . . for where your treasure is, there your heart Continue Reading →