God gives gifts because He loves us and has a plan for our lives to use them to help others. In addition, the Lord is a master builder. He gives us unique skills and gifts to work with Him to accomplish His will. To think the Lord gives us gifts so we can help Him …
Being satisfied with your gifts is helpful for any person and is the Lord’s desire. As people, it is easy to become jealous because of someone who has a gift or talent you wish you had. Our enemy, satan, is always at work trying to tempt people to make them feel dissatisfied. Thus, he wants …
What does Paul mean by the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Different streams of Christianity hotly debate this issue. 1 Corinthians 12: 13 Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same …
Unity in diversity is one of the greatest keys in the body of Christ moving forward to build God’s Kingdom. On my first mission trip to Mexico, our church worked with Youth With A Mission to bring together people’s talents and abilities to build a home for needy families. Different people had gifts of food …
Is church about the team or the individual? We live in a country that prizes rugged individualism. Herbert Hoover coined this term and referred to individuals as self-reliant and independent from control. This originally referred to politics, but this thought has infiltrated the church.[1] The church at Corinth had multiple divisions, competition, and jealousy. Paul …
When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, he was pastoring from afar. Today, we would consider Paul to be a traveling church planter. He had lived in Corinth for eighteen months to establish the church there and then moved on to start other churches. A few years later, Paul received news that the church in Corinth had …
Paul ends our text with the recommendation to overcome evil with good. Romans 12: 21 Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good. [1] Paul has given us a way to react to those who do evil to us. It is a very counter-cultural, unexpected way to respond. As we believe in Jesus, …
Have you ever considered reconciliation as spiritual warfare? The devil desperately wants to keep us divided. Division in the church casts a shadow on our message of Jesus as Savior. If we who claim to follow Jesus can’t get along, how will anyone? In Romans 12, Paul urges us to genuinely love each other (v9), …
To be able to bless those who persecute is only possible because of the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. We need supernatural help to love others in challenging circumstances. Perhaps someone has hurt you, and the Lord is calling you to bless that person. It is nearly impossible without God’s help to …
Our future is in God’s hands because our hope is in Him. Most people may think about the future and make plans, but that usually extends only to this lifetime. Our lives are finite, and we don’t know what tomorrow will hold. Proverbs 27:1 Don’t brag about tomorrow since you don’t know what the day …