Strong in the Lord, let us tread all the powers of darkness down and stand complete at last.

Judges 1:1-2:5 'You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth? (Galatians 5:7). Everything seems to be going well - 'From victory to victory His army He shall lead till every foe is vanquished and Christ is Lord indeed' (1-18; Church Hymnary, 481). Things went badly wrong. God commanded His people to 'drive …

We Need Both – Trust And Obedience.

2 Kings 23:4-30 In 18:5, we read about Hezekiah; ‘There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him’. Here, we read about something rather different - ‘Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him’(25). This seems confusing: Which was the better king - …

Job thinks that God has it in for him.

Job thinks that God has it in for him (Job 19:6-11). When we start thinking like this, how do we get out of this way of thinking? We go back to Job 1. We remember that there is a devil, and we take our stand against him in the name and the power of Christ …

Don’t Neglect God’s Great Salvation.

Refusal to come to Christ for salvation leads to judgment: ‘How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?’ (Hebrews 2:3).

Seek the Lord. He is mighty to save… He will renew you in His love.

Zephaniah 1:1-2:7 ‘The great Day of the Lord is near - near and coming quickly... That Day will be a Day of wrath... I will bring distress upon the people... because they have sinned against the Lord’ (Zephaniah 1:14-17). This, Lord, is Your Word of warning. You're calling us back to Yourself: ‘Seek the Lord …

Does anything really last forever?

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the …

Often, we wish we could look into the future, and see what’s going to happen to us.

Often, we wish we could look into the future, and see what's going to happen to us. We can't. The future belongs to You, Lord - not to us. Help us to wait on You, Lord - to wait patiently for the time when Your future becomes our present. Our 'tomorrow' can never become our …

Ancient words

"Abraham is a prophet, and he will pray for you" (Genesis 20:7). The prophet speaks for God. The prophet speaks to God. Speaking for God and speaking to God - we need both. We bring the Word of God to the people, and we pray that his blessing will be upon the people. When we …

What power there is in the written Word of God!

"Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”  Jesus answered, “It …

God keeps on loving us, even when we’re doing all that we can to keep on running away from Him.

Genesis 16 Hagar was running away, but "the Angel of the Lord found her" (verses 6 and 7). Can we run away from God? We can try, but will we succeed? Why does God come looking for us? It's because He loves us. This is something we must never forget. God does not want us …

The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.

"Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me" (Psalm 51:10). When I was a young boy, being taught the meaning of words, our schoolteacher asked us the question, "What is the opposite of ... ?", e.g. What's the opposite of clean and right? - Dirty and wrong. Make …

Salvation is not a reward, to be earned. It is God’s gift.

Romans 4:1-25 Salvation is not a 'reward' to be 'earned'. It is God's 'gift' (4-5). Salvation comes from the Lord. 'God so loved the world that He gave His only Son' (John 3:16): Without the love of God, the gift of God, the Son of God, there can be no salvation. The way of salvation …