Do you ever feel ineffective in your walk with God? If we’re honest, we’ve all encountered feelings of inadequacy in our attempts to live for Christ. What does Scripture share to help?As the apostle Paul faced the final weeks before his death, he wrote his last New Testament letter to his friend and protégé, Timothy. The letter of 2 Timothy touches on many topics, yet its closing chapter emphasizes a strong series of commands relevant to followers of Christ today.
Habit 1: Stay FocusedOur four habits are found in 2 Timothy 4:5: “But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” The first habit Paul notes is to stay focused.
Paul begins his plea by instructing Timothy to “keep your head” in all situations.

Read more at: 4 Habits of Highly Effective Followers of Christ | John Ankerberg Show – John Ankerberg Show

This story was the topic of the most recent episode of the Reasonable Faith podcast. Basically, a conservative, apologetics-friendly church had a homosexual person who wanted to be openly gay and s…

Read more at: Should people in sinful lifestyles bully churches into celebrating them? | WINTERY KNIGHT

Matthew 15:8-9 King James Version (KJV)
8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

I have become progressively worried about people who try to mold God into their own image, that claim to be Christians. They have a habit of picking their favorite verses and changing it to match their own wants. They try to turn him into a magic genie, say the magic words with enough faith, and abracadabra health wealth and prosperity will all be yours! If it were that simple why were the disciples persecuted, imprisoned, and most of them were murdered? Did the men who had enough faith to be willing to die for Christ, not have enough faith to get God’s health, wealth, and prosperity?

Many claim that God doesn’t care what we believe, as long as we are sincere.
When the Bible says

Romans 1:25 King James Version (KJV)
Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

While God may indeed take some sincere beliefs into account, it is clear in scripture, that he won’t do it in the way most mean when they talk about sincerity.

Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

John 14:6 King James Version (KJV)
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

 

It is my great desire that all would come to know and love the God of the Bible, but you are certainly free to reject him. Love him or reject him, but do it based on who he is, not on what someone else said he is, or what you want him to be, but who he has revealed himself to be, as found in the Holy Scriptures.
He isn’t always who we want him to be, but he is ALWAYS, what we need him to be.

There are so many different versions of Jesus that are talked about in the world today!
Some say that they are all the same Jesus from different perspectives.  While perspective can have a role to play, it can not explain away all the different descriptions of Jesus.
What if someone said that they knew Michael Caine, but they described a young black American gay guy?  You would know very quickly that they were not talking about the 85-year-old British man who has been married to two different women, one of them since 1973, who played Batman’s butler. They could not be the same person!

The same could be said for Jesus. One description of Jesus is that he was a Hindu Guru that spent much of his life in India, but this does not describe the Biblical Jesus

Matthew 13:54-57 (KJV)
54 And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works?

55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?

56 And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?

57 And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.

 
The people in his own country knew him well enough to know the names of his brothers, and sisters, and even had a local synagogue.

His home country wasn’t India.

Matthew 2:23 King James Version (KJV)
23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.

He also never taught reincarnation,

Hebrews 9:27 King James Version (KJV)
27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

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The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors.

Read more at Depression. Suicide. Courage. – Eclipsed Words

    As the violent protests in Haiti over fuel prices continued, youth groups from multiple U.S. churches have remained in the Caribbean nation, unable to get to the airport to travel home.  The nonprofit My Life Speaks said the mission teams from Woodland Community Church in Bradenton, Fla., and the Glade Church in Mount Juliet, Tenn., have stayed in Haiti, unable to get to the airport due to protests and roadblocks.

Read more at: Haiti protests leave US church youth groups stranded in Caribbean nation as violence, roadblocks continue | Fox News