Christian Living

            Prayer is a wonderful blessing given to us by God. I once heard it said, “The bible is His words to us and prayers are our words to Him.” Amen. We need to talk to Him and do it regularly. He wanted us to hear Him to the point His words resonated deep within us (Colossians 3:16; Hebrews 4:12).   Then He goes on to say that we are to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:1). This lets us know that He wants to hear us and our words matter to Him. God makes no mistake in emphasizing the need to pray and the need for us to lay things at His feet.             God wants our prayers. He wants to hear our heart cry out.   The things that are deep within us are His too. We often try to hold those in and hide those things. They are also the same things that rot our inmost being. God wants those thoughts and desires. He does not want well planned and well-orchestrated prayers that are done to be seen by men. Matthew 6:9-13 makes it clear how God wants us to pray. Take some time

         Faith is something that we often have issues with for one simple reason; it’s invisible. The word itself does not mean a tangible object that the five senses can detect. However, it is made up of the hope of eternal life and the evidence of God and His work. 1 I truly think this is the crux of the matter on faith. To many souls believe faith is something else. It is treated like a mythical creature that can only be witnessed by a few. It is presented like a lore that has no real root and no true evidence. It is handled flippantly. It is talked about frequently with no substance. Everyone is an expert on faith, but few truly understand it nor have it.      Faith is made up of someone's hope of eternal life. First, you must believe in the very thing that holds the keys to immortality, God. Christ made it clear that those who believe will be saved. 2 You have to believe God created a plan to save man in Christ from the beginning of time. 3 You have to believe tha

     When friendship comes to my mind, I think of two relationships in Scripture. They are Jesus and John and David and Jonathan. Jonathan loved David as his soul. 1   John was the one that Jesus loved, and you can see it in the gospel of John. 2 Not because Jesus showed it so much, but by the in-depth writing, John provides you can see how close they were. John was always with Jesus. John was so close to Jesus; he leaned on the chest of Jesus and asked Christ, who would betray him at the last supper. We see the same closeness between Jonathan and David when Jonathan sought to save David, when Saul’s edict to kill David, went out. 3   These two examples are what I believe God wants with us and wants us to desire to have with Him and His body.      The mentioned examples of friendship are the friendship we find deep in the fellowship that John speaks of in 1 John 1:1-10. Godly friendship is a friendship that is not one-sided. It is a bond that is not given up for futile moment

     For us to understand this verse of being saved by grace through faith. We need to understand God’s definitions of those words that are given to us in His word, correct? Let us do that.   Can we go back and look at Eph. 2:8-10 and look at the verse itself? Excellent "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. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:8-10 KJV. First, I would like to ask, what is grace according to scripture? Many rightly say grace is “the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings.” Mariam Webster defines grace as “unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification” 1   That’s correct.   That explains it, but it does not give us a full picture. I still have questions ab