You can give, because you have a God who gives.
Contentment should make us godly, wholesome people. Paul suggests as much 1 Timothy 6:6 – “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” Godliness and contentment go together.
Put before your eyes the sorts of things that will promote thoughts that are substantial, and satisfying, and glorious.
The God who provides us with this peace – He himself, is eternal in his existence, limitless in his power, and infinite in his goodness.
The Bible needs to guide us into right doctrine, into right practice – and yes, into right thinking. We are called to have the same mindset – the mindset of Christ.
Paul’s life isn’t an exotic specimen of what it means to be a missionary or a Super-Guru of Spirituality. Paul’s life shows us what it looks like to be a Christian.
Let’s be straining toward the resurrection of the dead, and the ways of righteousness in his kingdom, and the glory of his likeness.
Growing in the true Christian faith will only ever take you closer to the person and work of Jesus – never further away.
As people who are both physical and spiritual beings, God cares for us, both physically and spiritually, through his ministers and through the life of the whole church. Embodied, in-person ministry matters.
Is the day of Christ on your mind? Is it having any impact on how you live?
The right attitude of the Christian should never be “God shows me grace, so I can keep sinning!” Instead, the right attitude that we see here is “God shows me grace, so I can keep obeying!”
Even if we abandoned our houses and bodies and brains and our playthings, and we stooped down to take on the form of pond scum – even then, we would not have humbled ourselves as much as Jesus Christ did.
Very few of us need encouragement to watch out for ourselves. But to watch out and pay attention to the needs of others, just as intently – that’s a challenge. That’s not natural. Indeed, it’s divine.
Our citizenship is something to be understood, and enjoyed, and acted upon.
in Christ, life is good and productive, and death is transformed into gain. In Christ, we’re given a new commission to live for the one who died for us, and new confidence to die for the one who lives for us.
God doesn’t just preserve us by putting a big, plexiglass dome over the sapling of our faith – but he preserves us by growing our faith into a mature tree, that can withstand windstorms and winters.
Rejoice in knowing that the gospel will not fail. Because the good news is still good. And God is still God.
Spirit-empowered love is a glorious and beautiful thing that the world can never have too much of. It shouldn’t make any sense that we’d want to limit our love, or restrict our forgiveness to seventy-times-seven.
God has brought you, and me, and all of us together to receive the gospel fully, and to advance the gospel further. This is the fellowship we’ve been called into with one another. This is what gospel partnership is.
Being a cabin boy on a luxury cruise liner is much better than being the captain of a sinking rowboat.