I'll Be Honest

Believer, because we are the temple of God, we should ask the Lord for more power from the Holy Spirit. This power that is received, according to grace and not works, is essential to Christian growth. The Bible speaks of the Lord filling His temple with His Holy Spirit and with inexpressible glory. This reality should motivate us to pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our own lives and co...

As a believer maintaining unity in your church should be a priority. However, there are some in the church who are divisive, and a critic of every little thing that comes along because it is not what they would choose or prefer. There are also some who easily get offended at something and they won’t let it go. They let it fester in their mind and heart and it alienates them from their pastors. The...

A mindset of humility promotes unity in a local church. That is a mindset that is not always being opinionated, or thinking we always know what is right, or that we have to push our agenda on others. Must we take a stand where the Bible does and not compromise? Absolutely, but often good men differ over the smallest of the non-essentials of the faith. We need humility to be able to love others who...

The Christian is the only person who has a hope that can truly be rejoiced in and will truly last. (This was shared at Providence Chapel’s prayer meeting, the day before the Fellowship Conference began.)

When the preacher's sermon preparation leads him to commit eisegesis and he reads his own idea and meaning into the text, it is not a light matter. If the preacher does not substantiate what he is saying from the text, then he may fall into slipping his own opinions into the sermon. These opinionated assumptions are stated as if they come from the text, but they do not. Preacher, are you clearly g...

When we were lost, we were dead in trespasses and sins. It wasn't that we transgressed against God every once in awhile. All we ever did was sin and trespass against God and God's commandments. God purposely used graphic terms to describe what we were in our lost condition. Do you recognize the power that was necessary to take dead sinners like us and make us alive? Even as Christians, there is st...

Paul says that Jesus Christ has put everything under His feet and been appointed as head over all for the church. Christian, do you realize what is being said? Paul is saying that He who is head over everything and is all powerful, is all powerful on the believer’s behalf! It is no small reality that Christ is over all for us, but rather it is a reason to have confidence that He is powerfully work...

Jesus gave a call to radical discipleship, to exclusive allegiance. The call to become a Christian is a call to have Jesus be our Lord and our God.

Did you hear that? In one stroke, that just wiped out everything that we just read. We just read over, and over, "if you eat that you will be unclean, you will be defiled, don't defile yourself." Listen to what He said, "there is nothing outside the man, which going into him, can defile him." Incredible statement. And I don't think the disciples had a clue, until years later, of what He had said.

Continuing in Jesus' teachings regarding the reality of hell and eternal punishment.

It is a very wonderful and kind thing of the Lord, that He would give us the most compassionate and loving Person in the world, to tell us the most about hell, and that's what we have in the Gospel accounts. Jesus taught that hell is a reality that ought to affect our present lives profoundly.

We tend to think about people searing their conscience when they go into sins: like lust, drunkenness and so on. However, in 1 Timothy 4 Paul's concern is with them searing their conscience through legalism. People were forbidding marriage and eating of certain foods, and in doing so were searing their consciences. When you get a zeal for the Lord it is very easy for Satan to high jack that with a...

"And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself." John 12:32

The most extreme teachings of Jesus were the teachings about Himself. Yes the kingdom of heaven was at hand, but why? Because the King was present, He had come on the scene. The most radical things that Jesus ever said, He said about Himself. The teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ about Himself are so radical and so extreme that we cannot just be neutral towards Him. We either have to mock Him and...

"I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." Luke 13:5

The teachings of Jesus regarding his concern for each person. "In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Luke 15:10

The teachings of Jesus regarding the Fatherhood of God and the wonderful implications of this for the believer.

"From that time Jesus began to preach and say, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" Matthew 4:17 Part 2 of "Teachings of Jesus"

"From that time Jesus began to preach and say, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" Matthew 4:17 Part 1 of "Teachings of Jesus"

Futility of mind is when a man is forever and always trying to figure out how to be happy, while he is an enemy of God. Futility is the way of the world; they are full of thoughts that are empty, vain, and useless. Yet as Christians we are to put away futility of mind as Paul says in Ephesians 4:17, "you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds."

Tim responds to someone who asks, "I wanted to know if you ever get depressed when you think about the fact that you have no historical or scientific evidence to back up what you believe?"

In Ephesians 4, Paul calls us to learn of Jesus Christ and to be taught how to speak through beholding Him. He spoke perfectly as fit the occasion and sometimes that was to be silent. Christ spoke from His mouth the very Word of God and in the same way our mouths should be filled with Scripture.

In this Ask Pastor Tim, Tim responds to the following question: So many people around the world say that Jesus is Lord and are probably not saved. I just don't understand 1 Corinthians 12:3 which says, "Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says 'Jesus is accursed!' and no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except in the Holy Spirit." Please explain why many ar...

Life transformation will always accompany the forgiveness of our sins. Always. When God declares the sinner righteous, legally they're forgiven; it always accompanies a real practical transformation of life. Don't believe your heaven bound, if you're still the same old person chasing sin in the same old way, because Christ's salvation is way better than that.

Once the writer John gets us to where we have assurance, he then doesn't have us sit there with our assurance but sends us to the battlefield. We who have assurance are to go to war for Christ in the spiritual realm. The more certain you are that all is well with your soul, the more willing and certain you will be to dash out on the battlefield.