I'll Be Honest

“Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.” There’s a truth there, that the song writer says, that you and I need to know. The reason why is because how frequently Scripture hits us with this truth. The Providence itself makes it look like God is frowning at you, but if you can pull back the veil you see a smiling face and the kingdom of heaven. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But...

I’ve often considered it to be a significant measure of a person’s spiritual maturity to simply ask somebody, “How much do you pray for others?” How much are you self-absorbed with your own needs and not the needs of others? – Tim Conway

Brethren, don't be deceived, Satan does not like praying churches; he loves it when the prayer meetings begin to diminish. Prayer unleashes the power of God and he knows it. Don't give into this. If some of you are not showing forth a devotedness to corporate prayer; then brethren I call you, repent of that, turn, don't go down that path. It can become easy; you justify it once, you justify it twi...

Love is not some mushy feeling, it has to do with laying down your life for someone... it is the most costly thing imaginable to love the way the Bible talks about what love is. - Charles Leiter

Don't be scared of the word love and overreact to the abuse that its meaning has taken in our generation. The last thing we want to do is dull down its true meaning to be something different than what the Bible emphasizes it to be.

True life is to know the Lord intimately, but sin interrupts this. One of the greatest griefs behind sin is how it affects the Christian's fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. If you pray for a brother who has committed a sin as a believer, which does not lead unto death, then what happens? The text says that God will give him life, meaning restore him in the specific area of sin that entered an...

Some people think that you go to Bible college or seminary and you become a pastor. Let me ask you this, has God come to you and given you something that you did not have before? Has God given you a gift? Has God given you power to be able to carry out the work of a pastor? Notice what Paul said, " ...the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you" (Eph. 3:2). Too many men want to pro...

When I started out, on the Christian faith, I did not have any feelings. I had no flashing lights. I just saw, this is right. The word of God is true. I have got to be born again... I have got to go with Christ. I have got to forsake these sinful friends. I have got to forsake sin. And so I started out by faith taking God at His Word, when I didn't have a bit of feeling. - Bob Jennings

Believer, are you ready to be wiser than the world when it comes to how you handle your money? When the Apostle Paul teaches the Corinthians about giving he stresses that the real giver in the midst of our giving is not us, but God is the true giver.

When studying homiletics, the art of sermon preparation and delivery, we must start with James 3:1 and consider how the Bible says, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness." Here we see that the Bible does not consider it a light matter to teach the Word of God. Therefore for starters we should not ask, "How many p...

Is there a power in your life that is somehow a reflection of the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead? Don't be satisfied with powerless Christianity because Christianity is all about a God who acts in power.

The Lord designs some to specifically have a special calling to preach that is above and beyond the norm. It is God alone who knows how to create a preacher. He does this in a few people so that believers may be taught, instructed, and built up through the Word of God.

We need to be content with the gifts that God has given to us. I find many men are not content, especially when it comes to the place of preaching. Many men are not content if it were to be found out that God had given them an unusual gift of serving instead of a preaching gift.

One of the things that happened when I stood in that pulpit, that first time, is my legs barely carried me into the pulpit. When I got there, it was like such a sense of peace descended upon me; all my faculties, my mind was absolutely clear, strength was in my legs, and my mouth was ready to speak. The thing is as I looked at those people... such a burden came over me for their souls... that I ha...

Abiding in Christ is not some kind of passive approach to the Christian life. Scripture is plain and straight forward that we must go and put to death what is earthly in us. This is no vain call for Christians to do what we cannot do, but we have the power of God mightily working in us for this to be accomplished.

When it comes to a study on sermon preparation we must not neglect the topic of the preacher's holiness. If there is unholiness in the preacher's life, it will destroy any power from being present in the delivery of the sermon. This is because God is involved in what happens in that pulpit and if you are seeking to preach with an unclean life you will not have any power.

Those who are not disciplined and do not give priority to prayer in their life should not be preaching. Their prayerlessness is a statement that they have not yet grasped who is sufficient to preach. Those who are sufficient to preach are those who realize they are insufficient in their own power! When one recognizes their insufficiency they are driven to prayer. Prayer is for needy people who are...

When it comes to rightly handling the Scriptures we want to seek for perfection. The preacher's goal is to articulate the truth of God exactly as it is and to not make clumsy statements. Tim starts by asking, "Did Saul actually fall off his horse on the road to Damascus?"

Parents must consistently train their children at home in order for them to behave properly during a church service. Having family devotionals is an excellent time for that training to take place; as well as giving them Biblical truth which is of most importance.

When studying the Bible for sermon preparation you must ask questions of the text. Then when preaching bring some of those same questions up to the listener. By doing this, you are seeking to have the listener face the dilemma of the text with you. Does the content of your sermon bring forth what God intends to be said from the text? Are you rightly handling the Word of God? We must preach the Scr...

Do you know God both intimately and intellectually? Jesus Christ didn't die just to give you doctrine and insights into the nature of God; He died to bring us to God Himself. That is, for us to know the Lord intimately.

This world is a system with a mindset that has a force and power of darkness behind it. It has such a hold over us that if God doesn't come and deliver us we will be swept away by it. The only way to be delivered from the course of this world is through the Lord Jesus Christ.

What Jesus did on the Cross is all that matters, and that is the message that will batter down the walls of hell. The Gospel is the message that will tear down imaginations and pull down strongholds. We are to glory in Christ's work on the Cross alone.

Who is the “prince of the power of the air”? Is it of course the Devil? Or is it referring to someone else? We are confronted by a spirit outside of ourselves, a personal being who tracks us and is after us. A person who has a kingdom, and he is not just operating by himself. He has an agenda. He possesses a hatred and is head over all other fallen angels. We read in the Scriptures about the strat...

Some use the expression, “God doesn’t want you to be happy, He wants you to be holy.” Yet they forget that there is no such thing as the unhappy holy Christian. The holy Christian is the happy Christian. The believer does not forsake happiness to have holiness, but because of holiness they are happy in God.