Wisdom Matters

Sometimes people think they don’t know all the right things to say about God so they hesitate to share their witness as a result. Almost any conversation about God could begin with his greatness and his holiness. A beautiful sunrise or sunset is God’s painting. A tremendous storm reveals his power. The intricacies in nature reveal his vast imaginative ability to create. God makes himself known to...

Spotting a Christian in a crowd shouldn’t be difficult. There is a tangible presence of Christ in the life of every believer. We all have bad days, we all get in a hurry, and we all damage our witness in multiple ways. That said, one of the best ways to spot a Christian is the conviction on their faces and, hopefully, the repentance that follows those lesser moments. Lifestyle evangelism means wal...

Jesus told his disciples, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). He then described himself as “the true vine” (John 15:1). We are “grafted into” the family of God through our faith in Christ. However, Jesus wanted to make one more lesson clear. If a believer is truly attached to the “true vine,” he or she will bear much fruit. The fru...

We often speak of sharing our faith, but, in truth, we are sharing the faith. The first commandment, the first thing people have always needed to understand, is that there are “no other gods” before Jehovah God. The world needs to worship the Creator God, not the gods created by men. God causes the sun to rise and set every day. Only the Creator God’s name is great for every nation. Every nation s...

We will probably always remember seeing the videos on the evening news showing people in hundreds of cars, in multiple lines, waiting to receive the COVID vaccine. The vaccine was debated but is now widely accepted. That is true of most vaccines we have taken. If we can avoid a serious illness, especially an illness that could cause death, we accept the vaccine. My grandson was diagnosed with leuk...

Jesus was the oldest son and would have worked next to Joseph as a carpenter. The region of Nazareth was used for farming, and it is natural to assume that making yokes for the plows was a big part of the woodworking Joseph was asked to do. Jesus was very familiar with the function of a yoke. Many yokes were for one animal, but the most efficient way to prepare a field for farming was to use two o...

Just before Jesus ascended to the Father, he told his disciples that they would “receive power when the Holy Spirit” came to them and they would “be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Jesus literally said that when his disciples received the Spirit they would become, or be transformed into, a witness for Christ. Jesus could say that to...

Our culture insists there are many faith options and that it’s wrong to compare one religion to another. Jesus did not allow his disciples to entertain that way of thinking. Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you.” In his first words, he insisted that his followers understand that his teaching was truth and that his words were not open for debate or compromise. What was the truth Jesus insisted h...

Sanctification is the process of being made holy. We should be more like Christ today than we were a year ago. One of the markers of a growing, thriving Christian life is the overflow of our spiritual thoughts and words to others, our evangelism. Paul wrote his letter to Philemon praying that he would be effective in the sharing of his faith. His next words should be the only motivation we need to...

One Sunday my husband preached a sermon on the need for all of us to be ready for heaven today. He said none of us can know when our time here on earth is finished. It was a good sermon, and one of our church members picked up a pen and paper that Sunday afternoon to write him a note of gratitude for his words. She mailed that note on Monday morning and died on Monday afternoon. He read her note a...

God’s words to the prophet Isaiah would not be considered correct in our culture today. God told the prophet, “Turn to me and be saved,” and his message was truth for “all the ends of the earth.” God said, “I am God, and there is no other.” The apostle Paul wrote a similar message to Timothy, saying that God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4)...

God has promised to reward our evangelism with eternal treasure. We acknowledge Jesus and all that he has done for our lives when we share his love and his message of salvation with others. Sharing the gospel is a high and honored goal. But Jesus had sobering words for those who hinder the salvation of others. Jesus said, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me s...

We know that one day we will stand before God, with Jesus, and we will be accountable to God for our choices. The Day of Judgment is a reality in Scripture, but we don’t know much about that moment beyond the fact that it will occur. For those who have placed their faith in Christ, we can know with confidence that our sins will be known by God but forgiven because of our faith in the sacrificial g...

Lifestyle evangelism is living our faith through our actions but also through our words. People should see Jesus in our lives because of our choices and the character of Christ we choose to emulate. Feeling uncertain when we want to talk to someone about their faith in Christ is good. Everyone is different and will have a unique path to their salvation. Just because some words worked well with one...

We live in a world of people who need to know there is one true God. Some need to know and obey God more fully than they realize. Our world would be safer and more joy-filled if people understood and obeyed God’s plans. Our Father loves us and wants us to know he has the plan for our best life, if we will just choose to live as he leads. Jesus spoke about our lives as a light to the world. The lig...

Proverbs 11:30 is a simple and profound measure of what it means to live a wise life. A wise person is a person who lives rightly with God and therefore produces his fruit in his or her life. That person will “capture souls” and be recognized as wise. A person whose life causes others to know God is an evangelist. We share Jesus each time we share his love with another. We share Jesus when we give...

According to the online Cambridge Dictionary, an ambassador is “a person who represents, speaks for, or advertises a particular organization or group of people.” Paul used that word to define the role of a Christian who wants to represent Christ, speak for Christ, and advance the gospel message. When we do the work of the evangelist, we are actually speaking for God. Paul wrote that this is “God m...

A large number of believers in God have likely never risen to the level of trusting God with their lives. How are those two things different? A favorite story answers that question. A man stretched a tightrope over a huge waterfall that cascaded to the river in the canyon below. A crowd gathered to watch as he easily carried heavy objects from one side of the canyon to the other. He amazed and imp...

I’m old enough to remember the traveling evangelists who led tent revivals in the seventies. Some were like Billy Graham while others were a different kind of messenger. I’ve witnessed God’s word being shouted on street corners, worn on T-shirts, and posted on billboards and on the walls in people’s homes. I’ve used and been blessed by God’s word in many of those ways.  God’s word is used today in...

Paul’s words to the Colossians step on most of our toes. Most Christians are willing to share the gospel with someone who asks them. But, how often do we ask God to give us the opportunity to do that? Paul told the Colossian church to pray “steadfastly” and to be “watchful” with a heart that would be grateful to God for his answers. Then Paul asked the church to pray that God would “open a door” s...

Two of the original disciples reached out to the lame man at the temple gate called Beautiful and said, “Rise up and walk!” (Acts 3:6). Philip the evangelist met the Ethiopian eunuch on the road and explained the gospel. The Ethiopian man was saved, and there are volumes of church tradition that speak to the impact of that one changed life. Jesus met Paul on the road to Damascus and the terrorist...

It’s been said that Acts 1:8 is fulfilled in Acts 8:1, after Stephen was tried before the Jewish courts and sentenced to death by stoning. Acts 8:1 says, “And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.” Every Christian has received power from the indwelling of the Holy Sp...

God gave us commands, but he also gave us the right to choose whether or not we would obey his word.  Isaiah heard God speak when he went into the temple to pray. King Uzziah had died, and Isaiah was grieving and troubled. The Jewish kings were supposed to lead the people to live rightly with God, but not all did. King Uzziah was a good king, and the prophet Isaiah wondered what would happen after...

My husband was sitting in a chapel service at seminary when the speaker said, “The Holy Spirit has a strange affinity for the trained mind.” I love that God used a donkey to speak to the prophet Balaam in Numbers 22. I’ve often said if God can use a donkey, he can surely use any one of us to share his word. But, I also think the seminary speaker was correct. Many Scriptures point to the importance...

The Christian faith began in the small country of Israel, a land God had promised to bless. The land had been favored for hundreds of years by the time Jesus stepped out of heaven and into an earthly life. Our faith today can be traced back to the Holy Land and the promises God made to Abraham about him being the father of countless generations. There has always been one God, one Creator of all th...