There may be many things going on in your life to your soul’s peril. This article will deal with many possibilities, as well as offer counsel on how to overcome spiritual weakness and backsliding spiritually.
CHRISTIANS Something to Be Set Right
When a man does wrong, and yet will not confess it, how wrong he must be! Or when having confessed it, he does not feel proper shame; or after feeling ashamed for a while he returns to the same evil like the dog to his vomit, how deep must the evil be in his moral nature, how terribly diseased he must be, inasmuch as he does not feel sin to be sin at all!
Christians What Sort of Persons Ought You to Be?
It takes “applying all diligence” to take part in pursuits that help us develop godly qualities. For example, it takes discipline and sometimes it is a struggle to attend all Christian meetings, to read our Bible every day, and to have a good personal Bible study each day.
1 JOHN 3:10-11, 16-18: HOW CAN WE HELP ONE ANOTHER TO REMAIN FAITHFUL?
Love, charity (as we rather prefer to say), in its effects upon all our relations to others, is the beautiful subject of this section of our Epistle. It begins with the message of love itself-yet another asterisk referring to the Gospel, to the very substance of the teaching which the believers of Ephesus had first received from St. Paul, and which had been emphasized by St. John.
HEBREWS 2:1: How Are We to Understand the Exhortation to Pay Much Closer Attention So That You Do Not Drift Away?
The idea of drifting away compared the audience to a boat sailing past warning signs to meet destruction and ruin on a rocky shore or in a raging rapid. The Hebrews needed to do something. They were listless while their situation demanded positive action. “Pay attention to your plight,” said our writer, “lest you carelessly fall into ruin.” - Thomas D. Lea
SPIRITUAL GROWTH: Only is God Glorified
THIS is so obvious that it really needs no arguing. It brings no glory to God that his children should be dwarfs. As sunshine and rain are sent for the nourishment and fructification of vegetation so the means of grace are provided that we may increase in our spiritual stature. “As newborn babes desire the... Continue Reading →
SPIRITUAL GROWTH: Christian Progress Does Not Make Us Meet for Heaven
Many of those who are more or less clear on the three points considered above are far from being so upon this one, and therefore we must enter into it at greater length. Thousands have been taught to believe that when a person has been justified by God and tasted the blessedness of “the man... Continue Reading →
SPIRITUAL GROWTH: Christian Progress Does Not Procure a Title for Heaven
THE perfect and indefeasible title of every believer is in the merits of Christ. His vicarious fulfilling of the law, whereby he magnified and made it honorable, secured for all in whose stead he acted the full reward of the law. It is on the all-sufficient ground of Christ’s perfect obedience being reckoned to his... Continue Reading →
SPIRITUAL GROWTH: Christian Progress Does Not Denote that the Work of Regeneration Was Incomplete
GREAT care needs to be taken in stating this truth of spiritual growth lest we repudiate the perfection of the new birth. When a normal child is born into this world naturally the babe is an entire entity, complete in all its parts, possessing a full set of bodily members and mental faculties. As the... Continue Reading →
SPIRITUAL GROWTH: Experience More Genuine Assurance, Preserved from Grievous Backsliding, and Preserve the Cause of Christ from Reproach
Peace becomes more stable and joy abounds in proportion as we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and become more conformed practically to his holy image. It is because ...