webFeed

We Need the Church The church is the second most foundational source of truth that can make us wise. Some might scratch their heads at this, especially in post-Christian Western cultures where the church feels unnecessary and irrelevant at best. Can’t we have Jesus without the church, adopting some aspects of spirituality without institutional religion?

The fear of God is not a state of mind you can guarantee with five easy steps. It is not something that can be acquired with simple self-effort. The fear of God is a matter of the heart.

Do God’s attributes matter to Christians today? Most of us take them for granted and seldom think about them specifically. Does anybody seriously discuss why God’s invisibility is important? Theologians may argue over things like impassibility and eternity, but most people do not. They assume that God is eternal and that he cares about us, but they do not puzzle over whether he himself suffers.

It’s the age of the tattoo, isn’t it? It has become something of a rite of passage for older teenagers or younger adults to get inked. Whatever we parents think about this trend, I expect we’re unanimous in at least wanting our children to wait until they are old enough to count the cost—to grow up enough to have some sense of what it will meanhttps://www.challies.com/

Isaiah 40:31 contains a great promise of strength for the weary: “they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” This promises a supernaturally renewed strength—a strength that would compare to mounting up as an eagle or running without fatigue. But what does this mean and how do we receive it? The context of this verse helps us.

It happens often—too often—in the Christian world. Another celebrity preacher, celebrity author, celebrity speaker, is exposed as a hypocrite, as one who takes advantage of position and prominence to pursue not heavenly rewards, but fleshly lusts, fading treasures, or fleeting power. When yet another one is exposed, it is like a huge boulder is dropped into an otherwise still pond. There is a great splash, a great disturbance, a great series of ripples that flow outward, until the whole body of water has been disturbed.

I’m convinced we’re prone to make entirely too much of the most public gifts and entirely too little of the most private. We laud those who stand at the event podiums to preach the Word. We celebrate those who sit on the conference panels to answer our questions. We honor those who pen the few bestselling books. When given the opportunity, we surge forward to shake their hands, to snap a selfie, to share encouraging words.

It is an audacious claim of the Christian faith that there is only one way to heaven. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” we believe. Not most, not some, but all. Since all of us have sinned, all of us are lost and in need of saving. And this saving we so badly need can come from only one Savior since “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Thus, we believe, there is only one way to be saved, only one way to heaven—Jesus Christ who is “the way, the truth, and the life.” No one comes to relationship with God, no one comes into the presence of God, no one gets to heaven, except through faith in Jesus Christ.

We human beings have a strange relationship with leadership. We love it, but hate it. We crave it, but resent it. We long to be led, but contend with those who lead us. We witness this phenomenon in toddlers, in seniors, and in everyone between. As soon as we have the ability to shake our fists, and for as long as we have the ability to shake our fists, we shake them at those who lead us.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Not only that, but the fear of the Lord is the beginning of the Christian life. The Bible makes it clear that to love God, to honor God, to obey God, we must fear God. But “fear” is a word with many dimensions, many definitions. In what ways are we to fear God?