Click on the questions below to go directly to your answers
If Christ is always with me, why can't I feel that in my spirit?
My life is too busy. How can I slow down?
What does the bible teach about kindness?
Is there more than one kind of faith?
Where will you spend eternity?
What is the patience of unanswered prayer?
Question: If Christ is always with me, why can't I feel that in my spirit?
Answer: We all need reassurance from time to time that the Lord is not far away or out of sight for long. Remember what Jesus told his disciples: "In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me" (John 16:16)
Every nursery worker can testify about the agony of separation anxiety. The heart-wrenching drama takes place at the doorway to the nursery. Mommy or Daddy has left their precious little one in the care of the nursery worker for the first time. There are tears. Little arms plead for Mommy or Daddy not to leave them. But this is a one of the developmental processes that must be accomplished for the well being of the child.
We grow, mature and become adults to one degree or another. Yet the child within remains. We still tend to cry when loved ones disappear from out sight. We grieve and ask if we will ever see them again. Our faith reassures us, but only time can bring us back together again.
In my own spiritual life, my soul's vision sometimes sees Jesus so clearly. At other times Jesus seems to have disappeared. I know that he will reappear in my soul in an hour or two or in a month or so. He always has. So when I hear these words to his grown disciples, I hear a nursery worker reassuring anxious little ones: " I'm leaving now, but shortly after that you'll see me again."
Question: My life is too busy. How can I slow down?
Answer: Consider the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12: "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life...." And this was 2,000 years ago, before cars and cells phones, e-mail and instant news.
Ambition and the quiet life don't seem to go together at first hearing. But the more I explore Christian Spirituality the more I find simplicity at its core. I'm not speaking of rustic, rural living. That agrarian life had its own pressures: waiting for rain, the rush of the harvest, the timing of many things coming together coming at one time.
Rather, I'm speaking of the simplicity of the one thing done well. Simplicity is the art of holding no more in your life than you can hold in your arms. I can be impatient. I was moving books between offices . The first trip I carried about eight books. The second trip I carried ten books. The third tip I tried eleven. When I tried twelve books I lost control and dropped the other eleven. The "one more" become the "too many."
Our culture encourages the ambition to lead a hectic life. The scriptures advise use to have the ambition to lead the quiet life. To live wit the humility to keep your mind and hands on your work and to do it well is something God respects - and so, eventually, will others.
Question: What does the bible teach about kindness?
Answer: The word "kindness" in the New Testament is translated in several ways: easy in Matthew 11:30, better in Luke 5:39, good in 1 Peter 2:3. The basic meaning is useful. All of us can use a little kindness. Goethe wrote, "Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together." Even Mark Twain quipped, "Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see."
Everyone can be kind. There are no excuses for being rude, heavy-handed or abusive. This is not to say we should never speak the truth in love or confront one another when this action is appropriate. But we can still be kind.
The Bible does not teach us to treat people as they deserve or even as they treat us. We are commanded to treat people as God treats us (Ephesians 4:32). By his very nature God is kind. When he lives, rules and reigns in us we too will be kind. Marriages, families, neighbors, fellow employees, classmates - really, all relationships - would change drastically for the better if we all simply practiced being kind.
If we could buy kindness in a bottle, most of us would buy enough to make sure everyone around us had an ample supply. But kindness cannot be purchased, demanded or earned. If we're to receive kindness, we must give it away.
Question: Is there more than one kind of faith?
Answer: As Christians, we need to know the difference between faith in Christ and faith in faith. I recently filled out a reference form for a friend applying to a mainline seminary. At the top of the form was the motto "Follow Your Faith."
At first I was pleasantly surprised because this school is sometimes thought to be a bastion of theological skepticism But then it hit me. The motto was "Follow Your Faith." And that's a problem.
Instead of saying "follow Christ" or "follow God's Word," the message is, in effect, "Whatever you've decided your faith is, follow it." Rather than putting the focus on Christ in whom we have faith we choose to have - perhaps in Christ, perhaps in something else.
These days, this confusion of faith in Christ with faith is one's faith is a common and widespread error. However, the Bible doesn't say "whoever believes in him [Jesus] shall not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:16). Our faith is worthless unless it's based on something or someone who is greater than we are, someone who is the way, the truth, and the life. And Jesus has made it clear that he is that someone (John 14:16)
Question: Where will you spend eternity?
Answer: Where will you spend eternity? -- Used by permission of the American Tract Society – by: Arthur DeMoss
Thank God, according to the bible not only can you know, but you can choose where you will spend eternity.
Now we all believe- or at least most claim to believe- in the Bible as God’s Word. We believe in eternity and know that life is short. The Bible itself asks, “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14).
Many claim to believe in heaven and in hell, yet, unfortunately show little concern over their eternal destiny. We are far more concerned about this life than the next, yet we know that eternity is endless. The Word of God describes eternity as being “for ever and ever” (Revelation 22:5).
Just think… an eternity to be spent forever, either in the perfect paradise called heaven or in the terrible torments of hell.Surely we’ll agree that it is just good sense to prepare for eternity now, before it is forever too late. God says, “man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27)
“Well,” you say, “I believe in God, go to church and live the best I can. What else can I do?”
Now believing in God, attending church, and doing one’s best are all admirable; yet, according to the Word of God, the Holy Bible, there cannot get us to heaven. Neither, according to God, can our church membership, baptism, confirmation, nor our good deeds attain for us eternal life.
But God has provided an answer to the matter of life and death, heaven and hell. It is an answer so simple it is frequently overlooked.
A religious leader named Nicodemus came to Jesus one night for help. Jesus told, “You must be born again,” and expanded this to include all of us by stating quite empathically, “I tell you the truth, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Pretty dogmatic perhaps, but these are the words of Christ Himself.
Some today, like Nicodemus, will ask, “How can a man be born when he is old? Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!” (John 3:4). But Jesus answers, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3:6), stating again that one must experience a spiritual rebirth in order to enter heaven- “You must be born again” (John 3:7).
Now have you been born again? Have you experienced this spiritual rebirth? This is the one thing according to the Bible that will determine your eternal destiny.
So, for those who really want to know how to be born again, here is the answer from God’s word.
We must recognize that we are sinners, that we’ve all violated God’s laws. The Bible says, “for those have sinned and fall short of the glory of God… There is no one righteous, not even one…There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins….If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us…If we claim that we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives” (Romans 2:23, 10; Ecclesiastes 7:20; 1 John 1:8, 10).
We must repent of our sins. The Bible says that God “commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). Jesus said, “unless you repent, you too will all perish” (Luke 13:3). And it is not so difficult to repent as we pause to think of what our sins have cost God. It was for our sins that God, the Creator and King of this universe, left His home in heaven and came to earth in the Person of Jesus to suffer and bleed and die- that we might be forgiven . “This how we know that love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). Then Jesus rose from the dead, proving His victory over sin and death.
We must receive Christ into our hearts and lives as our Savior. We read in the first chapter of John, speaking of the Lord Jesus, “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:10-12).
The moment we open our hearts to the Lord Jesus and place our complete trust in Him- and Him alone- as our Savior, God promises to forgive our sins, save our soul, and reserve for us a home in heaven. Then, on the authority of the Word of God, we can know where we’ll spend eternity. God says, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). And Jesus promises, “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24).
Now are you willing to settle the matter of your eternal destiny? Will you do it? You can, right this moment. I sincerely hope that you will.
-- Used by permission of the American Tract Society – by: Arthur DeMoss
Question: What is the patience of unanswered prayer?
Answer: The psalmist knew what many of use already experienced. We have called out to God in prayer, we have made our petitions known, and at time our supplication seem to have fallen upon deaf ears. Why, we wonder, does God not answer every one of our prayers - now and in just the way we want them answered?
George Croly, a nineteenth century hymn writer and poet, experienced this also; and he expressed it thoughtfully in the fourth stanza of his hauntingly beautiful hymn, "Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart." Croly writes,
Teach me to feel that thou art always nigh;
teach me the struggles of the soul to bear.
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh,
teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.
Thus, the psalmist too affirms calling upon God, and that call is made in the trust and assurance that God will hear and will answer. The emphasis here is on that word will, for God does not always respond on the schedules we envision nor in the ways we desire. That's why George Croly emphasizes the word teach; you and I must learn to wait upon the Lord. You and I must learn to trust in God's ultimate responses, trusting that those responses are based in God's infinite love and wisdom.
How can we be sure that God will respond to each prayer? The psalmist answers that question also. For the psalmist has experienced God demonstrating not anger nor hostility, not indifference or lack of concern, but instead a constant and "forever" love, a steadfast love. And the answers to our prayers? The psalmist cannot help but wonder at the marvelous love of God reflected in as yet unimagined answers to our prayers. For God answers our prayers in God's ways of perfect love, not in our ways of self-centered desire.
Question: What is Rejoicing hearts?
Answer: In our day and age, our hearts are considered the centers of our emotions, such as love, compassion, sympathy, and empathy. Our Valentine cards are covered with the bright red hearts, reminding us of the association of the heart with love.
But this was not quite the case in Old Testament times. Rather than being considered the symbolic center of emotions such as love, the heart in the times of the psalmist was considered to be the center of the will, the center of activity.
The ones who rejoice are not just the ones who say that they love the Lord, but the ones who actively seek the Lord by doing the will of the Lord in all that they do.
Consider: It is their intention to seek the Lord and to find the Lord! It is their will to discover the Lord in their midst. It is their deepest desire to make contact with the Lord, and in doing so discovering all that God has promised to do in and for them.
Thus, we do not seek the Lord by passively saying that we loved God. We seek the Lord by doing God's will, by living God's way, by loving as God loved us. We set our wills and our intentions, our passions and our desires, God-ward. We fix our gaze on God, and move determinedly in that single direction. And in so doing, we rejoice, we discover joy, we are fulfilled.
Our rejoicing is not the giddy "jump up and down" kind of temporary joy; it is a permanent and absolute trust in the Lord and the conviction that we will receive the blessing of God's infinite promises. Thanks be to God!
