Gospel.com Blog

I should have started my spring cleaning last week. There are unfolded blankets on the couch, jackets on the floor and the detritus of half-started projects strewn about my living room. I’ve been waiting for sunnier weather, and now that spring is here, I’m anxious to start the slow, rewarding process of reordering my life.

Spring isn’t just a great time to physically clean our homes; it’s an opportunity to do some spiritual cleaning as well. This devotional from Delve Into Jesus urges us to take stock of our lives and work on the niggling sins that have been wearing us down:

But how are we doing with the little sins? I’m referring to the ones which keep getting put off and pushed down our chore list as we battle for control over the larger and more serious sins. We can procrastinate for a little while, but eventually the combined effect on your spiritual health of these so-called “smaller” sins can cause just as much damage as the larger ones. If we are going to keep our spirits clean and healthy, then maybe it’s time for a little spring cleaning.

Little sins have two big problems – they are hard to identify and easy to justify. Few non-Christians would think twice about committing these sins and would have little remorse afterward. Not many people seem to think it’s a problem to steal supplies from work, cheat on taxes, download illegal software or watch pornography. It’s become old-fashioned to wait for marriage before sharing physical intimacy, and we barely notice anymore when someone tells vulgar jokes or uses our Lord’s name as a curse. [...]

Now is the time to compile a list of these behaviors and get honest about what they really are – rebellion against God. Are you surprised to hear such a dramatic description applied to such common, mundane behavior that most people would excuse or condone it? That may be fine for a world which has turned it’s back on God, but that is not acceptable for those who follow Christ. He instructed us to “be perfect” in all things, large and small. If we choose to willfully engage in these behaviors knowing that it is not God’s will for us, what else could we call it but rebellion or defiance?

Read the rest of the devotional at Delve Into Jesus.

Is God convicting you of any sin that you need to work on this spring?

Whether they call it a play, a pageant or a drama, many churches dramatize the Easter story in a creative way to help people see the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection in a new light.

Is your church doing an Easter pageant this year?

Share your thoughts!

“How can I know God’s will for my life?” Every Christian has asked that question at some point. Prayer, Bible reading, and conversation with fellow believers can often help us understand the general direction in which God is leading us… but even then, the answers aren’t always as clear-cut as we’d like.

In the most recent Nehemiah Notes devotional essay, Blaine Smith narrows this issue down even further and asks if Christians should look inside or outside to identify God’s will for their lives. In other words, when trying to discern God’s will for our life and vocation, do we interpret our existing interests, talents, and gifts as divine hints as to our ideal vocation? Or should we identify the areas of greatest need in the community and world around us, and shape our interests and talents toward meeting that… even if it’s not a great fit for our abilities? Smith words it more eloquently:

The dilemma we face so often boils down to this: At one extreme is an option that appears to be a golden opportunity to help people and have a ministry. At the other is an opportunity more in line with our abilities and natural interests. And there seems to be a frustrating distance between these two extremes.

We confront this inward-outward issue not only in our career choices, but in many other areas. Opportunities to serve in our churches frequently seem to pit one option, where the needs are gaping, against another that better fits our talents and temperament, but where the needs are less pressing. We face this issue in some of our avocational choices as well.

Read his full thoughts at Nehemiah Notes.

Have you been through this crisis, and if so, how did you settle on the answer? Have you ever been in a situation where a ministry opportunity seemed to call to you, but it seemed in conflict with your own interests and talents?

Share your thoughts!

When’s the last time you had to worry about where you would find drinkable water? For most people living in developed nations, the idea of a “water crisis” sounds like an awfully remote problem on a planet covered 70% by ocean. But an estimated 1.1 billion people around the world rely on unsafe drinking-water—water that is contaminated by waste and substandard (or non-existent) water treatment.

Contaminated water means exposure to all sorts of waterborne diseases, with clear and tragic effects on the families and communities that have no other source of water to rely on—millions die each year of malaria, diarrheal diseases, and other diseases linked closely to contaminated water. The call to action for Christians is obvious.

Today is World Water Day, a chance to raise awareness of the desperate need for clean water in countries around the globe. The World Water Day website has good basic information about the situation and the need. Plenty of businesses are taking steps to help address the need for clean water, and Christian organizations like International Aid have been heavily involved in providing simple equipment that can purify even badly contaminated water.

If you know of a Christian ministry or organization at work in the developing world, consider supporting their efforts to provide clean water where it’s needed.

Is this an issue you’re aware of? Is it a cause that your church is actively supporting—and if not, do you plan to bring it up as part of the church’s regular contribution to missions and relief?

Have you ever watched someone having a conversation via text messaging? They clutch their phone, pull it out every minute just to see if there are any new texts waiting for them—and when there are, they drop everything to respond.

The author of this devotional from Our Daily Bread relates Paul’s command to “pray without ceasing” to a texting teenager:

An article in The Washington Post told about a 15-year-old girl who sent and received 6,473 cell phone text messages in a single month. She says about her constant communication with friends, “I would die without it.” And she is not alone. Researchers say that US teens with cell phones average more than 2,200 text messages a month.

To me, this ongoing digital conversation offers a remarkable illustration of what prayer could and should be like for every follower of Christ. Paul seemed to be constantly in an attitude of prayer for others: “[We] do not cease to pray for you” (Col. 1:9). “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit” (Eph. 6:18). “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17).

Read the entire devotional at RBC.org.

Have you ever met someone who prays without ceasing? Do you feel like you “live in an attitude of prayer for others?”

Satisfaction can be an elusive thing, especially when we try to find it on our own. Buying a new TV or starting a new relationship might make us feel better for a while, but eventually those feelings of newness and completeness fade and leave us in the same spot we were before.

True satisfaction can only be found in Christ, and as we read in this devotional from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening, Christ satisfies us forever:

When Jesus is the host, no guest goes empty from the table. Our head is satisfied with the precious truth which Christ reveals; our heart is content with Jesus, as the altogether lovely object of affection; our hope is satisfied, for whom have we in heaven but Jesus? and our desire is satiated, for what can we wish for more than “to know Christ and to be found in him?” Jesus fills our conscience till it is at perfect peace; our judgment with persuasion of the certainty of his teachings; our memory with recollections of what he has done, and our imagination with the prospects of what he is yet to do.

Read the rest at Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

Is it hard or easy for you to turn to Christ to find satisfaction?

Easter is fast approaching, which means church services will soon be filled with songs about the cross and the resurrection. This is one of my favorite times of the year for worship, when the church around the world cracks open its hymnals to sing classics like “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today”, “Hallelujah, What a Savior” and “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”

What’s your favorite Easter Hymn or Song?

Share your thoughts!

God is pretty familiar to us today. We hold casual conversations about Him; we attach his name to everything from toys to political movements; we write confident books and essays explaining His actions and His nature. Sometimes we even sprinkle our words with His name taken in vain.

The familiarity of God—His willingness to engage humanity personally, in words and terms we can understand—is one of the great distinguishing characteristics of Christianity. But we must be careful not to lose site of an important trait that sets God apart from us: His holiness. Lou Lotz writes at Words of Hope:

I remember reading somewhere that ancient Hebrew scribes were so awed by the holiness of Jehovah that they would wash their hands before they wrote his name on a scroll. Imagine that.

We’ve come a long way. Now we put God’s name on pencils, Frisbees, refrigerator
magnets. We write books and articles about God, explaining who he is and what he does. We have lost our appreciation for what theologians call the otherness of God. We are like the Pharisee in the parable, who is so taken with his own knowledge and piety that he forgets how holy God is. But the tax collector stands in the back of church, head bowed, beating his breast. He is unable even to lift up his eyes. He understands something of the otherness of God.

Read the full devotional at Words of Hope.

We know about—and are eternally grateful for—God’s love, grace, and mercy. But in addition to those traits, has the otherness of God ever been impressed upon you in the course of your Christian walk?

When I was growing up, St. Patrick’s Day meant that I had better be wearing green or my peers were going to pinch me at school. Now that I’m an adult, my peers have shifted the focus of the holiday off of annoying pinches to heavy drinking and wearing “Kiss me I’m Irish!” t-shirts.

The holiday began as a celebration of St. Patrick, but has since morphed into an all-purpose celebration of Ireland and Irish culture. Despite the holiday’s current focus, St. Patrick himself was an amazing individual. He’s credited with bringing the Gospel to the people of Ireland—an astounding fact made even more impressive by the fact that he had previously been enslaved there for six years of his life.

The Christian History Institute has a translation of St. Patrick’s confession which is well worth reading. The following is taken from Patrick’s account of the events that transpired in his flight from Ireland. Traveling through deserted country with the crew that spirited him away from the shores of Ireland, he writes:

And after three days we reached land, and for twenty-eight days we traveled through deserted country. And they lacked food, and hunger overcame them; and the next day the captain said to me: ‘Tell me, Christian: you say that your God is great and all-powerful; why, then, do you not pray for us? As you can see, we are suffering from hunger; it is unlikely indeed that we shall ever see a human being again.’ I said to them full of confidence: `Be truly converted with all your heart to the Lord my God, because nothing is impossible for Him, that this day He may send you food on your way until you be satisfied; for He has abundance everywhere.’ And, with the help of God, so it came to pass: suddenly a herd of pigs appeared on the road before our eyes, and they killed many of them; and there they stopped for two nights and fully recovered their strength, and their hounds received their fill for many of them had grown weak and were half-dead along the way. And from that day they had plenty of food.

How are you celebrating St. Patrick’s day? What can we learn about boldness and missions from St. Patrick’s life?

(Interesting sidenote: legend has it that St. Patrick used a shamrock to explain the concept of the Trinity.)

We’re well into Lent, but Easter remains several weeks away. Does it ever feel like Easter approaches at a glacial pace?

At A Slice of Infinity, Margaret Manning observes that Easter certainly does “take its time” in arriving—and that God tends to unveil his plans and purposes at a measured pace very much at odds with that of our frantic, always-busy modern lives. She contrasts our frenzied schedules with the pace of God’s revelation in the Bible:

The lives depicted in the Bible couldn’t be more different from our hurried lives. More importantly, and perhaps to our great frustration, the God revealed in the biblical stories is rarely in a hurry. Abraham and Sarah, for example, received the promise of an heir twenty-five years before they actually laid eyes on Isaac. Joseph had a dream as a seventeen year old young man that his brothers would one day bow down to him. Yet it was countless years and many difficulties later that his brothers would come and kneel before him, asking for food. Moses was eighty years old—long past his prime of life—when God appeared to him in the burning bush and called him to deliver the children of Israel. David was anointed king by Samuel as a young boy tending his father’s flocks, long before he finally ascended to the throne. And Jesus spent thirty years in relative obscurity, not involved in public ministry, and only three years announcing the kingdom and God’s rule in his life and ministry.

From our perspective, it is difficult to understand why God wasn’t more in a hurry rushing to accomplish the plans and purposes, not only in these individuals’ lives, but also in the plan of redemption. The Messiah was prophesied hundreds of years before he actually arrived on the scene. We cannot help but ask why God seems to move so slowly?

Read the full devotional at A Slice of Infinity.

“Why does God move so slowly?” “How long, oh Lord?” They’re familiar cries, uttered by people waiting for an answer to a desperate prayer or wishing that God would resolve a problem sooner rather than later. But the Bible—and the long slow march to Easter—can help us to understand God’s deliberate timing, and the value of patience and contentment. The promise of Easter may be a long time coming—but it will arrive!