Gospel.com Blog

In our last post, we pointed out some classic sermons about discipleship. Soulation is another ministry with some excellent sermons and essays about drawing closer to Christ in your everyday life. Their sermon library has a large number of sermons in audio and PDF format on a variety of topics. Keeping with this week’s theme on discipleship, be sure to check out Loving God With All of You (PDF; part 1 of a seven-part series), which talks about the process of deepening your relationship with God. Loving God With Your Soul (MP3) is a good companion to that series.

Strangling Your Soul is a short, insightful look at the everyday care and feeding of your mind and spirit. There are many more good resources in their library—take a look around and spend some time reading and listening to their sermons!

“Jesus said, Follow Me (Matt. 4:19; 9:9).” He called us to be, “set apart, challenged, and taught so we see and adhere to the call and mission Christ gives us. The word “disciple” literally means someone who pledges to be a ‘learner.’ Moreover, it is someone who follows another’s teaching, and adheres to it. It is a commitment and a process to undertake the learning, and, as a Christian, a yearning to imitate Jesus!” —from Call to Discipleship at Into Thy Word Ministries

Discipleship is answering the call of Christ in your life. This week, the Gospel.com blog is focusing on providing links to community resources that can help you deepen your walk with Christ. We’d like to start by pointing you towards some sermons from Sermonindex.net, which has over 14,000 sermons available online!

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We hear a lot about “justice” these days, and about the importance the Bible puts on practicing justice. But what is justice–is it adhering to a certain political philosophy, or giving to the right charities, or dedicating our lives to the right career? In a new article at Youth Specialties, Jeremy Del Rio suggests that justice is much simpler than we think. Read the full article, in which Del Rio argues that justice is something we can all innately grasp, and something that we can all put into practice, regardless of our age, background, or life circumstances.

Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, an apologetics ministry, has just posted three new essays to its collection of “Just Thinking” articles. Each of the three new pieces deals with an aspect of Christian living:

• “Keeping an Eye” by I’Ching Thomas, about what it means to live under the watchful eye of God. Can we really live with God watching everything we do?
• “Misplaced” by Jill Carattini, about what it means to be spiritually lost–and why it’s impossible to ever drift beyond God’s reach.
• “Your DNA Matters” by Ravi Zacharias, about (among other things) the close relationship between hope and fear.

Plenty of good Friday afternoon reading there!

How much should you give to the church or charities? Which causes should you donate money to? The Bible tells us that generosity with our money and resources is a big part of living a Christian life, but it’s not always easy to to do–sometimes money is tight and you don’t feel like you can give, and there are so many worthy causes out there that it’s tough to figure out where your money should go.

In an article at the Officer’s Christian Fellowship, Dean Millard lists three basic guidelines for learning to give the way God wants you to. He suggests that we step back and rethink our basic approach to wealth and possessions. Key to Millard’s advice is that we stop thinking of ourselves as the owners of our money, but rather as stewards or managers of wealth that God has given us to use in His service. Read Millard’s suggestions and consider whether you could benefit from rethinking your relationship with money.

How should the church “raise” a new Christian to “spiritual adulthood”? A “newborn” Christian has a lot of learning ahead, and one of the church’s most important jobs is helping the new Christian grow into spiritual maturity.

So how does the church do that? That’s the question addressed by Warren Henderson in this month’s issue of Uplook magazine. In “From Babes to Faithful Men,” Henderson talks about the importance of training new Christians well, and outlines some strategies for doing so:

The first year of growth is most important for a new convert. It has been my experience that those who receive good spiritual care in the early months tend to go on for Christ, while those who are neglected seem to develop lethargic behavior patterns that can cripple their spiritual vigor for the rest of their life.

The full magazine is available in PDF format, and includes a number of other good articles as well.