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You have to deal with what this has to say.

Belief admits that effort cannot save, knowledge cannot redeem and morality cannot restore what sin has broken, belief is an act of humility before it is an act of faith. John 3:16, this may be one reason Jesus did not say whoever behaves or whoever achieves, he said believes. Faith is the only...

John 3:16, God gave his only son, the cost behind the love, love is proven not by words, but by what it is willing to give. Jesus did not say God felt love, he said God gave and what he gave was not excess, not convenience, not something replaceable, he gave his only son. These words carry a...

John 11:35, the road to Bethany carries another kind of pressure, when Jesus tells the disciples they are going back to Judea, they remember the danger, John 11:8. Bethany is not far from Jerusalem, John 11:18 says it was about 15 stadia away, a little under 2 miles, the place where Lazarus is...

Ephesians 5:8-14, Paul does not say that believers were in darkness and are now near the light or that they are walking toward the light, the transformation is not just a change of position, it is a change of nature. Those who belong to Christ, not only receive external illumination, they...

John 11:35, then in John 11:15, that sentence sounds almost impossible until the whole scene is finished, Jesus is not glad that his friends are grieving, he is glad that his absence will become the place where his disciples see something about him they have not yet understood. Jesus knows...

John 11:35, Jesus wept, John does not place those two words in a small moment, by the time Jesus weeps, he already knows Lazarus is going to live, he has already said the sickness will not end in death, he has already told his disciples Lazarus has fallen asleep and that he is going to wake him...

Matthew 7:13-14, so the claim, difficult road of Jesus is narrow, not because Christians are superior, because Christ alone does what sinners need done, he alone bears sin at the cross, he alone rises as Lord over death, he alone brings you to the Father. The exclusivity of Christ should never...

Ephesians 5:3-5, after speaking about genuine love, Paul accurately describes what happens when love is replaced by its corrupted substitutes, immorality, impurity, greed. These three words form a trio that Paul directly associates with the distortion of love. Sexual immorality is not just a...

Matthew 7:13-14, God tells where the road goes, that is not how temptation works, temptation advertises the entrance and hides the destination. Temptation shows the pleasure, not the slavery, the approval, not the compromise, the crowd, not the cliff, the shortcut, not the ruin. Jesus does the...

Ephesians 5:2, the imitation of God does not manifest in power, authority or demonstrations of spiritual strength, it manifests in love that spends itself, that serves, that supports, that does not keep track of the coast. In the midst of the chaos of evil days, broken relationships, daily...

Matthew 7:13-14, both builders heard, the difference was not exposure, the difference was obedience, that is where the narrow gate belongs, not in a sermon about earning salvation by moral achievement and not in a sermon about empty admiration, it belongs in a sermon where Jesus confronts the...

Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus told people before the pressure came, difficult is the way which leads to life, not because God enjoys making life hard, not because every hard circumstance proves someone is faithful, not because Christians should go looking for suffering to validate themselves, because...

Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus is not teaching that sinners save themselves by dropping enough baggage at the door, the gospel is not moral fitness squeezed through a small entrance. Salvation is God’s grace received by faith, because of what Christ has done, not wages earned by religious effort. But...

Matthew 7:13-14, a crowd is not proof of safety and loneliness is not proof of error, the destination is what tells the truth about the road and that is why the language matters. A modern Bible reader sits at a kitchen table with a notebook, a highlighter and maybe a sermon clip open on a phone...

Matthew 7:13-14, narrow, Matthew gives you this saying in Greek, not as a secret Hebrew word study, the Greek word for narrow is “stenes,” it means tight, restricted, not spacious and the road is described with language tied to pressure, constriction and affliction. But there is also a story...

There is an instruction in Ephesians 5:1 that seems impossible at first reading, imitate God, not admire him from a distance, not just obey him out of obligation, but imitate him, reproduce in daily life something of the character of the one who created the universe. This instruction only makes...

Matthew 18:15-20, is not only about what to do when someone else sins, it reveals what kind of people you must become before you confront sin, that may be the most uncomfortable application of all. This passage is easy to use when you are imagining someone else being corrected, it becomes much...

Matthew 18:15-20, verse 20, there is a kind of church meeting where nobody feels victorious, someone has sinned, someone has been wounded, the private conversation happened and failed, witnesses came and listened, the church prayed. A decision had to be made, maybe the person still refused...

Matthew 18:15-20, verse 19, this sentence has often been treated like a blank check, if two Christians agree about anything, then God is required to do it, the promotion, the relationship, the breakthrough, the outcome, the plan, scripture absolutely teaches the beauty and power of corporate...