Christian Life Tag

Are You Wired for 220?

Christ in you changes your life. This is only a cup of hot water, but when I drop this tea bag in it, it changes the color and the nature of the water. For the water to exist now is for tea to exist. If the water could talk it might say, “It is no longer I (water) but tea lives in me.” Not many people drink hot water—there isn’t much taste there. But water turned into tea becomes a delicious drink. The tea adds value. Even so, in the Christian life, Christ in you changes your nature. He changes your life from being bland and boring to be exciting and thrilling.

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What Kind of FOOL Am I?

Anyone has a right to be an unbelieving fool, but I am disturbed when a tiny percentage of aggressive atheists work with evangelistic zeal to try to remove every mention of God from our public life. God who created us, loves us so much that He gives us the ability to choose to believe in Him. Life is full of so much sin that suffering that people often look around and ask, “How can there be a God?” But they must remember most of the suffering we endure is created by the sinfulness of humanity.

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Don’t Waste God’s Grace

WPaul warns us about receiving God’s grace in vain, because there is the possibility that we can actually waste God’s grace. Grace has been defined as “God’s unmerited favor.” But that definition isn’t enough. To say that God’s grace is “unmerited favor” is like saying Niagara Falls is a trickle. It’s like saying the Grand Canyon is a ditch. It’s like saying the Amazon is a creek. Grace is so much more than unmerited favor.

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Keep it in the Fairway

As in golf, our job is to make our way around all eighteen holes of God’s course for our lives. In golf, the first nine holes are called the “outward half” because in early links courses, the first nine holes always went away from the clubhouse. The second nine is called “the inward half.” Some of you are still on the “outward half” but many of us are on the “inward half.” We’ve already lived more of our lives than we have left. But age really has nothing to do with which hole you’re on. We’ve all seen young people who finished the course. You might be on your last hole, or you might be facing your final putt on the 18th hole. Only God knows.

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What’s That Fragrance You’re Wearing?

You may have family members or friends who don’t know the Lord. You’ve shared with them and tried to show them the Christian life. You’ve allowed the fragrance of Christ in your life to envelope them in the things you do and say. And yet, they still haven’t come to faith in Christ. They hold their noses and say, “No thanks!” You need to remember they aren’t rejecting you, they are rejecting Jesus. When you expose them to the beautiful aroma of Christ through your life and your lips, then you’ve done what God has expected of you. So don’t be discouraged. Don’t stop. Keep on loving them. Keep on sharing Christ with them.

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How to Dress in Style with Jesus

In Colossians 3, the Apostle Paul compared the Christian life to taking off old clothes and putting on new clothes.
The Bible lists seven positive characteristics we are to put on to replace those old clothes. But these aren’t just qualities we have to create ourselves. They all form a description of Jesus Christ. To put it simply, we just need to dress like Jesus. I’m not talking about his robe and sandals—but rather we should wear His personality.

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Get Rid of Those Stinking Grave Clothes

In some ways, we’re like Lazarus. He was saved, but he still stunk. He was rescued but he was still reeking. He was energized, but he was still entrapped. He had life, but he wasn’t liberated. Jesus could have exercised His divine power and Poof! The grave clothes would have disappeared miraculously. But I think He wanted to involve the other people in what He was doing. Fortunately, there were people there who cared enough to get their hands dirty and obey the words of Jesus and help Lazarus remove those old grave clothes. And I’m quite certain there was someone standing by who quickly found a clean garment to put around Lazarus as well.

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Powerful Pictures of the Christian Life

Too many Christians are like tumbleweeds. We’ve all known Christians who got sucked into every new fad and fashion that comes along. A tumbleweed can become a big plant, but it lacks deep roots. Deep roots in people, as well as plants, create stability and security. The only kind of Christian who can survive periods of personal storms and emotional droughts are those who have sunk deep roots into the nourishment and stability that Jesus gives.

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How to Have Victory in Jesus

Can you honestly say that you have daily victory over worry, fear, depression, bitterness, anger, and greed? As a Christian, you must understand that you don’t fight FOR victory. You fight FROM victory. Jesus has already won the battle, and we fight on the basis of His victory of sin, death, and hell. Victory is our birthright as God’s children. If you aren’t experiencing much victory, this message is for you. In the story of the battle of Jericho there are three important keys we can learn about how to have victory in Jesus:

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Moving from Borderline to Blessing

Do you know what the Israelites ate for 40 years? Manna. God supernaturally fed them with little white wafers that appeared on the ground every morning. When they first saw it they called it manhu, which means “What is it?” Based on the description in the Bible, the closest food we have to it today is Corn Flakes. Corn Flakes are okay, but can you imagine eating corn flakes every meal–for 40 years? It got so bad they longed for the food they ate back in Egypt. Many of the Israelites wanted to return to Egypt, where they had been slaves. When you are living in the wilderness, you find yourself longing for the life you had before you were a Christian.

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What Kind of Person Should I Be?

The greatest tragedy in the church today is there are thousands of people who claim to be Christians, but they are stuck in a level of spiritual immaturity. They are spiritual babies. We all love babies. We love to ooh and ahh over them. But there’s nothing attractive about a 40-year-old baby.

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The Aliens Have Landed!

When we were born the first time, we were born into this world. This is the world you can see, smell, taste, hear and feel. When you experience a spiritual birth, you are born again into a new world. From that moment on, we belong to a different world and we no longer feel at home in this world. There are two kinds of people living on this rock-the natives and the aliens. The natives are the ones who live for this world, the aliens are the ones who live here but realize there is another world to live for.

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The Beauty of Unity

Almost every day, I sing praises to the Lord, but I come together with you on Sunday. With one voice, we sing praises to the Lord. That promotes and enhances the unity of our church. When a lost person comes in the doors of this church, they sit down and they look around and see a thousand Christians in here singing praises to God. I want to tell you, that has an impact on them because with one heart and one voice, we are glorifying God together.

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God’s Inescapable Love

The Bible says we have enemies in this world. It is the world, the flesh and the devil. We have enemies, but who’s afraid of the big, bad world? The Bible talks about how our flesh needs to stay crucified. We understand we can resist the devil and he will flee from us. There are going to be many people who try to oppose us in the Christian life, but the good news is God is FOR us. That means you and I do not have to fear. We never have to be afraid of anything the world, the flesh or the devil can throw at us!

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God’s Incredible Plan

God is interested in making a whole family of people like Jesus. Some people say, “Well if we were all like Jesus, wouldn’t it be boring?” No it would be pretty exciting. Wouldn’t it be great to live in a world where everybody was loving and totally unselfish in their loving? Wouldn’t it be great to live in a world where everybody was full of joy? Wouldn’t it be great to live in a world where everybody was full of peace and patience and kindness? That’s what God is doing. He’s trying to make you and I more like Jesus. That is our destiny our destination and God has already predetermined to make us that way. So that’s God’s purpose. He chose us and then he changes us.

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God’s Infallible Guarantee

Have you ever bought a product and along with it you receive a guarantee or a warranty that says if anything goes wrong with it, you get your money back? Well Romans 8:28 is “God’s Infallible Guarantee!” He says, “I guarantee if you meet my conditions that you’re going to see all things become a part of his plan to produce good.”

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All in the Family

You can rejoice because the Father lovingly chose us. It was His love that caused us to be chosen by him. Have you ever stopped and thought, “Why me? Why did God choose me to be his child?” It just pleased God to do so. It gave God pleasure to choose you to be his child. And when God does something he does it so he derives personal pleasure from it. That’s why he did it.

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Mindset = Lifestyle

Paul said, “Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.” I call this frustration without faith. Surveys tell us most people in America believes in God. Most people in America really want to try and please God. But if they don’t have faith it is just a constant frustrating experience, because most people think the way you please God is by ceasing to do “wrong things,” stopping the sinful faults we all have, cleaning up our acts, or getting it all together. And the thing we learn in the book of Romans is we don’t have the power to do that!

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Samson’s Bad Hair Day

Of course the story of Samson is a story you have heard all of your life. I don’t know about you, but I always used to picture Samson as some huge, built-up, bulked-up, he-man! I mean a guy that looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Incredible Hulk all put together. The more I studied the text, the more I am convinced he probably didn’t look like that at all, because the source of Samson’s strength was not his hair, the source of Samson’s strength was not his muscles, the source of Samson’s strength was the Holy Spirit of God, because of his commitment and his devotion. It is clear every time he did something requiring supernatural strength, it was the Spirit of God coming on him. A study of “the downward slope” of Samson’s spiritual decline.

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Correcting Your “I” Problem

It is believed Paul was saved around 35 A.D. and we believe he wrote this letter to the Romans in about 57 A.D. That means he had been a believer for 22 years, and after 22 years of knowing Jesus Christ, and as a maturing Christian, he says, “I still have to deal with and confront sin.”

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Judge Gideon’s Victory, part 2

God takes the simple things of life and tests us. What was God trying to teach Gideon? What was he trying to teach the Israelites? The New Testament message is this “Be serious. Be vigilant, because our enemy, the devil, roams about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.” You and I as Christians like these three hundred faithful must be vigilant.

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The Blessed Benefits of God’s Love

The secret to living the Christian life is not trying to imitate Jesus. It is not trying to perform all these Christian acts in the strength of your flesh because Jesus said in John, 15:5, “Without me, you can do nothing.” The secret to the Christian life is allowing Jesus simply to control every part of your life so his character is just displayed.

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What’s in the Heart of a Believer?

Some of the greatest things ever accomplished in this world have simply been accomplished because people refused to quit. A big oak tree is nothing more than an acorn that refused to give ground. It just hung on. There’s great value in persistence.

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Intoxicated by the Holy Spirit

The filling of the Holy Spirit is God receiving more of your surrender, not you receiving more of the Spirit. When you come to Jesus Christ, you receive all of God that you will ever receive. He doesn’t give the Holy Spirit like a down payment here and then an installment here and there. All you ever receive of God you receive at the point of salvation. You may grow into more surrender.

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What Grieves the Spirit of God?

When a Christian lives the wrong way, we grieve the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. There is the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the unforgivable sin, and there is a lot of confusion about what the unforgivable sin is. The unpardonable sin is finally and ultimately saying, “No” to Jesus, rejecting faith in Jesus Christ. That’s the unpardonable sin, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. If you are a born-again Christian, you have not committed that sin and you can never commit the unpardonable sin, so just put your mind at rest.

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Learning How to Walk Straight

We all have seen that beautiful sight of a child taking his first steps. They have that stiff-legged Frankenstein-kind-of-walk as they toddle and maybe fall, but they get back up and try it again. Then, they learn how to walk better as their balance and their equilibrium improves. There is a progression to walking. First, you crawl, then you stand then you begin to walk. That’s a picture of the Christian life.

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Prayer That Moves Heaven

You will never understand God’s love so, don’t try to figure it out—just receive it. You don’t have to figure something out before you use it and enjoy it. I don’t understand electricity, but I’m not going to stumble around in the dark until I have it figured out! I’m just going to flip that switch and use it. And so it is with the love of God. This is what Paul prays for, that you will be strengthened, that Jesus will be your Lord, and you will understand how much Jesus loves you.

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The Yahweh Construction Company

The secret of the Christian life is opening the door of your heart from the inside and just like a person walking into a building say, “Lord Jesus Come and live inside of me. It’s not you trying to live the Christian life it’s not you doing something for God; its Jesus coming to live in you and Jesus doing things through you. It’s Jesus loving people through you. It’s Jesus forgiving people through you. It is Jesus drawing lost people to himself through you. He never wanted you to imitate him; he just wanted you to contain him and to release him. That’s what it means to be a Christian. I’m afraid so many Christians are going to stand before God on Judgment Day and are going to be disqualified because they did not understand that simple little truth that the Christian life is Christ in you.

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Are You Enjoying Your Inheritance?

Paul said there’s a kind of Christian that caused him to thank God when he thought about them. This is what I call a healthy Christian. There are two marks of a healthy Christian according to the apostle, Paul. Number one is faith in Jesus. You cannot be a Christian unless you put your faith in Jesus. But it is not your faith that saves you. It’s your faith in JESUS that saves you. It’s the object of your faith. You can have a ton of faith but if it is in the wrong thing, it won’t help you a bit.

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How to Wake up a Dead Church

I have never wrung a chicken’s neck, but my mother had an expression, “The most active chicken in the barnyard is the one who just had its neck wrung.” When you wring a chicken’s neck, that chicken is dead, but it’s out there flopping around and running around even though its neck is broken. It’s dead but it’s busy and that’s true of a lot of churches. There’s a lot of activity going on but the church is dead. That’s what Jesus said about this church here at Sardis.

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Kicking Satan Off the Throne

The church in Pergamum is the third of the seven churches. So, let’s look at this church at Pergamum and talk about that and think about what God wants to do for us. The title of the message is “Kicking Satan Off the Throne,” because twice Jesus says Satan has his throne in Pergamum and Pergamum is where Satan lives.

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A Matter of Life and Death

Would you be willing to miss heaven and be accursed forever from God so others around the world could be saved? Paul had that kind of a heart, because to live is Christ and to die is gain.

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