One of the great dilemmas that we have in Christianity today is that too many people are content with knowing the words of God (memorization) without understanding them. They can tell you all the Bible stories and quote all the Scriptures to you, but they have absolutely no concept of what God is talking about. Knowledge you can get on your own, but understanding you can only get from God. Simply knowing what Bible says is not enough to successfully navigate through life. The devil knows the Bible. He can quote it. He quoted Scripture to the Lord Jesus in the temptation, but does he understand it? No. And neither will we apart from God. If we could understand God, His ways, and His word apart from Him, we would have reason to be proud. God makes it clear to us that no understanding that we have in spiritual matters is innate within ourselves. We are hopelessly and helplessly ignorant, so that He gets all the honor and glory and praise. {click to continue reading…}
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BETTER NEWS ON THE HORIZON FOR RU INTERNATIONAL: Thank you to all those who prayed for us during these past ten weeks. As many of you are aware, we made a tough decision to orchestrate a ten week layoff of our staff, with the state of Illinois allowing our staff to receive a portion of their pay while remaining volunteers for the organization. During these tough economic times, this move proved to be a very sacrificial step for everyone on staff, and has been a huge help. We truly believe that if God had not brought our staff this rare and unique opportunity to unselfishly show our support for this ministry, we would have had to radically change our serviceability to our churches, chapters, and students.
As a team, we have learned to trust the Lord in a whole new way. Many have testified of miracles. Most everyone has begun the process of raising their own personal missionary staff support. For this and many other things we are grateful. We are also excited about many signs of recovery we are seeing in our ministry of recovery. {click to continue reading…}
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Avis, the car rental company, has a motto, “We Try Harder”. In the natural world in which we live, “trying harder” is commendable, as well as effective. However, in the spiritual realm, “trying harder” is actually lamentable.
Trying harder will defeat the Christian every time – in due time. I vividly remember talking to a person who disagreed with me on the above point. The pastor later told me this individual seemed to disagree quite often. In fact, he would use such an opportunity to vent his anger. This obviously was a Christian using “flesh techniques” when trying to convince others of his beliefs. Next, there was a lady who seemed to be devout, active in church, followed the rules, even a leader in that church, yet she too was questioning the activity I referred to as the “flesh”. The man with the negative patterns is obvious, but we are prone to assume that the woman with the positive patterns has actions that are derived from the Spirit. Yet the Bible reminds us people can do “marvelous works” apart from vital union with Christ (Matthew 7:22). {click to continue reading…}
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Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. (Hebrews 12:11)
Notice what our verse says—“no chastening…seemeth to be joyous.” The point is not that chastening can’t be joyous, but if we only look at what is right in front of us, we will miss the possibility for joy. Things are not always as they seem. In fact, I would venture to say things are not ever as they seem. What we can see is not all that is occurring. We have a very limited view in the flesh of what is taking place. That is why faith is so important. Faith lets us see that God is at work behind the scenes in every circumstance. {click to continue reading…}
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