“Unity is impossible if each person is out for themselves. . . . We are called to do our part to maintain peace in our relationships (Romans 12:18). However, sometimes — many times — people don’t do their part. We are left to decide how we will respond to the bad behavior of others.”- Randy […]
“As fellow Christians . . . we don’t bow down to the principles of the Bible because we must, but because we can’t help ourselves. The grace we have received in Christ . . . and the comfort and compassion that have helped us through difficult and dark seasons of life should motivate us to […]
“Why does embracing our no-lose situation as Christians work to produce greater joy in us? Bottom line, because we can cope with hope. . . . If I am going into a situation where I know I cannot lose, I don’t lose any sleep over it. Every believer in Jesus has this in their toolbox […]
“The telescope brings distant things closer, and the microscope makes tiny things look big. to the unbeliever, Jesus is not very big. Other people and other things are far more important. But as the unbeliever watches Christians go through a crisis experience, he ought to be able to see how big Jesus really is. The […]
“There is a striking similarity between Paul’s attitude here and Luther’s quoted words from the preface to the Letter of James in his German New Testament of 1522: ‘That which does not teach Christ is not apostolic, even if Peter or Paul taught it. Again, that which does preach Christ is apostolic, even if Judas, […]
“Paul experienced more joy than the rest of us do. . . . It wasn’t that Paul looked at the world through rose-colored glasses. His gaze was focused on something different. We are naturally focused on ourselves. Paul was focused on the mission. He did not find his joy in ideal circumstances, but in seeing […]
“Our love needs to be pure. The word pure also translates as ‘sincere.’ It is a compound word meaning both ‘sunlight’ and ‘judgment.’ . . . In those days . . . artisans who refrained from [using colored wax to hide chips and cracks] allegedly marked their pieces with a stamp that read ‘sine-cera,’ which […]
“Joy conditioning is going back and thinking of a person in your life, recalling the good things they did for you or with you. The more time you spend thinking about it, the stronger the memory gets; and the stronger the memory gets, the more it helps you overcome the struggles of your current situation […]
“It is unlikely that many of us have had it worse than Paul. He is right up there with Job of the Old Testament on the Richter scale of human earthquakes. The point us not to keep score on who has suffered the most but to focus on who has experienced the most joy despite […]
“Tracing the concept of joy through the Bible helps us realize that our happiness, like our hope, is founded on realities that are unaffected by conditions of this world.”- Dr. Larry Richards, Expository Dictionary of Bible Words “I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle […]
“The problem for most of us is we allow joy robbers to come in and steal that sweet sense of contentment and purpose. .. . . Paul didn’t tell us how we can avoid these joy robbers — it is not possible. Paul faced each one of these robbers in the most intense way and […]
“Of his thirteen books, inspired by the breath of God, Paul wrote one that turned out to be a treatise on joy. . . . Here’s the kicker: The number one book on joy in the Bible was written by a guy in prison! You heard that right — prison. Paul taught us that joy […]