Category: Salvation
If Anyone Thirsts
“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink’” (John 7:37). Jesus made this dramatic statement in connection with the water-drawing ceremony associated with the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles....
Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst
The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) opens with the well-known list of qualities and rewards known as “The Beatitudes” (5:3-12). According to Jesus, rewards like the kingdom of heaven, the inheritance of earth, comfort, mercy, satisfaction, identification as God’s children, and the privilege of enjoying...
The Conversion of Charles Haddon Spurgeon
The great nineteenth-century English pastor and evangelist, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, was converted to Christ as a young man on January 6, 1856. In Spurgeon’s own words, it happened like this: I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now had it not...
A Story That Does Not End Well: Marianne Hearne
Marianne Hearne experienced her first real crisis of faith when she was just five or six years old. She attended a good church with her family and learned to love God through the teaching of her parents, church and extended family. So it was natural that...
By Faith Alone: The Conversion of Martin Luther
It was the moment he had been waiting for. His father was in the audience watching, as were his fellow monks. It was time for Martin to offer his first mass, and he was overwhelmed with the solemnity of the event. He led the congregation, saying,...
The Unrepenting Repenter
The believer in Christ is a lifelong repenter. He begins with repentance and continues in repentance. (Rom. 8:12-13) David sinned giant sins but fell without a stone at the mere finger of the prophet because he was a repenter at heart (2 Sam. 12:7-13). Peter denied...
If It Walks Like a Goat . . .
A recent news report told about two robbery suspects who were being pursued by the police in a third-world country. When the officers rounded a corner, seconds behind the fleeing suspects, all they saw was a goat. The robbers had vanished. What the officers did next...
All Sheepdogs Do Not Go to Heaven
I recently learned of one man’s fascinating analysis of people. He described human society as being comprised of sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. Ninety-eight percent, he explained, are sheep—people going about their daily business (he called it “grazing”) with no conscious intent to harm others, and without...
When the Bible Isn’t Boring Anymore
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” -John 10:27 Jesus Christ knows His sheep, and His sheep know Him (John 10:14). They don’t “know” one another in the sense that they were merely introduced sometime in the past, but they...
What Does It Mean to Believe?
Sitting on the deck on a balmy evening, my daughter asked again for more clarity on the most important question she could pose: “Dad, what does it really mean to believe in Christ?” I commended her for that question, because it is not asked by most...
