What Do We Know of Endurance?
To endure means “to carry through despite hardships; to suffer patiently without giving up.” In short, it means to hold on or hold out, but this word means little to the present generation. Many Christians today are quitters. They quit on their spouses, their families and their God. Peter addresses this subject by saying, “For…
Faith to Withstand the Battle
Let me tell you how and where Paul produced his epistles. He wrote them in dark prison cells. He wrote them after being scourged or having survived another shipwreck. He was intimately familiar with hardship and suffering. Paul knew that all of the truth and revelation he taught came from the battlefield of faith, and…
Guarding What God Has Deposited
In Paul’s letters to Timothy, he described how to identify false teachers and then charged his young protégé, “But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and…
Trials for a Greater Purpose
Perhaps today you are experiencing betrayal, persecution, torment in your mind, trouble with your children, the loss of someone close to your heart or some other experience that has left you with almost unspeakable pain. It has driven you to prayer where you ask, “Lord, is this really necessary? Can’t you just take it away…
Hope that Shines through Darkness
Dear believers, I want to tell you today that you’ve got something that the sinner doesn’t have, something incredibly valuable and powerful, something you must know. As a child of God, you are and have incredible blessings! Now many of you may be thinking that I’ve lost my mind because of how many troubles and…
A Perfect Heart Is Trusting
The Psalmist wrote, “Our fathers trusted in you; they trusted, and you delivered them. They cried to you, and were delivered; they trusted in you, and were not ashamed” (Psalm 22:4-5, NKJV). The Hebrew root word for ‘trust’ suggests “to fling oneself off a precipice.” That means being like a child who has climbed up…
The Spoils of Spiritual Warfare
Many Christians think that once they’re saved, their struggles are over, that life will be smooth sailing. Nothing could be further from the truth. God not only allows our battles, but he has a glorious purpose for them in our lives. What are “spoils of warfare”? Spoils are plunder or goods taken in battle by…
God’s Purposes in Overcoming Enemies
In 2 Kings, we read about the Syrian army besieging the city of Samaria. The Syrians simply camped outside the city, waiting for the Samaritans to starve. Conditions grew so desperate that women were offering their children to be boiled for food. It was sheer insanity (see 2 Kings 6:24-33). Four lepers who were living…
Walking Daily with God
The first book of scripture tells us of a man who should inspire our walk with God. “So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him” (Genesis 5:23-24, NKJV). Our brother Enoch had no Bible, no songbook, no fellow…
A Different Type of Disciple
Paul wrote to Timothy, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:6-7, ESV). Two chapters later, Paul says “But…