I’ve spent quite a bit of time recently reading and researching for my upcoming series on the Personality and Deity of the Holy Spirit. One of the books I’m reading is Elmer Towns’ excellent book, The Ultimate Guide to the Names of God. It is chock full of great thoughts. Three of Dr. Towns books have been combined into this Ultimate Guide: My Father’s Name, The Names of Jesus, and The Names of The Holy Spirit.
In his book A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, Phillip Keller talks about the day he bought the first sheep for his own flock. He recounts how his neighbor handed him a knife and said, “Well, Philip, they’re yours. Now you’ll have to put your mark on them.”[1]
During her last few years, my mother suffered from some very debilitating health issues. After more than six decades of serving God first as a missionary in Africa, then in home-based missions, the day came when she was pretty much confined to a chair or to her bed.
Have you ever been tempted to do something wrong? Do you feel in those times like God is testing you? Or maybe you realize your temptation comes because of something…
I must admit, somewhat ashamedly, that when I began this series several weeks ago, I thought I’d find that I had broken a few of the Ten Commandments, but overall, I felt I was doing pretty good.
Oh, how sadly I was mistaken! Again and again as I read what others had said about the Commandments, and then added Jesus’ own thoughts in the Sermon on the Mount, I found that I have been unable to fully keep even a single one of these commandments. Not even one.
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor” (Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21). Let’s start with a definition. Kevin DeYoung explains, “We covet when we want for ourselves what belongs to someone else…. Coveting longs for someone else’s stuff to be your stuff.”[1]
“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:16; Deut. 5:20) Put in more simple terms, this command warns us that we are not to lie. About anything; anywhere;…
or most of us, this commandment is kind of a no-brainer. I mean, we all know it’s wrong to steal. We even have laws that outline penalties for those who steal.
The word reincarnation literally means to “come again in the flesh.” It involves the belief that the soul passes after death into another body. A person is believed to be born again and again and again, life after life after life. The process of reincarnation (continual rebirths) is believed to continue until the soul has reached a state of perfection and merges back with its source, believed to be God or the Universal Soul. Reincarnation is based on the law of karma.
“You shall not commit adultery.” (Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18) When was the last time you turned on the television only to be confronted with people unashamedly committing adultery? When was…