“And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me.” “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me.” (Mt. 10:38; 11:29) Here are two wooden structures, both familiar sights in Israel when the Lord Jesus spoke of them–the cross, and the yoke. He indicates that a disciple is […]
Tell me, could a person who prays and reads his Bible almost every day and memorizes Bible verses not be a Christian? Well, this was my predicament during my high school years. Where my parents brought me to church, each child received his own Bible at a certain age. So when I received my first […]
One of the hotly debated issues today concerns the plight of the homeless. Statistics vary dramatically; but of course homeless people are not statistics. Statistics do not live in abandoned cars or eat from dumpsters; people do. From where have these unfortunates come? Many have fled dysfunctional home situations or, like the prodigal, have rebelled […]
“And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my […]
The intimacy which the Lord has sought with man is evidenced in a very blessed way through Scripture. It may have had different expressions, but still it was intimacy. The glory in the cloud, the Lord in the burning bush, the armed Captain by Jericho, and the glory filling the temple–all tell this nearness of […]
The Lord, interpreting the Father, enforces on His disciples here the lesson that in entering into relation with Himself, as the “True Vine,” they come within the sphere of the Father’s activities as Husbandmen, for better or worse, as they abide, or fail to abide in Him. “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, […]
David Rea (1845-1916) was born near Lurgan, in Northern Ireland. Married in 1868, he was brought to Christ the following year. His notorious drinking had been a colossal embarrassment to his faithful wife and a scandal to his relatives and neighbors, but the night after conversion he immediately testified to the grace of God. After […]
A personal knowledge of God will change character, transforming the life following the new birth. It is gradual, not sudden, in its change, as the Spirit of God introduces new motives and objects into the life for God’s glory (2 Cor. 3:18). “Christianity in its revelation of a personal God and Saviour, of a future […]
I was born in Leeds, a large city in the north of England. My parents were Roman Catholic and brought me up within the confines of the Catholic Church. In my teenage years, I became convinced of my own hypocrisy in dressing up in my Sunday best and going through the weekly ritual for less […]