Roots by the River

“Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me— put it into practice . And the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:9). This is comprehensive: everything you have learned, received, heard, or seen. Paul said something similar to the Corinthians: “I am not writing this to shame you, but to warn you, as my dear children. Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church…Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so a

“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age’” (Matthew 28:18-20). It is relatively easy to teach and to learn the commands of God. These commands are made up of sentences that can be memorized. The Christian church has been teaching the commands for centuries. I will now misquote verse 20: "and teaching them all of the commands I commanded you." Here is it corrected: "teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." I cannot teach obedience to commands as easily as I teach commands. But that is what we are told to do. How can I teach obedience? By being obedient myself. Paul did not hesitate to teach obedience this way: “Even though you have ten thousa

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field’” (Matthew 9:36-38). Even without a revival, the harvest is plentiful. The shortage is in harvesters. More people apparently are ready to enter the kingdom than there are people ready to help them in. The instruction is to pray that God would send more people as workers into the harvest field. To pray that prayer should not be too difficult to do. Please pray for the many Christians who are living mediocre Christian lives. They might have many unconfessed, willful sins and also hidden, great transgressions. “Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression” (Psalm 19:13). Please pray for the overwhelming convicting p

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat’ or ‘What shall we drink’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matt. 6:31-34). This has been a favorite portion of Scripture for over forty years. It tells us, in effect, that God made us with stomachs. He knows we need food. He made us without fur. He knows we need clothes. The pagans do not seem to know this about God, so they worry. Do we want to copy the pagans when we know God? There are two requirements laid on us: ·        Don’t worry. Worry is sin, for it is unbelief in God’s faithfulness. ·        Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. This is trust in God’s faithfulness. For more on this subject, read my book How to B

“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8-10). This verse tells us what you were and what you are, and from this we have two assignments: 1. Live like what you are (goodness, righteousness, and truth). 2. Find out what pleases the Lord. How do we live like children of the light? By grace! We are saved by grace. We live by grace. We are forgiven by grace. We obey by grace. How do we find out what pleases the Lord? First, want to know what pleases the Lord. Second, read the Bible looking for truths to obey by grace. Third, pray for spiritual acumen when you are reading the Bible. This post coordinates with today's reading in the Same Page Summer Bible Reading Challenge . If you are not in a daily reading plan, please join us at TotheWord.com . We would love to have you reading with us.

This is a chapter from The Heart by Bessie Wilson. You can find  The Heart on Amazon, Audible, ccmbooks.org/bookstore, and the Canon+ app. “This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything” (1 John 3:19-20). What is it that helps us set our hearts at rest in His presence? The preceding verse (verse 18) establishes the context: “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” The immediate context is that if we see a brother in need and we have no pity, the question is, “How can the love of God be in us?” Years ago, just after Mother’s Day, a friend (the wife of a pastor) told me that her young daughter had defied her and gone to a public park. She was wondering how to handle this when the child returned. My friend had been folding clean laundry and was about to take it to her daughter’s room when she

Jesus said, “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned” (John 5:28-29). This teaching in the New Testament is not taught often in the Christian churches today. Here is Paul’s teaching on the same subject: “I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will

Have you ever noticed that you have told the gospel with great clarity (with or without apologetics) to a very intelligent person and that after you have finished this clear presentation, he had no idea what you were talking about? Here are a few biblical reasons why this is: “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:14). They cannot understand because they do not have the Spirit. “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). They cannot see because they have been blinded by the evil one. “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not