The Follow Up Talk

I am currently reading through one of the YouVersion bible app plans by The Bible Project. I highly recommend The Bible Project - they bring in a lot of history with the text so the Bible comes to life! This morning I read Romans 2-3 and had a few thoughts on how our actions should reflect our knowledge of God's truth. In these chapters, Paul was trying to deal with the tension between Jews and non-Jews who had different ways of living out their faith in God and Jesus. These chapters tell us we need to be "circumcised" in our hearts and that God has no partiality between people. What will save us - show God that we belong to him is: Our knowledge of his law - because this is how we know what is sin, AND Our actions - because this will show that our hearts and soul believe in Jesus and that we want to follow him. Paul's words on the conflict he saw are true today for Christians. This message by our guest Pastor, Ivan Tait, is particularly convicting. Our com...

This morning I read Ecclesiastes 4 and what stood out to me was God's message on loneliness. This chapter emphasizes that it is not good to experience the ups and downs of life alone. ( Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 ) When it comes to the downs of life, is harder to get back up when you are all by yourself and trying to figure out things on your own. So, when you are struggling with something, it will be so much easier to get over that problem, or figure out a solution to that problem, when you have another person by your side who can help you out. Proverbs even had talked about the wisdom of having other people to help guide you. (See Proverbs 11:14; 15:22;19:20; 20:18 ) So, be wise and seek to have close friendships where you can be authentic and real and share your struggles. This chapter also emphasized that it is not good to go through the ups of life alone too. ( Ecclesiastes 4:8 ) This verse wonders what is the point of accumulating much wealth if it will only benefit yourself? Th...