Death is the departure of the soul and spirit from the body, but where does each part of man end up after a man dies? The Bible answers this question and more.
Trials, afflictions, and heartaches may presently abound, but those who know the Lord rejoice, knowing that those things only exist for a season.
God calls people into different works. In the midst of this diversity, a common thread unites all the work—men ought to do all they do to the glory of God.
Men tend to fret over the motives behind others’ actions. Instead, men should trust the Lord to deal with the motives at the judgment seat of Christ.
How would making your motive match the Lord's motive change how you approach the Christian life (from witnessing to praying to Bible reading and so on)?
It takes a person with strong conviction to be willing to die for a cause. However, the one martyred is not necessarily a mature and complete Christian.
God is a jealous God, yet that jealousy is only manifested when men provoke the Lord because of their unfaithfulness. Men can provoke the Lord through various means, but ultimately, they all unite in the fact that they place something or someone else ahead of the Lord. The Lord does not want the leftovers of man’s time, love, money, and strength (Malachi 1:7-9). Instead, He wants the first and greatest of man’s possessions. Anything less is idolatrous and offensive to the God who gave man everything he has. Each man must make a daily evaluation of his life to insure that he is doing nothing to provoke the Lord to jealousy.
Historically, the word jealous is connected to the word zeal rather than to envy. Unfortunately, the world has perverted man’s understanding of jealousy by likening it to a detestable sin. The Bible student recognizes that jealousy cannot always be sinful because God says that He is a jealous God (Nahum 1:2) and God does not sin. A scriptural study proves that jealousy can be righteous, or it can be wicked depending upon the intent of the one in whom this jealousy originates. In a very basic sense, jealousy is the unwillingness to share or allow anything to rival the object of one’s desire. Since man has sinful desires, jealously is often viewed as sinful and can lead to other sinful practices. In the Lord’s case, His righteous desire to be man’s only true and living God drives Him to just judgment and godly jealousy.
A man who loses hope loses his primary motivation for doing right and living holy. The Bible reveals what men do when they have no hope: “let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die” (1 Corinthians 15:32). If there is no hope in a resurrection, man sees no reason to cease to go after his strange gods (Jeremiah 2:25) or follow “the imagination of his evil heart” (Jeremiah 18:12). If there is no judgment after death, or if the Lord is not soon returning, then the greatest impetus for living the Christian life is lost. Man needs a special motivation to help him to live a life of purity. He should live in purity because He loves the Lord. Yet, the answer lies in the fact that the Lord is coming soon, and man will stand before Him to give an account, and all those who have this particular hope will purify themselves, “even as he [Jesus] is pure.” Hope makes all the difference!
Every person has done sinful things for which he was ashamed even prior to salvation (Romans 6:21). Some of those things are so wicked that the apostle Paul would not even mention what they were (Ephesians 5:12). The life of a Christian was never intended by God to be that way. According to verse 5 above, the Christian life is to be a life void of shame. This type of fulfilled life is only possible when hope is present for “hope maketh not ashamed.” Yet, every Christian must come to understand that hope is the outcome of a sometimes lengthy spiritual process. Here is the biblical sequence. If one properly endures tribulation, he learns to have patience. Patience, in turn, brings experience, and experience brings hope. All these things work together in the life of the believer to keep him from living a life of shame. There is truly no shame in a life lived with hope!
