Many people turn to fortune tellers, psychics, and horoscopes for hope. Faith in this hope (false hope) has ruined countless lives.
Man is not promised an endless supply of strength for him to store up. Rather, God promises to provide the necessary grace and strength for the present trials.
The eyes of the LORD are in every place. His eyes are upon all men’s ways: they are not hid from His face, neither is their iniquity hid from His eyes.
The Bible does not always paint man in a positive light, yet it always paints him accurately. According to scripture, there is no man that sinneth not.
If there is anything in this world worthy of man’s respect, it is the Bible. God’s word is far superior to any other book to which man may wish to compare it.
One day, all who know the Lord as Saviour will cease from their labours. It will be a time of eternal rest experienced only by those who are born again.
It is imperative that each believer not only do what is right, but also examine himself to make sure that he is doing what is right for the right reasons.
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.
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!
Man never sins without willingly doing so. Unfortunately, man’s vocabulary infers that sin is simply an uncontrollable accident or unfortunate mistake. Yet, in reality, we choose to sin. This is extremely obvious when one considers that the Lord promises “a way to escape” during every temptation. It is not that the Lord offers a way to avoid temptation altogether, but He offers help that man “may be able to bear it [the temptation].” Man can never point his finger toward God in an attempt to assign some level of guilt for man’s sins. God always makes a way for man to righteously endure and conquer every type of temptation known to man. The failure to escape from any temptation is not for lack of opportunity to do so.
