The Lord is the strength of His people. While it is true that we are called to do our part, God must add the necessary strength to accomplish the work.
In establishing His covenant with Israel, God promised them He would have respect unto them, make them fruitful, and multiply them.
Learning that God is the creator in the person of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3:9, Colossians 1:16) should serve as one of the earliest of life’s lessons. Some people have used this truth of God as creator to suggest that He is accountable for their lustful desires, yet nothing could be further from the truth. Believers should continue to believe and proclaim that God created each person on purpose and for a purpose. Unfortunately, many people try to point to God as a prime excuse for the sin within their own hearts and lives. They point to some failure, sin, or lifestyle and say, “God made me this way.” God does make some people short and others tall. He makes some with blue eyes and some with green. He makes some male and some female. God made each individual with certain traits, yet the truth of who and what we are flows from the choices we have made, good and bad. One commonality amongst all of God’s creation concerns the need for the soul’s salvation. Instead of trying so hard to question God’s wisdom, believers should rather choose to serve Him to the best of their God-given abilities.
As already discussed, the word salvation is used throughout the word of God, but depending upon the context, the intended meaning varies. Failure to understand the different usages has led many to espouse some of the most egregious false doctrines. It is important to understand that the foundational meaning of the word salvation refers to deliverance. The vast majority of occurrences in the word of God actually refer to physical deliverance rather than a soul’s salvation. The word salvation can often be found within the context to describe the time when someone received deliverance from a specific trial or a threatening enemy. The most common usage today among believers relates to spiritual deliverance offered through the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Throughout history, millions of people have been deceived by the influence of wine and strong drink, including many Christians. These multitudes have been duped into thinking that they have the power to start and stop their consumption at will. All of them underestimated the power and the control of alcohol. Alcoholic consumption at the first seems to pose no threat to the individual, but as man continues to give himself to it, he discovers its deadly side. This is confirmed in Proverbs 23:32 where the Bible says, “At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” A man who submits himself to wine or strong drink eventually discovers that partaking in these substances turns to his own demise. He will lose his God-given self-control and find himself at the mercy of the unmerciful strong drink.
God made you! He either made you a male or a female (Genesis 1:27; Matthew 19:4). As such, He expects each of us to act, look, and live like what He made us in every way. Ever more frequently, the world and the Devil have blurred the lines of distinction between male and female. One of the most grievous outcomes of the blurring of distinctions between male and female has resulted in the public’s acceptance of the sin which led to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. God condemned it then and condemns it no less today. The Lord wants men and women to be distinct and look differently in every possible way. As such, He created the genders with obvious physical differences. He even admonished each gender to bear clear and distinct differences in length of hair (1 Corinthians 11:14-15) and commanded them to maintain obvious distinctions in apparel (Deuteronomy 22:5). In other words, focus upon looking like what God created you to be.
Honest scientists are increasingly learning truths once deemed unimaginable by those who did not know the scriptures. Some of these truths concern the inner workings of man's mind and body. These relatively recent discoveries reveal that the body emits signals exposing truths intended by men to remain concealed. Sometimes the individual even lies attempting to conceal the facts further. For this reason, people began studying body language in hopes of determining if an individual's movements reveal otherwise hidden truths. Yet, the Bible has included these secrets long before man's scientific discoveries. In fact, the main character found in the oldest book of the Bible understood these principles. Job claimed that the truthfulness of his statements could be seen by simply looking at him. People have long assumed that the conscience is responsible for body language and the scriptures support this claim. Romans 9:1 confirms this truth as Paul stated, “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost.” The Bible repeatedly shows that the conscience reveals the truth even when man intentionally tries to hide it, lie, or deceive.
