Encouragement

It sounds like God is promising wealth to every believer who tithes. A gross misinterpretation of His Word. But if a false teacher convinces enough believers to tithe beyond generously, he can fly anywhere he wants in a plane with leather seats.

But you still dwell in Hell for all of eternity. What good has your empire on earth done you? If your child eventually joins you in Hell, your empire has disintegrated into utter grief. How sad you didn’t realize the vanity of your life until it was too late to walk a different path. Double the grief when your children join you.

Becoming a recluse does so much harm to a believer. Living as an isolated believer deadens him. He eventually falls for the lie that the occasional, complacent, hour-long involvement is sufficient. I lived that way until I discovered the emptiness of it.

Sports provided my next attempt at acquiring strength. In the class room, the role of class clown became mine. So I broke my ankle at basketball practice, and I was paddled a lot in the hallways. Two strike outs.

Chosen people? Royal priesthood? Holy nation? God’s special possession? It certainly sounds like Peter has moved on from his sin of denial.
We believers need to do the same. If God remembers our sins no more, we need to follow His example. With His forgiveness extended to us, we experience peace with God. Why, then, should we continue to beat ourselves up about our sins?

In this sinful cardboard piece of a man, He continues to grow my capacity for love, joy, peace and goodness. He’s making me more faithful, patient and humble. I possess more self-control and kindheartedness.

A person who makes the wrong decision about Jesus Christ lives his entire life in vain. When he dies after rejecting Jesus, he discovers how vain his earthly life was. Dwelling in Hell for eternity is the most horrible vanity of all. It never ceases.

Both those accounts deal with serving others using money. What about our time or material possessions? Can we be content in handing over our material possessions if it would serve better purposes for someone else? Sometimes we act as if that fourth car in our garage will be joining us in heaven even though we rarely drive it here. Do we truly need fifteen pairs of shoes?

After five minutes sitting in our fort, Randy said, “How about we go pop bottle hunting?” He could have stopped at “How about we go–.” Yes, let’s go.
It was a smart decision. We could collect two cents for every pop bottle we found and turn that into candy at the local store. Our underground fort could never match that return.