John 3:1-16
Life is like a ladder we climb until we die. It would be a shame if we simply stopped and never progressed. But it could be utterly disastrous if we placed our ladder against the wrong wall and after a lifetime of climbing discovered that we had wasted all the years given to us.
Where have you placed your ladder? Has God ever emptied you so He can fill you up again?
Although there’s nothing you can do to be born again—no good works or religious service—there is something you can believe. God wants you to glimpse His holiness and realize how far you are from His perfect standard. Then, if you come broken and contrite to Jesus, believing His death paid your sin debt, you’ll be born again and will someday see the kingdom of heaven.
How God Uses Your Praise?
Praise renews strength. Waiting on God and hoping in Him renew you spiritually and often physically also {Isa. 40:29-31}. Praising God is often even more effective than prayer in refreshing, reviving, and empowering you. Every Christian at times experiences a sense of spiritual dryness.
Certainly, after a spiritual battle, there is mental and emotional exhaustion. Praise opens an artesian well of faith and joy. Praise is one of God’s means for you inner renewal [2 Cor. 4:16; Ps. 106:1-5].
When you are sincere in your praise of God, praise is holy, God-pleasing, and powerful.
Jeremiah 7:5-7
“If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever.”
What is the true measure of our character? Certainly it is not merely how we act "at church." The real test of our character, our godliness, is our partnership with him in his work of redeeming the lost, forgotten, downtrodden, and broken. When we live only for ourselves, when the "have-nots" are left so far behind, a culture collapses upon itself because it lacks the heart of God, and people become jealous and resentful of one another.
[Message No: 6661]
Life is like a ladder we climb until we die. It would be a shame if we simply stopped and never progressed. But it could be utterly disastrous if we placed our ladder against the wrong wall and after a lifetime of climbing discovered that we had wasted all the years given to us.
Where have you placed your ladder? Has God ever emptied you so He can fill you up again?
Although there’s nothing you can do to be born again—no good works or religious service—there is something you can believe. God wants you to glimpse His holiness and realize how far you are from His perfect standard. Then, if you come broken and contrite to Jesus, believing His death paid your sin debt, you’ll be born again and will someday see the kingdom of heaven.
How God Uses Your Praise?
Praise renews strength. Waiting on God and hoping in Him renew you spiritually and often physically also {Isa. 40:29-31}. Praising God is often even more effective than prayer in refreshing, reviving, and empowering you. Every Christian at times experiences a sense of spiritual dryness.
Certainly, after a spiritual battle, there is mental and emotional exhaustion. Praise opens an artesian well of faith and joy. Praise is one of God’s means for you inner renewal [2 Cor. 4:16; Ps. 106:1-5].
When you are sincere in your praise of God, praise is holy, God-pleasing, and powerful.
Jeremiah 7:5-7
“If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever.”
What is the true measure of our character? Certainly it is not merely how we act "at church." The real test of our character, our godliness, is our partnership with him in his work of redeeming the lost, forgotten, downtrodden, and broken. When we live only for ourselves, when the "have-nots" are left so far behind, a culture collapses upon itself because it lacks the heart of God, and people become jealous and resentful of one another.
[Message No: 6661]
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