Some non-Christians seem a lot more Christian than Christians. They’re nicer, kinder, happier, more giving, more sociable, more involved in the community, more even-tempered, more disciplined, better adjusted and more normal. It’s a bit discouraging when you’re a Christian bumping into people like that, because if non-Christians can be such good people, why bother being [...]
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Does a Christian’s life depend entirely on the Holy Spirit, or are there things we can do to help ourselves? What about depression, for instance? Do we just wait on the Spirit to cure us, or can we use human resources too, like counselling, medication and positive thinking techniques, and perhaps even some religious exercises [...]
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I got my first real whiff of what being “born again” is like when our 6 year old granddaughter came to stay with us for a week. She was ecstatically happy to be with us, and for the life of me I couldn’t work out why. I’m a doddery old codger now and not much [...]
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“Please close the door behind you.” What a final statement that is. The interview’s over. There’s no more to be said. You walk to the door, open it, walk through and close it behind you with a click, leaving behind whatever happened inside the room forever. But it’s the closing of the door that seals [...]
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A recent appeal for abandoned children in Bulgaria received an amazing response. Money poured in. But the list of abandoned children never ends, begging the question, “Why be good when it’s getting us nowhere?” It’s like a never-ending oil leak. What we clean up soon fills in again. Get one group of abandoned children taken care [...]
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It is a firm atheist belief that humans are perfectly capable of being good without God, and Humanist societies in several countries want it spelled out on buses and in subways, too – either as a question, “Can you be good without God?” or as an outright statement of fact, “You can be good without [...]
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So we let the Spirit guide us (following up on “Learning to dance with Jesus,” May 1/10) – but how do we know it’s the Spirit guiding us and not our own ideas and motives? Can we know the Spirit is guiding us? Yes, Galatians 3:2. Paul’s asking a group of Christians when they received the [...]
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A lady was describing on radio the secret to dancing so well with a male partner they were beautiful to watch. The secret, she discovered, was making herself “available.” What she meant by that was relaxing in her partner’s arms and letting him take her wherever he wished. She didn’t have to anticipate where he [...]
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How important is the Spirit in a human life? In Romans 8 it is hugely important, for seven reasons: 1) The Spirit sets us free from sin and death (verse 2) 2) “Live according to the Spirit” and we can fully meet the righteous requirements of God’s law (verse 4), [...]
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What frustrated Paul so much was not being able to do what he so desperately wanted to do – and isn’t that the problem that frustrates all of us? In our inner beings, we’d love to do good and make our world a better place. Barack Obama’s stirring call “Yes, we can!” struck [...]
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