Editor’s note: In preparation for this article, you should read the four accounts of Christ’s Baptism: Matthew 3:13–17; Mark 1:9–11; Luke 3:21–22; John 1:29–34. Darkness and confusion are not in Holy Scripture. It is light to guide us (Psalm 119:105), not darkness to mislead us. It is truth to set us free (John 8:32), not
Over the last few months, we have talked about problems that afflict us — half-heartedness, slackness, falsehoods, fragmentation, failure to preach the Gospel.
You can tell when someone does something halfheartedly. They lack drive, interest; sometimes they emit an audible sigh. No go, no push, no effort.
Christianity has never been a spectator sport. A spectator watches other athletes run, struggle, fall, triumph.
You are what you eat. If you want to lose weight, you can exercise more, get more sleep, get outside more. You can change lots of things, but if you don’t change what you eat, the other changes won’t matter much in the long run. Your food is your health or your sickness. Your soul
“I feel like I’m being pulled in a million different directions.” That could describe how you feel at work, how your free time feels, what a family gathering is like for you, what all of life feels like for you right now.
We know people were hungry for the bread of life in the past because they pursued Him into the desert to hear His words, and in our own past we have seen and known amazing things: people building their church and their school before they built their sod houses on the Great Plains, pastors traveling enormous distances on horseback and on foot to lonely settlements to bring the Gospel, churches popping up in the most crowded cities and the most uncrowded prairies.
When we were baptized, we weren’t given a spirit of fear.