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“My Joy . . . Your Joy” "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full" —John 15:11 What was the joy that Jesus had? Joy should not be confused with happiness. In fact, it is an insult to Jesus Christ to use the word happiness in connection with Him. The joy of Jesus was His absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice to His Father— the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do— “. . . who for the joy that was set before Him...

Usefulness or Relationship? "Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven" —Luke 10:20 Jesus Christ is saying here, “Don’t rejoice in your successful service for Me, but rejoice because of your right relationship with Me.” The trap you may fall into in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service— rejoicing in the fact that God has used you. Yet you will never be able to measure fully what God will do through you if you have a right-standing relationship with Jesus Christ. If you...

The Unsurpassed Intimacy of Tested Faith "Jesus said to her, ’Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?’ " —John 11:40 Every time you venture out in your life of faith, you will find something in your circumstances that, from a commonsense standpoint, will flatly contradict your faith. But common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense. In fact, they are as different as the natural life and the spiritual. Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense cannot trust Him? Can you venture out...

The Purpose of Prayer ". . . one of His disciples said to Him, ’Lord, teach us to pray . . .’ " —Luke 11:1 Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the natural man. We hear it said that a person’s life will suffer if he doesn’t pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer. When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he...

Living Your Theology "Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you . . ." —John 12:35 Beware of not acting upon what you see in your moments on the mountaintop with God. If you do not obey the light, it will turn into darkness. “If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). The moment you forsake the matter of sanctification or neglect anything else on which God has given you His light, your spiritual life begins to disintegrate within you. Continually bring the truth out into your real...

Are You Ever Troubled? "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you . . ." —John 14:27 There are times in our lives when our peace is based simply on our own ignorance. But when we are awakened to the realities of life, true inner peace is impossible unless it is received from Jesus. When our Lord speaks peace, He creates peace, because the words that He speaks are always “spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). Have I ever received what Jesus speaks? “. . . My peace I give to you. . .”— a...

Brothers and Sisters: Peace be with you! The first similarity between the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches I wish to explore is the commitment that both Churches have to receive, transmit, and revere Tradition as the all-encompassing vessel in which the Church hands down God’s Word, in writing and orally, to every generation of Christian believers. The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council had much to say about the relationship in the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation - Dei Verbum. This is just one of the things they said: 10. Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of...

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI has hailed as an important step a meeting in Poland between the leaders of Russia's Orthodox church and Poland's Catholic hierarchy. Poland and Russia have feuded for centuries, and their ties are marked by distrust. Benedict praised the goodwill efforts by Orthodox Patriarch Kirill and Archbishop Jozef Michalik who met in a ceremony in Warsaw on Friday.

Christ-Awareness ". . . and I will give you rest" —Matthew 11:28 Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest. Never allow anything to remain in your life that is causing the unrest. Think of every detail of your life that is causing the disintegration as something to fight against, not as something you should allow to remain. Ask the Lord to put awareness of Himself in you, and your self-awareness will disappear. Then He will be your all in all. Beware of allowing your self-awareness...

Self-Awareness "Come to Me . . ." —Matthew 11:28 God intends for us to live a well-rounded life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside. Then we tend to fall back into self-examination, a habit that we thought was gone. Self-awareness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of our life in God, and self-awareness continually produces a sense of struggling and turmoil in our lives. Self-awareness is not sin, and it can be produced by nervous emotions or by suddenly being dropped into a totally new set of...

Have You Ever Been Speechless with Sorrow? "When he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich" —Luke 18:23 The rich young ruler went away from Jesus speechless with sorrow, having nothing to say in response to Jesus’ words. He had no doubt about what Jesus had said or what it meant, and it produced in him a sorrow with no words with which to respond. Have you ever been there? Has God’s Word ever come to you, pointing out an area of your life, requiring you to yield it to Him? Maybe He has pointed...

The heads of the Russian Orthodox and Polish Roman Catholic churches have jointly urged their nations to end their mutual bitterness and distrust. The appeal for Polish-Russian reconciliation was signed at Warsaw's Royal Castle, by Russia's Patriarch Kirill and Archbishop Jozef Michalik. They called for "forgiveness of wrongs, injustice and every evil committed against each other". Russia and Poland have been divided by politics and religion for centuries. The joint text said "we are certain that this [forgiveness] is the first and the most important step toward rebuilding mutual trust, which is a necessary element of a lasting community and...

Are You Discouraged or Devoted? ". . . Jesus . . . said to him, ’You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have . . . and come, follow Me.’ But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich" —Luke 18:22-23 Have you ever heard the Master say something very difficult to you? If you haven’t, I question whether you have ever heard Him say anything at all. Jesus says a tremendous amount to us that we listen to, but do not actually hear. And once we do hear Him, His words...

Does He Know Me . . . ? "He calls his own . . . by name . . ." —John 10:3 When I have sadly misunderstood Him? (see John 20:11-18). It is possible to know all about doctrine and still not know Jesus. A person’s soul is in grave danger when the knowledge of doctrine surpasses Jesus, avoiding intimate touch with Him. Why was Mary weeping? Doctrine meant no more to her than the grass under her feet. In fact, any Pharisee could have made a fool of Mary doctrinally, but one thing they could never ridicule was...

The Evidence of the New Birth "You must be born again" —John 3:7 The answer to Nicodemus’ question, “How can a man be born when he is old?” is: Only when he is willing to die to everything in his life, including his rights, his virtues, and his religion, and becomes willing to receive into himself a new life that he has never before experienced (John 3:4). This new life exhibits itself in our conscious repentance and through our unconscious holiness.“But as many as received Him. . .” (John 1:12). Is my knowledge of Jesus the result of my...

The Discipline of the Lord "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him" —Hebrews 12:5 It is very easy to grieve the Spirit of God; we do it by despising the discipline of the Lord, or by becoming discouraged when He rebukes us. If our experience of being set apart from sin and being made holy through the process of sanctification is still very shallow, we tend to mistake the reality of God for something else. And when the Spirit of God gives us a sense of warning...

“Do Not Quench the Spirit” "Do not quench the Spirit" —1 Thessalonians 5:19 The voice of the Spirit of God is as gentle as a summer breeze— so gentle that unless you are living in complete fellowship and oneness with God, you will never hear it. The sense of warning and restraint that the Spirit gives comes to us in the most amazingly gentle ways. And if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice, you will quench it, and your spiritual life will be impaired. This sense of restraint will always come as a “still small voice”...

The Theology of Resting in God "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" —Matthew 8:26 When we are afraid, the least we can do is pray to God. But our Lord has a right to expect that those who name His name have an underlying confidence in Him. God expects His children to be so confident in Him that in any crisis they are the ones who are reliable. Yet our trust is only in God up to a certain point, then we turn back to the elementary panic-stricken prayers of those people who do not even...

I live in a beautiful rural valley of 700 people in eastern Idaho and after I came to live here I found out that Utah isn't the only place that is fifty percent Mormon. As a compulsively inquisitive geo-political junkie I decided to look through the Book of Mormon so I could learn a little about the belief of my neighbors. As with any outsider looking into another's faith, I found many outlandish passages that would require faith to swallow, however, this is a characteristic that all religions share. What I have learned of my Mormon neighbors in the years...

This Experience Must Come "Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha . . . saw him no more" —2 Kings 2:11-12 It is not wrong for you to depend on your “Elijah” for as long as God gives him to you. But remember that the time will come when he must leave and will no longer be your guide and your leader, because God does not intend for him to stay. Even the thought of that causes you to say, “I cannot continue without my ’Elijah.’ ” Yet God says you must continue.Alone at Your “Jordan”...