I have found that there is no better time to talk about the love of God and the birth of Christ than during the month of December. The real truth is that the radio and TV are doing a lot of the work for us and the Holy Spirit is speaking to the human heart no matter how broken the person may be. We so often are reluctant to share the story of the gospel because we look at the outside of people and think they don’t need our help when, in fact, they are crying out on the inside.

I had intended to only write a three-part article on the meaning and application of sacrifice, but decided to add one more before moving on to another subject. This then, is the fourth and final part of this series on sacrifice so if you haven’t read the first three please do so before reading this one.

This is the third article on dreams so if you haven’t read the first two I would encourage you to do so in order to get the whole picture thus far on the importance of our dreams and God’s desire to communicate through them.

All of us experience worry, anxiety and fear from time to time. This is a human experience. These issues become a problem when they become long-standing “friends” that seem to bring about a paralysis in our spiritual and emotional development. When the average professing Christian reads the New Testament the picture that is portrayed is one of victory and success. All too often believers in the forgiveness of Christ aren’t yet sold on how God wants to impart victory as well as forgiveness.

The topic of being spiritually and emotionally paralyzed will be covered in a total of 4 parts. If you have not read the first two parts, I would suggest reading them first. This is Part 3 and we will be covering a root cause that many fear looking at. It’s a target to look at when trying to figure out and overcoming the problem of being spiritually and emotionally paralyzed.  Keep in mind that all of us have a tendency to look for a “silver bullet” fix and resolve our problems no matter what they might be. The truth is that life is often more complex than we care to realize and so are the problems. That being said, there are answers to resolve this problem of being paralyzed in our lives and a passage from the Gospel of John is a good example.

Previously, I wrote an article titled “Are There Idols to Kill?” and since people commented about wanting more clarity on the subject please read that article before this one.

Unfortunately, in our modern culture we don’t recognize idols when they are present do in part to stereotyping them as statues in old movies or in books depicting ancient culture statues. Secondly, we miss identifying idols because we think it’s an Old Testament concept that doesn’t relate to the time of Jesus onward, which is far from the truth. It’s similar for many Christians to assume demons no longer torment people’s lives nor control certain behaviors. That they don’t typify the behavior of the man in the New Testament with the legion of demons. Satan is smart enough to mask his activities and warfare to fool the simple-minded and cover his deception.

If you have not read the previous three articles with the same title please do so before reading this one.

In the previous articles I dealt with the “Traps & Pitfalls” of leaders. One of the reasons for doing so was our need to see what causes leaders and believers in general to be great examples to follow and which examples we need to avoid lest we learn damaged values and try to emulate them.

This article has part 1 & 2 so please read the two previous articles with the same title before reading this one which is part 3. The purpose of the series is to look at the hunger amongst church people to embrace a leader because they speak well, while their conduct and treatment of the people in their congregation is less than Christ would expect from shepherds of his flocks.

If you haven’t read the first part on this subject of leadership, please read that first because there are four parts to this topic and to miss the first part would give a lopsided view of what a great leader is rather than a great talker.

Life has a way of showing us just how complex things are. I think when we are young we expect we can do almost anything until we have accumulated some failures under our belts. As bad as failure often feels, it teaches us what will and will not work; at least in the simple things. As we grow in knowledge and wisdom, we discover that some things can be challenged even when past experience has taught us otherwise. Failure is not always going to be failure if new elements are added, just as success doesn’t always work because something new has been added to change the outcome.