by Bill Elliff
October 28, 2020
Tozer said that "What you know about God is the most important thing about you." Right behind that knowledge, though, is what you know about yourself.
Do you know who you are? Paul did. Often in the opening lines of his letters to the churches he would give a one-sentence description that summed up his life. To the Romans, he summed it up in 17 words.
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by Bill Elliff
October 27, 2020
"There is nothing so tragic as a merely formal Christian," Martyn Lloyd-Jones said. Nothing so disappointing as a person who once basked in the joy of the Lord but has now discovered that his love has grown cold.
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by Bill Elliff
October 26, 2020
When it comes to our money, the natural thought is to hold it tightly for ourselves. This might be accurate if it weren't for the fact that we were made in the image of God and being restored to that image by grace. The more we mature in Christ, the more we discover that God is 100% generous. In fact, He is the Author of generosity. He wants us to become as He is through relaxing our grip on the possessions He entrusts to us in this life.
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by Bill Elliff
October 22, 2020
We are faced in this life with suffering. Our physical bodies are the laboratory for this suffering because they are designed to leave this world. Each cell in our bodies is coded with a certain number of times that cell will divide and then it stops dividing and dies. God has literally numbered our days on this earth.
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by Bill Elliff
October 21, 2020
I long for a bit of normal. Heading to church with a full room of our friends. No masks. No COVID. No bitter election season. No sickness. No anger. No riots. No empty football stands with silly cardboard cutouts and piped in fan noise (who thought of that?) No hypocrisy by me or anyone else.
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by Bill Elliff
October 21, 2020
If your vision is not aerated by heaven's reality you will be overwhelmed and discouraged. The authentic man of faith is a realist—but in both directions. He recognizes the problems, but also the solutions. A realistic view of both earth and heaven makes for a robust faith and gives hope in any situation to everyone who observes us.
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by Bill Elliff
October 19, 2020
How do you see yourself? A mature man has come to the humble knowledge that he is nothing without Christ and everything with Christ. He is a mere branch on a glorious Vine, but he has been fearfully and wonderfully and uniquely made by the Creator, designed for great achievements by God’s grace. This wise balance allows him to live powerfully, but dependently in life.
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by Bill Elliff
October 16, 2020
We spend our lives trying to gain certain things and are full of joy when we get them. Our first car, our first job, our first home. Reputation and prestige and influence. The list is long. But, is it possible to have all those things and not have the most important thing? Here’s what the Apostle Paul said:
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by Bill Elliff
October 15, 2020
If you are a true believer, God has given you a spiritual gift(s) at the moment of your salvation. A spiritual gift is a "God-given, supernatural ability for service." It is different from a natural talent, but talents can be the vehicle through which some gifts operate at times. Spiritual gifts are designed by God to shape and empower our role in the Kingdom of God.
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by Bill Elliff
October 14, 2020
Father, thank You for saving me from a life and eternity without You. Remind me daily of the depth of this grace and the height of Your mercy towards me. Thank You for those who shared the truth of the gospel with me that led to my salvation. Compel me now to pass to others what has been entrusted to me.
Deliver me from fruitless self-centeredness. Lift my gaze outward. Help me see people not as objects, but as those You love with complete and absolute compassion; as those that only one message and one Savior can heal. Fill me with hourly urgency and grant me the clarity and boldness to speak the word of God without fear. Let me do "all things—ALL things—for the sake of the gospel." Open my mouth in gospel witness and my heart in gospel love.
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by Bill Elliff
October 06, 2020
God is a God of order. He has planned for His world to reflect this beautiful, peaceful harmony. But when we reject Him, we lose this ability and become lawless. And this lawlessness leads to anarchy and chaos.
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by Bill Elliff
October 05, 2020
We are seeing in our nation an explosion of evil on every side. We can sit passively and allow it to engulf our nation (and it will if unchecked). Or, as believers we can do the one thing that overcomes evil. We can walk by the Spirit and allow God’s goodness to flow in us and through us.
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