3 Things Christians Should Consider in Light of Radical Islam

http://www.churchleaders.com/outreach-missions/outreach-missions-articles/258894-3-things-christians-consider-light-radical-islam.html

One Gift, Many Giftings; The Supremacy of the Holy Spirit Over Every Spirit Gifting

http://www.morethancake.org/archives/9237?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+morethancake%2FAwtT+%28More+Than+Cake%29

Why Encouragement is Not Optional

http://intouch.org/read/magazine/faith-works/a-secret-relational-currency

The Point of Hospitality

http://out-of-theordinary.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-point-of-hospitality.html

3 Lies About Spiritual Growth You Need To Know

http://gracemusing.com/2015/07/30/3-lies-about-spiritual-growth-you-need-to-know/

One Accord

Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become “unity” conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified.

~ AW Tozer

Relational Living

from Actsweb

“The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.'” Genesis 2:18

It is good to remind ourselves that God created mankind primarily for relationships from which come eighty percent of life’s satisfaction. To live meaningfully we need to be in meaningful relationships, without which life can be very empty and lonely.

If we don’t know how to relate in healthy ways, we don’t know how to live fully, and we can impair both our mental and physical health as a result. Or another way to put it: to fully live we need to fully love!

It helps us to remember that God Himself is in relationship through the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit). Also, Jesus started the Christian movement with relationships:

“He [Jesus] appointed twelve…that they might be with Him.” Mark 3:14

Furthermore, practically all of Christ’s ministry was done while in relationship with His twelve disciples.

As a Christian, our first need is to keep in a right relationship with God, which begins by accepting Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and Lord. Trying to live the Christian life without this is like trying to go east by traveling west.

We then need close, healthy relationships with people. Only then can we realize some of the deepest longings of the human heart. This doesn’t mean that we are to be over-dependent on others, codependent with them, or independent from them, but interdependent with them.

The reality is that we need people. Barbra Streisand expressed it well in the song: “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.”

Furthermore, the degree of our mental health, emotional maturity, and spiritual well-being will be reflected in the health of our close relationships. God’s command to “love one another” is not a sentimental suggestion. It’s an imperative.

Suggested prayer, “Dear God, please help me first of all to have a right relationship with You and then to resolve any character issues in my life that may hinder my having healthy relationships with others. Help me to love You and others more fully and myself in a healthy way. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’s name. Amen.”

Apologetics Catechism Questions

http://truthbomb.blogspot.com/2015/07/apologetics-catechism-questions.html

With Us in the Fire

~ Tim Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

If you believe in Jesus and you rest in Him, then suffering will relate to your character like fire relates to gold. Do you want to know who you are – your strengths and weaknesses? Do you want to be a compassionate person who skillfully helps people who are hurting? Do you want to have such a profound trust in God that you are fortified against the disappointments of life? Do you want simply to be wise about how life goes?

Those are four crucial things to have – but none of them are readily achievable without suffering. There is no way to know who you really are until you are tested. There is no way to really empathize and sympathize with other suffering people unless you have suffered yourself. There is no way to really learn how to trust in God until you are drowning.

But God is with us in the fire. He knows what it’s like to live through the miseries of this world – He understands. He is near, available to be known and depended upon within the hardship. He walks with us, but the real question is – will we walk with Him? If we have created a false God-of-my-program, then when life falls apart we will simply assume He has abandoned us and we won’t seek Him.

Hope and Endurance

from Actsweb

“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”  Romans 15:4

You may have read the story about the “piano teacher who was affectionately known as Herman. One night at a university concert, a distinguished piano player suddenly became ill while performing an extremely difficult piece. No sooner had the artist retired from the stage when Herman rose from his seat in the audience, walked on stage, sat down at the piano and with great mastery completed the performance.

“Later that evening, at a party, one of the students asked Herman how he was able to perform such a demanding piece so beautifully without notice and with no rehearsal. He replied, ‘In 1939, when I was a budding young concert pianist, I was arrested and placed in a Nazi concentration camp. Putting it mildly, the future looked bleak. But I knew that in order to keep the flicker of hope alive that I might someday play again, I needed to practice every day. I began by fingering a piece from my repertoire on my bare board bed late one night.

The next night I added a second piece and soon I was running through my entire repertoire. I did this every night for five years. It so happens that the piece I played tonight at the concert hall was part of that repertoire. That constant practice is what kept my hope alive. Every day I renewed my hope that I would one day be able to play my music again on a real piano, and in freedom.'”

I’m sure that some of our readers at this time are facing great hardships and may even be in peril for their lives. The Apostle Paul knew what it was like to experience great hardships, shipwreck, whippings, and being thrown into prison for his faith. He was the one who wrote today’s Scripture verse encouraging the Christians in Rome (who, if they weren’t going through persecution at the time, would soon be) to find encouragement and hope in the Word of God. May you and I do the same.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, in times of hardship, despair and suffering, please help me to keep practicing my faith every day, putting my trust entirely in You. And please bring me through triumphantly to the last day when I will see You face to face and know You as You are. Grant that this hope and the encouragement from Your Word will keep me enduring to the end. Gratefully, in Jesus’s name. Amen.”