묵상/스티브 멕베이(Steve McVey)243 Living As Yourself “I’ve never known what I want to do with my own life,” a young mother said to me at a after I had spoken about living our God-given dreams. “I want to fulfill God’s plan for my life, but I can’t figure out what it is. I don’t even know what I want to do,” she continued. After asking her a few questions, I said to her, “We’ve just met, so I obviously don’t know you. But I.. 2011. 1. 25. If You Don’t Forgive Others, God Won’t Forgive You There are times in each of our lives where we might be holding unforgiveness towards someone else. If you take that statement at face value — “If you don’t forgive others, God won’t forgive you” — it would mean there are unforgiven sins in your life. If there are unforgiven sins in your life, and you were to die without them being forgiven, then I suppose you would be separated from.. 2011. 1. 22. God Is For You! God is for me.” Can you make that statement with a deep sense of certainty? He is, you know. When things are going the way you want, God is for you. When life seems to be falling apart, God is for you. When the Philistines chased David down in Gath, he wrote, “This I know, that God is for me” (Psalm 56:9). What a time to make a declaration like that! Many of us have found ourselves in a p.. 2011. 1. 20. The Grace To Shut Up “I just say whatever is on my mind,” a person who was expressing an opinion in an animated way recently said to me. I didn’t respond to the comment, but couldn’t help but think about the Bible verse that says, “A fool uttereth his whole mind, but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards” (Proverbs 29:11, KJV). When I was young man I felt an internal mandate to not only express my op.. 2011. 1. 20. Grow Old But Don't Grow Up Growing older isn’t really a choice we can make, given our options. However, growing older and growing up are two different matters altogether. When we were children or perhaps later, when we acted like irresponsible teens, we were all admonished at times to “grow up!” Those words of advice were probably well intended, but the more I’ve thought about it, I don’t think it’s such a go.. 2011. 1. 18. Journey On For a long time in life I believed that my responsibility was to faithfully live out the reality of the biblical truths I had learned throughout my lifetime. I had a sense of security in knowing that because of a solid background in church and a sound education in college and seminary, I was equipped to live the lifestyle inherent to being a good follower of Jesus Christ. So that’s what I did.. 2011. 1. 7. The Life of Jesus Is Our Life Why did Jesus come into this world? The prevailing answer would be that He came to die. While nobody would argue that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross is central to our faith, it seems sometimes that the implications of the fact that He lived with us in this world for thirty-three years are minimized or even overlooked. In His death, Jesus brought us back to the Father, but at Christmas t.. 2010. 12. 28. Why Am I Obsessed With One Topic - God's Love? “I understand the love of God and thank Him for it, but that topic seems to be the only thing you talk about these days” someone recently wrote. “ There are other important things to know than just that. Why are you obsessed with this topic?” It’s a fair question. If you’ll indulge me, I want to give a short background of my ministry in answering that question. Maybe by explaining w.. 2010. 12. 28. One Of The Lies Heard In Church Every Sunday There are secular and sacred things in life Firmly entrenched in most people’s thinking is idea that all of life is divided into two separate categories: the sacred and the secular. In the sacred or spiritual category are things like church, church buildings, prayers, rituals, clergy, the Bible and Bible reading. What’s secular or “unspiritual”? Everything else, which includes basically.. 2010. 12. 28. A Question About Things I'm Teaching These Days I'm having a hard time understanding the difference in what you taught before and what people are saying you are teaching now. The subjective objective stuff isn't clicking. Could you send me a clear statement. Are you what they call Trinitarian? What does that even mean? Thank you for writing to ask. As I'm sure you know a mutual "friend" has taken it upon himself to seek to destroy my reputat.. 2010. 11. 29. Divine Justice And Grace What kind of justice does our God dispense in the world? Is He the Cosmic Hanging Judge of the Universe who sits on His divine courtroom bench, gavel in hand, ready to slam it down and scream guilty? Is He nervous with anticipation of passing sentence and executing judgment against the injustice of this world? Not at all. Ironically, the God-as-Judge viewpoint does not present a biblical pictur.. 2010. 11. 17. Is The Concept of Atonment Only An OT Concept? As I've been teaching about the atonement provided by Jesus in offering Himself on the cross, I occasionally have been asked, "Isn't the atonement an Old Testament concept?" I understand why people ask this and, in fact, used to tell people that it is only an Old Testament teaching but a closer look at Scripture reveals something different. The word "atonement" in the Old Testament most certain.. 2010. 11. 16. Questions About My Theology The following is an exchange between an online friend named Lance and myself. He raises questions that others have asked since I posted the blog "Exactly Who Is Holy?" LANCE'S NOTE: I'm just trying to say that there are dozens of little assumptions built into what you are saying these days. if any one of those assumptions fails, then your conclusion might fail. i encourage you to look long and .. 2010. 11. 11. A Question About Verses That Seem To Say All Aren't Holy For those of you who aren't on FaceBook, I'm posting a recent exchange I had there in response to yesterday's blog about the holiness of humanity. Terry raised a good question by citing a few verses that seem to contradict what I wrote yesterday. I'm posting here for those who don't use FB... Terry wrote: 1 Tim. 1:9, "realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for th.. 2010. 11. 11. Exactly Who is Holy? In my last blog, I wrote about how I have experienced a shift in my views on a number of pivotal matters over the past few years. I indicated that I would be writing about some of those changes in my thinking in blogs to follow. I described how I have moved away from the Calvinist perspective I held for over twenty five years when I began to try to reconcile the fact that "God is love" with the.. 2010. 11. 11. We Misunderstood . . . "Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you." - Paul "You had a dream. You misunderstood. You thought we were separate but now you hear my voice and you can relax now. Come on and open your eyes." (You Can Relax Now by Shaina Noll) 2010. 11. 7. Same Vocabulary, Different Dictionary I've visited many cultures and countries around the world in the past twenty years. One of the things I learned early on in my interaction with people in other places is that words have different meanings in different cultural contexts. I've committed a faux pas more than a few times when I've spoken in other countries by saying a word that meant something very different to my listeners than it .. 2010. 11. 7. The Propitiation for Sin In an ongoing effort to challenge readers of my blog to rethink the whole question of whether or not the cross was a place where the Father of Jesus punished the Son by pouring out anger on Him, I want to bring forward a verse that may suggest something very different from what many have been taught and believed thus far. As regular readers of my blog and listeners to my teachings know, I do no.. 2010. 11. 7. Theology Through Music When I was in California a few weeks ago, Joe Tkach (President of Grace Communion International) mentioned Jeremy Begbie to me. I hadn't heard of him but googled him when I came home. Wow! Here's a great example of what I've taught in the past about how our Father reveals Himself in non-religious ways and how, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, we will discover how the whole world declares.. 2010. 11. 7. God's Opinion of You One of the reasons we get confused about spiritual matters is because of the way we misunderstand and misapply words we use all the time. For instance, consider the word, "glory." In Hebrews 1:3, the Bible says Jesus is the radiance of God's glory. What does the writer mean by that? Does He mean that Jesus shines as brightly as the Father in His splendor? Perhaps, but I think the verse is much .. 2010. 10. 30. Two Covenants, Not One For the past three weeks, I've been sharing a three-part series of teachings on the "Sunday Preaching" broadcast called, "Two Covenants, Not One." For many years, I stayed confused when I read the Bible because I didn't understand this simple aspect of understanding the Scripture. The Old and New Covenant are very different from each other in many ways. God told those in the old covenant that a.. 2010. 10. 27. Anger or Agape? For years I saw the cross as the place where God the Father poured out His anger on the Son in order to satisfy His justice. (That view is a very distorted view of what justice really means. I'll write about that subject another time.) Author Brad Jersak does a good job explaining the way many of us have seen God's involvement at the cross and the way it really is. "God need not say, "I just ca.. 2010. 10. 21. A GPS And A Humming Driver I'm in Arcadia, California tonight after a long day of travel. I love the state of California. I've sometimes said that if it weren't for family and friends in the South, I could be happy living here. It's a beautiful state with great weather. When I landed at LAX today and picked up my rental car, they asked me, "Do you want the GPS?" Those who know me have heard me describe myself as "directi.. 2010. 10. 14. Taking The Plunge Imagine that you are standing on a diving board on a hot day. It's a high dive. You look down and see fog beneath you. A reliable person who you know is trustworthy tells you that a refreshing pool of water is below. He assures you that you will enjoy the water tremendously if you jump into it. You jump and you hit the water. It was just as you had been told. Wonderful. Think about that scenari.. 2010. 10. 12. Melody In F - The Story of the Prodigal Son Just for fun.... Feeling footloose and frisky, a featherbrained fellow forced his fond father to fork over his farthings. He flew far to foreign fields and frittered his fortune, feasting fabulously with faithless friends. Finally facing famine and fleeced by his fellows-in-folly, he found himself a feed flinger in a filthy farmyard. Fairly famished, he fain would have filled his frame with for.. 2010. 10. 7. The Apple of His Eye There are times in life when it seems that our Father is nowhere to be found. Times when we feel like we really need to see Him but we can't. Have you ever felt like God checked out of your circumstances and didn't bother to tell you that He was leaving? Well, the good news is that your feelings were just that - feelings. When we feel like God doesn't see our needs, the truth is very different .. 2010. 10. 6. Another Explanation of Objective & Subjective Reality I know somebody who is extremely gifted. He has a charismatic personality, is intelligent and is very competent. He has the capacity to excel at almost anything he tries to accomplish in life. Nobody, and I mean nobody, who knows him would ever wonder if he lacks the confidence to reach any goals he ever set for himself. But the problem is that he doesn't see himself that way. Instead, he lives.. 2010. 9. 27. Abandoning The Religious Rat Race Are you on the religious treadmill? Get off. You may find it gratifying in the short run but over the long haul it'll kill you. Driven religious fervor becomes a one night stand repeated over and over and over again. There may be a shallow gratification in one night stands, but nobody would ever mistake it for genuine intimacy. God offers you much more than that. He wants you to experience Him .. 2010. 9. 27. The Greatest Love Affair Ever One day while He walked the celestial halls, Jesus decided to observe the earth. In a far off remote place he found “you”. Humanity was cursed with the curse of Adam and there was nothing beautiful in us. But that did not matter to Him, “I only see you.” And then suddenly, the arrow strikes. Jesus feels butterflies in His stomach and chills in His spine. A passion passes slowly through .. 2010. 9. 27. Resting in Abba's Arms It is amazing how the default setting in contemporary Christian culture tends to oppose the concept of rest when that is exactly what Jesus promised to give us. (See Matthew 11:28-30) Just as God called Israel to a land of rest, we are being called to that today. This concept requires a new mind set for most people today. We live in a society where people go on vacation with their cell phones a.. 2010. 9. 27. 이전 1 2 3 4 5 ··· 9 다음