Paul made several requests, and the first one is in verse 16, where he prayed for spiritual strength: “That he would grant you, according ot the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.” There is in the believer an inner man that corresponds with the outer …
Last month I asked two question in our prayer inventory based on Ephesians 3:14-21. The first question was, “Why am I praying?” Paul said, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father.” We discovered that “cause” spelled out at the end of chapter 2–it’s the building of the Church. When you and I …
The Joy of Preaching Christ Paul had a difficult situation in the city of Rome because the believers there were divided into three camps: those who helped Paul, those who opposed Paul and those who remained uncommitted (Phil. 1:12-18). Paul could have been discouraged over this division, but …
On January 11, 1877, Phillips Brooks, the well-known rector of Trinity Church in Boston, MA, stood before the ministerial students, faculty and guests at Yale Divinity School to deliver the first of eight lectures in distinguished “Lyman Beecher Lectureship on Preaching.” After taking a few minutes …
Discipline “It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young” (Lam. 3:27). The child that doesn’t learn to listen and obey isn’t likely to become a leader when an adult, unless soemthing unusual happens along the way. Though he argued that he wasn’t qualified, Jeremiah was a young man when …
Unless you live in a pre-industrial society, you don’t think much about yokes because teams of draft animals pulling plows have been replaced by powerful tractors. But if you were a farmer in Bible days, you needed yokes so you could harness your animals and plow your land. Cultivating the land …
(Continued from Part 1) If we want to build Christian character, we will sacrifice. “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:39). One of the paradoxes of the Christian life is that the losers are the winners, provided that they sacrifice …
In a sudden burst of pride that was most unlike him, David disobeyed the Lord and ordered Joab to take a military census of Israel (2 Sam. 24:1; 1 Chron. 21). God disciplined the nation by sending a plague that killed 70,000 people, and David confessed his sin and humbled himself before the Lord. …
(originally appeared in Songs in the Night, may not be reprinted without permission of 2ProphetU.com) He stood in the busy marketplace in Capernaum, and everybody knew who He was. He was Jesus of Nazareth, the teacher, the healer. And He looked at the crowd as they rushed here and there, just the …
Preaching that’s predictable usually isn’t very powerful. If our listeners know where we’re going in a sermon and how we plan to get there, they will soon lose interest in the message, no matter how well we preach it. Without the unexpected and the element of surprise, even the best message will …