This passage is a picture of what heaven will be like. As human beings, we bow down and pay homage to countless other things. However, there is nothing that compares to the incomprehensible glory of God.
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God gave Zechariah a vision, and in chapter 6, God revealed to Zechariah that He is sovereign and in control of everything that is taking place in the world. The theology of God’s sovereignty continues to our present world and current condition. Our understanding of this great Bible truth should be reflected in our faith, our hope, and our praise.
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The belief that “we can do what we want because we are already saved” is empty. The people that teach that and similar beliefs are like a well without water. They have no depth; their lives are empty. Are you a dry well? If someone came to you would they leave thirsty or quenched? How do you fill your well? By going to Christ every day. He is the everlasting water. We are all subject to other influences in our lives. We can be mastered by God or self, but we can’t be mastered by both. Every time you give in to your own selfish wants and desires, you become more of a slave to self. We can overcome that, but we have to make God our master. We have to love Him, know Him, and want to serve Him.
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For us to believe that modern Christianity is what God intended, we would be sorely mistaken. The blessing and prosperity in Laodicea was doing something insidious in the hearts of the believers there. God cares what happens in His churches. God’s message to the church at Laodicea was nothing but sadness and rebuke. Their wealth and prosperity made them blind to how useless they were to God. Sometimes our greatest enemy is within ourselves. If Laodicea, in its first century wealth, was rendered useless, what hope is there for us? This is a strong warning. Wealth, success, and security make people weak.
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There is no place for abuse of others in a community of faith. We can’t build the community of faith God wants if we are careless in the way we treat other people. We can’t bring Babylon into the church and be okay. There is an evil that, if we’re not careful, can filter and find its way into the church.
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There is a right way to live, and we all know that our feet have at one point strayed from the good and right path. If we are going to stay on the right path, we need to remember that there is a spiritual battle being waged, and we can never allow pleasure to become life’s supreme goal.
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One of our greatest human shortcomings is that we are shortsighted. We live for the moment. We live indulgently. We make compromises too easily. We forfeit a better future by living at a low level right now. Present sufferings are worth enduring for life’s future rewards. Some losses incurred in the moment are worth the gain to come in the future.
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Children are a significant part of Jesus' mission. It is children and those with hearts like children that make up the kingdom of God. It is vital that we make Jesus' mission our mission and give great effort to reaching children.
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God is going to deliver the righteous, and He is going to punish the unjust. He judged wicked people in the Old Testament, and it is consistent with His character that He would judge the ungodly in the present. However, just as God delivered the righteous in the Old Testament, when trials come in the lives of the righteous, it is consistent with His character the He would deliver them.
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Through history, God has chosen to bring about good in the world by His Spirit working through people. God wants to use you to accomplish good in the world. Are you a vessel God can use to bring about deliverance?
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The story of Christianity can be summed up in the fact that God loves us. Throughout Israel’s history, it’s abundantly clear that God was there working in the lives of His people. Likewise, all of us, as God’s children, will experience God’s love working in our lives for good. We simply have to trust Him and His plan. We are safe in God’s love.
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There are not just threats outside the church; there are threats within the church. We need to be on guard. In the New Testament church, false teachers had arisen from within the church; the threat remains for us today. We need to be sure that, as a church, we are preaching the whole counsel of God.
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Life is full of frustrations, difficulties, pain, and hurt. When we find ourselves in the midst of pain and difficulty, when our souls are bitter, we have two options: we can lash out at those around us, or we can take our bitterness of soul to an all-powerful, loving God Who hears.
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Peter is at the end of his life and this is the final letter he writes to strengthen the brethren as Christ had instructed him to do. This is his final, parting advice to all believers. In this increasingly dark world, he exhorts us to remember the Word of God we have been taught. In a world full of things that can't be trusted, it is trustworthy and can be a guide to our lives.
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Are you authentic? We often think of authenticity being on the inside, but authentic Christians are externally verifiable. One is not a Christian just because he says so. Anyone can call anything gold, but a simple test will determine whether or not it really is. If one is a real Christian, he will have a spiritual pulse. This is not a question of merit. It is a question of authenticity.
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God’s Spirit, power, and Truth are what this world needs. God’s Spirit and Truth are the solution to all of life’s problems, not systems and methodologies. His Spirit is the answer. It’s the answer for your brokenness. It’s the answer for your weakness. It’s the answer for your bitterness. It’s the answer for our church. It’s the answer for your family. It’s the answer for our mountain of challenges. Let us never underestimate the power of the Spirit in our lives, and let us never fail to ask for this power.
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Love has to have the right impetus and source: Truth. In Thyatira they loved people, but their doctrine was falling apart. This was unsustainable because they had no basis for the love they were demonstrating. Thyatira is alive and well today. If we are going to love people as Christ did, our love must find its source in Truth; otherwise, our love has no foundation.
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