LIVING AN OVERCOMING LIFE requires intentionality and an exercise of faith. It involves following hard after God. Specifically, it features yearning after Him in wonder; choosing a "resurrected" life in Christ. A.W. Tozer warns us that lack of holy desire leads to a stiff and wooden quality in our spirituality. "Complacency is a deadly foe …
First Principles: Part Four
IT WOULD BE WRONG to say one kingdom principle is greater or more important than another, but I will say these first four we've been discussing are critical to beginning and strengthening our new life in Christ. It is important to identify and defeat the hindrances to living a balanced Christian lifestyle. Watchman Nee wrote, …
First Principles: Part Three
TO UNDERSTAND TEMPTATION is to understand our tendency to sin; what Christian theology calls our "sin nature." Detractors often argue that it is possible to go through your entire life without committing murder, adultery, rape, theft; without cheating on your taxes or watching porn. I agree. However, to suggest that we have the human capacity …
First Principles: Part Two
GOD FORMED MAN OUT out of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living creature (see Gen. 2:7). God put the man (Adam) in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. The name Adam comes from adama, a Hebrew word meaning "earth." …
First Principles: Part One
I HAVE REFERENCED Trevor Hart and Kelly Kapic in the past regarding what constitutes Christian theology. Hart describes the theologian as "...fidelis quaerens intellectum: a believer seeking understanding... theology is the attempt by faith to understand itself, its object, and its place in today's world" (1). Hart calls this "faith thinking." Kapic assures us that …