Today’s Little Lesson is especially for people who are married or people who want to get married. Is there a secret to having a great marriage? I think that there is. I’ve been married for 38 years and I think I have a great marriage. If I was going to break it down as to why, of course I’ve got a great wife. That’s it. But what makes her so great? Have I helped out at all in this equation?
When you come to believe in Jesus—when you’re born again—you just want everybody to be born again, you want everyone to believe in Jesus! Because your sins are forgiven, God is your Father and you have eternal life. Naturally, you want everyone else to have that same blessing. And if you haven’t felt that desire for other people to have that same blessing, that’s probably an indication that you really don’t have it yourself yet.
As we endeavor to try to tell people the Good News of Jesus Christ, should we attempt to persuade them to “accept Jesus” as their personal Savior? I ask that because that’s a very, very common expression that we find within the evangelical world.
In today’s Little Lesson, we’re going to talk about faith and hope. Faith and hope are not the same. And Scripture gives us a very clear explanation that differentiates between the two.
Hebrews 11:1 says that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for.” So clearly faith has an assurance that hope doesn’t have. Hope is always saying “maybe,” but faith is always very confident. Much more confident than is hope.
This is the third Little Lesson where we’ll be discussing this subject of the security of the believer. Is it unconditional, or is it conditional?
When you believe in Jesus, does that guarantee that you have a salvation that there’s no possible way you could forfeit? Or is your security conditional? Conditional upon you continuing in the faith, as evidenced by your continued walk of obedience to the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ?
We ask for a second time, is it possible for a true Christian to forfeit their salvation, under certain circumstances? I started answering this question in our last Little Lesson.
We’ve looked at 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 where Paul definitely says that certain categories of people who are involved in the most grievous types of sin as a lifestyle—as a practice—will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Today’s question is another good one. We hear it often: can true Christians lose their salvation? First of all, I don’t like how the question is phrased because it implies that you can lose your salvation just like you lose your car keys: totally accidentally, never expecting it. In fact, you don’t even realize it until sometime after you discover that they’re lost.
The answer to that question is: absolutely not. Salvation is very precious and valuable. It’s not something that you get accidentally and, certainly, it’s not something that you lose accidentally.
Today we’re looking at divorce and remarriage a third time. Is it adultery in God’s eyes to be married again after a divorce? Should Christians who were divorced in the past but are now married divorce their current spouses? And, if possible, should they get back to their previous spouses? In God’s eyes, are they still married to their previous spouses?
We’re going to continue talking about divorce and remarriage, particularly the idea that those who have been divorced and remarried need to divorce again because, allegedly, “in God’s eyes,” they’re married to the original spouse because the marriage covenant is unbreakable.
Are you living in adultery if you’ve been divorced and remarried? Let me say right from the start in this Little Lesson that I don’t need to come up with any kind of doctrine to justify myself.
I’m very blessed and fortunate to have married a wonderful woman 38 years ago, and I’m still married to her. And there is no end in sight! Our vows were ’til death do us part, and due in large part to her long suffering, we’re still together.
What do you tell a child—or anyone—who is dying of a terminal disease? Today’s Little Lesson is very much on a serious note, but we do get questions like this one. People face a lot of tragedy.
In fact, most of us, at some point or another in our lifetime, face what could be called tragedy. Some to a greater degree, some to a lesser degree. And during those times we begin to ask questions. We begin to wonder, “What’s going on? Is there a God? If there is a God, does He really care? Because if He cared, it seems like He would do something about this.”