Knowing & Being Known

People come and go, and each season turns into the next; continual change is normal in our life. Thankfully, this is not the case with God, who is “the same yesterday and today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). We can completely depend on the Lord’s steadfastness because He is: •Omniscient. Our Father knows what is happening for every person at every moment (Prov. 15:3). His knowledge is complete—no circumstance is hidden from Him; there is no motive…

We all—men and women—were created in the image of God. Fearfully and wonderfully made, fashioned as living icons of the bravest, wisest, most stunning Person who ever lived. Those who have ever seen him fell to their knees without even thinking about it, as you find yourself breathless before the Grand Canyon or the Alps or the sea at dawn. That glory was shared with us; we were, in Chesterton’s phrase, “statues of God walking about in a Garden,;…

Yesterday we looked at two reasons we might miss God’s will. John 14:26 says the Holy Spirit teaches us all things. So why do we sometimes have trouble understanding His plan? We make decisions according to emotions. When life gets hard, our instinct is to move away from the source of pain—but in reality, we need to move closer to Jesus. When we figure He couldn’t possibly want us to feel this way, we’re more prone to take action and hope that we&rsquo…

If you follow Jesus, you have likely heard the phrase “God’s will.” It’s often mentioned in the context of His having a will for each believer—or of our doing His will, walking in His will, and the like. If we love the Lord, then certainly we want to obey Him (John 14:15). But let’s take a look at some of the reasons we might miss His plan for our life. Handling God’s Word Improperly. When our days become jam-packed with commitments…

We mere mortals know so little about the power of persuasion innate in Generative AI. We know even less about how it was constructed and the impact it will have on every aspect of our lives. I saw a recent interview with Elon Musk. He co-founded OpenAI, before abandoning it for greener pastures. Musk pulled no punches in expressing concerns over the dangers of artificial intelligence in the wrong hands. “Things are getting weird—and they’re getting weird fast.;…

"The lion shall lay down with the lamb." Although Jesus is both the Lion of Judah and the Lamb of God (Revelation 5), this phrase does not appear in the Bible. Isaiah 11:6 says, "And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them." Similarly, Isaiah 65:25 reads, "The wolf and the lamb will graze together and the lion will…

"Money is the root of all evil." This is a common misconception with an easy fix. 1 Timothy 6:10 actually says, "For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil…" Money is not good or bad, and being wealthy is not a sin; Job was wealthy and described as a man who was "blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil" (Job 1:1). Loving money, which in the Greek is "avarice" and implies an emotional affection, is…

"In the last days, you will not be able to know the seasons except by the changing of the leaves." Even a thorough Google search will not reveal the origin of this saying, but it is not found in the Bible. Matthew 24:32-33 uses the budding of leaves heralding the coming of summer as a metaphor for the signs that Christ will return. But nowhere does the Bible mention that seasons will be so altered that only the changing leaves will identify them. "Hate the,…

As believers, we know we are to study the Bible, memorize it, and obey it. But does the Bible say what we think it says? The truth is, there are several phrases that sound like they come from the Bible, but do not. Here are a couple of them. "God helps those who help themselves." The earliest recording of this saying is actually from Aesop’s fable "Hercules and the Waggoner." A man’s wagon got stuck in a muddy road, and he prayed for Hercules…