OCU Bible College and Seminary

03/03/2015

"You may believe there’s nothing wrong with what you are doing, but keep it between yourself and God. Blessed are those who don’t feel guilty for doing something they have decided is right." (Romans 14:22, NLT)

03/03/2015

Interesting clip

Imagine getting a phone call from a fellow pastor saying, "There's a woman in my hotel room, and I don't know how she got here." What about dealing with the ...

02/26/2015

As of today, 200 Christians have been abducted by ISIS.

02/25/2015

February 25: Perhaps We Have Been Too Nice To Our Lost Friends

Perhaps we have been too nice to our lost friends in trying to "win" them to Christ.

It is just possible that unwittingly we have propagated a "cheap grace" in attempting to appeal to people primarily on the basis of "felt needs" and presenting a "respectable" Gospel rather than simply communicating the Message.

What those outside of Christ need to understand is:

God loves them, but they are hopelessly lost. They must repent of their rebellion against a holy God, and receive Christ as their only hope of salvation. Otherwise, they will surely perish.

But because we don't want to offend people and because we don't want to be rejected, we often attempt to make the Gospel more savory. Yet Paul spoke of the "offense of the cross" and the fact that the "preaching of the cross is foolishness" to those who are perishing. (See Ephesians 5:11; 1 Corinthians 1:18)

We also run the risk of weakening the Gospel in defending it rather than simply declaring it. The Gospel needs no defense. What it needs is declaration.

For most non-believers, the battle lies not in their intellect, but their will. Many perceive the price tag for faith as simply too high as it might just cost them their family, their career… their friends.

Soren Kierkegaard certainly was correct in asserting that the gospel "is hard to believe, not because it is hard to understand, but because it is hard to obey."

So "our task is to make the faith intelligible but not more credible or palatable, for only the Spirit does that."

Therefore, let's love our lost friends enough to be willing to suffer rejection. Let's love them enough to be willing to offend them, if that is what it takes to get them into the Kingdom.

And then leave the mysterious work of conversion to God!

—Facts of the Matter (Dwight Hill)

02/24/2015

ISIS kidnapped 90 Christians today! There is no time for laziness! Get serious about your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ!

02/24/2015

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed." -Booker T. Washington

02/24/2015

seouo

02/24/2015

And of some having compassion, making a difference, Jude 1:22

02/24/2015

February 24: Compassion

COMPASSION – A rather unsettling idea for people in a hurry…

How does a person feel compassion when he is cruising above it all in the fast lane: Scurrying secretaries, board meetings, flights to catch, weighty decisions to make.

COMPASSION IS FOR PEOPLE WITH TIME ON THEIR HANDS!

Jesus however, had time for compassion. He felt people's needs and was deeply moved by them. And ended up feeding the hungry hoards and lovingly healing society's castoffs. (See Matthew 9:36; Mark 1:41-42)

But the disciples, like me, were rather annoyed by the heaving masses and the dirty lepers, who, today, are those frumpy, disheveled types with grubby beards, bratty kids, delinquent mortgage payments, dented cars and boisterous wives.

People surviving around the fringes of the American Dream and out of sync with the rest of us. People with whom I have nothing in common.

Do I have tolerance for them? Possibly. Do I feel compassion for them? Hardly.

In fact, if I am really honest, those people clutter up my landscape. But, because of my affluence, my education… really, because of my PRIVILEGED position in society, I am able to avoid and insulate myself from them.

And… If I care to admit it, the way I deal with them is to be polite, but NEVER get involved.

Could it be that the greatest plague today is not AIDS or inner city crime, or even the starving masses in some third world countries, but "our lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference towards one's neighbor who lives at the roadside assaulted by exploitation, corruption, poverty and disease?"

Calvary love leaves me no option but compassionate involvement:

Jesus, while eating with the prostitutes and the city's lowlife, instructed the censoring religious types:

"Go and learn what this means, 'I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,' for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Matthew 9:13)

—Facts of the Matter (Dwight Hill)