Unbelief

by | Dec 30, 2025 | Articles, Testimonies

“Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah through all His prophets and every seer, saying, ‘Turn back from your evil ways and keep My commandments and My statutes in accordance with all the Law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you through My servants the prophets.’  However, they did not listen, but stiffened their neck like their fathers, who did not believe in the Lord their God. They rejected His statutes and His covenant which He made with their fathers, and His warnings which He gave them. And they followed idols and became empty, and followed the nations that surrounded them, about which the Lord had commanded them not to do as they did” (II Kings 17:13-15). The bible is full of instruction, examples and parables about unbelief…why you ask?  Quite simply, because unbelief is the opposite of faith and trusting God. The writer of II Kings explains very well in this passage.  The people did not listen, rejected His statutes, followed idols, and followed people around them. Notice this progression of unbelief! Similar to faith, unbelief deals with justification and sanctification.  It is the unwillingness to believe God and that Jesus died and rose for sinners to gift eternal life. Unbelief is a state of mind but also can be a single act of sin.  This unbelief prevents a person from knowing Jesus and receiving salvation. However, unbelief is also prevalent in you and me. As we endeavor to walk with God we frequently act in unbelief.  When we stumble or disagree with God we tend toward doubting.  We chose to do it our way instead of God’s way.  Unbelief is the opposite of faith.  We decide to trust in something other than God. Unbelief can...

THE WORD BECAME FLESH

by | Dec 16, 2025 | Articles, Mentors Corner

I go through dry periods in my walk with Christ. The Lord seems remote and I miss Him more than I can say. I don’t know all the reasons for this awful fact. Maybe it is a growing sense of demonic  evil in the church and in the world or of a similarly growing awareness of my own depravity. Whatever the reasons, I have been thinking about that walk, which is increasingly more precious and fragile to me. Look again at the title of this letter from John 1. In four words the infinite divine became a finite man. Having accomplished His redemptive work on earth, Christ sent the Holy Spirit to indwell His followers and to inspire the New Testament canon. The quickening and revealing Spirit within then discloses the Logos to us. We come to know the Bible and Christ. But the Logos , Divine reason, has become flesh. He is a Person. Knowing a book of conceptual truths like the Bible is different from knowing a person. A book is not a person. Yet we believe that we have a personal, not a conceptual relationship with Christ. How does knowledge of conceptual truth become a personal relationship? The process begins with the work of the Holy Spirit communing with our broken-willed soul. Without these two ingredients all is futility and doomed to failure. The Holy Spirit will do His part; ours is to break our will. For His part, the transformative work of the Holy Spirit operates chiefly through two features of our personalities, reason and imagination. Through reason aided by the Holy Spirit we comprehend...

Be Consecrated!

by | Dec 2, 2025 | Articles, Mentors Corner

“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you” (Joshua 3:5). To be consecrated is to be declared sacred and set apart, dedicated and devoted for sacred use, to be used for the service and worship of God. God is using Joshua to call His people to a new level of purity and a bold walk of faith. After coming to this verse, I decided to claim it as my own. The thought occurred to me on the importance of preparing and protecting our hearts when and while we live a life of faith. While we are in this world we must expect and prepare for unusual events, to be subjected to ways we have not seen before. We do this by turning to the Lord in a spirit of expectant faith in the wonders of which the Lord will do in and through us. If we have the assurance of God’s presence with us, we need not fear the circumstances. He will furnish us with protection and strength such as we never had, as we come to experience things we’ve never seen, and to do a work we could never expect without Him. Jesus prays to God before His disciples as He gives His life for the sins of the world to and for all that believe in Him. He prays “And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth” (John 17:19, ESV). In Thayer Dictionary when looking up the meaning of: Consecrate in Greek, it is the word “hagiazō”  a verb describing the work of Christ, meaning; 1) to render...