503 results for tag: blog

What is God’s Plan for Your Life? by Greg Albrecht

You may have been in a discussion with someone about dilemmas they face or decisions they must make when they concluded with a comment that went something like this: “Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait to see what God’s will is.” Recently, a little four-year-old boy, who was a cousin of a friend of ours, opened the front door of his house and walked into the front yard only to be gunned down by a drive-by shooter. Should it make a difference (and it doesn’t), the little boy was baptized and regularly attended a brick-and-mortar church. What was God’s plan for his life? I have several friends and family members who have died ...

Eight Decades Later – by Ed Dunn

They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate – President Franklin D. Roosevelt Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven - Matthew 5:44-45, NIV If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering, enough to disarm all hostility – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow So much of the progress that would define the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic, came down to the battle for a slice of beach only six miles long and two miles wide – Introductory Comments, 70th Anniver...

God Is Making All Things New – by Greg Albrecht

Friend and Partner Letter from June 2024: He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch and old one.  Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old.  And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins” (Luke 5:36-38) Wine “bottles” in Palestine in the day of Jesus were made of skin, usually that of a goat or sheep.   After new wine was poured into a wineskin, as it fermented, it gradually ...

How Big Is God? – by Greg Albrecht

Many Christians seem to believe that Jesus came to this earth as a kind of Plan B. They've been taught that Jesus came to this earth to save us because Adam "fell"—and further, they've been told that when Adam "fell" God had to, in effect, scurry around and come up with Plan B. This reasoning is of course, unbiblical—and beyond that, it doesn't make sense. Why would Christmas, the incarnation of God, be Plan B? Why wouldn't Christmas have been on the drawing boards from the very get-go? Why wouldn't Jesus have been planning to come anyway? Years ago I read a little book by J.B. Phillips titled Your God is Too Small. J.B. Phillips wanted the ...

Getting Caught Up in a Religious Show – by Greg Albrecht

Acts 5:1-11                      The story of Ananias and Sapphira Here's a story that might seem as if it belongs in the Old Testament rather than the New. The story related by our keynote passage begins with an idyllic picture of new Christians, living together and sharing their lives. But then, in the midst of this upbeat picture of God's favor and blessings, comes a depressing story of a man and his wife who gave an offering to God, but misrepresented the actual amount of how much they gave. In the middle of this time when God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all (Acts 4:33) God took the life of this husband and ...

Does God Have a Strategic Plan for You? – by Ed Dunn

We are in the midst of an exciting strategic planning process here at Plain Truth Ministries (PTM). This planning process, which involves our team here in the Pasadena office, along with Brad Jersak in Canada, gives us an opportunity to take a fresh look at PTM’s mission, magazines and partner letters, books, on-line content, as well as the operations and procedures that support all we do in this ministry. As a closeknit team, we approach every aspect of this planning process prayerfully, as careful and conscientious stewards, asking God for guidance and wisdom as we look to the future. By definition, Strategic Planning is a type of planning ...

Downward Mobility – by Greg Albrecht

Jesus tells his disciples, in no uncertain terms, if you think that my kingdom is going to replicate the power-hungry, authoritarian, serve-the-big-shots-first-and-foremost kind of authority this world often sees, then think again. "Not so with you." Jesus tells his disciples that if they choose to be ministers in his kingdom then they will choose love over power. If we want to follow Jesus, serving others in his name, then our lives will be exemplified by sacrificial love as he demonstrated on his cross rather than the crass control mechanisms of authoritarianism, whereby Christ-less religion and its leadership always gets served first, many times ...

One Day in May – by Ed Dunn

We walked slowly into the funeral home together amidst a shower of cold rain and gray ash. Following him in, I can still see the collection of raindrops and ash making a paste on the shoulders of my father’s black pinstripe suit. My best friend, Tim, had died after being struck by a car a few days earlier. He died while delivering newspapers from the back of a bicycle on his early morning paper route. We were there, on that bleak day in May, to express our sorrows, to pay our last respects, and to say goodbye to Tim. A few days earlier, I had learned the pure joy of experiencing the natural intersection of blind chance, sport and self-disc...

Forgiving Obnoxious Stinkers – by Greg Albrecht

  Old dogs care about you even when you make mistakes. God bless little children while they’re still too young to hate. – Tom T. Hall, Old Dogs, Little Children and Watermelon Wine  His mother told the little four-year old boy he should learn to forgive those who trespassed against him. Her son had never heard the King James word “trespass” – but he realized trespass must be something someone did/does that is really bad. He “translated” the word “trespass” into one of the worst things he had been taught not to do. A few days later, when he was having dinner with his parents, his mother asked him what he had learned ...

Mother’s Day Cards – by Ruth A. Tucker

One of my favorite short stories is “Mothers Day” by Octavus Roy Cohen. It was Saturday night, the eve of Mothers Day. Dan Clancy “neither knew nor cared.” He was a police detective, “square shouldered” who “thought only of himself.” But on this particular night his thoughts were on a “narrow-shouldered and furtive” drifter, “a sneak-thief” hiding under the freight cars. Of course, Dan could have picked him up willy-nilly as a vagrant and seen to it that the man received sixty or ninety days in the workhouse. But there was little pleasure in that. It amused Dan to play with his quarry as a cat plays with a mouse, when ...

You Are Loved – by Greg Albrecht

This week is Mother's Day here in North America, and we extend a huge thank-you to all mothers, as we celebrate their role in our lives. Having said that, in the midst of all our Mother's Day celebrations we should remember that the outward trappings of Mother's Day often overwhelm the spiritual elements. Phone calls and greeting cards and flowers and lunches and gifts have come to be an expected part of observing this special time. But sometimes grown children, free from the prompting of teachers at school or reminders from their fathers, can forget to call or send a card. Sometimes grown children resent their mothers, for one reason or another, ...

God or the gods…In Whom Do We Believe? – by Greg Albrecht

Friend and Partner Letter from May 2024: The god of this age has blinded the mind of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2 Corinthians 4:4). Caught in traffic after leaving his office, Dave arrived at his son’s first Little League game a little late. His son’s team was just leaving the field after finally getting the other team out. Dave could tell his wife sitting in the grandstands was not happy with his late arrival, so hoping to make some amends he walked down by his son’s dugout and called him over. “What’s the score, Johnny?” His ...

Q: Has the Resurrection made Death our friend? (pt 4/4) Brad Jersak

This article completes our series on the question of whether or not Death is now our friend (click here to begin at part 1). So far, we've seen that while we must all pass through a process of dying that culminates in the event or moment of death, the resurrection of Christ radically changed the nature of death itself. It is no longer a destination or destiny to be feared in some dreary grave or gloomy underworld. Death in that sense has died and dying is a transition into the joy of the Lord. In this article, we explore surrender: a posture towards disease, dying and death:   What if we never have to ...

What Is Our Eternal Reward? – by Greg Albrecht

Q: What is our eternal reward? A:The Bible does speak of a reward, but should that reward be viewed as a prize given as a response for our diligent performance of deeds, then our reward would not be by grace through faith, but of works. According to the gospel of Jesus Christ a measured reward we receive on the basis of our own efforts cannot be the reward the biblical writers have in mind. The New Testament is clear and absolute: our eternal reward is given, rather than earned. Everything we as Christ-followers are able to produce by ourselves here in this temporal life is physical and has a shelf life. Nothing we can produce, apart from God, is ...

Jesus’ Resurrection made Death our friend (pt 3/4) Brad Jersak

In this post, part 3 of our series asking if Death is now our friend, we will discuss Dying. Unlike death, our defeated foe, dying  is an inevitable reality we can come to accept:  Dying is not the same as death. Dying is a process prior to death. In our previous posts on death, we suggested a distinction between death as a moment or event that we all experience and death as a defunct destiny or destination that we need no longer fear. To that distinction, let's add two more important clarifications: We can now regard the event or moment of death as part of the dying process.  And we can treat ...

Eternal Torture – Divine or Human Vengeance? by Greg Albrecht

  Hell is a subject many religious people get all hot and bothered about. It's one of the most disputed and controversial teachings within Christendom. The squabbling is not about the surety of judgment for depravity and wickedness. Most Christians agree that there is and will be divine judgment for evil. The battle for hell is all about specifications, temperature and longevity. The debate involves comprehending and communicating divine justice—and in the process humans expose  definitions of time and space into eternity.   But the Bible does not suggest that God needs to import our flawed perspectives into the perfec...

The CWR Bible Survey

A Bible Study Tool for You: The CWR Bible Survey is a fascinating guided journey through the 66 books we call the Bible – a journey designed to help you discover the good news that God has for each of us. In as little as 20 minutes a day, these bite-sized daily lessons can help you stay focused on the meaning of each and every chapter. Enjoy the freedom to explore Bible passages at your own pace. This fresh, thought-provoking approach asks the right questions to help lead you to think and ponder the significance of each passage in your own life. Each lesson is packed with helpful illustrations, maps, graphs and powerful insights into the ...

Q: Has Jesus’ Resurrection made Death our friend (pt 2/4) Brad Jersak

In this post, we will explore how Christ and the NT as a whole describe a fundamental shift in the nature of death in two essential ways as a result of Jesus' resurrection.  (CONT'D from Part 1, which is posted HERE). How have the death and resurrection of Christ fundamentally changed the nature of death itself? a. One approach is to say that death itself has changed. Death used to mean “consigned to the grave” (whatever that meant) but then with Paul, death came to mean “present with the Lord.” Death as our destiny shifts radically with Christ’s conquest of hades and the emptying of ...

Believing is Seeing – by Greg Albrecht

Doubting Thomas said he would not believe Jesus had actually been resurrected unless he could see and touch Jesus and thereby “prove” the resurrection. Thomas had to see in order to believe. Jesus, in one of his post-resurrection appearances to his friends, accommodated Thomas, telling him,  “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God.” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” – John 20:27-29 Living in this scientific and ...

Q: Has the Resurrection made Death our friend? (pt 1/4) Brad Jersak

QUESTION: Has Christ’s resurrection made death our “friend”? RESPONSE: I have reservations about calling death a friend. But I think it's worth doing an autopsy on death to explore the way Christ’s work changed not only our relationship to death, but changed the nature of death itself. I want to ask first, how is death not our friend, then how it might now be our friend and finally, how might we talk about death. So first, and easiest, why is the statement “death is our friend” not true? Most obviously, in 1 Cor. 15—dubbed “the resurrection chapter”—Paul calls death an enemy, and in fact, the last enemy to be destroyed, ...