Faith Builders

“Whosoever Will” is God’s Christmas Gift to the World

John 3:16-18 NRSV
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Those who believe in Him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Today is Christmas, the day traditionally that Christians celebrate the birth of our Lord. Surrounding this tradition are such things as nativities, Christmas pageants, Christmas carols, family celebrations, gift giving, and the like. But as a Christian, I believe that it’s very important that I not so focus on the Child in the manger that I fail to see either the Savior on the cross or the King returning in the clouds.

The Christmas story is one of amazement and wonder. Music and stories sometimes reduce to the story to actually less than it is (and was):

Away in a manger, no crib for a bed,
The little Lord Jesus laid down His sweet head:
The stars in the sky looked down where He lay;
The little Lord Jesus, asleep on the hay.

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God Chases Runaways

Study of Jonah 1:1-5


Jonah 1:1-2
The word of the LORD came to Jonah …
But Jonah ran away from the LORD.

Do you remember the TV series, “The Fugitive” (and then the movie version in 1993? It was about Dr. Richard Kimble’s efforts to find the one-armed man who had killed his wife.
Police thought he had done it, so he was on the run.
He was a fugitive.

The Bible tells us we’re fugitives from God.
That’s because we’re sinners, and have broken His laws.
Unlike Dr. Kimble, though, we are guilty.
As fugitives, we are running away from Him.

We don’t like to think of ourselves that way.

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Bearing, Believing, Hoping and Enduring

1 Corinthians 13:7 RSV
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

William Henry: “Some read the first, covers all things. So the original also signifies. Charity will cover a multitude of sins, 1 Peter 4:8. It will draw a veil over them, as far as it can consistently with duty. It is not for blazing nor publishing the faults of a brother, till duty manifestly demands it. Necessity only can extort this from the charitable mind. Though such a man be free to tell his brother his faults in private, he is very unwilling to expose him by making them public. Thus we do by our own faults, and thus charity would teach us to do by the faults of others; not publish them to their shame and reproach, but cover them from public notice as long as we can, and be faithful to God and to others.”

In everything love, thinks of the welfare of others before it thinks of it’s own. As Christian, the Lord Jesus said that the world would know we were His by the love we demonstrated for each other. What”s interesting about that phrase is that it was a command, not an observation:

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The Battle (Satan vs. Christ)

When Jesus was taken down from the cross,
Satan called his counselors in.
He called the meeting to order and looked own at the three,

And the first that he called on was Sin.
“Oh Sin, you’ve let me down this time.
Why couldn’t you pull Him away?
For thirty-three years you tried, and you failed.
Not once did He falter or stray.
Then He picked you up like a little whipped pup
And took you to Calvary with Him.
Then He knocked you down with one single punch
And paid for the sins of all men.”

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The Poet’s Sonnet (A Withered Leaf)

A withered leaf upon a bough
Held fast against the wind,
Doctors passed and learned men,
But none had time to spend.

Yet someone stands with pen in hand
To write the things he sees,
That all the world might see the leaf
And feel the Autumn breeze.

I cannot take a dying child
And help her find relief,
But I can see the hand of God
Upon a withered leaf.

The world beholds what greatness brings,
But poets see the little things.

Copyright 2000, Bob H. Cook.
All rights reserved.
Used by Permission

Used by permission.

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Angry with a God We Limit

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard people grumble about the way the world is today. Murder, rape, theft, lies, wrong lifestyles and thoughts. The list we (including me) goes on and on.

    “If God loves us so much then why does He let ‘this’ happen?”

    “If God is all powerful then why doesn’t He stop ‘this’ from taking place?”

    “If God really can still perform miracles, why are there so many going hungry, dying, homeless??”


If, if, if — all we do is doubt Him. Instead of questioning why God allows certain things to happen, we should be thanking Him for the gifts He has given us personally for the day we are currently in – one being that we are still ALIVE.

I decided to research this strange way we grumble to a God who loved us enough to send His ONLY Son, His ONLY child, to die the most horrible of all deaths to provide a way back to God. This is what I found.

Be Honest

First off, we have to be honest and say that each of us has at one point in our life, questioned why God did something or why He allowed something to happen. I know I have questioned Him MANY times – and once I had waited on HIS TIMING the answer came through crystal clear – not always the answer I wanted, but the answer that was needed to fulfill God’s will, which is always good and perfect.

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I am God!

My children, I am the Creator of ALL, and ALL power originates with ME!

There is no power in heaven or on earth that is able to thwart My purposes for your life as you yield to Me. NONE!

Have I not promised that as you seek Me, you will find Me, when you seek Me with all of your heart? Have I not said to ask, and you will receive? Ask then, and let your hearts run wild and your imagination run vagabond, for you cannot plumb the depths of My planning and provision for My own.

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The Truth Shall Set You Free – Part 7

When I started this study, it was in the spring of my last semester of my teaching career. A lot of things were on my mind. I was sad–very sad. Earlier in the year I was pretty depressed about retiring. As I reviewed the various options in my head, I still had to come to one conclusion: I should retire. I just am no longer the man I once was. I just didn’t have a lot of the energy you need to really do a good job. I readily admitted to this; it did not take any rocket science to figure it out. I accepted it easily: it was time to retire.

Teaching was my life. Sometimes it was the best part of my day–being in the classroom. But, it was not my entire life. I led with my heart, and that is probably one of the reasons why I got tired at the end. Emotions such the energy right out of you. I loved it so much–teaching.

I remember Ernest Hemingway. Writing was his life. The trouble was, writing really was his life. That was it. Nothing else. This focus made him to be a very important writer of our time, but this focus lead to his suicide, I believe. He could not write any more. What was the point of living?

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The Truth Shall Set You Free – Part 5

In searching for, and living in the truth that can set us free, the first thing we need to do is replace the old with the new. Last time I shared about this verse:

Romans 12:2: And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is that which is good and acceptable and perfect.


I see this verse as telling us to change a negative to a positive. The ruler of this world is Satan. If we just live in that sphere, we are under his influence, and this becomes a part of us. That is the negative. The positive is the ruler of the larger Kingdom, God, and His teachings, which are in Scripture. In so doing, the mind is renewed and we are changed. The negative grid system formed by our past, and pricked at by Satan and his demonic imps is replaced by the positive truth of the application of God’s word.

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