He delights in transformation

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God does not search for noble & impressive people.
He takes us as we are & shows us grace & mercy.
But he delights in transformation & plans to make us worthy of him.
It's a joint project. He works it in & we work it out.
Phil 2:12-13

Terry Virgo

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About “Righteous Anger?”

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By Brant Hansen Why isn’t righteous anger ever listed among the things that a Spirit-filled life will bring us? If it’s righteous, why is it not akin to the “fruit of the Spirit,” like love, joy, peace, and gentleness? Why is anger in Scripture so consistently lumped in the other lists with things like, say, slander and malice, with no exclusions for the “righteous” variety? (See, for example, Colossians 3:8). We aren’t to just pretend anger away or feel guilty for the initial emotion of anger. But we are to deal with it, with the goal of eradicating it within us. This, of course, is not easy to do, but it’s not complex to understand, either. Few ever present the radical implications of what it means to die to ourselves and what it means to practice a lifestyle of forgiveness. “Stepping out of anger,” Dallas Willard says, “means you are surrendering your will to God. It means you have accepted that you don’t have to have your way.”[1] When I’ve read commentaries on Ephe...
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Is God Calling Us to Fast?

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Phil Moore When the British Isles stood on the brink of French invasion in the run-up to the Seven Years War, King George II did something rather remarkable. He proclaimed a solemn day of prayer and fasting in which he called his nation to petition God for deliverance. John Wesley records in his Journal for Friday 6th February 1756 that "The fast day was a glorious day, such as London has scarce seen since the Restoration. Every church in the city was more than full, and a solemn seriousness sat on every face. Surely God heareth prayer, and there will yet be a lengthening of our tranquillity.” John Wesley was right. The French invasion was averted and Britain would go on to win the war. A few years later, when the American colonists began their revolution against British rule, one of the first rulings of the Continental Congress was that the revolutionists ought to do the same. A national “day of public humiliation, fasting and prayer” on 20th July 1775 helped the ramsha...
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Grace is not a license to sin

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Defending the faith  Jude opens his letter by exhorting his readers to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). The need for such contending arises not from the world but from within the church—“certain people have crept in” (v. 4). Many of the greatest dangers to the church around the world come not from outside her walls but from inside. As Jesus said, there are wolves in the church that look like sheep (Matt. 7:15). Despite acting subversively rather than openly, false teachers can easily be identified by their godlessness. They are “grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires” (Jude 16). Jude reminds his readers, and us, that the apostles predicted that such false teachers would arise (vv. 17–18). The church must not be swept into falsehood and godlessness but must persevere in the love of God (v. 21), receiving mercy from Jesus and extending mercy to others (vv. 22–23). The nature of grace The false teachers who have infilt...
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