Don’t underestimate kindness

There are many ways in which God leads a person to repent and turn from sin that breaks his law and his heart, building and storing up God’s wrath.  Sin is toxic to our spiritual health, so much so that God hates it. But ironically, according to Romans 2:4, he often uses combinations of revealing his goodness, patient tolerance (by withholding wrath), overflowing generosity, and merciful kindness, to melt our hard heart and lead us along the path…

Q&A

Sometimes the student in a class who asks a lot of questions is labeled as a “wise guy.”  Instead of that negative label, I believe that questions generally lead to better understanding. For example I believe good teachers encourage asking questions, and they generally respond positively to good questions from their students. I take the opportunity to ask a few questions in my Thinkables and will do so today. If I am doing a good job of encouraging you to think some new…

Introduction

My friend who read my prior book, Houston, we have a problem, concluded, “You recognize that   PROBLEMS are just OPPORTUNITIES in DISGUISE.” The apostle Paul was vulnerable enough to share his own problems with us in Romans 7:15-20 (MSG)  What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious…

ALL (or nothing)

When a person catches a glimpse of the awesome holiness, compassion, and magnificent servant hood of Jesus, their response is often an all out commitment, holding nothing back, inviting him to become their Lord and Savior. When we see and begin to grasp the all-out love, commitment, provision, and sacrificial payment Jesus made for us it is relatively easy to respond in kind.

But in simple direct instruction, the Bible warns us of oppositional factors that will…

This is to whet your appetite.  The book is available now by request to my email, johnhoelzelsr@gmail.com  I accidentally deleted my post, so here it is again.

Here are two excerpts:

Additional Exercise and Application

For those willing to be challenged and inspired in increased opportunities to share the good news of Christ (gospel) and your personal testimony. I highly recommend reading Born to Reproduce (The Parallel between Physical and Spiritual…

Your passionate, powerful, privilege

You are not letting your passionate, powerful, privilege go to waste are you? Please stay tuned for a minute and I will explain this question. In this brief space we will review Jesus’ passion and power in prayer. It should whet your appetite for private and public prayer participation which will in turn have a similar effect on your friends.

Jesus’ private prayer practices and his answers caused his disciples to ask their great teacher for…

Super Glue

When you think of super glue holding things together, what do you picture?  Possibly you first want to know what we are binding together.  Animal, mineral, vegetable…?  A physicist might tend to think of forces like electromagnetic or even atomic.  Scientific observation and study yielded new progressing thoughts in areas like conservation of energy (including measuring all forms of energy before and after a reaction), electromagnetic interaction studies, the…

Catalyst

So just what is a catalyst? Chemistry students will likely think of a substance that brings about a chemical reaction. But another definition is, a person or thing that precipitates an event. Have you ever experienced a person enter into a room full of hostile and hateful people and seen them thaw out, smile, and enjoy a new atmosphere for a while? This reminds me of a report from the earlier Welsh revival. The revival so vividly transformed the vocabulary of the coal…

Whose hand is in the cookie jar?

The following story is one of our favorites. As the mama returns after a few moments away, she is greeted enthusiastically at the door by little Tommy, who announces, “Mommy, mommy, Jimmy hit me back.” Let’s face it even when we are caught with our hand in the cookie jar and with crumbs on our face and hands, it is often very difficult to admit our own guilt. Today let’s do some thinking together about our common dilemma, and what can be done about…

Preparation

As an Eagle Scout, I know and believe in their motto, “be prepared.” This slogan opens the door to a good example of the contrast between what we say we believe, and the difficulties we experience in putting it into practice. No one would argue against being prepared, but we all run into many pressures, schedule constraints, and excuses for shortchanging the time and effort required for good preparation. Today we will look at wonderful examples of results of good…