The Importance of Balance

In today's article we will be going over the differences between the soft and hard virtues. I believe this to be an important topic to study because the Lord tells us the path to life is narrow (Mat 7:14), therefore we must be careful not to go too far to the left or too far to the right.

So first we must distinguish what are the hard and soft virtues. The soft Virtues consist of Love, mercy, forgiveness, Grace, and Kindness. The hard virtues are Truth, Righteousness, Holiness, and Justice. What is essential to understand is that all these virtues are Good.

What is the Will of God?

For today's article I thought that I would go over what the bible teaches us concerning the will of God. This subject should be quite important for Christians as we should be asking for His will to be done in our lives on a continual bases (ex. Luk 11:1-2).
Furthermore the bible even tells us to understand what the will of the Lord is (Eph 5:17).

The first thing about God's will that I would like to address is the fact that he doesn't want anyone to go to hell but would rather have them repent and live (1Tim 2:4, 1Pet 3:9). After all the lake of fire was made for Satan and his angels (Mat 25:41). This is why Christians are commanded to preach the gospel to every creature (Mat 28:19, Mar 16:15), so they may believe and be saved (1Cor 1:21).

So what other things does the bible tell us concerning God's will for our lives? Well it should be obvious to any Christian that God certainly doesn't want us to sin (Rom 6:15), fornication is listed by name in the holy scriptures as something that it's God's will for us to avoid (1Th 4:3).

Another thing that we Christians should be doing often is giving thanks for everything (1Th 5:18), this to is God's will for us. A reason that I give for this is because all things work together for a Christian's good (Rom 8:28).

It is also God's will for us to obey the ordinances of man (aka the king, governor, etc), the bible teaches us that these powers are ordained of God (1Pet 2:13-15, Rom 13:1).

The next part that I want to mention concerning the will of God is that we are to suffer for Christ sake (Phili 1:19). What do I mean by that? Christian's crucify their lust of the flesh (Luk 9:23-25, Gal 5:24, 1Pet 4:1-3), although Christians are to love people we are not friends of the world as this is enmity against God (Jam 4:4). As believers we shall be persecuted (Joh 15:20), this is because out of love for peoples souls we warn them to turn from their wickedness (Jam 5:20) but men love darkness instead of light (Joh 3:19). Moses is seen as a good example of these two points in Heb 11:24-26. See also 1Pet 4:12-19.

In conclusion we see that it is God's will that everyone would be saved and although God's will is not always done here on earth it is something that we as Christians should be seeking to accomplish. After all this world and it's lust are only temporary but those that do the will of God shall abide forever (1Joh 2:17).

See also: Joh 6:39-40, Eph 6:6, 1 Pet 3:14-17,

Living Verses Pretending

"When a person uses up all his energy in pretending, he has nothing left for living; and life becomes shallow and tasteless. A person who pretends not only robs himself of reality, but he keeps himself from growing: his true self is smothered under the false self."

Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Real, pg.35