I'll Be Honest

I’ve often considered it to be a significant measure of a person’s spiritual maturity to simply ask somebody, “How much do you pray for others?” How much are you self-absorbed with your own needs and not the needs of others? – Tim Conway

Brethren, don't be deceived, Satan does not like praying churches; he loves it when the prayer meetings begin to diminish. Prayer unleashes the power of God and he knows it. Don't give into this. If some of you are not showing forth a devotedness to corporate prayer; then brethren I call you, repent of that, turn, don't go down that path. It can become easy; you justify it once, you justify it twice. - Tim Conway

Love is not some mushy feeling, it has to do with laying down your life for someone... it is the most costly thing imaginable to love the way the Bible talks about what love is. - Charles Leiter

Don't be scared of the word love and overreact to the abuse that its meaning has taken in our generation. The last thing we want to do is dull down its true meaning to be something different than what the Bible emphasizes it to be.

True life is to know the Lord intimately, but sin interrupts this. One of the greatest griefs behind sin is how it affects the Christian's fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. If you pray for a brother who has committed a sin as a believer, which does not lead unto death, then what happens? The text says that God will give him life, meaning restore him in the specific area of sin that entered and interrupted his intimate walk with Christ.

1 John 5:16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that.

Original Question

If I have sinned, and sin brings death (James 1:15), how can I have life and fellowship with God again? I have committed a sin and realize I no longer have the same relationship I had, although I was pressed by God to repent and did so.

Can you say something about 1 John 5:16? "God will give him life", because that is what I am looking for.

I have read somewhere that the relationship is not broken, but fellowship can be broken. Is it biblical to say so?

[Recorded in March 2016]

Some people think that you go to Bible college or seminary and you become a pastor. Let me ask you this, has God come to you and given you something that you did not have before? Has God given you a gift? Has God given you power to be able to carry out the work of a pastor?

Notice what Paul said, "...the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you" (Eph. 3:2). Too many men want to pronounce themselves as pastors, or as teachers. But let me tell you something, it's a stewardship of God's grace that's given to men for the sake of others. And if you have been given such a stewardship, the others will recognize that you have such a stewardship of God's grace given to you. We need to grasp that it is "by the will of God" that there are any pastors or teachers in the church.

When I started out, on the Christian faith, I did not have any feelings. I had no flashing lights. I just saw, this is right. The word of God is true. I have got to be born again... I have got to go with Christ. I have got to forsake these sinful friends. I have got to forsake sin. And so I started out by faith taking God at His Word, when I didn't have a bit of feeling. - Bob Jennings

Believer, are you ready to be wiser than the world when it comes to how you handle your money? When the Apostle Paul teaches the Corinthians about giving he stresses that the real giver in the midst of our giving is not us, but God is the true giver.

When studying homiletics, the art of sermon preparation and delivery, we must start with James 3:1 and consider how the Bible says, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness." Here we see that the Bible does not consider it a light matter to teach the Word of God. Therefore for starters we should not ask, "How many points should I have in my sermon?" but first ask, "Has God designed me to even be preparing points in a sermon? Am I taking upon myself something that God wants me to take upon myself?"

Is there a power in your life that is somehow a reflection of the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead? Don't be satisfied with powerless Christianity because Christianity is all about a God who acts in power.