Ephesians

Faith Without Works is Dead

January 23, 2017 by Tim Sherfy

Every so often, I like to increase the amount of hate mail I receive. There’s no better way to assure this than discussing the faith (or grace) vs. works topic. As I have stated previously, I don’t fall into either the faith or works camp. I believe one without the other is useless, and believe there is strong Scriptural support to say the answer isn’t either faith or works, but rather faith and works. James says plainly in his letter faith without works is dead (James 2:14-26).

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Coming from the brother of Jesus, I’m going to consider him a strong authority. There’s more to say about this, however. To those in either the faith or works camp, I urge you to keep reading. Not so I might persuade you to agree with me, but rather to take an honest look at what Scripture says about this and consider the eventual logic behind each view.

Putting On the Armor of God

December 29, 2016 by Tim Sherfy

I recently wrote a blog post about personalizing the armor of God for yourself (see, “The Armor of God”). During my time of study this morning I was given some new insights which excited me and I hope will prove useful to you as well. The idea came while listening to Bruxy Cavey teach about using the morning ritual of getting dressed as a reminder to pray for certain things.

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It clicked in my mind we could pray through putting on the armor of God as we actually put on our own clothing. I’m going to walk through this so you can see a practical example of what praying through putting on the armor of God might look like.

Personal Savior

December 5, 2016 by Tim Sherfy

Jesus is a personal savior. This isn’t news for any who grew up in church. We’ve heard all our lives how we need to accept Jesus as our personal savior. But how often do we take the time to marvel at what that actually means? Why is a personal savior better than any other kind of savior? As long as we’re saved, who cares, right? The difference comes down to love. Jesus is a personal savior because of how much love He has for you, for me, and for every single other soul on this planet.

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This means while Jesus died for the entire race of humanity – past, present, and future – He would have died for you alone. That’s pretty crazy. Even if no one else mattered, you would have mattered enough for Jesus to give up His life. That definitely puts the personal in Him being a personal Savior for us.

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The Armor of God

November 21, 2016 by Tim Sherfy

What does the armor of God look like in your life? Ephesians 6:10-18 is a familiar passage of Scripture detailing the armor of God. Like many familiar passages, it can be easy to overlook and never take the time to apply it to your own life. Paul gave us a great gift when he outlined the weapons of our warfare. Though I have distant memories of a flannel-graph (remember those?) soldier in Sunday School, there is nothing childish about the depth of this passage.

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Within these words are the strategic plans to counteract the attacks of the devil. To best make use of the armor and weapons, we should know what they look like in our own lives.

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Spiritual Warfare

November 3, 2016 by Tim Sherfy

The early Church recognized the reality of the spiritual warfare raging around them. They understood everything in life was affected by battles being waged in their midst. While unseen, these battles often manifested themselves into the realities of the day to day lives of early believers.

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They were so keenly aware of what was going on they focused on fighting spiritual battles as long as they lived, looking forward to the day they would lay down their swords and join Jesus in Heaven. Here’s a news flash: nothing has changed. The same spiritual warfare encountered by the early Church still surrounds us today.

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