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Be Thankful

November 23, 2023 by Tim Sherfy

While we should be thankful every day for the incredible blessings God has given to us, Americans set aside one day a year to express our gratitude as a nation. I recognize not everyone feels thankful today. Illness, job loss, personal tragedy, and general dissatisfaction with life can darken our minds and keep us from recognizing how much we have to be thankful for.

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Wherever you are, simply looking around you reveals much for which you can be thankful. I don’t know your circumstances, but I’ve never met anyone who couldn’t point to someone worse off than they were. So, that’s a start. If it could be worse, then there is something for which you can praise God.

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Whatever We Desire

October 26, 2023 by Tim Sherfy

Many claim the promise of 1 John 5:14-15, thinking that prayer is the way of getting whatever we desire. A quick reading reveals that it does say whatever we ask, God will give to us. As creatures of our culture, we don’t go any deeper than what makes us feel good. Like everything else in modern Christianity, we’re content to skim the surface of the passage, make it apply to our lives, name it, and claim it.

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This is what decades of false teaching, poor exposition, and outright heresy have done to the thinking of the contemporary church. The good news is, yes, Jesus does promise to give us whatever we ask. The bad news for those seeking an easy avenue to health and wealth is this promise comes with a condition that one can only understand by a careful reading and understanding of this rich and deep promise.

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Bad Advice

October 12, 2023 by Tim Sherfy

There is a lot of bad advice out there. Some of the worst advice we can ever give to someone is to say, “Follow your heart.” This advice is rampant in self-help circles and the culture at large. To someone waffling between options or contemplating a career change, it sounds like wise counsel. But as is often the case, the wisdom of man is foolishness (1 Corinthians 3:18-20). Jesus never told people to follow their hearts. He told them to follow Him (John 8:12; John 12:26).

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When you follow your heart, you will be listening to your carnal desires. God’s Word says the heart is more deceitful than anything else and incurable (Jeremiah 17:9). When we follow our heart, we are deceiving ourselves. We are playing ourselves for the fool. Only by following Jesus will we ever find the peace, rest, and fulfillment that our hearts desire.

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Full of Purpose

September 14, 2023 by Tim Sherfy

Steven J. Lawson said, “The greatest knowledge is to know Christ. The greatest adventure is to follow Him. The greatest privilege is to serve Him.” What a fantastic backdrop against which to live our lives! If we ingest this and use it as a guide, our lives will be full of purpose, full of meaning, and devoid of regrets. Read the first line again. Doesn’t that excite you? We have the privilege of knowing the Son of God on a personal level.

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Incredibly, He invites us to follow Him and to partner with Him in His mission of declaring the gospel to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8). Somehow, someway, He deems us worthy to be His disciples. He regards us worthy to be His servants, His hands and feet in this world. We’re talking about the Creator of everything and the King of the Universe. That’s astonishing!

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Ache for the Knowledge of God

August 31, 2023 by Tim Sherfy

I spend a lot of time reading the works of dead guys because I find so much more wisdom in their voices than in most of the celebrity theologians of our day. There was a hunger and passion in their words that resonates with my soul and compels me to action. Here’s a recent example from J. C. Ryle (1816-1900): “Let us cleave to Christ more closely, love Him more heartily, live to Him more thoroughly, copy Him more exactly, confess Him more boldly, follow Him more fully.”

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Is that the goal of our lives, indeed our every moment? Does it not quicken your pulse and stir your heart? If not, why not? Why do our hearts not ache for the knowledge of God like those who came before us?