Exhortations for The Soul

I want to bring us to the place first of all where we can agree that each of us has a personal responsibility for the direction our lives take.   It used to be a popular thing for people to look at a child growing up and following the wrong path, and say ‘well, his father was a rumbo’ (that’s the colloquial term for an alcoholic) or ‘her mother was a prostitute’ (I won’t use the more common term there) ‘so it’s no surprise that this is how he or she turned out’. I said it used to be, because I hope people don’t still say that anymore. But sadly, there are people who still display some tendencies, more commonly called - generational curses - and it makes me wonder whether Christians realize that we must not be associated with this way of life.   As children of God, we must know that even though our mothers and fathers, grandparents or other foreparents had a certain negative trait, that we don’t have to pick it up, even though it was forced on us in our younger years or we just...

When we hear the word infidelity we generally think about a romantic relationship between a man and a woman that has gone wrong.   Either the man cheats on the woman or the woman cheats on the man and this causes chaos in the relationship, and can lead to separation or even divorce. Infidelity most commonly refers to the action or state of being unfaithful to a spouse. I know this may be difficult to discuss and only a Lord knows why I am going there today.   I can only imagine somebody saying,   listen, you don’t know what I’ve been through. He did it once too often. Everybody was calling me a fool for putting up with it. I just could not live with it anymore. I had to get out, it was making me lose my mind.   Family, even as we reflect or as some of you may be living with an unfaithful spouse right now, I want us to understand that the level of holiness, the standard that God wants us to live by, it’s not normal.   There is no way, in and of ourselves, that we...

The topic for today’s exhortation is Share Hope Gently. We will look at what is this hope that we should have, why we should have this hope and how we can share this hope in a way that makes it attractive to others. We sing a song in our church “We have this hope that burns within our hearts, hope in the coming of the Lord.” As Christians, our hope in Jesus is founded on the belief in His promises, His love, and the salvation He provides.   We must know, Family, that the best hope we have is for eternal life and redemption. John 3:16 New Living Translation - “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.   We hope, we believe, we trust God, that one day, when Jesus Christ returns, we will experience the end of suffering and injustice. Revelation 21:4 “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone fore...