Written by John Bloom – Desiring God

Temptation is not sin. We know this because Eve was tempted before she fell and Jesus was tempted, “yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

Temptation is a disorienting, defiling experience when evil is presented to us as good. Destruction comes dressed up to look like happiness. Sin only occurs when we believe that the destructive lie can actually grant happiness.

One key to resisting temptation is learning to recognize what I call the “mirage moment.”

The Mirage Moment

A mirage is that hallucination parched people sometimes experience in a hot desert. A real desire for water and the shimmering heat of the sand play disorienting games with the mind and emotions. A refreshing oasis seems to appear in the distance promising the happiness of a quenched desire.

A thirsty person might know that no oasis has previously existed in that location. But his desire to be happy, fuelled by the hope that this time he just might find happiness there, or at least relief from misery, tempts him to believe the vision. If he yields, he discovers his hope was hopeless and his desire dashed because the oasis was a sham.

In temptation, the mirage moment occurs as we are tempted by a vision promising happiness. Some shimmering oasis of promised joy or relief from despair appears where God said it shouldn’t be.

The mirage’s appearance taps into our real desire to be happy. Our disoriented emotions begin to respond to this desire with a feeling of hope — hope that maybe this time, even if we’ve been disappointed many times before, the oasis will quench our desire. But we know that God has told us it is a false hope.

So we are faced with a choice between temptation’s compelling appearance and God’s promise. We are tempted, but have not yet succumbed to sin.  Read More… 

Purchase these titles from our online shopping cart,
Email orders@christianbooks.co.za or
Visit one of our stores

Devotion by Trevor Bradley

In Romans 8 vs 26 we read: “In the same way the Spirit also helps us with our weakness; for we don’t know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words”.

I can identify, for at times I come before my Father and I don’t know how or what to say – all that comes from within is a ‘groan’, ‘cry’ or ‘a sigh’.  It is at times like these that I wonder if I am getting through to the throne and whether or not my Father sees me, let alone understands my cries.

But this verse says that one of the gifts of Holy Spirit is to take my ramblings, my groans, my sighs, my cries, and He takes that ‘chaos’ and makes sense of it before throne of God, on my behalf.  I am so thankful for His ministry in my life..

There is another aspect which daily gets underwritten in my heart and mind when it comes to praying.  The verse in 1 John 5 vs 14 & 15 says this ” This is the confidence we have in Him”.  Romans 8 vs 34 says Jesus also intercedes for us – so you have the Holy Spirit and Jesus praying for you today, and that if we ask anything in accordance with His will, He hears us.

That’s the assurance.   But is it a miss and hit thing?   No way!  For I ask in accordance with His will when I bring His promises back to Him, and in my crying out to Him.

• Do we know what He has promised us re our broken hearts?  Isaiah 61 vs 1 & 2 will tell you.
• Do we know what he has promised us when we are weighed down? Matthew 11vs 28, tells us.
• Do we know when that ‘thing’ looms large on our radar and we buy into the lie that we will never overcome?  Romans 8 vs 37 confirms our victory.

THERE IS NOT A SITUATION I AM FACING OR WILL EVER FACE,THAT A PROMISE FROM MY FATHER, DOES NOT OR WILL NOT COVER.

Search with all your heart for a promise unique to your situation and bring it Him in humble submission before His throne of grace, and know that He hears. And when you can say no more, your groaning, sighing and tears are all you have left – know that it is then that the Holy Spirit will take that and bring that to our Father on your behalf.  And he will hear and act.

Purchase your books from our online shopping cart,
Email orders@christianbooks.co.za or
Visit one of our stores

Sourced from the Desiring God Blog Site.  Written by Phillip Holmes

On the outside, Chloe appears to have it all together. She is single, has a career, and is fairly active in her local church. But she’s lonely, disenchanted by her career, and feels detached from her church. The shell that her peers admire conceals her discontentment and joyless Christianity.

Chloe had envisioned a different life for herself. By now, she thought she’d be in her prime, but she’d found herself in a pit of misery. She thought she’d be married, still connected to her college friends, raising a family, and mentoring younger Christian women. But her present reality disappointed her expectations. Her discontentment has led her down a dark path of sin, searching for relief but only finding death.

Chloe’s only hope of curing her discontentment and unhappiness is learning the art of contentment and embracing a biblical view of God. Those two things are essential for her joy.

It’s Not You, It’s Me

Chloe represents many Christians struggling to cope with the hand they’ve been dealt. Her heart condition not only applies to singles, but the married alike. Every morning, Christians across the country wake up discontent with life — singleness, marriage, career, church, or community – and wish they could trade it for a different one.

Our discontentment leads to wishful but hopeless (and sometimes suicidal) thinking. We attempt to replace and eliminate anything that we perceive is linked to our discontentment.  Read More…

Purchase your books from our online shopping cart,
Email orders@christianbooks.co.za or
Visit one of our stores

Written by Author & Blogger Tim Challies

Why do Christians suffer? Why aren’t Christians relieved from trouble, from pain, from suffering? If God is powerful and wise, why doesn’t he direct his power and wisdom toward more comfortable lives for the ones he loves and redeems? J.I. Packer helpfully addresses this in the ninth chapter of Knowing God and I have condensed the chapter down to its essence.

For us to be truly wise, in the Bible sense, our intelligence and cleverness must be harnessed to a right end. Wisdom is the power to see, and the inclination to choose, the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it. Wisdom is, in fact, the practical side of moral goodness. As such, it is found in its fullness only in God. He alone is naturally and entirely and invariably wise.

Human wisdom can be frustrated by circumstantial factors outside the wise person’s control. … But God’s wisdom cannot be frustrated. Power is as much God’s essence as wisdom is. Omniscience governing omnipotence, infinite power ruled by infinite wisdom, is a basic biblical description of the divine character.  Wisdom without power would be pathetic, a broken reed; power without wisdom would be merely frightening; but in God boundless wisdom and endless power are united, and this makes him utterly worthy of our fullest trust.

God’s wisdom is not, and never was, pledged to keep a fallen world happy, or to make ungodliness comfortable. Not even to Christians has he promised a trouble-free life; rather the reverse. He has other ends in view for life in this world than simply to make it easy for everyone.  Read more…

Purchase Knowing God from our online shopping cart,
Email orders@christianbooks.co.za or
Visit one of our stores

Sourced from the Desiring God Blog site.  Written by David Mathis

Do you lean in on Sunday mornings? Or does a critical spirit or unchecked cynicism have you leaning out, ready to size up and dress down the slips and inadequacies of the leaders up front?

Does a spirit of apathy and laziness have you leaning back, just going through the motions, anticipating little more than the benediction and your afternoon nap to follow?

God Works in Miscues

Leaning in on Sunday morning has less to do with the posture of your body, and more to do with the stance of your soul — whether your heart is constricted and closed in corporate worship, or swelling in hope and expanding with expectation. Whether you have an attitude of anticipation, or whether society’s increasing cynicism about everything under the sun has come home to roost in your own chest. Whether you’re ready to give the benefit of the doubt to miscues up front and distractions around you in the pews, or are waiting for another excuse to disengage.

As you sit judging, negligent to the conflagration of grace at work around you, have you considered the time and energy that have been invested to prepare for this gathering? Do you receive it as a gift of love, or with a sense of entitlement? And have you considered how God loves to work in and through his people in corporate worship, not just despite, but often because of, our blunders and imperfections?

Pastors, Not Performers

It may help to know that very few pastors feel adequate in all the facets of our up front leadership in corporate worship. In fact, many feel adequate in none of the facets.

The rehearsals of live theater, and the retakes and extensive edits of movies and television, may have conditioned our society to expect flawlessness on stage, but this is not the calling of corporate worship. Your pastors are not professional actors, and your leaders in music and song are not rock stars.

Our pastors have been entrusted not with producing a good show or memorable concert, but the care of our souls — which is not “professional” work to begin with. They may appear up front for an hour each week, but the other 167 hours they are not on stage. They are not performers. They are very easy to critique. You deserve no badge of honor for being sharp enough to spot problems and identify places for improvement. It is very naïve to expect eloquence up front from your pastors.

Purchase ***TITLE*** from our online shopping cart,
Email orders@christianbooks.co.za or
Visit one of our stores

Frank Retief was pastor at St James Church Cape Town for 31 years, having planted the church in 1968 with his wife Beulah.  He became the Presiding Bishop of the Church of England in South Africa until he retired in 2010.  Frank remains active in ministry through preaching, teaching, pastoral work & writing, and has authored a number of books.

Unexpected Consequences

Mark 4:30,31,33: Again He said: “What shall we say the Kingdom of God is like or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed which is the smallest plant in the ground. Yet when it is planted it becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches, that the birds of the air can perch in its shade”.

Sometimes small words and actions can have very large consequences. We are all familiar with this rule of life. And it is exactly this principle of unexpected consequences that Jesus uses in this parable.  The parable Jesus told would probably have sounded ridiculous to the ears of his listeners. In fact I suspect we often miss the shocking impact of the things Jesus said because we are unfamiliar with the background and customs of His day.

Everybody knew that a mustard seed grew only to a medium sized garden shrub and the idea of the birds of the air perching in its shade would have been laughable. But then Jesus deliberately intended to exaggerate the power of the shrub to make an important point. God can take the tiniest beginning and no matter how unsuited it may be God can use everything and everyone to do more work for His Kingdom that its size warrants.

That’s the way it is with the Kingdom of God. A little seed dropped here or there and the next thing you know there is a Sunday School where there was none before; or somebody is helped who had no hope, or some lost soul finds the Saviour and a life is changed.

The idea of the birds of the air all crowding to sit on the shrub’s branches may have occasioned laughter by those who heard Jesus because it seemed so unlikely. But think of how many people you know who have been helped by someone you least expected. Possibly even in your own life, what you thought was your very weak faith in Jesus and great ignorance of the bible was nevertheless overruled so that many people have been helped and encouraged by you.

We should never despise the day of small things. Always be ready to speak a word for the Lord or to do somebody a kindness. You never know what kind of consequence that may lead to, or what blessings may flow into someone else’s life.

Prayer: “Heavenly Father, thank you for your great grace that overrules all our sins and mistakes. Take me today, even though I am just a “mustard seed” and use me for your glory in the lives of others. Amen”

Purchase your books from our online shopping cart,
Email orders@christianbooks.co.za or
Visit one of our stores

And Article from the Desiring God Blogsite & Written by Alistair Roberts

Are your smartphone habits healthy?

If we are to assess whether our smartphone habits are healthy or not — and this is hardly a question that should be exclusive to young Christian adults! — perhaps a helpful place to start is by challenging the underlying cultural script that typically drives our adoption of new technologies. This script is one that rests heavily on choice and potential as such and the notion of freedom from (upon the removal of constraints, limitations, and restrictions) and is much less attentive to the reality of freedom for — to our being liberated to become more fully and faithfully human in communion with God and each other.

The familiar cultural script is that more is typically better — more interactive, faster, more efficient, more connected, more fluid, more integrated, more social, more intimate, more inclusive, more “user-friendly” — and that the further our limitations are rolled back, the freer we become. Yet many of us are rediscovering the truth of Edmund Burke’s dictum that many of the restraints upon us, and not merely our liberties, should be reckoned among our rights and the grounds of our freedom. Pursuing unguarded liberty with things puts us in very real danger of having those things “take liberties” with us (1 Corinthians 6:12). The loss of natural limitations often doesn’t leave us better off, and many struggle to re-establish these broken barriers in the far less certain form of sanity-restoring disciplines.

The diagnostic tests that we should run — and should continually be running — ought to be informed by a clearer concept of what our freedom is for and the sorts of shapes that it takes. The bigger questions that we need to address are as follows:

• Do our particular uses of our smartphones, and our use of a smartphone more generally, have the actual effect — not just hold the theoretical possibility — of making us better servants of God and of our neighbors?
• Are our smartphones tools that facilitate our commitment to the central purposes and values of our lives, or are they — and our habitual modes of using them — constantly distracting, diverting, or obstructing us from them?

Read more…

Purchase these books from our online shopping cart,
Email orders@christianbooks.co.za or
Visit one of our stores

Written by Author & Blogger Tim Challies

“Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these,” Jesus said as He recalled the beauty of a common lily (Luke 12:27). And I suspect that even Solomon in all his splendor could not have imagined the sheer affluence that you and I enjoy today. The lily is here today and gone tomorrow, so fleeting and commonplace that we overlook its intricate beauty and fail to acknowledge the glory of the God who made and sustains it. Is it possible that we have grown so accustomed to our affluence that we have lost the wonder of it, too? Is it possible that our affluence harms us even as it blesses us?

Those of us who live in the developed world today enjoy a measure of wealth that is almost beyond understanding. This is the kind of wealth that billions of the world’s population can only dream of. This is wealth that previous generations could not have imagined. And it is not merely money that we enjoy in such abundance, but also comfort, influence, and so much else. We are incredibly, unbelievably, divinely blessed. And yet, many of us can identify that this wealth brings with it a kind of illness, a spiritual malaise that some have labeled “affluenza.” Are we sick with affluenza? And if so, is there a way that we can use and enjoy our affluence without succumbing to this ugly disease?

The Symptoms of Affluenza

In the waning days of the First World War, the war to end all wars, an unexpected illness began to break out in small pockets around the world. What at first showed only the symptoms of a cold soon progressed into a particularly virulent form of the influenza virus. Incredibly contagious and dangerous, this virus quickly overwhelmed a sick patient’s immune system. Often, within hours of exposure to the disease, a patient would show the first symptoms, and within a day would be desperately ill, unable to breathe, drowning in ravaged lungs. Passed from soldier to soldier as they were jammed together in the front-line trenches and transported by marching armies, the Spanish flu spread to almost every nation in the world and claimed the lives of somewhere between twenty million and forty million people. It is known today as the deadliest epidemic in human history, and in its time it ravaged the world.

Affluenza is a spiritual disease that is ravaging the modern world. It is similar to every other disease in that we can accurately diagnose it by its telltale symptoms.

Ironically, the most common symptom of affluenza is discontentment. Many of us have discovered that as our wealth and our possessions multiply, so too does our discontentment. There is an inverse relationship between how much we have and how much we are convinced we need to be content. Just think about Adam and Eve. They had the whole world before them. The whole world, that is, but for one little tree that God had decreed would be off limits. And somehow they determined that they could not possibly be content unless they had the fruit from that tree. And like Adam and Eve, we can have great abundance and still feel empty. We can have great abundance while still feeling the gnawing discontent that we do not have more. Just one more dollar, just one more gadget, just one more vacation, just one more upgrade—joy is always that close, but that far away. If you suffer from affluenza, you will know it when you look at all you have and still believe that just a little bit more will really bring the joy you crave.

Another common symptom of affluenza is self-dependence. Our abilities multiply alongside our wealth, and when we are most able, we tend to be least dependent. Why would I pray to God for my daily bread when I have millions in my savings account? Why would I pray for God to give me wisdom when I can already see the fruit of my hard work and good decisions? The man with little prays much; the man with much prays little. If you spot self-dependence in your life—self-dependence manifested especially in prayerlessness—you may well be suffering from affuenza.

Allow me to point you to one more symptom of affluenza: ingratitude. The Bible makes it clear that all the good we enjoy is a gift from God (James 1:17). The Bible makes it equally clear that we are to return thanks to God, gratefully and specifically, for each one of those good gifts. But ingratitude is a grave challenge to the person suffering from affluenza. Why should I give thanks to God when I am the one who has worked so hard for what I have? Why should I give thanks to God if what I have is only the smallest portion of what I actually want or deserve? Your lack of gratitude may prove that you have a bad case of affluenza.  Read more…

Purchase your books from our online shopping cart,
Email orders@christianbooks.co.za or
Visit one of our stores

By Trevor Bradley

Don’t quit now… You always face big battles before great breakthroughs. Rip off every label and limitation that is not in alignment with who GOD says you are.

God is filling your heart with greater JOY (Psalm 4 vs 7). Weeping may last for a night, but Joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30 vs 11).  God doesn’t waste anything, including your pain. And out of your pain you can find your purpose.

When God calls you, he anoints you.  It doesn’t matter what other people think about you or what other people do to you.  With God on your side, nothing ( can I say that again – NOTHING) can hold you back.

Have a big vision, don’t limit God.  You cannot out-dream God, he thinks big, he thinks overflow.   Whatever you are dreaming about you must live with an expectant and faith-filled heart.  God is going to supersize it (Ephesians 3 vs 20).

Make room for GOD!

Asking God for wisdom is one of the most important things you can do as you start your day (Proverbs 4 vs 7 & 8).  When you make wisdom/discernment/understanding your priority, you will begin to see  God-inspired decisions that will lead to greater levels of success in your family, your home, your workplace.

The LORD encourage you today and may you have a Christ filled day.

Purchase your books from our online shopping cart,
Email orders@christianbooks.co.za or
Visit one of our stores

An article from Desiring God and written by Paul Maxwell

I’m spiritually stuck. We are stuck people. We get distracted, pulled down, undone. God feels distant and irrelevant. Dane Ortlund says, “You are not abnormal. So relax. We all go through this from time to time.”

Seasons of spiritual darkness are common — even when many pretend it’s an anomaly. Even when indifference pirates our most pious intentions, and we surrender ourselves to isolation in our lack of holy zeal, don’t be deceived: Gloom in the Christian’s heart is common.

It does often look and feel different for different people:

• Your daily fear of future tragedy erodes your affection for God.
• Your experience in corporate worship is empty and distracted.
• You feel unimpressed, aloof to the things of God.
• Patterns of repentance crumble and fade.
• The preached word seems boring.
• Hymns prompt only an irregular cadence of exhausted sighs.
• Spiritual advice trips over its own triteness on its way to cynical ears.
• Christian blogs induce more guilt than help.

Day after day, sermon after sermon, small group after small group, we’re discouraged and frightened by a widening gap between the desired self and the real self. We feel the torque pulling between our desired relationship with God — the desired emotions, the desired disciplines, the desired relationships — and the real.

It feels like the solution should be simple — another round of repentance, a worship song, a Paul Tripp devotion. Something. Anything. But those things either don’t feel effective or mysteriously elude us. Here are six places to start — intentions to experiment with — when you feel spiritually stuck and alone. “Intentions” are things that we easily lose. They are good, but they can be slippery. You should find yourself in one, or a few, of these intentions. They’re not all right for you. But you should discover which one might be most relevant to you now. Read through them, and search for words for your heart. Read them in sequence, and look for the helpful nutrients you need.  More…

Purchase your books from our online shopping cart,
Email orders@christianbooks.co.za or
Visit one of our stores

Sourced from the Desiring God Blog Site

If you were having a cup of tea with C. S. Lewis on Valentine’s Day, and you asked him sincerely, “Mr. Lewis, am I better not to love because it’s so risky?” — he might say something like this:

Of all arguments against love none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as “Careful! This might lead you to suffering.”

To my nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I respond to that appeal I seem to myself to be a thousand miles away from Christ. If I am sure of anything I am sure that his teaching was never meant to confirm my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities.…

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.

Read more ….

Purchase your marriage & relationship books from our online shopping cart,
Email orders@christianbooks.co.za or
Visit one of our stores

Frank Retief was pastor at St James Church Cape Town for 31 years, having planted the church in 1968 with his wife Beulah.  He became the Presiding Bishop of the Church of England in South Africa until he retired in 2010.  Frank remains active in ministry through preaching, teaching, pastoral work & writing, and has authored a number of books.

Responses:

Mark 4 vs 20 “Others like seed some on good soil, hear the word, accept it and produce a crop – thirty, sixty or even hundred times what was sown.”

In some communities across the world, the preaching of the Word of God is met with a warm welcome and a good response. In other communities the message of the bible is either not welcomed or it is ignored.  Why these different responses? Well, one of the things that the New Testament constantly sets before us is the different responses to Jesus and His Word.

In this parable about the sower, we have before us in parable form, four different responses to the Good News. Some people hear it with hard hearts and the devil soon snatched even the memory of what they heard from them. Others receive the word with an initial enthusiasm but the word has not penetrated or taken root. All is superficial. So when difficulties arise because of the Gospel they quickly fall away and abandon the truth.

There is another response to the Gospel with which we are all aware. That is an initial acceptance of the message, but their life is distracted with all the busyness of family, children, and making money – so that the truth is eventually choked out of their life. We all know someone like that. But is all lost then? Does the Gospel appeal to nobody? On the contrary Jesus told us that there is some good soil that produces up to a hundred times what was sown.  There is always somebody who hears and believes. Sometimes they are the most unexpected people, but to them is given the gift of understanding and they produce the harvest.

Perhaps you can remember your own experience. How long it seemed to take before you began to see the light. And then even if you did not see the whole Gospel picture, what you did understand excited you and began to dominate your life. And look at you now. Even though you may be a nobody in the eyes of the world, how many people have heard the Gospel from you or experienced some of Christ’s love through you and have been blessed? You are the one producing the harvest.

Prayer: “O God, thank you for opening my eyes. Please grant me more light and understanding and help me to produce more fruit to bring you glory. Amen”

Purchase your books from our online shopping cart,
Email orders@christianbooks.co.za or
Visit one of our stores