Is it wrong to arm ourselves, to protect ourselves, to defend what is ours? What about helping others who have been wrongly attacked? The Bible gives a great illustration of what is our scope of personal responsibility in self-defense, and in defending others.
Do you ever wonder if serving God makes any difference? When you look at the results of your sometimes exhausting efforts, you see nothing come of them? God addresses this very directly in 1 Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
We take some time in this message to explain this verse in detail, and to encourage you that your works DO make a difference.
Abram and Lot have a lot of possessions. There people are having a hard time co-existing because of it. How does Abram, the leader, decide to handle this? What poor choices does Lot make?
If I cannot enter God’s kingdom the way I am, and if the Son of Man (God’s Son, Jesus) needed to die for me in order for me to be born a second time, what do I need to do? What do I do to let Jesus’ payment count for me? The Bible is very, very clear what my responsibility is.
Abram went to Egypt to escape the famine in Canaan – nothing wrong with that. However, Abram makes a choice to protect himself that gets him into trouble.
Jesus explains the “second birth,” the spiritual birth, to Nicodemus. Nicodemus, as a teacher of Israel and a Pharisee, should have understood this all along. (His Pharisaical teachings actually clouded his understanding.) Salvation comes through believing in the only-begotten Son, Jesus, Whom God gave as payment for our sins.