Luke 17:1-19 Esv

For Reading and Meditation:     Ephesians 4:17-32

We must spend another day considering whether or not it is a condition of our salvation that we first forgive those who have sinned against us. We said yesterday that to believe this contradicts the teaching that we are saved by grace, through faith. What, then, is Scripture getting at when it seems to encourage us...

THE believer is as his faith is. If faith is weak, he is fearful, fretful, and troubled; if faith is strong and rightly placed, he is courageous, active, and happy. Faith comes from Jesus, He is its Author; it leads to Jesus, He is its object. Faith is like a grain of mustard-seed, it grows and increases; but Jesus alone can increase our faith. Let us apply to Him this morning, and let this be our prayer, "LORD, INCREASE MY FAITH." Strong faith will believe without feeling, yea, against...

What is true greatness?

In the kingdom of this world, the great man is the one who has risen to a place of wealth and power. He has a retinue of aides and assistants, conditioned to follow his orders. He is accorded V.I.P. treatment and receives special favors wherever he goes. People regard him with respect and awe because of his rank. He never has to stoop to anything menial; there are always others to do that for him.

But in the Kingdom of our Lord, things are quite different....

This was one of the wisest apostolic utterances. The world is unconscious of its unbelief. It thinks that the reason why it has not more faith, is that there is no more evidence given to it. But no accumulation of evidence would remove the difficulty. A change within, a couching of the moral vision; this is that which is necessary.

The Lord answers this prayer, not in general by giving new evidence, but by inclining us to view and appreciate the evidence before our minds. By leading...

John 9:1-11

The narrative of the opening of this blind man's eyes is given only in John's gospel. It is recorded with much minuteness, not merely because of the greatness of the miracle - but also because it was a sign of the spiritual enlightening which Jesus came to give to men. The cure seems to have been performed without request, either from the blind man himself or from any...

Whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.If anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. § I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone … not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a...

Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God. § One of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?”Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving;...

In his strength he struggled with God. Yes, he struggled with the Angel and prevailed; he wept, and sought favor from Him. § [Abraham] did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God.Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be removed and be cast into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.  Therefore I...

Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. § What do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? § By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.By the...

There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. § The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. § You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing;  but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, “We are unprofitable servants. We have...