James Hammack is a regular contributor to The Rope. He also is digital services manager for The Alabama Baptist/TAB Media. He also serves as worship pastor at Sovereign Grace Church, Prattville. He and his wife, Alicia, have three children.
Speaking truth even in love is not always received well. Pharaoh didn’t receive it well from Moses. And it led to suffering. But we are called to endure.
God wants to reorient our minds and hearts around how He uses suffering for His glory. He wants us to hope in the middle of suffering.
God desires that we experience the fullness of joy in Him by setting our eyes on Jesus. If you haven’t put your faith and hope in Jesus, you won’t know the fullness of His joy either.
When we gather as a church, we sing songs that remind us and celebrate who God is and what He has done. I know that we often bring hardship into the gathering — hurt, difficulties. But are you allowing those things to overshadow your joy or are you fighting for your joy to overshadow those things?
It’s not that we can’t find joy in other things. We should find joy in all the gifts of God. It is that if we are not satisfied in God first then we won’t have complete joy in anything.
When we grow and cultivate our understanding of the goodness of God, when we grow in humility, when we grow in thankfulness, when we run first to God for refuge, we will be kept and safeguarded and preserved. And joy abounds from this place.
We can’t simply demonstrate the gospel, we must proclaim it as well!
If you are in Christ, then you yourself know the gospel. There is no way to be saved yourself if you don’t know the content of the gospel. It’s impossible.
Speaking truth even in love is not always received well. Pharaoh didn’t receive it well from Moses. And it led to suffering. But we are called to endure.
God wants to reorient our minds and hearts around how He uses suffering for His glory. He wants us to hope in the middle of suffering.
God desires that we experience the fullness of joy in Him by setting our eyes on Jesus. If you haven’t put your faith and hope in Jesus, you won’t know the fullness of His joy either.
When we gather as a church, we sing songs that remind us and celebrate who God is and what He has done. I know that we often bring hardship into the gathering — hurt, difficulties. But are you allowing those things to overshadow your joy or are you fighting for your joy to overshadow those things?
It’s not that we can’t find joy in other things. We should find joy in all the gifts of God. It is that if we are not satisfied in God first then we won’t have complete joy in anything.
When we grow and cultivate our understanding of the goodness of God, when we grow in humility, when we grow in thankfulness, when we run first to God for refuge, we will be kept and safeguarded and preserved. And joy abounds from this place.
We can’t simply demonstrate the gospel, we must proclaim it as well!
If you are in Christ, then you yourself know the gospel. There is no way to be saved yourself if you don’t know the content of the gospel. It’s impossible.
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