Posts by Jim Oesterwind
God Gives Wisdom
One great enemy working against us in our pursuit of God’s wisdom is well-intentioned friends and family around us. People seek to draw us back again to the wisdom of this world. They think they know what is best. They say they are looking out for us, but they are diverting us from the path…
Read MoreManifestation and Mastery of the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church
Are the gifts in 1 Corinthians 12.7-10 for every generation in the church age? More importantly, what does it mean to be a spiritual person. The great desire of faithful believers is to make certain we do not quench or grieve the Holy Spirit when we meet in the church. Any genuine manifestation of the…
Read MoreContention at the Cross
One of the reasons we have contention in the church is that we tend to believe what is right in our own eyes. We don’t allow God to dictate to us in His Word; we dictate to Him. Often this dramatically and deleteriously affects church conduct. Once our church begins to take polls and surveys…
Read MoreEffective Prayer
As Christians, we are as adept at putting on a show as the Pharisees of old. Only God accurately searches our hearts and knows who is genuine among us. We even deceive ourselves by ignoring the hypocrisy present in our prayer time with the Lord. This is why we must be immersed in God’s Word,…
Read MoreTHE NARROW WAY
Choosing the Narrow Way (Mark 8.34) “When [Jesus] had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, Let him deny himself, And take up his cross, And follow Me.” Jesus calls the people with His disciples. The way of discipleship was not exclusively an…
Read MoreContention Over Spiritual Elitism
Our understanding of the first two chapters of 1 Corinthians rests upon a contrast between human wisdom and God’s wisdom. Christ became for us wisdom from God (1.30). He is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1.24). We preach Christ crucified because we rest in Christ crucified. We cannot use persuasive words…
Read MoreContention Over the Chosen
One man wrote, “Not from the world’s ‘beautiful people,’ but for the most part from the lower classes, the ‘nobodies,’ God chose those who would make up God’s new people.”1 Early on in church history, Christianity was deemed the religion of slaves, women, and children. Many unbelieving people today look at Christians as weak-minded, not…
Read MoreGod’s Highest Good for Me
“We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8.28). We know because God either causes or allows all these things to happen in our lives. It is in this way that God is behind all things that happen…
Read MorePraise and Thanksgiving
“Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men! For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness.” – Psalm 107.8-9 Gratitude is characteristic of genuine, mature Christianity. It’s one thing to be obligated to our Creator, but…
Read MoreThe Beauty of the Lord
“Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us!” This is a wonderful and blessed thought for the present moments of our temporal lives. Psalm 90 contains eternal blessings for the temporal lives in which we live, move, and have our being. We yearn to be satisfied early with God’s mercy so that…
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