"If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15)

It's not a complicated question, but there could hardly be a more important one than this: Do you love Jesus? And if your answer is yes, here's a follow-up question: Does your behavior show that?

Sometimes, the thought plays a bit like a worn-out record, but there is infinite value in honestly taking stock of our lives and asking, "Do I practice what I preach?" Does my behavior match the faith to which I give assent on Sundays?

Allow me to give two pieces of advice:

1) Ask and answer specific questions that would highlight sin in a given area of your life. Take an honest look at whether you keep God's commandments regarding your money, your choices of entertainment, your marriage and family, your words, your free time, your social media behavior, your work ethic, your hobbies, your sex life, and your friendships. And then, if you discover that something is amiss, confess the sin to God in prayer and change your habits.

2) Think about how to live your life with total consistency. How can you be recognizable as the same person at work and at school, at church and at home? Does your character remain unchanged as you move from each realm of life to another? Ask and answer: how can I be consistently Christian in every area of my life?

Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." That plainspoken truth must govern every day and every area of our lives.

- Dan Lankford, minister

Temptation is a challenge that is endemic to all people. Though it comes in different forms and at varying strengths for individual people, it is an ever-present force in the human experience. The Bible tells us that this is both because of wrongful desires within us and because of dark spiritual forces outside us inciting us to follow those desires. Temptation comes from within and from outside ourselves.

But even if the desire to sin is always present with us, God speaks clearly that we are to resist those desires in favor of more noble and more righteous ones. Like God said to Cain, "Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it" (Gen. 4:7). And the Lord told Peter, "Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail" (Lk. 22:31-32). And to the disciples who were sleeping on the night of his crucifixion, the Lord said, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation." (Lk. 22:40)

This is one of most basic requirements of Jesus' disciples. But if we're honest with ourselves, many of us know how deceptive, how powerful, and how enticing our own temptations are. And so we wonder, "How do I do it? Does God really expect me to resist this all the time? I'm not sure I have the strength to overcome it, especially forever."

But here's a bit of good news that is familiar to many Bible believers and reassuring to all:

"No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, 

and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability,
but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape,
that you may be able to endure it."
(1 Cor. 10:13)

Sometimes, Bible believers, including this author, have paraphrased this promise a little too much. We have said, "You see? God won't give you more than you can handle." The problem is that this lacks the specificity of the Holy Spirit's point, and it thereby takes away the power of his words. Notice the actual promise that God makes: There will always be a way of escape from temptation.

And this is the confidence that we need on our side. It is a targeted promise: You will have the ability to resist temptation, and the power that you will have is God's gift to you. So the question that we have to ask is not so much, "Am I strong enough to be faithful all the time?" The answer to that is, "Yes." God has promised that it will be so. And so the question that we have to answer is, "Do I believe in him? Do I truly believe that he will keep this promise and strengthen me to overcome all temptation?" If I do, then I must believe that it's possible to repent from sin, to turn toward God, and to fight off temptation through the whole of life. My confidence is not in myself, but in him who strengthens me.

- Dan Lankford, minister

"Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all." (Rom 12:17)

My question when I look at that verse is this: Why are there so many rules in the Law of Moses that require the death penalty in punishment for a particular sin? Is it one of those cases where we see a different nature of God from the Old Testament to the New? ("The God of the Old Testament would repay evil for evil, but the God of the New Testament says that we should not do that.") As far as I know, that's never a valid distinction. So then how do we explain the severe payback given to so many crimes when the same God would say, "Repay no one evil for evil"?

The answer is actually fairly simple: God's law through Moses didn't repay evil or evil. It repaid justice for evil.

And that's a distinction that's important for us to know too. Because there are plenty times when it is right to repay something painful for wickedness. It’s right to punish children for their disobedience. And it is plenty right for governments to wield their power to punish evildoers (cf. Rom. 13:1-6). But these things are intending to accomplish what is objectively right. If done correctly, we are not just in pursuit of what feels right or of accomplishing personal vengeance of some kind. We are striving to uphold real, objective justice.

The warning that Paul gave to the Roman Christians is not about vengeance or "personal” justice. We, as the people of God, ought to be in pursuit of the same kind of objective truth, righteousness, and justice that defines God's good nature. At the very least, we must give some thought to it, even if our efforts toward it are imperfect. That effort to the good is what will prove to be “honorable in the sight of all” in the long run.

- Dan Lankford, minister