When God created man on the 6th day, He took a moment to survey all that He had made, “and saw that it was very good!” Scripture says man was created in the image of God but according to John Wesley, man lost that image when he chose loving self over loving God. In his …
Christian author A.W. Tozer once wrote, “To magnify one phase of God’s unitary character and diminish another is always wrong.” He goes on to explain how if we magnify only God’s love, then we are left with “a sentimental, spineless god.” He continues, “We’ve magnified the love of God without remembering that God is just.” …
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “cleanliness is next to godliness.” Typically it is used in a tongue-in-cheek manner in regard to bathing and wearing clean clothes. Fortunately for some of us, there is nothing in the Bible that says that a believer has to be physically clean (though it would be much appreciated by …
A friend of mine once told me, “I feel highly rejected and I think that God and I are going to take a break for a while.” My friend served on the worship team at his church. But at this point in his life, he had been evicted from his home and was having difficulty …
In the state of California where I live, a proposition was passed that reduced theft under $950 in value to a misdemeanor rather than a felony. Many believe this caused a spike in shoplifting within major cities such as San Francisco. I haven’t analyzed the data to determine if this is true, but it is …
“He canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” –Colossians 2:14 Black Friday has just passed us by. It is the busiest shopping day of the year; the day when retail ledgers supposedly return to being “in the black” rather than …
Last Tuesday morning, as I was walking into work from the seven-story parking structure where I park my car, I noticed a police officer and deputy sheriff conversing on the north-east side of the building with their vehicles strategically parked to block access to a certain area. As I walked by, I caught a glimpse …
Some well-meaning Wesleyan scholars say that baptism of the Holy Spirit is a later event in the Christian life. While that is not my understanding, I think it’s okay to have different points of view on this so long as we do agree that all Christians receive the Spirit from the moment they first believe …
Sanctification is the means by which God makes us holy, and holiness is the state of having been perfected, purified, and set apart for the purpose of serving and worshiping God. There are three aspects of sanctification; one could say that we are sanctified, we are being sanctified, and we will become entirely sanctified. I …
There is an idea among Wesleyan theologians that is widely attributed to John Wesley but is not actually something that he taught. It is called the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” and has been inappropriately used since its inception as an attempt to homogenize Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience into a collective authoritative source for the purpose of …