The Hurting Church: Why we get hurt and hurt others in the church

The hurting church is not an occasional dilemma.
More and more often we find people who have been hurt deeply within the family of God, leaving them worn and exhausted. More and more often we find leaders in conflict within the body of believers, robbed of the joy Jesus promised in Him. When we find this [...]

Salvation is for eternity.

I read about this Professor who was the pioneer of heart transplant surgery, talking about his successes. He remarked, with obvious satisfaction, that some of his patients lived for a further eighteen months, and one had even survived for three years. He was thrilled to have saved a person’s life for eighteen months or three [...]

Salvation is to holiness.

Salvation is not only ‘from’ sin, but ‘to’ holiness. In other words, it is not simply a negative exercise. The Bible talks about being ‘saved to the uttermost’, but very often preachers interpret that as though it meant ‘from the guttermost’. We are saved for a purpose, a destiny: and that destiny is holiness.
It [...]

Salvation is with assurance.

It is God’s will that you should know you are his. When people ask ‘Are you saved?’ he does not expect his children to answer, ‘I hope so’, ‘I’m trying’ or I’d like to think I am.’ He wants us to be sure of it, not with arrogance but with faith; not sure of ourselves, [...]

Salvation is through faith.

Prepositions can e crucial, and they are in discussing salvation. It is by grace, through faith. Faith is only the link; grace provides the power. So—what is faith? The first thing to establish is that it is not a matter of feeling. Martin Luther once said, ‘I do not feel that my sins are forgiven, [...]