DISCIPLE

  by Camilo Vásquez “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations” (1 Pet. 1:6).     How long will this pandemic last?  Some health authorities indicate that from the time the first case is detected it will be 12 weeks till the height of the crisis is reached, and from there the effects could last up to two years.     Although this pandemic affects the entire world and is not directed particularly at God’s people, it is still a trial of faith for every believer.  For example, we are told that in the days of the Roman emperor Claudius there was a great famine in all the territory dominated by Rome. This affected even the church in Judea and mobilized the brethren in Antioch to send relief (Acts 11:28-30).     Peter speaks of the trials of God’s people as lasting “for a season,” which means “briefly.” But God’s idea of brief is different from ours. This...

by William Yuille Generations of Christians from the first century onwards have lived in the expectation that the Lord was coming soon. But here we are in the year 2012* [*date of this article] and He hasn’t come yet.  Why not?  Peter speaks to this in 2 Peter 3.     God doesn’t estimate time the way we do. “Do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (v. 8). Some Christians, all the way back to post apostolic times, have interpreted this as a sort of formula and have applied it to human history over a period of one week or 7,000 years.     According to Archbishop Ussher’s calculations, Adam was created around 4,000 BC, so there  were four days before the coming of Christ; another two days take us to 2,000 AD, at which time the seventh day, the millennial age, should arrive. Now that we are in the year 2012*, that theory doesn’t look too likely. In any case, if Peter ...

On the occasion of my oldest son’s fourteenth birthday a much beloved friend – now an octogenarian – whose life and testimony in Christ have been a great blessing to our family, sent him a card with the following “teen commandments”: 1. Don’t let your parents down; they brought you up. 2. Choose your companions with care; you tend to become what they are. 3. Be master of your habits or they will master you. 4. Treasure your time; don’t spend it; invest it. 5. Stand for something or you’ll fall for anything. 6. Don’t date around, pray and wait for God’s choice for a mate. 7. See what you can do for others, not what they can do for you. 8. Guard your thoughts; what you think, you are. 9. Don’t fill up on the world’s crumbs; feed your soul on the Living Bread. 10. Give your all to Christ; He gave His all for you. Ross Rainey, “Ministry in Focus”, July-August 1975

"Tempus Fugit" No, friends,  it isn’t a new chocolate dessert, nor the name of some movie!  It’s a Latin expression that means, “time flies”.  Have you ever seen time fly? As children we used to ask the riddle:  “What happens when you thrown an alarm clock out the window?”  And after the briefest of pauses we supplied the answer that we thought only we knew:  “Time flies!”  But it is no joke, and February, the shortest month of the year, is a good time to remember how quickly time passes and how short our lives are.  The Psalmist puts it this way in Psalm 90:4-12: For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past,             And like a watch in the night.  You carry them away like a flood;             They are like a sleep. In the morning they are like grass which grows up:             In the morning it flourishes and gro...