DISCIPLE

  Divine Authority or Human Opinion?   by William MacDonald     When a public figure was lecturing on the need to restore values to our culture, a college student asked him, “On what do you build your values?” The speaker was flustered. He looked down and said, “I don't know.”  That's just the trouble. He had no authority. Modern man desperately needs what this man lacked—a firm foundation on which to base his judgments. He needs an infallible standard to guide him in all matters of faith and morals.     God has provided such an infallible authority in His Word, the Bible. This wonderful book provides the basis for sound judgments and wise decisions. The Bible is absolute truth. Jesus said, “Thy Word is truth.” There is no risk in following its teachings, no fear it will change from day to day.     The alternative to divine authority is human opinion. “The Bible says ... is replaced by, “I think ...” Fact gives way t...

excerpt from an article by Bruce Davidson in American Thinker , May 2016, reprinted in Psychoheresy Awareness Letter , Nov-Dec 2016.      While “unconditional love” sounds a lot like grace, it is really entitlement. It obliges people to accept others no matter what they do. Those who fail to do so can be accused of neglect or abuse      In their naïve failure to acknowledge evil human proclivities, humanistic psychologists maintained that children who always receive such unconditional love and acceptance grow up happy and whole. The reality is the opposite. They grow up spoiled, with their parents liable to emotional blackmail. In the wider world, this thinking gives rise to the widespread phenomenon of the “cry bully,” who demands things from others on the grounds of putative victimhood.      So the concept of unconditional love provides an open-ended basis for blame and manipulation, since...

by William MacDonald Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.  Proverbs 19:18      We live in a permissive society. Especially in the area of child/training, people listen to the advice of psychologists and sociologists rather than to the teachings of God's Word. Many adults who were brought up by parents who dared to discipline them, determine to allow their children freedom and self-expression. What are the results?      Such children grow up with a deep sense of insecurity. They are misfits in society. They find it difficult to cope with problems and troubles, and seek release in drugs and liquor. A few years of discipline would have made the rest of life much easier for them.      Not surprisingly, they live undisciplined lives. Their personal appearance, their living quarters, their personal habits all betray their careless and disorderly mindset.    ...

A. W. Tozer Freedom is liberty within bounds: liberty to obey holy laws, liberty to keep the commandments of Christ, to serve mankind, to develop to the full all the latent possibilities within our redeemed natures. True Christian liberty never sets us free to indulge our lusts or to follow our fallen impulses. The desire for unqualified freedom caused the fall of Lucifer and wrought the destruction of the angels that sinned. These sought freedom to do as they willed, and to get it they threw away the beautiful liberty that meant freedom to do the will of God. And the human race followed them in their tragic moral blunder.      To anyone who bothers to think a bit it should be evident that there is in the universe no such thing as absolute freedom. Only God is free. It is inherent in creaturehood that its freedom must be limited by the will of the Creator and the nature of the thing created. The glory of heaven lies in the character of the free...

from -- http://www.bibleandlife.org/Newsletters.htm  by Lehman Strauss (1911-1997)       "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts [pleasures]" - (James 4:3)      We are all naturally and basically selfish. We must honestly admit that even our prayers are selfish. It is possible that some of the good things we do are motivated by a selfish spirit. We will do well to examine our motives periodically and especially in regard to praying. James tells us that one reason for our spiritual poverty and powerlessness in prayer is a wrong motive. It is not necessarily the thing for which we are asking that is wrong, but rather the reason we ask for it. Praying with Selfish Motives      A member in a church where I was pastor expressed a concern for the salvation of her husband. She had gone to several members of t...