An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 11, 2023
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When we stand before God at the end of our life, let us hope that we would not have a single bit of talent left, and can say, “I used everything you gave me.”
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 10, 2023
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Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 9, 2023
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You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 8, 2023
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If we fear God, we won’t fear anything. If we don’t fear God, we’ll fear everything.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 7, 2023
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It’s naive to predict that unpredictable events won’t happen in the future.
By Grace You Have Been Saved March 6, 2023
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When I think of my neighbor I pray for justice. When I think of myself, I pray for grace.
Grace is defined as the love and mercy given to us by God because God wants us to have it, not because of anything we’ve done to earn it. We all need grace to be saved from the greatest sinner to the greatest saint. Quoting the Old Testament Paul put it this way, “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.”
Extending grace, mercy, and the forgiveness it demands isn’t just a good idea. It’s what God requires of us. Remember we reap what we sow. If we sow to our flesh of the flesh, we’ll reap corruption. But if we sow to the Spirit of the Spirit we’ll reap everlasting life. Refusing to forgive is of the flesh. Forgiveness is of the Spirit. And we get to choose which one we’ll do.
We’re called to walk as pilgrims in this world remembering that as born-again children of God this is not our home. We have a home in Heaven with God in Christ Jesus. Trying to live this out day-by-day soon teaches us that it’s easier said than done prompting us to ask, “How then shall I live?”
One quick answer is we should forgive others as God in Christ Jesus forgave us. This is nothing more or less than a natural outworking of Christ’s command that we love others as we love ourselves. Of course, loving others so completely isn’t always easy. So often other people do things we wouldn’t do or things we think others shouldn’t do. Not that we should turn a blind eye to sin but we should certainly open both eyes to the idea that there’re many ways to please God and He’s well able to lead each of us into the best way for us to do it.
It all comes down to love. We need to ask ourselves, “How does God love us?” Did He wait until we were perfect? Did He wait until we quit making mistakes? Did He wait until we were sin free?
If we won’t forgive others, we aren’t dealing with them from love. Instead, we’re judging them. Jesus is the judge, and we should leave that job to him since we never get it right anyway. It’s easy to say we love God. But how can we say that we love God when we won’t love our brother? How can we love our God who we can’t see when we don’t love our brothers who we can see?
If we’re really filled and motivated by God’s Spirit, we’ll have His nature. We’ll reflect Him much as a mirror reflects our own image. We can reflect that nature not just in our personal circle of friends but also into the wider world. Imagine how much greater the leadership of our nation, our organizations, and our churches would be if instead of constantly criticizing those whose thoughts and beliefs differ from ours instead, we devoted that time and energy to praying for them? If we as the born-again Church of Christ turned our criticism into intercession, we would see the most effective changes possible shining like a bright light after a dark night.
It comes down to this: by grace we have been saved so we should extend grace to those around us. To love as we have been loved. And to forgive as we have been forgiven. We are one in Him so let’s go forth and be one with each other.
This is an excerpt from the book Hope by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 5, 2023
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In the moment of crisis, the wise build bridges, and the foolish build dams.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 4, 2023
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We’re all made of the same clay, but not from the same mold.
An excerpt from New Old Sayings by Dr. Robert Owens March 2, 2023
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Good doesn’t become bad, wrong doesn’t become right, and truth doesn’t become a lie just because a majority of people want them to.
All We Need to Know March 1, 2023
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The Bible tells us Adam sold us down the river of sin. His first sin, disobedience was followed by death; spiritual death or separation from God and then physical death. The Bible also tells us no one gets a free pass. Every one of us descended from Adam is born in sin and subject to death. Because that first sin of Adam’s broke humanity’s relationship with God in every way.
However, the far-reaching extent of this wasn’t apparent till God made it crystal clear to Moses. Here’s what we learned from God’s detailed and explicit law: Sin is a yawning chasm separating us from God that leads to death. We also learned that even those who don’t sin in the same way Adam did, by disobeying a specific command of God, sin in one way or another. Consequently, we all experience both the spiritual and the physical end of life which is separation from God not just as an inheritance but as something each of us earns on our own.
But God didn’t leave us hopeless. When God cursed the serpent for tempting Eve to sin which is what dragged Adam into choosing fellowship with his wife over fellowship with his Creator, He also made a promise that from woman would come a Savior. From the moment of the fall comes the hope of resurrection pointing ahead to the One chosen before the foundation of the world to get us off this one-way conveyor belt to hell.
To maintain God’s absolute justice sin had to be paid for. The penalty of separation and death had to be fulfilled. All humanity could ever do was continue the cycle over and over since everyone sinned and added to the burden of the verdict. Then Jesus Christ, God Himself, came to bear the burden and pay the price becoming a sinless sacrifice, the just for the unjust. His death foreshadowed by every sacrifice ever offered up under the Law.
However, the blood of goats, bulls, sheep, and other animals could never cleanse from sin. The best they could do was cover symptoms of sin through obedience to the commands of God. They couldn’t deal with the root cause, separation from God because no human ever lived a sinless life after offering one sacrifice so another was always needed and death flowed like a river of sewage through the lives of all.
Just as Adam’s sin brought death into the world one person condemning many the sacrifice of Jesus brings life into the world One person making the way open for many. Though one foreshadowed the other and one fulfilled the other the gift of Jesus is not perfectly parallel to the death-dealing sin of Adam. You see if Adam’s sin put all of humanity in the well-deserved black hole of separation from God, imagine what God’s undeserved gift poured out through Jesus Christ’s sinless sacrifice can do. How can we possibly compare Adam’s death-dealing sin and Jesus’ life-giving gift? The righteous verdict on Adam’s sin was the death sentence on everyone born of Adam. The gracious verdict on the sacrifice of Jesus is this life restoring sentence on everyone born of Jesus, the second Adam.
Here it is in a nutshell: Death which is separation from God gained the upper hand through Adam’s sin. Now the astounding recovery of life, real life, life in union with God explodes in our spirit as soon as we’re born-again out of the descending line of Adam and into the ascending line of Jesus. Since the price has been paid and an acceptable sacrifice made the just for the unjust everyone who accepts this undeserved and free life-gift sees reality flow back into the mold God initially wanted for humanity: Living, loving, and praising in union with Him.
That’s the back story now for all you need to know:
If we confess Jesus as the head of our life and if we believe in our hearts God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved.
It just that easy and it’s yours if you want it.
This is an excerpt from the book Hope by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon.
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 