26 June 2016
Two-Minute Features | 03 July 2016 | 19 June 2016

We Have to Use Faith to be Believing in God (TMF:440)

Friday, July 01, 2016
Peace to Live By: We Have to Use Faith to be Believing in God (TMF:440) - Daniel Litton
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       Let's consider some Bible verses to supplement our foundational verse here. The Apostle Paul prayed that God “according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:16, 17, ESV). We have to have faith in order to believe in God, and then subsequently to love him. All of us in this life have faith in something, no matter what we believe. If we believe in God, we have faith in God that he has saved us from his wrath and that we will live with him someday in Heaven. If a person has faith in something else—like that the world came about through natural processes alone—they have ‘faith’ that they are right and that there is nothing after this life. Of course, we as Christians believe that's not true. But everyone has faith in something, whether they know it or not. We use faith all the time. When a person gets into a car, for instance, the person has faith that he or she will make it a determined destination.

With All Our Hearts, Souls, Strength, & Minds (TMF:439)

Thursday, June 30, 2016
Peace to Live By: With All Our Hearts, Souls, Strength, & Minds (TMF:439) - Daniel Litton
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       Now, Jesus mentions the heart, the soul, strength, and the mind. So, we are to love God with all of our hearts—that is, with complete self-control in light of all of God’s will for us. We should be able to control our actions in such a way that is pleasing to God. Then, we are to love God will all our souls. That is, our whole self. The Word of God has to permeate every part of our lives. We are not compartmentalize, but rather we should keep God in perspective with everything we do in our lives, thus denying ourselves—any of our own ways in doing things without keeping God in perspective. This brings up strength. We are to love God the best we can, give good effort, and should not be half-hearted or lazy in our love for God. Finally, we love God with all our minds. That means in our thought-life. We should not only think about good things, but we shouldn't think about bad things. We need to keep our minds pure and away from thinking evil thoughts.

Loving God the Best We Can in Our Lives (TMF:438)

Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Peace to Live By: Loving God the Best We Can in Our Lives (TMF:438) - Daniel Litton
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       It is important that we love God the best we can in our lives because, after all, he is God and is the most significant Person in our lives. To start off, today, let’s consider our love for God, as Christians. A good example of a person who really loved God in the Bible is David. The Apostle Paul told us in Acts 13, speaking of God: “‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ (Acts 13:22 ESV). How do we be like David and love God then? Well, in the most basic sense we show our love for God by doing all his will he has asked us to do—that is, living by every word God has told us. Jesus talked about this in his temptation with Satan in the wilderness. When Satan was tempting him, he said that people should live “by every word that comes from the mouth of God'” (Matthew 4:4, ESV). He was paraphrasing Deuteronomy 8:3. But Jesus gave us an even further explanation on how we should love God the best we can. He said, ““You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” (Luke 10:27, ESV).

Intro to Loving God & Others, Part 2 (TMF:437)

Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Peace to Live By: Intro to Loving God & Others, Part 2 (TMF:437) - Daniel Litton
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       But another important part of living the Christian life is by working alongside our brothers and sisters in Christ. God puts a great emphasis in the New Testament on being part of a body of believers. In late August 2007, Space Shuttle Endeavour made it's way across the sky for it's landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Not known by many, an especially important event happened on this day. What occurred really didn't get much coverage in the media, and I think a lot of people missed it and didn't realize the significance of the STS-118 mission. When Shuttle Endeavour landed, it meant that an American schoolteacher had made her way into space, and come back to tell us about it. It all started some years earlier in 1985 (June) when NASA announced the Teacher in Space Project. And, as we know Christa McAuliffe of New Hampshire was the teacher chosen for the task. But some twenty-one years later, Barbara Morgan completed the task that Christa McAuliffe had originally set out to achieve. And this was done undoubtedly out of caring attitude for her legacy. And how do we, as believers, show our love for others, both those in the household of faith and those who are not believers?

Intro to Loving God & Others, Part 1 (TMF:436)

Monday, June 27, 2016
Peace to Live By: Intro to Loving God & Others, Part 1 (TMF:436) - Daniel Litton
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       Back when the United States use to fly Shuttle missions, as we all know the setup was that the Shuttle would go up into space and communicate back to earth with Mission Control. Now, before the astronauts went into space, they obviously had to go through a great deal of training to know how to do everything they were expected to do. Their ability to get along in space was critically important, and they had to support and help each other. But the goal of the astronauts in getting into space was to do whatever the mission objectives required. It was their responsibility to communicate with Mission Control and to follow any instructions provided to them during communication. And it wasn’t that the astronauts didn’t want to do this. After all, they had agreed to be astronauts. They would want to please the people on the ground because they were the people working with them for their common good. I think living the Christian life is a very similar setup to how astronauts worked with Mission Control. But our goal as Christians is to learn everything from God’s Word we possibly can, so that we know what is pleasing to God. The Bible is our training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16, 17). And it’s also true that as we live the Christian life, we are on mission. Except our mission isn’t in space; our mission is here on the earth.