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Showing posts from September, 2024

Barrett on the Simplicity of God

The perfections of God are not like a pie, as if we sliced up the pie into different pieces, love being 10 percent, holiness 15 percent, omnipotence 7 percent, and so on. Unfortunately, this is how many Christians talk about God today, as if love, holiness, and omnipotence were all different parts of God, God being evenly divided among his various attributes. Some even go further, believing some attributes to be more important than others. This happens most with divine love, which some say is the most important attribute (the biggest piece of the pie).  -Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2019), 72–73. Ask yourself that question that often entertained the brightest minds of the late medieval era: Is something good because God wills it to be good, or does God will something because it is good? This famous conundrum is the ultimate puzzle, situating God between a rock and a hard pla...

Graham:"...even before we believed..."

  In fact, even before we believed, His Spirit was already working in us, convicting us of sin and drawing us to God. After we believed, His Spirit didn’t stop working; He came to live permanently within us! The Bible says, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ” (Romans 8:9). If you know Christ, you don’t need to beg for the Holy Spirit to come into your life; He is already there—whether you “feel” His presence or not. Don’t confuse the Holy Spirit with an emotional feeling or a particular type of spiritual experience.  Instead, accept by faith what God promised:When you come to Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to live within you. The Bible says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). Billy Graham, The Journey: Living by Faith in an Uncertain World (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007).