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How Do You Treat Those Suffering In Their Trials? (Part Two) For Part One , see Seek To Offer Comfort . 2) Remember Words Of Grief Are Often As The Wind, Spoken Without Meaning: Job 6:1-5 But Job answered and said, Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? or loweth the ox over his fodder? Job says, “I am crying out and you can see my misery and you show no pity at all. You act as if I’m not in trouble. I wouldn’t be crying out if I weren’t.” He points out that the longeared donkey out in the field doesn’t bray for something to eat when he is eating grass. So Job is saying that he wouldn’t be crying out if there were nothing hurting him. He says, “I’m hurting and I’...

How Do You Treat Those Suffering In Their Trials? (Part One) As I was reading through the book of Job recently, I was thinking about our response to those suffering through trials or grieving. I have met various people that were not right with God and did not have the right (ie. Biblical) perspective on their trial or in their grief. Many times we hear vain or sometimes even blasphemous words from someone professing to be a believer, who is having a hard time trusting the Lord in their situation. What is our response? Certainly we should pray for wisdom and do what we can to offer them Biblical comfort and hope - but how do we react to their words spoken in fear or pain? I agree, sin is sin - if someone speaks against God, it is not somehow excusable or acceptable because they are going through a difficult time in their lives. However, it is understandable. They need to repent of their words toward the Lord that were spoken out of rashness or anger. I believe it is wrong to simply over...

To hear this sermon preached in 2023, click on the title below: Arise, And Come Away Song of Solomon 2:13b Arise, My love, My fair one, and come away. The Lord is calling His children away from the world to fellowship with Himself. In this Song by Solomon, Jesus (pictured by King Solomon) is the believers' Beloved , and we are His love . (This distinction is clearly used all throughout this song.) In His eyes we are fair - in fact, in Song of Solomon 4:7 He praise His bride in stating, Thou art all fair, My love; there is no spot in thee. All true believers (who have placed personal faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, believing and receiving the Gospel according to 1 Corinthians 15:3-4) have been washed in the precious blood of the Lamb (1 Peter 1:18-19 and Revelation 1:5) and credited and clothed with the righteousness of Christ (Romans 10:4); therefore in the Lord's eyes there is no spot in them. When our Heavenly Father looks at His children, He sees them through the rig...

Running The Race Of The Christian Life The Bible uses different metaphores to describe the Christian, such as a farmer, a workman, a soldier, a wrestler, etc. One of my favourite is that of a believer being pictured as a runner in a race, the race of the Christian life. Note that the race is for believers, and they are running against themselves to determine their rewards - it is not a race to determine whether someone will get to Heaven or not. That is determined on what you do with the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. If there was a time and place when you turned from your sin and turned to Jesus Christ to save you from your sins, believing in your heart that He is the only Saviour and that He paid the complete penalty for your sins when He died on the cross, then at that moment you entered into this race. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temp...

Why I Am An Ambassador For Christ Many people ask why Christians are so concerned about what others believe about spiritual matters - especially in regards to salvation (where they will spend eternity). I have heard someone say, "What business is it of yours?" It matters to me and is my business, because God Himself has made me (and all true believers in Christ) an ambassador. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ. What is an ambassador? An ambassador is an official representative of his own king or country - often sent with a message. As a Christian, I am a representative of the King of Kings, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has saved me by His grace. Not only do I represent my King, He has also given me a message to declare to others. Five Reasons Why I Am An Ambassador: 1) Because of my home in Heaven. I am assured of and know of this country and how to get there (ie. how to have peaceful relations with it, and one day dwell permanently there). 2 Corinthians 5:1-4, 6-9 For we ...

First 156 Messages Preached At The Gospel Mission When I submitted to the call to preach* and started preaching in 2004, I kept a list of the titles/themes and main passages preached at the Kelowna Gospel Mission. Friday was the day I was scheduled to come in each week and preach before the supper meal (sometimes I was also given the opportunity on Saturdays, though I was not scheduled on that day - more as a fill in if someone needed me to do it). When my computer crashed in fall 2006, I thought I had lost this list, so I stopped keeping track of the messages preached, except to date the studies if I later typed them up and developed them. Looking through an old file folder tonight, I found that original list among some files that were recovered from my harddrive. *(Ie. as a regular part of my life. During my four years as a bus runner - the man that ran to the doors to pick up and drop off the children - I had preached about two or three times to the children on our Sunday School bus...

I thought it might be beneficial to list all studies/devotionals that I have put in this blog, for those who want to be able to quickly find one again, or for those who may be perusing this blog and are wondering what is in it. I have put an * beside the studies that were a tremendous blessing or encouragement to me when studying them out. Any messages that I preached at the Gospel Mission have @ beside them. All links below will open in a separate window. If you read only one article on this website, please let this be it: God's Simple Plan of Salvation It concerns the most important decision you will ever make in your life! Don't let this opportunity to be saved pass you by. Note:  My original Bible study site is  Eagle's Wings Ministries  (this link takes you to the Table Of Contents for it). In light of the repeated hacks on our main domain (ie.  Earnestlycontending.com  and the loss of all previous content, I am duplicating the studies here so as to avoid h...

When Life Doesn't Go As You Planned Joseph was born the eleventh son of a family of twelve brothers and one sister. He was the oldest child of his father Jacob's (Israel's) favourite wife, Rachel. His mother died giving birth to the youngest son in the family, Benjamin. Genesis 37:2-4 These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. In the book of Genesis, we can see four major disappointments in Joseph's life - things that he did not plan on, but that had a major impact on his life and future plans...