Growth

The Western emphasis on growth has taken root within Christianity. 'Success' for a church is measured in income and membership, which are deceptive metrics.

In this sermon, Charles Whitaker focuses on the marvelous opportunities for young people in God's church who find themselves on the threshold of God's Millennium, a time population growth will take place in abundant prosperity brought about by creative God. . .

Charles Whitaker shows that spiritual growth mimics our physical growth to maturity. If we continue in the process, we will "grow into" our potential as God's children.

The One who sent forth His Spirit to create and breathe life into the physical world, also breathed on His disciples and endowed them with spiritual life.

Protestantism unthinkingly presents grace as "free." However, Scripture shows that God expects a great deal of effort from us once we receive it—it is costly.

Another impediment to overcoming our sins is self-justification. We tend to excuse ourselves for what we do, and this only makes it harder to become like God. He is more interested in our transformation than in how good we feel about ourselves!

In this message, John Ritenbaugh, using the parable of Luke 11:24-28, admonishes that being cleaned up (or purged of leaven) is only the beginning of the growth process. To be made clean only prepares us for producing fruit. God's concern is for us to matu. . .

John Ritenbaugh, cuing in on Psalm 73:1-9, describing the despair of someone seeing the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer, affirms that it is a delusion that people in the world are leading comfortable lives. Christian living, while not comfortable. . .

In this sermon for the Days of Unleavened Bread, John Ritenbaugh reiterates that God demands that we have an obligation to dress and keep that which is placed in our care, improving what He has given to us. We dare not stand still, but must make considerab. . .

Unlike God, "who inhabits eternity" (Isaiah 57:15), we mortals have a limited existence. Because of our finite time, we tend to view things through the lens of immediacy. ...

The spirit of the law does not do away with the letter of the law; without the letter, there is no spirit because there is no foundation. Examples show God's will.

John Ritenbaugh asserts that what God's called-out ones have been given is rare in the annals of the history of all mankind, a kind of sacred secret into which one must be initiated in order to grasp, appreciate and make the right use of. Through a miracul. . .

Richard Ritenbaugh asserts that change is in itself neutral, having the propensity for either good or bad. Change is nearly always cyclical, reflecting both growth and decay. We all grow old, hopefully having attained wisdom. We have to learn to utilize po. . .