Wayne Stiles's Blog, page 45
May 22, 2017
God Lays Siege to Your Life to Restore You, Not Destroy You
The biblical sieges illustrate the Lord's love for His people.
In ancient Israel, a city wasn’t a city without a wall. The wall served as the primary means of protection from an enemy. Without a wall, you were a sitting duck.
(Photo: Jerusalem’s Old City Walls. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
In times of war, an enemy would surround a city wall and lay siege to it. This method purposed to starve the inhabitants of food and water—forcing surrender. Often a siege took months o...
May 17, 2017
How to Cope When God Conceals His Progress Bar of Time
As much as we’d rather know when, God has determined we only need to know what.
I recently upgraded my iPhone and had a problem transferring the data from my old backup to the new iPhone. So I called Apple.
(Photo: Zach Vega. CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
As I talked to the tech during the data transfer, he really wanted to screen-share so he could see what was happening on my computer, but the connection wouldn’t work.
Because he couldn’t see my screen, he continued to ask me every mi...
May 15, 2017
How to Deal with Overwhelming Odds through Your Powerful God
Michmash shows us the power of God in our lives.
When the Bible includes geographical references, they appear as more than throwaway statements. Often they play a vital role in our understanding and application of the Bible.
(Photo: Cliffs near Michmash and Geba. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
For example, geography bears importance as to how Jonathan and his armor-bearer—only two men—could help rout the entire Philistine army.
The geographic descriptions given in 1 Samuel...
May 10, 2017
Do You Understand the 2 Kinds of Forgiveness?
A simple example serves to illustrate which of the two applies to you today.
The Bible’s teaching on forgiveness can seem confusing. Even contradictory. In fact, over the years I’ve heard one question more than any other.
(Photo By Todd Quackenbush. Courtesy of Unsplash.com)
On one hand we have the marvelous promise that once we believe the gospel message—that Jesus died for our sins and rose again—we have forgiveness of all our sins.
All of them.
But that begs a question: If Jesus has alread...
May 8, 2017
What to Watch Out for When You Enter the Promised Land
Do you know the greatest danger of God’s blessings in your life?
Sometimes our blessings get piled so high, it’s difficult to see around them. Blessings are ours in abundance—and tempt us to forget God. Of course, this is nothing new.
(Photo: At the Plains of Moab, where Israel received God’s warning. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
At the Plains of Moab by the Jordan River, the redeemed Hebrew nation anticipated entering Canaan. There the Lord issued them an important warni...
May 3, 2017
You May Have Failed—But God is Not Done with You
God’s truth seems too good to be true only because we’ve lived too long with lies.
I stood waist-deep in the Jordan River, waiting for the man I was about to baptize. He made his way slowly into the current, stopped in front of me, and looked me in the eye. “Are you sure I can be baptized?”
“What do you mean, Don?” I asked him. He had tears in his eyes.
(Photo: Jordan River baptismal site Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
With a trembling voice, this man in his sixties confess...
May 2, 2017
30 Days in the Land of the Psalms [Book]
30 Days in the Land of the Psalms by Charles H. Dyer (Moody Publishers, 2017) Many Christians read the Psalms every day but miss the fullness of their message. Why? The psalmists were poets, weaving images from the lands around them into the lines of Holy Scripture. Without a picture of what the Judean Wilderness looks like, or Masada, or the Mount of Olives, we read the words but miss so much of the message. Dr. Charlie Dyer is one of the most gifted expositors of the H...
May 1, 2017
What Makes the Holy Land Holy? Or You, for that Matter?
The answer is the same.
Think about this question: What makes the holy land holy? Don’t rush by the question too quickly. Because its answer also explains what makes you holy in God’s eyes.
(Photo: Painting of Moses and the burning bush. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
As often as we use the name, “Holy Land,” amazingly, the phrase only shows up in the Bible on rare occasions. In fact, you can count them on one hand.
The first man, Adam, had a name that means “man,” and it r...
April 26, 2017
8 Reasons You Can Believe the Bible is True
Believing God's Word doesn't mean you have to check your brain at the door.
Do you believe the Bible is true? A recent poll by the Barna Group revealed a startling fact about Christians and the Bible: “Just half of all self-identified Christians firmly believe that the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles (not the facts, just the principles) that it teaches.”
The entire basis of Christianity’s faith stems from what the Bible reveals about God, humanity, sin, and salvation. Is th...
April 24, 2017
Mount Carmel and Elijah’s Place of Burning Leave a Lasting Lesson
Elijah’s question to Israel remains a question we too should answer.
Even when God allows hard times in our lives, He means to draw us back to Him. Elijah’s question to Israel on Mount Carmel remains a question we too should answer and apply.
(Photo: Fires on Mount Carmel in 2010, by יחידה אווירית משטרת ישראל CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
I’ll never forget the images of Mount Carmel’s scorching flames in December 2010. The largest fire in Israel’s history billowed so much smoke that a...
