Josh Hunt's Blog, page 257
October 19, 2016
The remedy for sin
John Newton, who wrote the much-loved hymn “Amazing Grace,” was earlier in his life a slave trader and even captain of a ship transporting captured Africans to America. For medical reasons, he left the seafaring life, became a customs officer, studied theology, and eventually became a minister. However, even as a minister, Newton never forgot […]
October 18, 2016
Winning over worry
Mark Twain once said, “I’m an old man and I’ve known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” Future-based anxiety is empty. Don’t dwell on yesterday’s mess. One thing is always true about yesterday—it’s gone. It’s complete. It’s out of reach, and there’s nothing we can do about it. My son was […]
October 17, 2016
Misunderstanding the true gospel
It was not the answer to the question: what are the minimum requirements for going to Heaven when I die. It was all about the Kingdom of God. (See Matthew 4.17, 23; Matthew 5.3, 10; Matthew 6.10, Matthew 9.35; Matthew 10.7; Acts 1.3; Acts 28.23, 31) It was all about “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will […]
October 16, 2016
Habits are contagious
When people think of making habits or breaking habits they tend to think of trying really hard to do something they don’t want to do. Or, they think of not doing something they want really badly to do. This rarely works. Trying really hard rarely works. Let me show you a more excellent way. Science […]
October 15, 2016
You can memorize scripture
Most people think they have a bad memory, but it’s not true. As we’ve already discovered, most of the time memorizing is mainly a problem of motivation. If you know your birthday, phone number, and address, and can remember the names of your friends, then you can memorize Scripture. The question becomes whether you are […]
October 14, 2016
The malignancy of sin
Cancer! It’s a dreaded word, a word that often invokes a sense of despair and sometimes even hopelessness. For me, cancer was always something that happened in other families. But in 1987, it came to our family when my wife was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I remember my reaction: This can’t be happening to us. […]
October 13, 2016
Slay the giant of loneliness
The first thing you need to do is to be honest about your feelings, and the last thing you need to do is resort to pious platitudes. Loneliness is real and it is painful. It is in no way a reflection of weakness as a Christian or a member of society. We as Christians love […]
October 12, 2016
The joy of the true gospel
Every man or woman desires basic joy in his or her life—a desire that all others directly or indirectly serve. We like to eat because tasty food brings joy and usually a feeling of good health to our bodies. We enjoy money because of the prospect of good and necessary things it can buy. Many […]
October 11, 2016
How to make or break a habit
Ever wonder why so many of us make resolutions each New Year that we fail to keep? Approximately 45 percent of us make New Year’s resolutions, but only 8 percent succeed. In a way, we will spend this whole book answering that question. But, part of the answer comes from one letter: the letter “s” […]
October 10, 2016
5 Benefits of Scripture Memory
Many Christians look on the Spiritual Discipline of memorizing God’s Word as something tantamount to modern-day martyrdom. Ask them to memorize Bible verses and they react with about as much eagerness as a request for volunteers to face Nero’s lions. How come? Perhaps because many associate all memorization with the memory efforts required of them […]
