The greatest Christian life will be lived closest to Christ, loving Him most, and thereby loving others most. To understand Christ and His love, we must first comprehend what He says in Isaiah 55:9:

         As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.

         How does this apply to getting close to the Lord and loving Him? First, the love of God is not like human love; it is much higher. Our definitions for all of the characteristics of God...

         If we are going to be in agreement with God, which is the foundation of abiding in Him, then this must begin by knowing the definitions He has given to us in His Word, the Scriptures, for such things as sin and wickedness, as well as righteousness and truth. If we do not agree with His definitions as He gave them to us, then according to what the Lord said through His prophet Isaiah, if we do not speak according to His Word, then we do not have the light. 

         I am not trying to...

       Much confusion and wrong teachings exist among believers and non-believers in relationship to judging and God’s judgments. This must be sorted out if we are to go on to maturity, because God’s judgments are a basic reflection of His nature and character. So also are our judgments. Therefore, we want them to be in harmony with God.

        As we have covered, Jesus never said we should not judge others. It is apparent in the context of the parable in which Jesus said this that He never said not to judge. Rather, Jesus said...

        Over the last few weeks, we have covered some of the basic issues of judging and judgment. Understanding these is basic to living a great Christian life because they affect our basic relationship to others.

         A prevailing teaching throughout Scripture is that we cannot understand God without understanding His judgments. “Eternal judgment” is listed as one of the basic doctrines of the faith upon which a solid foundation for the Christian life is laid. Our King is also the Judge, and we must know Him as such, or we will not truly...

        As we have covered, it is a common belief that Christians have been instructed not to judge. But nowhere does Jesus say that, and nowhere is this said in the Scriptures. Some flawed English translations give the impression that Jesus said this when He talked about taking the log out of our own eye before trying to remove the speck from someone else’s eye. However, what He taught there and elsewhere is not to judge wrongly. He did not say not to try to remove the speck from someone else’s eye, but that we must be...