Category Archives: Knowing God

He Came For Life!

This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series Why Did Jesus Come?

Why did Jesus come? In his own words (John 10:10), The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. This Easter morning we celebrate life—abundant life—once again. He came to give his life for us, but he came to become the victor over …

April 4, 2010 – 6:00 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Knowing God | Tagged , , | Comments Off

He Came to Rescue Us

This entry is part 4 of 6 in the series Why Did Jesus Come?

Why did Jesus come? In his own words, For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. 47 If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge …

April 3, 2010 – 8:00 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Knowing God | Tagged , | Comments (1)

He Came To Give His Life For Us

This entry is part 3 of 6 in the series Why Did Jesus Come?

Why did Jesus come? In his own words: But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew …

April 2, 2010 – 7:18 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Knowing God | Tagged , | Comments (2)

He Came for Righteousness

This entry is part 2 of 6 in the series Why Did Jesus Come?

Why did Jesus come? We saw yesterday that he came to help the poor and needy. This is the Jesus everyone seems to accept and to like, Christian or not. Jesus came also for righteousness. He came in obedience to the Father (John 8:42), and he came to preach (Mark 1:38). In numerous New Testament …

March 31, 2010 – 6:54 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Knowing God | Tagged | Comments (2)

He Came to Free Us

This entry is part 1 of 6 in the series Why Did Jesus Come?

Why did Jesus come? During this Holy Week, I’m going to address that question the direct way, by looking at some or all of the fifteen places I’ve been able to find where Jesus answers that question himself. The first is in what I believe was his earliest sermon we have on record, a very …

March 30, 2010 – 7:03 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Knowing God | Tagged , | Comments Off

The Holy Spirit and Christian Thinking

This entry is part 5 of 14 in the series Basic Discipleship of the Mind

Last week I included the Holy Spirit on a list of resources for thinking Christianly, with this qualification:   God is certainly not a “resource” in the same sense as the rest of this list, yet the list would be incomplete without him. We can’t progress in any form of discipleship apart from the Holy Spirit’s …

February 19, 2010 – 4:58 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Knowing God, Thinking Christianly | Tagged | Comments Off

Wilberforce: Real Christianity, Discipling Our Minds

This entry is part 3 of 14 in the series Basic Discipleship of the Mind

A reference in J.P. Moreland’s modern classic, Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul, steered me toward another classic, this one by William Wilberforce: Real Christianity. The link there is to a modern language update published in 2007. I’ve been reading it in ebook form, …

February 7, 2010 – 7:41 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Knowing God, Thinking Christianly | Tagged , , , | Comments (3)

To See Is To Worship

To believe in God is to worship him. To do otherwise is impossible. That’s not because it’s some rule he set up, like “If you’re going to move with the basketball you have to dribble it.” It’s more like, “If you add 2 and 2 you have to get 4.” If you really see who …

January 30, 2010 – 8:20 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Knowing God | Comments (3)

Christ Before Christmas

We’re in the season of expectancy, preparing to celebrate the birth of Christ. There was a season of expectancy before his actual birth 2,000 years ago–expectancy both on earth, where prophecies of a coming Messiah were passionately studied and only partly understood, and also in heaven, where the eternal God was preparing to break in …

December 17, 2009 – 3:51 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Knowing God | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

Dallas Willard on Christianity, Magic, and the Supernatural

Dallas Willard, professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California, asks this question in his excellent book Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship With God: How does a life in which one speaks the creative word of God differ from a life of voodoo, magic, and superstition? Here is part of his answer (the …

November 29, 2009 – 9:42 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Knowing God, New Atheism | Tagged , , | Comments (18)