The Top 10 Articles of 2014

As 2014 will soon come to a close, it's time to look back at the articles that sparked the most interest in 2014. The list below starts with the most popular article and is based on unique page views:

1. "Theology of Rest" by Danny Dowell
2. "Missions and Social Justice" by Danny
3. "Our Way" by Danny
4. "Charity in Communication" by Danny
5. "The Two Benefits of Rest" by Michelle Dowell
6. "Living by Faith" by Danny
7. "Help with Anxiety: Fear God, Not Man" by Michelle
8. "Pleasure Is Not the Enemy" by Michelle
9. "Hard Times" by Danny
10. "Help with Stress: 3 Tips" by Michelle

Two of the top 10 deal with rest. May you have a restful Christmas and New Year!

Thanks for visiting the blog this year!

Honest Living

To live honestly before God our works are done before God and not man. You see many times in life we are given a chance to do this or that good work in secret.

We have done the right thing in secret before God. And the temptation is to share the work before men.

You see we are called not to exalt ourselves in the world. Good works done in secret should often remain in secret. It is not always the case: there might be a reason to share, but more often the need to move a good work from secret to the public is a sign of sin.

Our works are before God. Only God matters. We should not value the praise of men, only God.

In fact often when we live well before God certain men will not like us. We are not above our master Jesus and many men did not like Jesus because of the way he lived. The bible assures us that it is normal for the world to find true religion unpleasant.

The world is judged simply by righteous living. The world views certain things as "impossible" and living by faith implicitly condemns the world when the "not possible" is fulfilled.

Courage

Often in life we are faced with things we should do. We know what we should do but we have fear of the consequences.

The bible acknowledges the potential cost of faith. It actually asks us to count the costs.

You see the math in favor of a life of faith is plainly waited in favor of following Jesus if we truly understand the situation.

Living by faith can be difficult. It is easy to feel we can get around the things we should do because no one knows we should do them.

The reality is that God knows. And we need to have faith at times to live by faith and trust that he will protect us where ever the chips fall.

Living by Faith

Living by faith requires constant thought. It is not that everything must always be rethought but we cannot live the Christian life in a meaningful way as a set of formulas.

You see the bible's constant call to wisdom is because wisdom is constantly needed in life. There is a great variety of situations in life many of which have many unique characteristics.

You see many business men in church who would not be satisfied with a cookie cutter solution to the problems in their business, but cookie cutter solutions to problems in the area of faith is not a problem to them.

We need to always attempt to live the Christian life in a thoughtful way. If we think we have figured out religion we haven't.

You see God is much larger than we are and the problems in the world are much harder to solve than we wish to think.

If we think we know the answers to the issues in life we are wrong. Because we have too much faith in ourselves. Humility to actually admit we do not have all the answers and frequently have very few answers is the only possible path toward really living the Christian life well.