Equipping for Life and Leadership

Providing resources to help you know and love God, grow to maturity, heal past wounds, and become equipped to lead.

Posts

Grace, Works, and Lordship

In this paper I establish the scriptural teaching of salvation by grace apart from works and then discuss several issues concerning “lordship salvation”) 1) does a person have to acknowledge Jesus as his personal Lord, or can he first accept Jesus as Savior and later as Lord? 2) Is it necessary to…
My Impressions of “The Shack”

This is a list of what I liked and didn’t like about William P. Young’s book The Shack
Is Faith the “gift” in Ephesians 2:8?

Many Christians believe that the word “that” in Ephesians 2:8 refers to the word “faith” as its antecedent. The following comments from various commentaries on the passage show that the Greek language does not allow this. Rather, the word “that” modifies the previously presented concept of “salvation.”
Is regeneration by faith or is faith by regeneration?

Some pastors and teachers teach that regeneration precedes faith and is necessary for it. They believe that mankind is so fallen that his heart is unable to respond to the gospel or believe in Christ. They say that we must first be regenerated before we can believe. In the following pages I…
Dead Men Can Believe!

I’ve often heard the argument, based on Ephesians 2:1-3 that since fallen man is dead in sin, he is incapable of seeking God, doing good, desiring God, responding to the call of God, or believing in Christ while in this dead state. The argument is that man must first be regenerated before…
Does 1 John 5:1 teach that faith is caused by regeneration?

In summary, John is not addressing what causes someone to initially believe. Rather he says that present and ongoing (present tense) belief that Jesus is the Christ is an evidence that a person has been born of God (perfect tense).
Salvadorian Mission Trip Report

Sometimes there can be glorious victories and great surges forward with little struggle or setback. Yet typically, the kingdom is advanced little by little, with constant struggle, and with many setbacks and defeats. So, although I don’t expect that our trip to San Salvador will produce overwhelming fruit in this village and…
Sanctification

In this paper, we will look at the sanctification process—the process by which God’s elect are set apart from the perversion and corruption of sin and set apart to God, to become His pure and spotless people. Understanding the subject of sanctification is obviously of utmost importance, since God’s number one goal…