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Confessionism: The Misuse of 1 John 1:9
Do you believe that you must confess every known sin to God? For many years earlier in my ministry, I made statements such as the following: “In order to be restored to fellowship with God and to be filled with the Spirit you must confess every known sin to God.” What am I to think of such instructions now? Sadly, this teaching adds a layer of requirement for our forgiveness not intended by God. And it may lead to confusion…
Muller on Finding God’s Will | A Letter from Jim
Dear CCW family, George Muller and I are old friends. My first serious look into his life came from a book from my father’s library which I read in College, Pierson’s George Muller of Bristol. I can distinctly remember where I sat and how I felt while reading those chapters. I thought, “I would like to live a life like this.” Since those days, I’ve had many encounters with the kind old Muller. His life and words have guided me over…
A Broken Relationship with Dad
Over many years I have seen that a person who has a rupture in relationship with his or her father and does not know how to find acceptance and peace with God through Jesus Christ, may be susceptible to many difficulties in this life. Broken child/parent relationships of any kind very often present in ongoing bouts of rebellion and anger or crippling despair and perceptions of inferiority, outside of God’s help. Some carry these attitudes internally while weakening them, and…
Don’t Just Tweet Your Proverbs: Lessons from Solomon
I don’t quite understand it. Everyone knows that King Solomon was the wisest man in the Old Testament. Yet, he had the most precipitous moral freefall of all the kings. The early Solomon loved God. “Now Solomon loved the Lord” (1 Kings 3:3). But the later Solomon was out of control morally: “Now Solomon loved many foreign women.” “Solomon held fast to these in love” (1 Kings 11:1,2). What went wrong? In fact, the marital alliances he made with the…
God’s Continuing Provision | A Letter From Jim
I recently saw the photo below with the caption, “Online Dating in the 1930s.” You’ve got to laugh at that! But this photo also reminds me about what is NOT true for our ministry and our CCW team. We are NOT just hanging on provisionally, or in any other way. And that doesn’t mean we haven’t had a lot of last-minute deliverances, but something much more profound. Let me explain. Pam and I just finished reading through Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual…
What About Your Relatives?
For many of us, the Christmas/New Year season is a time not only to think about Jesus’ incarnation but also to enjoy our relatives and friends. Perhaps we see them only at this time of the year. Some time ago I wrote this short article to guide us about speaking the gospel to those relatives we love. Take a few moments to ponder these ideas: What About Your Relatives? In the New Testament, we find new believers confronting their own…
The Guarantee of Holiness
“Say not that thou hast royal blood in thy veins and art born of God,” said puritan William Gurnall, “unless thou canst prove thy pedigree by daring to be holy.” There is no such thing as an unholy Christian (at least in any ongoing sense.) Can Christians commit any sort of sin? Yes. Can Christians repeatedly commit sin? Yes. Can Christians commit the worst of sins? Yes. But it is inconceivable that a person could be a Christian without holiness…
The Old Ways
The old ways. Do we want them? Some of you are older (though I’m glad that hasn’t happened to me). And all of you are older this year than you were last. Was it better before? Do we have the right perspective about the way it used to be? There is something charming about what things were like before smartphones and social media and so much public anger…..the pace of life, the emphasis on relationships, the steadiness of it all. …
An Amazing Promise NOT for You (Jeremiah 29:10-14)
10 “For thus says the LORD, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.11 For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.12 Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.13 You will seek Me and…
Christ is Building His Church: Reports from South Africa, Austria, and Lebanon
Here are a couple of reports from recent trips by Steve and Patty, and Pam and me. Christ is Building His Church: Steve Burchett’s Report from Austria and Lebanon It’s one thing to think “in theory” about Jesus’ promise to build his church (Matthew 16:18), but it’s another thing entirely to actually hear first-hand accounts and to see that promise being fulfilled. On a recent ministry trip with Patty to Salzburg, Austria, and then Beirut, Lebanon, I got to hear…
A Gospel Shotgun | A Letter from Jim
My grandmother Elliff was a presenter of the gospel. Are you? She looks harmless, but in the case in this photo was a sawed off gospel shotgun! One day a tramp came to her screen door asking for food. Grandmother and her pastor husband lived close to the train tracks and this was not an uncommon experience during those days. Always accommodating, she asked the man to remain at the front door while she went back to get him something…
God’s Supply: A Letter from Jim
Do you realize what an amazing thing it is that God has supplied everything we have needed for our ministry and our personal needs and the needs of our team for over 32 years? He has an ocean-like supply to meet all our needs. This means that many tens of thousands of dollars have come in to this ministry every year without solicitation to anybody but God alone. He did it again this year, providing over $210,000 for our living…