We continue this week with what it means to be a bondservant of the Lord. One thing it means is that we live to serve Him, not just ourselves. It also means attaining a level of trust with the Lord where He can count on us to do with excellence any job He gives us, and we can trust the Lord fully as our Provider.

      This progression in our relationship to the Lord is a call to fulfill Luke 14:33: "So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up...

      Our goal for these Words for the Week is to cover timely, important issues from a biblical perspective, with the depth needed to not only know the truth but to be able to stand on it. Understanding what is called “the beast” in Revelation and how it will attempt to rule the earth through its power to control the world economy—right down to who can buy, sell, or trade—will require a radical lifestyle change to escape. How?

      As we are told at the beginning of the Revelation, this vision was given to the...

      “And he causes all, the small and the great, the rich and the poor, and the free and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, and he decrees that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six” (Revelation...

      The Lord warned in Matthew 24:12 about the time of the end of the age that we are now in: “Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold.” Lawlessness begins when we start to push our own concepts of law and justice above God’s, as He has clearly laid them out in His Word.

      Another example of how...

      As we study the seven churches Jesus addressed in Revelation, we need to see how they apply to their time, our time, our churches, and to us personally. As we see our connections with the church in history, we will see how closely the history of our own local church can mirror the churches in Revelation, for good or bad. As we will see in the Lord’s message to the first church He addresses in Ephesus, it is when we lose our first love for Him that we get diverted from following Him. The same is true...