Dr Paul Allen

Do you want to live and speak more boldly for Jesus Christ ? I do. How badly do we want it? Do we want it enough to ask, seek, and knock  until   God answers us and to take risks that press on our timidity? Or, if we’re honest, would we rather just keep wishing we were bolder — admiring bold people, being inspired by biographies about bold people, talking with our friends and small group members about our struggles with fear of man — all the while staying where we feel safe and relatively comfortable and letting fear go unchallenged? My flesh likes the second option with a more flattering description. The Spirit says, “If you want to walk with me, choose the first.” There’s the battle line. “The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” ( Galatians   5:17 ). But in this battle, there’s no stalemate. One side always hol...

“O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.” ( Psalm 98:1 )   The theme of singing is frequently found in the Bible . Probably the first song ever sung was by God ’s angels at the time of creation as God laid the cornerstone of the earth, “when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” ( Job 38:7 ).   There are nine occasions when a “new song” was to be sung by the people of God. The very first, appropriately, was to extol God’s Word and His creation. “Sing unto him a new song; . . . For the word of the LORD  is right,” and then “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made” ( Psalm 33:3-6 ). Then the second new song is placed prophetically on the lips of Christ , representing His thoughts on the cross after His sufferings were finished and He had paid the redemption price for all our sins. “He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, ...

Romans 1:18-32 "Although they knew God , they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened" (v. 21). God has revealed Himself so clearly in the natural order that no person will ever be able to stand before the Creator and claim that there is insufficient evidence that He exists and should be worshiped. We have already seen how the Bible teaches this in texts such as Psalm 19 , and to day's passage makes the point with even greater forcefulness. As Paul says in Romans 1:20 , God's "invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made." Romans 1:18-32 proclaims not only that the Lord has plainly revealed Himself in nature, but it also tells us that there are certain limits to natural revelation. To put it simply, we receive enough truth about God in natural...