The Heidelberg Catechism - The Foundations Of Our Faith

Boa notes that there are several aspects to Christian Spirituality. Being conformed to the image of Christ, the practice of putting to death the deeds of the body, follows these several principles:   These twelve facets will be developed in Conformed to His Image . Relational spirituality . As a communion of three persons, God is a relational being. He is the originator of a personal relationship with us, and our high and holy calling is to respond to his loving initiatives. By loving God completely, we discover who and whose we are as we come to see ourselves as God sees us. In this way, we become secure enough to become others-centered rather than self-centered, and this enables us to become givers rather than grabbers. Paradigm spirituality . This approach to spirituality centers on the radical contrasts between the temporal and eternal value systems and emphasizes the need for a paradigm shift from a cultural to a biblical way of seeing life. Experiencing our mortality can help...

Romans 8:1-17  How to Put to Death the Deeds of the Body Do you remember a few years ago seeing the news item on our TV sets: "Pet Bear Kills Pennsylvania Woman." Named Teddy. This woman had raised the black bear from cubhood. For 9 years, there were no incidents. But then, one day, the bear mauled her. Some of the neighbors acted surprised. One said, "She was a good person--we just thought she just had a strange hobby." I don't doubt she was a good person, but keeping a bear in your house is not just an unusual hobby , like scrapbooking or collecting stamps. I don't care if you name it Teddy . Bears do what bears do, just like sin will do what sin does. There was an old story of the frog and the scorpion. A frog was hopping along the shore of a river looking for a place to cross. He came upon a scorpion sitting on the shore. "Hello, friend frog," said the scorpion. "It appears you are looking to cross the river. I too want to cross. Would you...

The Christian Mind   I learnt from an expert once, always begin a sermon or a book with a good story. If it is humorous, all the better for being memorable. If it is self-revelatory, it may grip the hearer or the reader, and if it provides a summary of the writer's life: well please allow me to give you an insight into my life. Here is a story of a Cornish family, which came to the new land of Australia. Some were convicts, some were builders, none had ever entered the halls of a university.  As a young man newly converted to Christ, I would be the first in our family history to enter a university. During the 70's (that's 1970's) I graduated from High School. And now, not knowing which way to turn, I looked for work. I had missed out on a scholarship to University as my grades were not sufficient. But unexpectedly I was offered a late place at Wollongong Teachers College. I was their last enrolee for that year, as many others had turned down the offer. Hitching a lift t...

24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.   Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,4 so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,7...