Posts tagged 'heart of it all'

  • The Heart of It All: The Holy Spirit

    The Gifts of the Spirit, Part 2

    This article is a continuation of the brief explanations of the various gifts of the Spirit which began in Part 1.

    Distinguishing Between Spirits

    Distinguishing between ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Holy Spirit

    The Gifts of the Spirit, Part 1

    Throughout the Gospels we read about Jesus’ life and ministry being empowered by the Holy Spirit. It was after His baptism in the Jordan River by John, when the heavens opened and the Spirit ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Holy Spirit

    The Holy Spirit Working in Our Lives

    The Holy Spirit, manifested in the first disciples on the day of Pentecost and given to believers ever since, is a fulfillment of the prophecy from the book of Joel, ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Holy Spirit

    The Holy Spirit and History

    In the previous article, we read various accounts from the book of Acts describing how the Holy Spirit came upon believers. In some instances, the Spirit was given at the same time that the person first believed. ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Holy Spirit

    The Holy Spirit and the Primitive Church

    In the first two articles in this series, we looked at how the Holy Spirit came upon certain individuals for specific purposes within the Old Testament ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Holy Spirit

    The Holy Spirit and the Messiah

    In the previous article, we saw how the Spirit of the Lord was manifested in the Old Testament. God’s Spirit moved in the lives of specific individuals, ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Holy Spirit

    The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament

    As discussed in an earlier article, the Holy Spirit is one of the Persons of the Trinity, and this Person is equally God along with the Father and the Son, Jesus. ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Salvation

    Predestination?

    In the previous article, I wrote about the different views within Protestantism regarding the assurance of salvation or the possibility of losing one’s salvation. There is another notable ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Salvation

    Eternal Salvation

    While all Christians believe that Jesus died for our sins and we are saved through the sacrifice of His death on the cross, there are some differences in belief among different denominations as to whether ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Salvation

    Results—Justification, Adoption, and Regeneration

    In the previous articles about salvation, we have looked at four concepts that illustrate how God’s plan of redemption works—how it reconciles us with God ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Salvation

    Substitutionary Sacrifice and Reconciliation

    In the last article we covered propitiation and redemption (ransom), two of the four scriptural concepts that help us to understand how Jesus’ death saves ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Salvation

    Propitiation and Redemption

    In the previous article we saw that God’s plan for the redemption of humans was set in place before the creation of humanity, and that it was rooted in His love, mercy, and grace, ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Salvation

    God’s Plan

    The core teaching of the New Testament can be found in one of the most beautiful verses of Scripture:

    For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Sin

    Are There Degrees of Sin?

    We have seen that through both “original sin” as well as the actual sins we commit, our “legal” standing with God is affected. Every sin we commit is an offense against His holiness; no matter how minor ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Sin

    Effects of Sin

    As human beings with sinful natures who universally sin, we all suffer the effects of sin. Sin affects our “legal” standing with God, in that we stand “guilty” before Him. It also affects our relationship with Him, ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Sin

    Humanity’s Sinful Nature

    We’ve discussed earlier that Scripture teaches that all humans sin and that sin is universal. The Bible speaks of humans being sinful from birth, which would indicate that humans are born ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Sin

    The Origin of Sin in the World

    The previous article on the topic of sin affirmed that sin first entered creation in the angelic or spiritual world, when the fallen angels sinned. The Bible explains the entrance of sin into the physical world ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Sin

    What Is Sin?

    This set of articles is going to address the topic of sin. It will cover the definitions of sin, the origins of sin and its effects on humanity and the world, and will touch on God’s plan for redemption from sin. ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Humanity

    Why Humans?

    In these articles about humanity, we have seen that God created unique beings on this earth—beings that were made in His image and likeness. We’ve seen that human beings have many ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Humanity

    Material and Immaterial

    The Bible teaches that human beings consist of a material element and an immaterial element that together form the unity of a human being. The material element (the body) and the immaterial element ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Humanity

    Made in the Image and Likeness of God (Part 2)

    The previous article described the change that came about when sin entered humanity, the degradation of the image and likeness of God in humanity. Nevertheless, ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Humanity

    Made in the Image and Likeness of God (Part 1)

    God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” … So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him. As the verses quoted above state, ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Humanity

    The Creation of Man as Male and Female

    In the account of creation in Genesis chapter 1, human beings were the last things created. The universe and everything in it—the sun, moon, stars, planets, oceans, ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    Conclusion

    When looking at God’s nature and character, we can see that God has many attributes, and these attributes are who He is. It’s not as if God is partly righteous ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Omnipotence

    God, who created all things out of nothing, known as creation ex nihilo, is all-powerful. The traditional word for God’s infinite power is omnipotence, which comes from ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Omnipresence

    When God created the universe and the world within it, He created matter, energy, time, and space. The world we live in is a three-dimensional material world, and we are limited ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Omniscience (Part 2)

    In the previous article, God’s omniscience—including His self-knowledge; His knowledge of everything past, present, and future; and His hypothetical or middle knowledge ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Omniscience (Part 1)

    Because God is the infinite and supreme Being, His knowledge is unlimited. He knows absolutely everything. The common theological terminology ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Immutability

    The immutability of God—or His unchangeableness or constancy, as some theologians call it—is part of His divine nature. It means that God doesn’t change in His Being, ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Eternality

    God’s eternality is another aspect of His essential nature. God is eternal; He existed before the creation of the universe, and thus before time was created. ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Self-Existence—His Aseity

    The first verse of the Bible, along with others, teaches that before the creation of the heavens and the earth, God existed. ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Love

    In earlier articles I’ve written about different attributes of God, including holiness, righteousness, justice, wrath, mercy, patience, and grace. Now we move on ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Wrath

    We have seen in earlier articles in this series that God’s nature and character includes His perfect holiness, righteousness, and justice. God’s wrath, or anger, ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    Patience, Mercy, and Grace (Part 2)

    God’s mercy can be understood as God’s love and goodness toward those in misery and distress, those in need—even if they don’t deserve it. ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    Patience, Mercy, and Grace (Part 1)

    Besides being holy, righteous, and just, God is also by nature and character patient, merciful, and gracious. In the Old Testament ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Righteousness and Justice

    An attribute of God which is closely connected to His holiness is His righteousness—which means uprightness, goodness, virtue, ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God’s Holiness

    God possesses a different mode of being than all other beings. Only He is uncreated and infinite; everything else is created and finite, so He is different from ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    God Is Spirit

    In John chapter 4, when Jesus was speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, He told her: God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    The Living and Personal God

    In this series of articles, we are looking at a number of aspects of God’s nature, being, and character. We’ll start with looking at how God is alive and God is personal, ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Nature and …

    Overview

    In the “Trinity” section of this series, we explored the three Persons of the triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We reviewed the nature of the Trinity ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Incarnation (Part …

    In the previous article we looked at how the church fathers in the first seven centuries worked through the doctrine of the Incarnation. We saw various teachings which attempted to explain the “mechanics” of how ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Incarnation (Part …

    The quest to theologically define the person of Jesus and His human and divine natures mainly occurred in two time periods: firstly, in the fourth and fifth centuries, and then secondly in the nineteenth and twentieth. ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Incarnation (Part …

    In the articles titled “The God-Man” and “The Trinity” we explored the biblical truth of Jesus’ deity—that He is truly God. In “The Incarnation” articles we will delve into the biblical explanation of Jesus’ humanity ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Trinity (Part …

    As we’ve seen in part 1 and part 2 of the doctrine of the Trinity, it is not a simple doctrine to understand; some parts of it are incomprehensible to our natural reasoning, and as such, it is a mystery. ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Trinity (Part …

    In part 1 of The Heart of It All: The Trinity, we saw that God is a tri-personal Being, consisting of three distinct persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—that each is fully God and that each ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The Trinity (Part …

    In the first two articles of The Heart of It All series we saw that the New Testament reveals the deity of Jesus, that Jesus is God. In reading the verses quoted in those sections, it’s clear that besides Jesus ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The God-Man (Part …

    In the first part of The God-Man, we covered some of the things that Jesus said and did that affirmed His deity. His disciples, those who lived and worked with Him for the years of His public ministry ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: The God-Man (Part …

    The heart of our faith as Christians rests on the answer to one simple but extremely crucial question: Who is Jesus? In order to understand our faith, to understand the story of Jesus and what His life was about ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam

  • The Heart of It All: Introduction

    Something that I find particularly wonderful about Jesus is that His life-transforming gift of salvation is freely given to anyone who simply asks for it with a sincere and believing heart. One’s level of understanding ...

    (Audio included.)

    by Peter Amsterdam