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Grace Thru Faith has been such a blessing to me and I gain so much information from your knowledge of the scriptures. I have a question that has been bothering me for some time now. There are several people close to where I live who have not had a job in years and live on SSI. I am retired and live on SS and have cut expenses as much as possible but I still tithe. From time to time, one of these people will come to me and ask to ‘borrow’ money. I’m not a stingy person but when these people come to me for money, I feel like they think I’m a soft touch and I feel like I’m being used. Getting the ‘loan’ paid back isn’t the issue. I realize that our Lord wants us to be generous but when does being generous become being used?

James 2: 1-13 appears to be an admonition primarily against showing partiality to the rich in any given church. Is there also an underlying principle implied not to show partiality or favoritism in any way, shape or form towards anyone in the Body for any reason (not just the wealthy)?

The leader of a Bible study I attend uses Listening Prayer exercises in our homework and in her presentations. I have had some major breakthroughs using this form of prayer and feel like I finally have a real two-way relationship with God by listening to Him at the end of my prayer. I ask Him to let me hear only His voice. I have tried to research Listening Prayer, but can’t find much about it. Is it a false teaching?

The Word says, “Be ye filled with the Spirit” and “walk in the Spirit.” So I’m not sure what it means in Matthew 5, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Can you enlighten me?

Matthew 5:3 says “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” This almost indicates those poor in spirit will go to Heaven while I have always believed to go to Heaven you must accept Christ as your savior which would indicate one must have spirit.

For the past 9 years my emotional, mental & physical health has been suffering from all of the stress & losses I have suffered. I stopped going to church & went cold toward God because of the pain, anguish & grief I have suffered for so long. My heart is broken. I have been having serious doubts that God even exists as I heard only silence when I reached out to God over & over for intervention & healing. I have thrown myself into the Word, reading many good Christian books & have sought counsel from friends & a Christian counselor for the past 6 months. I can’t even find a mustard seed of faith. I have doubts all day long about if God even exists. I don’t know what else to do. I don’t want to ever give up but it is such a difficult struggle. Is there anything you can suggest beyond what I am doing now? I have been filled with anger & rebellion toward God as to why he did not help me. Any help you can give me would be so appreciated. I am running out of hope!

I know that Jesus’ death on the cross paid the price for all of my past, present, and future sins. And I know that nothing I have done or ever can do could help me earn my salvation. It’s already been done by Jesus. My question though is this: Does God get angry or upset with us believers for things we do or times of doubt? I know all I need is to repent/ask forgiveness but I still wonder if we do things that make him mad and want to discipline us the way a loving dad would their own son?

My sister lost a baby girl through crib death over forty years ago, and still the pain persists. She has often asked me why God took her daughter. I have to admit that I don’t know, even though I know my niece is with our Father in Heaven. For all these years, my sister has been very angry with God about this. How do I answer her question without getting into an argument?

For the past twenty years I have worked in a factory. I have been wanting to change my career but I don’t know where to start. I decided to find out what my Spiritual gifts are and see if there is something professionally I can do with them. The results from online tests I took indicates showed me to be gifted as a teacher who also has the gift of discernment. What can I do with these gifts which God has given me to provide for my family at the same time glorifying God? I have been praying and am simply waiting for an answer; for a door to open. What wisdom can you give me in this situation?

I’m trying to help a friend who is having this issue – He and his dad have had a rocky relationship in the past, he has forgiven his dad for past events but his dad keeps talking about the past to sort of joke about the negative events. It seems that this is how his dad deals with the past but it hurts my friend very much having to relive these things.

He’s afraid to saying anything to his dad because he’s feels like it could re-injure their relationship, in fact, he is frightened of his own temper and is afraid that it could escalate into a huge fight. So he’s stuck in a place where he doesn’t want to lie but can’t bring himself to tell his dad that these discussions are hurting him, so he usually acts as though he can’t recall the event.

I told him to seek the Lord’s help through prayer and that I would pray for him too but he also asked if there were any scriptures I could point to for help. Any suggestions?

I have been a believer for 27 years. Something has been on my mind for a long time and have never had the guts to ask. But here goes. In the case of rape, murder, abuse, etc. it seems God sometimes intervenes and sometimes He doesn’t. I know God loves both the victim and the criminal with a love we can never understand this side of eternity. Can you please help me understand why it’s OK for Him to stop attacks like this sometimes and not others?

My question is related to eternal security. In one of your responses, I read that when we are saved, it’s for eternity and there is no way we can be “unsaved”. However, several passages in the Bible warn against falling off or having to “work out our salvation” (Philippians 2:12), or “save ourselves through continuing in the doctrine” (1 Timothy 4:16), or loosing the reward (2 John 1:8), even the book of Revelations mentions “taking away the part from the book of life” (Revelations 22:19).

These passages and many others show that one may loose his reward if he falls off. As a saved person, I will still sin because of my human nature. However in 1 John 3:9, the apostle says that whoever is born of God does not sin and cannot sin. This is a bit confusing too. Suppose after I am saved, I sin and die before confessing my sins committed before I die, what will happen? Will I loose my reward?

Thank you so very much for your wonderful bible teachings. I have been extremely blessed by them. I have found in my own bible studies and extra biblical books a very distressing interpretation of judgment about crowns/rewards at The Bema seat of Christ. One book by a popular writer quotes 2 John 8 “Watch yourselves that you do not lose what you have accomplished.” It goes on to explain that many Christians who have served the Lord for many years, will lose their rewards and crowns which they have already earned if they backslide into temptations of carnality, sensuality, or other temptations of the flesh.

Am I wrong in understanding every time we sin, we are forgiven but our rewards are taken away? I am heartsick to think anything I might have earned in the way of rewards was lost because of a sin (no matter how big or small) even though the sin was confessed.

Please help me to understand this because I want to serve the Lord in Heaven based on my rewards, and I want to please him, but if every time I get angry at my husband or adult children, or think a bad thought or bad attitude (though confessed and forgiven) I have to start all over again and that takes the joy out of serving the Lord. Is there something wrong with my thought process?

Thank you for your awesome website. I have recently been baptized, when I was prayed for the lady praying for me had a prophetic word. She said I would stand tall like the trees of Lebanon. I’m not really sure what that means. Is there any scripture in the Bible about this topic?

I am having hard time getting perspective on the death of my mom. I had become her care giver and we fought a good fight together. She overcame much and was a best friend and guide. She was not perfect and there were still issues between us, but she was a deep part of my life. I took care of her for the last 15 years. I even saved her life on many occasions.

In October, she suddenly fell very ill- i had a bad feeling about it. She became confused, weak and had to go on oxygen. I then spent 3 months and innumerable visits to doctors, specialists and the nursing home to try to get answers as to what was wrong with my mom. I never did get that answer, in fact the week before she died, the doctor told me that she was fine and why did our family insist on getting her into the hospital.

The nursing was as good as possible, but they kept calling me telling me something was bad wrong and the doc was not doing anything. I did not know who to believe. Mom kept failing. It was horrible.

Finally after being told she was in congestive heart failure after those 3 months, mom lasted another week and after a good visit having no idea she was dying, she peacefully went on a few days later, but i did not get to see her or be with her again. I am having a hard time forgiving the horror of these last months and the pain the docs put me through. Can you help me with some perspective?

I am struggling very much with the concept of forgiveness and anger. This ongoing struggle has caused me great pain for several years. I know that God commands us to forgive others as we have been forgiven. Even so, I am having a hard time forgiving a family member who betrayed my trust and stole a large sum of money that she’s unable to pay back. I am unsure how to reconcile my emotional response of anger vs. my logical desire to forgive. Is it possible to forgive her while remaining angry?

Other than Jabez (1 Chronicles 4:9-10) Can you give me scriptural evidence of anyone in the Word of God asking for financial prosperity? Is it not God who chooses to bless us as long as we remain in Him and and seek His Kingdom and His righteousness. I believe prosperity is a by-product or benefit of a relationship with God not the center piece of it. I believe God wants us to ask Him for a humble heart. Look at King Solomon. He asked for wisdom! Every time we see someone getting blessed it is because God did the blessing out of His Love, not because the “blessee” asked for it.

I am very concerned that getting angry at God, telling Him off, and tearing the Bible means God will never forgive me. I have since seen the error of my way and even when I thought I had been doing God’s will before this incident, I was wrong. I had been baptized before all this happened. Will God forgive me now?

Could you clarify for me the difference between the Roman Centurion who asks Jesus once to heal his servant, and why we are told to pray unceasingly as the widow petitioned the judge? I believe that I only need to ask God once for something, then I can leave the matter with him. Am I taking the easy way out?

In one of your commentaries on the Psalms you wrote this about the Jews: “Much of this will come from the realization that God will have just intervened in a battle where they were on the brink of defeat and given them a resounding victory.” My first question is : could this statement become a truth, a reality in a Christian believer’s life too? I mean, when we face seemingly insolvable problems, troubles and hardships. And what can we do? Only asking the Lord to intervene in the mentioned way is enough or there are conditions?

I have read here and there in a few of your answers (the most recent is: Am I wrong to be angry?) that we can ask God to forgive another’s sin. Could you tell me where that is in the Bible? I find it hard to comprehend that I can ask God and He will forgive another’s sin even though that person has not repented. What if they are not a believer? Can I still ask and how does that work?

I recently received a Daily Devotion from a Christian website, which began as follows: “Do we fully understand what it costs the kingdom of God when we live with a restricted commitment to Christ? Countless souls may never hear the good news, much-needed Christian workers may never put feet to their faith, and prayers that would have been answered are never uttered.”

This statement disturbed me, because it seems to imply that our shortcomings can somehow prevent God’s Will from being done in the lives of others. I can understand how our decisions directly effect our own lives, but if we fail to witness to someone, for example, does this mean that they will never hear the Good News and in effect, we are hindering their salvation? Thank you for bringing clarity to issues like this that are not always so easy to understand.