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I was not speaking literally. As you point out, angels are not biological humans. “Twins” simply means an equal opposite in this case.

Like anything, our imaginations can be used for good or for bad. Randy also writes, “The acid test of using our imaginations is whether doing so brings us back to the present world content and committed to deal positively with our circumstances. It should leave us refreshed and ready to better face the rest of our day.”

By putting God first and His creation second, the world and its beauties become instruments of joy and worship. We love them better when we love God more than them.

I think we underestimate just how much of our lives here is from the hand of God in the first place. The life that we now know and the things we enjoy so much—the parts untainted by sin—we would naturally expect to have carried over, including distinctive personalities.

I love this article by Greg Morse, staff writer for Desiring God. How easy it is to fall into a Christian life of drudgery where we wearily put one foot in front of another, thinking, “I’m going to try my best to live for Jesus,” all the while neglecting to actually focus on Him.

Deliberately and unceasingly, the tide of God’s grace brings us wave after wave of God’s goodness. The next wave crashes onto the beach before the previous wave is diminished. God’s grace is constant, but it isn’t stationary. It keeps moving toward us day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. It’s always there when we need it—and there’s never a moment we don’t. 

Our thankfulness glorifies God and makes Him happy: “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me” (Psalm 50:23). Puritan John Boys echoed the sentiment of the psalmist: “As the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, so likewise a cheerful thanksgiver.” But God isn’t the only one affected when we give thanks.

Over thirty years ago, while researching and writing my first book Christians in the Wake of the Sexual Revolution (later revised as Restoring Sexual Sanity), I realized what a prominent and distinctive earmark of the early church its sexual purity really was. Christians were known to be Christians partly because they thought and lived differently when it came to sex.

Nancy Guthrie has written many books over the years, including What Grieving People Wish You Knew about What Really Helps (and What Really Hurts), which one of our staff read and recommended to me. I always love Nancy’s writings, but this book is just really good. Here are some quotes from it.

Paul made it clear that it’s possible to give sacrificially without being motivated by love: “If I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3, CSB). That means it’s not just generosity that’s the good life; it’s generosity that flows out of love.

In 1 Corinthians 1:24, Paul calls Christ “the wisdom of God.” Jesus referred to Himself as “wisdom” when He said, “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds” (Matthew 11:19).

This issue includes: Biblical Hope is a Solid Certainty by Randy Alcorn, Questions Sent to EPM, Meet the Resurrected You by Randy Alcorn, When a Beloved Pastor Fails by Hannah De Cleene, and more. 

Being happy in God and living righteously tastes far better for far longer than sin does. When my hunger and thirst for joy is satisfied by Christ, sin becomes unattractive. I say no to immorality not because I hate pleasure but because I want the enduring pleasure found in Christ.

Some Christians “hear God” when He is not speaking, and many of us fail to hear Him when He is—and sometimes we manage to do both at the same time.