Pathlight Studies

Have you ever felt like a victim? Like circumstances were beyond your control, and you never really stood a chance? Perhaps you have been a victim at some time in your life, a victim of an accident, or a crime, or neglect, or of some form of abuse. Very few of us have not, at some point, been a victim of something, or someone. These experiences leave us with mental, and sometimes physical, scars which we carry with us. The wounds may heal, but the scars remain. How do we move beyond these tragic events in our life, and more importantly, what happens when we don't? We can't begin to address all the ways in which someone can become a victim, nor will we attempt to. What we will attempt to do is find a way in which we can come to terms with the things which have happened to us, and to free ourselves from the "victim mentality" that causes us to place blame, and to make excuses for our own behavior. When we internalize the negative occurrences in our lives, we give them...

We're going to take a look at the concept of hope, what it means to have hope, and what it means to lose hope. We'll examine its importance, which we can't even begin to measure in any real sense, because without it, we have nothing. We'll look at where hope originates from, how we can nurture it, and how we can hold on to it in a world that increasingly seeks to diminish it, and to take it away from us.  There is an undeniable and unbreakable bond between hope and faith. In fact, it is not at all unreasonable to assert that we cannot have one without the other. If we have faith in God, and in what He has done and will do, for us, then we have a hope that the world cannot take away. If we have hope for the future, real hope, we know that it stems from faith in God and in His control of all things. So, we see that hope and faith are intertwined. They are in no way mutually exclusive, that is to say, you cannot have faith without at the same time having hope, and you ca...

We're going to take a look at the Communion, what it means to be a part of it, its significance, and its overall importance in the life of the believer. We will look at several instances throughout the New Testament where it is referenced, first at its institution, and then at the ways in which it was used, and misused, in the first-century church, and how we, as followers of Christ, are to use it today. We'll begin with the institution of the Communion, the very night in which Jesus was betrayed. We read in Matthew 26:26-28..." And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. "  Jesus told his disciples in John 6:35..." I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; a...

Have you ever felt as though you were under attack? Like you were at war with forces beyond your control?  Those of us who love God, and who would strive to keep His commandments, to do His will, who would try to live in a way which would be pleasing to Him, are under constant attack. Many times, the onslaught is straightforward, blatant, and even blasphemous, in its heinous barrage on our senses, on the very fiber of our faith and on its origins. We are bombarded on every turn with unabashed and shameless sin, paraded before us in an ever more flagrant nature, almost flaunted, in front of us. The values that we as Christians hold dear, and cling to, are being minimized, ridiculed, and pushed aside. Television, the internet, society in general, are almost mocking Christianity in the ways in which sin is portrayed as the norm, and accepted, and dare not be spoken out against for fear of "offending someone" or "appearing to be intolerant". But more often than not, ...

We're going to take a look at an oft-quoted parable which Jesus spoke to the scribes and Pharisees in Luke 15:11-32, the parable of the prodigal son. We will begin by reading the parable, and then we'll endeavor to take a closer look at its meanings, and how we can apply them to our lives. So, we'll begin with verse 11..." And he said, A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had wasted all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would have fain filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when...

We're going to take a look at a simple concept, one whose underlying value sometimes goes overlooked, but its importance cannot be overstated. " Be Still ." These two simple words were spoken multiple times in the Old Testament, as well as the New, to different people for different reasons, and they apply to us today just as much as they did back then. We'll look at a few times where this phrase was used, and how we can then make application of it in our own lives.  Many times, we read the accounts of the battles of the children of Israel, or the life of David, or Abraham, or any other of the countless accounts of the Old Testament, and we feel that these are simply part of historical record, but this is not the case. We were meant to learn from these writings, from these people. These situations, as well as God's response to them, are just as applicable to us today as they were to the forefathers. Paul affirms this in Romans 15:4..." For whatsoever things we...