I will never forget the middle school volunteer who was so amazed that God could use him in ministry that he couldn’t sleep. He jumped out of bed at 3a and drove to my house and taped a note on my windshield. “I just can’t believe that God would use a 50 year old engineer to help change the lives of these middle school students.”
During the Lent season, it's tradition to take Sunday as a celebration day.
You know that guy who stands on the street corner with the sign, “Repent! For the kingdom of God is near!”? The message is ominous and, worse, that guy gives people this odd idea that repentance is transactional. Give up your bad behavior to get the good stuff God offers!
It’s not “What Would Jesus Do?” that fuels obedience, it’s “Look What Jesus Did!” Our obedience flows from our satisfaction in Jesus.
We are commanded in Scripture to take captive every thought we have and make it obedient to Christ. When we find ourselves lacking peace, it is a good practice to consider what we are thinking about and to filter it through the truth in God’s Word.
The essence of Christian love is this: the overflow of your joy in God gladly meets the needs of another. As you treasure God’s love for you, that satisfaction will spill out to pursue the joy of others, even when it’s costly or requires self-denial.
There are many times that I just don’t understand what God is doing in my life. Why does he allow certain things to happen, or why doesn’t he resolve things that I think need to be resolved?
Have you ever found yourself in a place where you have followed a news story or consumed a lot of social media and suddenly you’re all worked up over some issue? Have you ever gotten to the point where you’ve lost sleep over what you’ve watched or read? I think we can all get to a point where, if we’re not careful, we can lose perspective, even to the point of thinking that the world would be a better place if we just share our unique set of opinions!
During the Lent season, it's tradition to take Sunday as a celebration day.
God is focused on our redemption, restoration, and eternal position with him. The knowledge that God is alive and is always working for our good because he loves us should bring us hope. We can trust him.
Lent is the journey of following after Christ. As the fisherman left their nets to follow him, so our fasting is leaving behind our comfort, what we’re used to, to follow after him. Yet his journey was one of death. In the same way, our journey with him is an abandonment of ourselves, dying to our desires for a comfortable life that keeps God merely as our co-pilot.
We all know the damage words can do, and yet people and things can also live because of something that is said. Tongues can own sin, reconcile people, and pursue peace. They can make marriages sweet, families strong, and churches healthy. They can give hope to those in despair, advance understanding, and share the grace that we’ve found in Jesus.
How do we fight the monster of anxiety? Can we ever begin to quiet its ever present snarls? Is it possible to peel off its claws and find calm and confidence in the middle of chaos? Jesus says yes! And surprisingly enough, he commands it!
How much is too much? In the West it’s hard to know because overabundance is the norm. The ancient Christians thought overindulging was a deep vice, a habitual hidden sin in the heart. They called it gluttony and its meaning was “to gulp down.”
I chose to write on envy because it likes to rear its ugly head in my life. How subtly - and not so subtly! - it sneaks in! Envy has an element of desire, but that desire is connected to resentment.
During the Lent season, it's tradition to take Sunday as a celebration day.
While genuine rest is refreshing and work well done is a joy, being lazy is deeply unsatisfying. You and I were created to be productive and creative so anything less will leave us empty.
It feels so gratifying in the moment to give full vent to our anger, especially when we have clearly been wronged. We are predisposed to justify and to blame. It is against our nature to be humble and admit failure, even in part. So we get angry.
Everyone deals with pride, and that may be leading us to confess it more readily but only in the most general of terms. What we seem to lack is a willingness to interrogate our hearts, especially when we’ve sinned, to see where pride lurks.
Satan is so uncreative. In fact, he has no power to create anything new. His power is only to take what is already created for good and find a way to distort it for evil. Lust is like that. Sexual desire in a God-ordained context is good, purposeful, fulfilling, and without compromise. Lust is Satan’s attempt to corrupt what God created.
