Past Them, through Them, over Them, around Them
God has placed his richest blessings within our deepest wounds.
As we entrust our sorrows to him, we find that he has first entrusted them to us. He has assigned to us these sorrows so we can in turn consecrate them to him. He means for us to faithfully steward them, confident that they will guide us into deeper submission to his purposes and deeper... Continue Reading
10 Ways to Fracture Your Church
Church is a place to love others and to be loved, to give and take.
To arrest a possible breakup, you need to talk about the threat before the root of bitterness grows. Deal with it quickly. Like cancer, it must be handled as soon as it is discovered because any delay only allows the cancer to grow. Jesus’s Prayer for the Church Toward the end of Jesus’s life... Continue Reading
An Army of the Ordinary
You and I can make a difference.
Keep working for the Lord…You and I may be just very ordinary people. But we can do some extraordinary things with the help of our Lord. We might just be ordinary, but our God certainly is not. The longer you are a Christian, the less you speak about “coincidence” and the more you speak... Continue Reading
Where Does Your Help Come From? (Psalm 121)
Jesus is the helper of his people now and for eternity.
[God’s] got you now, present tense. But he’s got you in the future too. He will keep you from evil. He will keep your life. He will keep your going out and coming in not just now but into eternity. It’s not just a promise for this life but for all time. God has promised good to his people throughout... Continue Reading
Churchill Wasn’t the Bad Guy
Deconstructing everything leads to false history.
Because Churchill insisted on fighting, Cooper [popular historian] suggested, he is the real villain of the war. Churchill, he said, wanted war to make up for his part in the disaster at Gallipoli in World War I. Though nothing in Churchill’s writings suggests this, Hitler clearly articulated his intentions and, despite what Cooper claimed, it was not to pursue... Continue Reading
Men Lead by Singing
Men who sing the faith with their families are preparing them for a life of work, warfare, and worship.
At the end of life, when he is no longer able to sing, the man who has led his family in song will have a rich repertoire at hand and will have prepared himself well for the eternal song of the saints of God in heaven. Singing is a manly and powerful means of... Continue Reading
Politics, Conscience, and the Church: The Why, What, and How of Political Disagreement
All Christians care about justice, but we don’t always agree about how to identify injustice and how to right those wrongs.
While Christians may not like the alternatives, voting for a party that celebrates murder in the womb, transgenderism, and a host of other sexual deviancies is at best exceedingly unwise and at worst sinful. Christians live as dual citizens of an earthly nation and the heavenly kingdom. To paraphrase Aristotle, politics is the science... Continue Reading
Devotion Begets Devotion: Encountering God in the Bible
God works on our hearts as we read the Bible. He meets with us and entices us to return and meet with him again.
God reveals himself to us in the pages of this holy book. To the novice and the expert, to the young and the old, God offers himself to those who would take up and read. The force of gravity that one object exerts on another depends on a few factors: the mass of each... Continue Reading
The Temptation of Self-Trust
My self is no more an unconquerable deity than was Baal or Zeus or Artemis of the Ephesians, no more able to help me, and no more worthy of worship.
There is the temptation to trust our own wisdom. Proverbs warns us: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (3:5–8). To believe that our own wisdom is sufficient to guide us not only is foolish but is the essence of sin. That belief led the first... Continue Reading
Retiring from the Game
If you’re young and think that retirement is too far down the road to contemplate, don’t be fooled.
If I’m unwilling to do the work, then it’s time to retire. I see too many pastors who want the paycheck, prestige, and honor, but are in cruise-control and are phoning in their sermons and counseling sessions. These are just some of the things I presently take into consideration as I think about what things... Continue Reading
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