No Excuses
In all likelihood, you’ve made excuses. Maybe lots of them. Some excuses are elaborate and convincing while others seem absurd and laughable. There’s a good chance you’ve even thrown a few excuses toward God. But like any shrewd parent, God isn’t duped by the excuses...
The Kingdom Life
If you are a believer in Christ, then you have most likely faced a scenario where you wanted to follow Christ, but instead you did not. In short, you had a moment of unbelief. Have you ever stopped to think about the importance of what you believe? Everyone has a...
The Nudge to Judge
We’ve all felt its stinging effects. And we’ve all wielded its destructive sword. Judgment. Jesus plainly tells us not to judge others. What does He mean by that? Dig a little deeper into the Scriptures and you’ll discover a strange twist: We’re actually encouraged to...
Beauty in the Clouds
If we choose to cling to God when the clouds roll in, our relationship with him becomes rich. We grow in faith, in wisdom, and in our knowledge of the creator of the universe. It’s not that God is absent during the sunny times – it’s just that his beautiful handiwork doesn’t show up quite as clearly.
Why Worry?
Numerous medical studies make it clear: we’re in the midst of an anxiety epidemic. In other words, a lot of people worry—a lot. And it’s having a dramatic detrimental impact on our health and on our society. Yet it’s been suggested, “we can do nothing better with...
Chased by the Monster of More
You can always count on Jesus to talk about real life kinds of things. That’s why He addresses the possibility that you might feel unsatisfied—always wanting more and more. Like all the challenges Jesus highlights in the Sermon on the Mount, greed reveals a heart...
The Splinter of Sin
In college, I got a splinter in my palm. I removed it, covered the wound with a Band-Aid, and moved on with my busy life. No big deal. But a week later, my hand was swollen and throbbing and I felt feverish. Sin is just like this. We start with something small, like a splinter, thinking it can’t hurt. But we don’t realize it can become embedded, infecting and affecting everything else in our lives.
An Audience of One
Would you agree that what others think about us has a pretty strong effect on how we see ourselves? Then, how we view ourselves determines how we view life, how we will interpret our circumstances and how we interact with everyone around us. The problem is, we usually...
Kill ‘Em With Kindness
We live in a world that tells us that if we get hit, we’ve got to hit back harder. That it’s okay to be disrespectful if we’ve been disrespected. That somehow the right response is to fight fire with fire, return insult for insult, and hurt those who have hurt us. And...
Finding Rest
I’ve struggled in recent weeks with feeling rested. On paper, our summer calendar seemed well-balanced, but in reality, it’s been non-stop. As I’ve juggled visits from out-of-town family and friends, keeping up with gardening and yard work, travel, the kids’ summer schedules and the usual demands of work and home, I’ve felt exhausted.
The Truth About Lying
Lying. As sin goes, it’s not as attention-grabbing as anger or as alluring as lust, but the truth is that it’s a much bigger part of our speech and our character than we’d like to admit. The truth is, we lie – a lot. To deny this is to lie to ourselves. Regardless of...
Our Parts & Our Hearts
Lust is a problem. It’s a problem that is easy to excuse, ignore, and avoid because it’s easy to hide and it makes us feel ashamed. When left unaddressed though, lust can cause terrible damage to us and our relationships. And it seems that no matter what rules we put...
Method to the Madness
In the sermon on the mount, Jesus teaches us how to live a life that is characterized by love, hope and peace. But in order to live that kind of life, we have to identify and deal with the challenges in our lives. Sometimes that is difficult because, if we’re honest,...
Everyone Is Invited
Some people imagine God as someone He is not—a stodgy and vindictive overseer who wants nothing to do with them. If God is like that you might want to hide or withdraw or pretend He is not even there. You might even feel passed over by God, insignificant or ashamed....
The Purpose of Prayer
Our prayer life should be a balance of prayer and praise: an ongoing, intricate dance. I’d even venture to say that it should be unbalanced – with more emphasis on praise. Prayer is communion with God – a way for us to draw close to Him; to seek His will for our lives and to honor and glorify Him.
The World You Can’t See
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What in the World Are You Doing?
Consider this exciting and sobering reality: You have one life to live. None of us sets about to waste the time we have on this earth. But unless we’re intentional about the way we live for God, we can easily live a distracted and unproductive life. Maybe it’s time...
Planting Good Seeds
Beets have a long growing season: spring, summer, and fall. The seeds are pretty big, so they don’t get easily lost during planting. When you first put those seeds in the ground, it just looks like….dirt. It would be easy to forget there’s anything there. But with patience (and water), soon you’ll see the tiny leaves poking up, and in a few weeks you can harvest your first crop of beets.
Playing to Win
The goal of playing like a team is bigger than just playing together. You’re playing to win. All the hard work of practicing the fundamentals positions you to experience victory in the game. Teamwork within the body of Christ is an awesome experience that is...
Playing Like a Team
One of the basic fundamentals of a team sport is that you play like a team. The likelihood of victory increases when each team member works together to contribute the very best possible. Nowhere is teamwork more essential than in the body of Christ. Because we’re on...
Weed Creep
Left unchecked, the wild berry plants have run rampant – until today, when I spent half the afternoon pulling them out. It was tedious work – they look a lot like real strawberries and the plants were intertwined, requiring careful extraction. But I’m hoping my diligence will pay off and allow my berries to thrive. I’ve seen weed creep in my spiritual life too.
Finding Financial Breathing Room
A life without margin can squeeze the life out of you. Margin creates space to enjoy life in every area. That even includes finding financial breathing room. Financial margin is the space between what you spend and what you have. Margin with your money gives you...
Choosing Moral Boundaries
Life without margin can be exhausting and even dangerous, especially when you live without moral boundaries. When you set moral boundaries you create space that discourages unwise or sinful decisions. A simple commitment to a self-imposed moral margin positions you to...
Creating Slack in Your Schedule
Take an informal survey and you’ll find that most people admit to being too busy. Seems like there’s barely enough room in our schedules to find time for the things that matter most. Without margin in our daily routine, we will at best become exhausted and at worse...
God Is Near
God comes near to the brokenhearted. Like a mother soothing the cries of her child, God sees and hears and cares when we hurt. God is near, but it still hurts. And we still suffer.
It’s All About Him
Honestly, I realize that my own happiness and satisfaction seems to be what sometimes motivates me. But as believers, we know that is not true. We know that it is all about God! We know how our story, how all of history, ends up. We know that one day, “at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2: 10,11) We pray for this day to come. Knowing this end gives us peace in the midst of turmoil and fear and unrest.
Closing in Prayer
When it comes to Jesus, one thing was certain: He prayed a lot. As Jesus approaches His soon and certain death, He concludes His intimate conversation with His disciples by praying. As He talks to the Father, He prays for Himself, for the disciples and for all who...
Astonished or Afraid?
My Lent reading plan has me hanging out in the book of Mark in preparation for Easter. If the book of John is a love story, Mark is an action thriller, with snappy dialogue and vivid adverbs. I can easily picture myself in the midst of the throng, waiting for Jesus’ next miracle and hanging onto his every word.
Joy Through Sorrow
We can have joy in our lives that is indestructible. Who wouldn’t want that? But how do we get it? We look to many different sources for joy; we make plans and develop expectations that we believe will give us happy lives. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not...
Remember
God knows our thoughts, and hears every prayer, even the ones uttered in complete desperation and incomplete sentences. He knows what we need before we even ask. So why do we need to tell Him? Prayer is less about informing God, and more about arming ourselves. Priscilla Shirer says, “In prayer you gain your strength – the power to gird yourself with armor that extinguishes every weapon your enemy wields. It’s how you tap into the power of heaven and watch it reverberate in your experiences.”