When we set out to hear God's voice, we do not listen as though it will come from somewhere above us or in the room around us. It comes to us from within, from the heart, the dwelling place of God. Now, most of us haven't been trained in...
READ MOREGod has a battle to fight, and the battle is for our freedom. As Tremper Longman says, "Virtually every book of the Bible — Old and New Testaments — and almost every page tells us about God's warring activity." I wonder if the Egyptians who kept...
READ MOREWhen we hear the phrase “trust totally in God,” most of us probably sigh, hearing it as one more requirement that we have never been able to live up to. But what if we were to listen to our hearts, and hear it as a need to faint, a need to lay...
READ MOREIn the short book of Philippians—only four chapters long—Paul uses the word joy sixteen times. Paul didn’t write this book during spring break. He wrote it from a prison cell in Rome while he was waiting to be executed. In what should...
READ MOREThe purposes of Jesus Christ are not finished when one of his precious ones is forgiven. Not at all. Would a good father feel satisfied when his daughter is rescued from a car accident, but left in ICU? Doesn’t he want her to be healed as well?...
READ MOREYou have a strength, and it is needed. When a man feels that to be true of him, he rises up and engages like a man. As a boy begins to become a young man, there are some key issues at stake. He needs to know he possesses a genuine strength, and...
READ MORERemember, the purpose of this thing called the Christian life is that our hearts might be restored and set free. That's the deal. That's what Jesus came to do, by his own announcement. Jesus wants Life for us, Life with a capital L, and...
READ MOREWomen are image bearers of God. Women are co-heirs with Christ. Women are valued, worthy, powerful, and needed. There is a reason the Enemy fears women and has poured his hatred onto our very existence. Let him be afraid, then. For “we are hard...
READ MOREWhere is this supposed coming? The current expression of that goes much more cleverly, like this: “But every age has thought that Jesus was about to show up. Even Paul did — and he was wrong. Who knows when it could be; it might take...
READ MOREIn the time of our innocence, we trusted in good because we had not yet known evil. On this side of Eden and our own experience of the Fall
— whatever our own Arrows have been and however the adversary has woven them together into our...
Our Enemy is a thief, and of all the precious things he has stolen from our hearts, his worst act of treachery has been to steal our future from us. He has stolen all the magic and promise and wonder of the happily ever after. Very few of us live...
READ MOREThe more you give the parts of your life over to Jesus, the more his life is able to invade yours. The relief alone is worth the price.
Last night Stasi and I were at a dinner party with friends we love and enjoy. It was one of those...
READ MOREWe're certainly warned about forgetfulness in Scripture, both in word and by example. In the Old Testament, the pattern is so predictable, we come to expect it. God delivers his people from the cruel whips of Egypt by a stunning display of his...
READ MORETeaching is exalted. Church feels like a seminar — could be intellectual, could be motivational. Good content is what matters. Doctrine is fiercely defended. Members can explain to you theories of the atonement, or seven steps to success, but can...
READ MOREIf joy is a fruit of the Spirit (and it is), then we are meant to experience and enjoy it, regardless of our circumstances. Whatever may be swirling around us, the eye of the storm is joy. But how do we get there? The simple answer is we need to...
READ MOREJesus needs to disciple these fishermen, tax collectors, and political revolutionaries who dropped their careers to follow him. I’m not sure we’ve understood the ramifications of his decision. We just think, Oh, yeah, the disciples, and forget...
READ MOREName one thing in the entire created world more precious than a human heart.
It can’t be done.
You might say “love,” but that would be silly because we cannot love without a heart. You might point to some immortal work of art, or...
READ MOREWhen Isaiah promised that the Messiah will come to heal the brokenhearted, he was not speaking poetically. The Bible does use metaphor, as when Jesus says, "I am the gate" (John 10:9). Of course, he is not an actual gate like the kind...
READ MOREMore of God comes to us as we love God. The more that we love God, the more we are able to experience him. Part of this has to do with the nature of God, and part of it has to do with our own human nature.
You understand from your...
Resting in Jesus is not applying a spiritual formula to ourselves as a kind of fix-it. It is the essence of repentance. It is letting our heart tell us where we are in our own story so that Jesus can minister to us out of the Story of his love...
READ MORE