Should I have given up real estate because there may have been a few better real estate agents than me? No, I should have fulfilled the place I had, giving excellent service, along with my wife, and help the people we helped.   There will always be people smarter and more talented than me. I... Continue Reading

I can barely bring myself to picture Mary as she stood before the cross, but I love to picture Mary just a short time later. Her grief must have been intense in the day that elapsed between what we now call Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Her senses must have been overwhelmed, her body exhausted... Continue Reading

Those who, by grace alone, have “seen” the “face” of Jesus Christ by faith, are so-enrapt by this visage that they earnestly and sincerely *want* to meet with their God every day.  In fact, this fellowship with The Holy Trinity becomes *so* special to them, that nothing else can replace it/replicate it/or (even) compete with... Continue Reading

You take your ordinariness, your ‘nothing special,’ and you give it wholly to God for Him to use as He wills. There is nothing in you of value in itself, and yet you may set yourself apart and place yourself entirely in His hands. If the mercies of God are the reason we respond, what... Continue Reading

I have marked the words “ordinary” and “insignificant” because it is clear from the records that this is not how Jesus regarded such people. Again and again he gave them his attention. He listened to them. He helped them. Mind you, my category of powerless and low-status people is problematic. Jesus was not a social... Continue Reading

In Matthew 9, Jesus was busy traveling throughout the region, teaching, preaching, and healing everyone who came to Him. Understandably, crowds followed Him everywhere, and “when he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36). That’s when Jesus gave a prayer instruction... Continue Reading

Jesus lays out the pattern for greatness in the kingdom. “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is... Continue Reading

This cultural moment has conditioned us to want tangible rewards. But raising children, loving our spouses, and serving our local church—none of these provide a linear view of progress or accomplishment. Yet God has promised that He is doing His eternal work in and through us (Phil. 2:12–13). The unrecognized spheres in which we serve... Continue Reading

We must again reckon with our consciences—with the inescapable conviction that certain things are real, and therefore universally true, regardless of how we feel about them. If they’re true for everyone, then the loving thing is to have the courage to seek them, live according to them, and call everyone to do the same, especially... Continue Reading

We want to be noticed for what we have done, but impatient faith that is not focused on God is no faith at all. It can only yield humanistic fruit, the fruit of the flesh that Paul describes. To wait is to understand your place. To wait is to realize who the great God of... Continue Reading