If we believe we can bring about the outcomes we desire, we will blame ourselves when those outcomes don’t actualize. God doesn’t need us to bring about good outcomes. He’s got that part. He calls us to pursue faithfulness. That’s something that, by his grace, we can handle.   My two fellow pastors and I... Continue Reading

Jesus promised, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28). We don’t cling out of fear of losing Him, rather we cling because nothing can separate us from His love. This is where our journey begins, not with our strength, but... Continue Reading

There are times…when we will sin against one another.  And the danger is that if we react to that sin out of our old nature with anger, rage, bitterness, slander and malice, we’ll destroy the church.   We’re spending a few weeks looking at some of the ‘one another’ commands God gives his church as we... Continue Reading

The Christian Stoic does not serve the Inner Critic. The drill sergeant has been replaced by the Advocate. We fight our sin not out of a terrifying fear of failure, but from the secure, unshakeable foundation of a son who knows he is already loved and justified by his Father.   Every man has a... Continue Reading

The Gospel transcends denominational boundaries. God saves them in spite of what we have articulated are errors in the Eastern Orthodox Church. I have personally witnessed this even among Roman Catholics. I personally know this because I was one of them.   The Eastern Orthodox Church has held an allure among Evangelical Protestant Christians for... Continue Reading

This is our hope. It’s in a resurrected Christ, and because of His resurrection, He invites us into resurrection as well. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the... Continue Reading

Some may point to Jesus who was tempted yet without sin and remind us that temptation itself is not sin. They are correct. And yet Jesus, though tempted by Satan, never identified Himself by those temptations. But even if Side B Christians frame the issue in terms of temptation, I struggle to see it that... Continue Reading

We may not always be exempt from some of the consequences of our sins and bad choices in this life. But God treats us as if we had not done these sins. So in that sense we are given a new start. We are given a fresh way forward, and we do not need to... Continue Reading

Consider what will matter fifty billion years from now. Not your degrees. Not your reputation. Not your accomplishments. Fifty billion years into eternity, you will either be pleading Christ or you will have nothing to show at all. The only thing of any lasting value is Jesus. Without him, you have nothing.   What truly... Continue Reading

In both the marital analogy and the theological debate, non-closure can protect an agent from blame of intent for true side effects, but not from responsibility for all consequences of a chosen path, especially when those consequences flow from mechanisms the agent has deliberately employed. The key difference lies in moral sufficiency.    In formal... Continue Reading