Let your guard down and be okay with telling your “unspoken” to some folks who you really trust. Everyone around you is struggling with sin in some form or fashion, so you’re not catching anyone by surprise. (Most of the time I think it’s safe to say “unspoken” are related to one’s personal struggle with... Continue Reading

The moral conviction of Proverbs is that eventually the proud will fall. “These men lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives.” (Pro 1:18, ESV) Like the people at the tower of Babel, they gather to build a tower to heaven and end scattered by God over the... Continue Reading

Self-righteousness is insidious and pervasive, extending its tentacles, trapping and blinding us. Often, our motivations remain hidden even from ourselves. In Confessions, Augustine observes how God upends human assessments of behavior: “Your witness condemns many deeds that receive human praise,” he writes. “For it often happens that the appearance of an act belies what the... Continue Reading

Far from climbing up, you’ve been mired in the muck and grime of temporal desires with no progress toward true enlightenment and hope. The systems of strength and security that you’ve trusted in seem like a cardboard fort in the brilliance of the true light. Your world changes in the light, for even as it... Continue Reading

The ‘classics’ which are generally more readable than time at school might have made you think, are typically good studies of character. These authors understood people and managed to describe them in ways that help us think about people and character. Living inside a guilty person’s head in Crime and Punishment is both exhausting and... Continue Reading

Typically when we think of the fruit of the spirit we skip over a few of them. Love and joy get a lot of press time, but we don’t think a lot about patience. But there it is, alongside all the other traits the Holy Spirit is growing in us. And make no mistake –... Continue Reading

All too often ministers who lose votes take it personally—they get offended. Worse yet, they fail to see how others could possibly disagree with them and thus believe that their colleagues have somehow compromised the truth because they opposed you.   Years ago, I had my first experience as a parent sitting on the sidelines... Continue Reading

His desires, His will, His pleasure becomes our purpose. And in our very pursuit of God’s pleasure, God rejoices. He has actually told us so! Why else would He say to us in His Word: “The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love” (Ps. 147:11), and,... Continue Reading

Jesus walked this road first. Obedience led Him through rejection and pain before it led to glory. He never hid the cost of following Him, but He never withdrew His presence either. That is what gives courage to quiet faithfulness. The kind that feels costly and unnoticed. God uses that steady obedience to strengthen souls,... Continue Reading

 ” . . . And on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” (ESV).   I suppose that resistance to “organized religion” has probably been around since the Fall of man in the Garden of Eden.  The hue and cry is, “You cannot trust the... Continue Reading