Love is the Inevitable Result of Purity
“Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” – 1 Peter 1:22-23 1 Peter […]
Learning to Talk With God
Raising kids makes for some fun and challenging times. One of the things that we feel is essential to their growth and maturity is how to talk with adults. There are basic rules of civility that we want our kids to know and do when it comes to talking with adults, for example – look […]
Filling the Emptiness
In order for anything to get filled it must have room to receive. If something is already full there is no room for anything new. When we make ourselves overly busy we have no room left to be filled. Ironically our busyness is often an indicator of our emptiness. When we fill our hearts with […]
Catching God in One of His Grocery Store Parenting Moments
If you are a parent you know the moment…it is that moment when you have had enough. Your kid has done something for the umpteenth time and they have been at it for several hours. You finally hit your limit and you let them know it in the strongest possible terms…in public. Store patrons are […]
Do the Next Right Thing
Somethings things get complicated. It gets hard to make what seems to be the best decision. If you do this, someone gets hurt. If you do something else, someone else might get upset. It can drive you crazy trying to figure out what to do. Missy and I have this saying that we will often […]
Pharaoh’s First Words
“Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.’” Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the […]
Chosen By God: Two Extremes and Some Middle Ground
Just how much is God at work in the world? Is God responsible for all things or nothing at all? Is God involved in every detail of every happening or has God left us to fend for ourselves? There are two extreme positions to just how much God works in the world. On one side […]
Logos Review: The Indelible Image By Ben Witherington
Take a New Testament theology and blend it with a commentary on the whole New Testament and then pull out the resulting ethical message of every New Testament writer in nearly every new Testament book and you get a 1700 page, 2 volume book of excellence that is “The Indelible Image” by Ben Witherington. This […]
The Resurrection of Abraham, Sarah and Isaac
God telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is a tough story. It brings up a lot of questions about God and a lot of questions about Abraham. We don’t get all of the answers but one of the answers we do get is found in Hebrews 11:17-19 in regard to what was going through Abraham’s mind […]
The Power of God’s Possession
One of the things that has been really helpful to me over the last few years has been the little word “of.” When you use that word you are talking about belonging. If something or someone is “of” something or someone…then it belongs to them. That little word of is in the phrase/name “Church of […]