Five Tricks Satan Uses To Trap You
Here they are: 1 – Division. Satan loves to sow seeds of doubt that lead to division. He does this because a divided kingdom will not stand and will be ineffectual (Mark 3:25). 2 – Categories. Satan will put you in a category. He will give you a label. This label becomes you meta-narrative or […]
Psalm 51:5 Does God Create “In Utero Sinners”?
“Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.” – NRSV “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” – NIV “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” – NASB, ESV, RSV What is going on here? The first […]
God Doesn’t Give Us More Than We Can Handle?
I hear this from time to time and I see that for some people it is a faith builder while for others it is a faith destroyer. For the faith builder this statement is a reminder that it is all going to be alright because God must certainly think they can handle whatever comes their […]
Openness and Honesty are Not Ends unto Themselves
There is an idea that has been floating around out there for a while that says as long as you are honest about your mistakes then everything is good. There has been a premium placed on authenticity and transparency over the last few years that is very healthy in one respect. However, it can very […]
Finding Grace in the Sermon on the Mount – Wrong Teaching Does Not Automatically Make One An Eternally Condemned False Teacher
In the previous post, I pointed out a few places where Jesus actually used the word typically translated “grace”. In this post, I want to point out a passage that I have read dozens of times but only recently has it stood out to me in an unexpected way. The verses I am talking about […]
Walking in the Light, the Grace of God and Liberation from the Rat Race of Earning It
I got up early this morning to go on a long run. About 5 miles in I was crossing the street in the dark and tripped over the sidewalk sliding on my hands and knees. Turns out there wasn’t a curb cut there to transition from the street back onto the sidewalk but I couldn’t […]
Book Review: Jesus is Better Than You Imagined By Jonathan Merritt
One of the things I always try to do when doing a review is to be brutally honest. There is a temptation to be extra kind on reviews because often the books were sent free of charge and, of course, we like people to like us and send us more free stuff and they might […]
Dealing With Sin Requires Much More Than Following The Four Steps of Matthew 18
Jesus spent quite a bit of time on how to deal with sin in Matthew 18. The most well known verses in that chapter are 15-20, “If your brother sins, go and point out his fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will […]
What Did Jesus Mean When He Talked About Causing “Little ones to Stumble”?
Jesus said to his disciples, “Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. ” – Luke […]
The Power of Narratives: Sin & Old Country Fences
When I was a kid, we had one of those old country fences around our house. You know those fences that have round wooden posts and old wire? We had that fence around our house for years. One day my dad decided the fence along the road needed to go. So we took it down […]