Seven Ways To Emotional Anxiety
Try to please everyone. Try to change other people. Try to fix other people. Try to compare yourself to others. Try to take responsibility for other people’s actions. Try to change the past by your regrets. Try to carry tomorrow’s burdens today. "So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself.
Acting On God’s Nature
The way believers are to act and react in every area of their lives should be based on the nature of God. What is the nature of God? What is God like? Look at Jesus! We see God in the face of Jesus. We know what He is like because we have seen Jesus.
Deeper! Deeper!
We may have become a generation of Christians who are a mile wide and an inch deep. We have ceased to think deeply about the grand truths of Christianity. We need to think about how Trinity, incarnation, atonement, and other Christian truths fit together as part of a beautiful story. Our shallowness does
Get Up! Keep Running!
Just because we are down does not mean we are out. Just because we stumble does not mean we must get out of the race. Get back up, and keep going. Even though someone deliberately tripped us does not mean that we retreat to the bench. Keep running, even when your muscles and joints
The Aspects Of Maturity
We tend to think mostly of becoming mature in regard to sanctification’s growth process. That is true. That is the broad brush. But I have been thinking about other aspects of maturity. There is the maturity of faith, which is to trust Him at all times without hesitancy or faltering. There is the maturity
Social Life
Social life can be a barrier to true spirituality or a place to live it. To be with God prepares us to be with people. We were meant to bring the life of God to all with whom we come in contact. Loving our neighbor as ourself comes from loving God with our whole
The Way To The Father
“Jesus is the only Way” is not for in-your-face attacks disguised as evangelism. It was given to Christ’s own followers to remind them that they were to walk Jesus as the Road to the Father. It means that we are to seriously follow Christ as the Way to get there. It is more than
Completing Our Conversion
Prayer is devoting time to the completion of our own conversion. It is the communication with God that makes us grow; it is the communion that forms us. Completing our conversion is the work of our sanctification. God is in the middle of our transformation when we surrender, trust and obey. Prayer is where
Nature, Nurture and Grace
Volumes have been written about what makes us what we are, nature or nurture. Both are incredible forces in our lives. Sometimes nature can triumph over nurture and sometimes nurture can redirect nature. What I would like to suggest here is that when nature and nurture are jointly touched, changed and channeled by grace
Gifts and Purpose
The gifts God has given you are your call to ministry and purpose. You find meaning when you are using your gifts; you are confused about the purpose of your life when you are not serving with your gifts. Have you not found that to be true? Purpose is always about helping other people;
Repeated Promises
Why did God keep bringing Abraham back to his call by repeating the promises (Genesis 12-18) of giving him a land and making him a blessing to all the earth? Why do you and I need to keep hearing the promises of God? We forget. We lose track of where we are. We get
Being A Blessing
Abraham was not great before his call; he became great after his call. A nobody became somebody because he heard and obeyed God’s call. He became great because he lived out this call. God takes nothing and makes something out of it. He takes us who have no future without Him and gives us
Justification and Righteousness
Both of these words are from the same Greek word. It helps if we can understand that righteousness is a right relationship; it is a right relationship with God, our fellow humans and the covenant. Justification has been misunderstood because we have made it a legal or forensic word. When we come to Christ
Barren Churches
Israel was preserved a number of times because God touched barren women; you can read it in their history. It started with Sarah and continued through other barren women giving birth in the Messianic line. The church must realize that unless the Spirit of God touches our barrenness that we cannot have life or
Living Hope
The word hope can be a nebulous word. How many times have we been disappointed because a hope was never realized? Hope that does not have a foundation can lead us on, trap us, depress us, and be devastating to our lives. The hope that we have in Jesus is firm hope based on
Living Bread
Before seed can become bread it must be crushed and baked. Bread then becomes “the staff of life”. Jesus was the grain of wheat Who died, and was crushed to give us life. He arose from the grave, not just as the Bread of Heaven but as Living Bread. To eat this Living bread
Living Word
Words on paper are one thing and Living words are another. Words on paper are what has been said. Living word is what is being said. The goal of the Bible is to connect us to the Living Word, Jesus Himself. He is the full and final word of the Father. Bible reading that
Living Water
The early church recommended using “living water” when possible for baptism. Living water is flowing water. Standing water could not adequately symbolize the work of the Spirit. Jesus said that “living water” is about the Spirit. When we are baptized into Christ we are baptized into the Spirit’s flowing stream; He becomes in us
The Beauty of Jesus (3)
The beauty of Jesus in us is a part of Christlikeness. Christlikeness is the beauty of holiness. It is what makes disciples winsome. Our short tempers, harsh words and sarcasm deny its presence in us; all of these leave wounded souls in their wake. Christlikeness has a trail of healing in its wake; its
The Beauty of Jesus (2)
In the KJV of Psalm 29:2 and 96:9 we are told to worship the Lord in “the beauty of holiness”. Other translations say to worship Him in the splendor of holiness or some say “holy attire”. This may well refer to the beauty of priestly robes. Jesus embodies the splendor and beauty of holiness! His
The Beauty of Jesus (1)
The beauty of Jesus was more than being physically attractive; as a matter of fact, the Scriptures tell us that He did not have that kind of face. “When we shall see Him there is no beauty the we should desire Him” (Isaiah 53:2). He did not stand out from other men as a
The Note
A tuning fork sounds the right note. If you tune to it, the music can begin. Jesus is the Note which God has sounded for the human race. We are to tune our lives and our Christian communities to that Note, or as E. Stanley Jones reminds us, “Be a part of the chaos”.
Hidden Faults
We do not know ourselves nearly as well as we think we do. Who we are and what we have become is always unfolding to us, like the turning of the pages of a book. We have faults rooted in our DNA. We have faults that were engrained in us by imperfect families and
In Good Hands
The Psalmist describes the Lord as a Keeper who protects and guards. When we give our lives over to our Father, we are in Good Hands! He will do us no harm. He will work His will in circumstances that seem totally against us. We wonder if we will survive, and all the time
The Reaching-Out God
God has a thousand ways to get to the open heart. He even makes constant overtures to the closed heart. He reaches out through the grace of the Spirit. He comes in prosperity and adversity, sunshine and rain, joy and pain, grief and happiness, worship and communion, loneliness and companionship, etc. Be attentively aware