The hardest part of preaching is living. I can’t stand before God’s people and proclaim God’s Word without being painfully aware that I’m a wretched sinner. How can I teach others when I don’t have it figured out myself? Why should someone listen to my exhortation to Christlikeness when I fall so far from it?…
Category: Christian Living
Neither Despair Nor Blind Optimism
It was the strangest of times, it was the most frustrating of times. How else could one revise Dickens’ famous opening line to describe our current cultural era? Foundational ideas and understandings are changing at lightening pace. The majority opinion from twenty years ago regarding marriage is now viewed as oppressive and unwelcome in public…
Keep Picking the Weeds
I wipe the sweat from my forehead with my dirty hands as I look with a feeling of accomplishment. In the ground before me is a small square of tilled up dirt that, Lord willing, will soon flourish with green plants bearing delicious tomatoes, watermelon, cucumbers, green beans, and many other healthy vegetables for my…
Satan Wants to Isolate You
We call the lion “The King of the Jungle” for a reason. Its speed, strength, and stalking abilities strike fear into the rest of the animal kingdom. However, many of its prey are larger or faster, forcing the lion to compensate for these disadvantages through strategy and patience. Generally, it’s the lionesses who hunt to…
Reading Through Leviticus
By this time of the year, many well-meaning New Year’s resolutions to read through the Bible in a year have derailed. Most make it through the familiar stories in Genesis. The miracles and sheer power of God on display makes reading through Exodus a breeze. However, many would-be travelers have fallen off the reading wagon…
I’ll See You in Heaven
It’s been nearly a year since my last conversation with Granny, but her final words still haven’t left me. Last summer, after a long battle with her sickness, her health began rapidly declining. What I least wanted to happen was near, so I dialed the phone knowing it would be our last conversation. As we…
Doubts and Questions in the Christian Life
If faith is the conviction of something we can’t see (Hebrews 11), doubt seems contrary to faith. Yet, doubt is something most believers can relate to. Not necessarily doubting the existence of God, though for some this might be the case, but doubting whether or not God sees us, cares about us, or continues to…
God is Everywhere, Why Should I Go To Church?
“I don’t need to go to a building to meet with God.” “I can read my Bible and pray anywhere.” “I love Jesus, but I’m against organized religion.” I hear these types of statements often, usually as a justification to skip out on the weekly gathering of God’s people (church). It’s true that we can…
Thinning the Peaches
“I know it hurts, but you gotta do it.” I could relate to what the man on the Youtube video said. His video taught how to nurture a peach tree to get the biggest and sweetest fruit. This time of the year my peach tree is filled with hundreds of dime-sized peaches, but the secret…
The Goodness of God’s Wrath
Last year, a video went viral that rightly sparked outrage. A man brutally attacked a 65-year-old woman in Manhattan in broad daylight while the attacker shouted out racial insults. The video shows three men watching from the nearby lobby, one of them the building’s security guard. None of the three men did anything to help…