Blog
Prophetic warnings are not a popular subject. We can create theologies about God that dismiss the warnings offered by God's prophets. Isaiah mentioned the danger of such interpretations when he wrote Isaiah 21. We have something to learn in his warning to Babylon...
Yesterday, Jan and I watched an episode of season 5 of The Chosen. In one scene, Jesus and His disciples were celebrating the Passover. At one point, Jan and I got emotional when we heard a song they sang. They were singing what is called the "Dayenu," a song...
Last night, Jan rustled in bed. Her movement awakened me. The faint fragrance of her perfume came to me as she changed positions. Immediately, I sensed that her fragrance was a word from the Lord to me. As our attention is being drawn to wars and rumors of wars in the...
In a world where our God-created identities are being questioned and the idea of manhood is an offense to some, the title of this article could be a trigger event. The title is right out of Scripture, the place where our unique identities are spelled out with clarity...
When I was young and somewhat uninformed about the nature of spiritual life, I thought there was a great moral divide between people of faith and those who had abandoned biblical truth. What I did not know at that time was that spiritual slumber among believers was...
We all see the issues of life from different perspectives. The first 12 disciples came from the same faith, but how they expressed their faith was revealed through a wide array of opinions. Those diverse opinions did not concern the Lord as long as His disciples did...
In the next six months, now through November, will prove to be a time like none of us have ever seen. New levels of control will attempt to congeal the global conscientious into a moldable mass easily manipulated into compliance. World powers under the influence of...
Prophets and historians have something in common. Both need to remain distant from the undisciplined emotion and biased interpretation of the prevailing status quo. This is needed if they are to remain clear-headed and free to properly forecast the future or interpret...
What has been frozen and unable to move toward the purposes of God is beginning to melt. A frozenness caused by sin, deception, and compromise is melting away to reveal truth and justice. This spiritual melting will enable individuals, families, cultural institutions,...
Forgiveness is a challenging process. It is challenging because it can appear incomplete when it is granted. The greatest challenge in the act of forgiveness comes when the condition of our hearts is revealed. We want those we consider guilty to suffer to...
I remember the first time it happened. Jan and I were returning from a conference in the first year of our pastoral ministry. We had driven eight hours away to spend a few days with fellow pastors and were on our return trip home. About an hour out, we felt a shift...
In a life of faith. it is important to know when to put the brakes on and when to accelerate. Without that knowledge, we will collide with things we could have avoided. I remember being trained as a young cop how to drive defensively. Our trainer was a man with a...
There are situations where the words “overwhelming evidence” are used to describe a crowd bias, not the complete truth of a matter. These lynch mobs feed off cultural emotion, not the wisdom of the Spirit. A mob will rush to the jail of bias to overcome due process...
A pruning of the assumptions we thought we would carry into the future is taking place. Some are wasting their sorrow over the pruning because they do not understand its purpose. In the coming days, we will see the "why" for the removal of our assumptions. It is a...
Every morning I do an exercise called “The Plank.” It works my body from head to toe. Its most important benefit is what it does to my core. To be strong at the core of our body affects the immediate areas of muscle and skeletal structure, but its most important...