Blog
Thirty-five years ago, I discovered the meaning of our family name, “Elkins.” It means “Jehovah is God.” Our family name can be traced back to the Hebrew name “Elijah.” Discovering the origin of our family name had a significant impact on my life. There is a greater...
The irrational argument that the Church should not affect change in a nation must be put to rest. During Church history, influential spiritual voices like Martin Luther, William Wilberforce, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, all leaders within the Church, spoke up for truth....
The Lord will offer us opportunities to express our forgiveness to those who have wronged us. In God's redemptive process, He will remove from our hearts any desire to take revenge. It is in that moment, that we will discover the depth of our forgiveness. After Jacob...
We all have a unique spiritual metabolism that indicates how we will individually digest information. Just because a truth or an opinion is openly declared does not mean everyone listening will immediately get on board and take a first bite of what is being offered....
There are times when our greatest opposition will come from those within our spiritual family who might disagree with us on a particular subject. When this occurs and we choose to not become defensive, the Lord can use us to bring healing and a reunion of fellowship...
Most of us have heard the old saying “a frog in a kettle.” This is where a frog is placed in a pan of water and slowly the temperature is turned up to the point where the frog is boiled to death. The image portrays a naïve frog who chooses to remain in the kettle not...
Our culture is descending toward a place of decision – a decision of life or death. Sadly, the deception of those at the controls is leading us to a crash point that could be avoided if wisdom was piloting the craft of their decision-making. When I used to...
It should not come as a surprise that our culture is responding to the issues of life with deepening levels of fear. Scripture tells us the perfect love of God promises to expel fear from our thinking if we are living in a cooperative relationship with Jesus Christ....
Redemption is a challenging and messy process, not from God’s perspective, but from ours. We struggle with who we think deserves redemption and how it should be offered. This struggle is birthed and fueled by our preferred and very limited understanding of reality....
If redemption is not the most powerful motivating influence in our lives, then all our efforts to bring about change and reform a broken world will become proof that we have been serving another kingdom, not the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Each of us needs to...
Significant military conflicts could take place in the coming days on several global fronts. As tensions rise, we need to be praying with wisdom and Spirit-influenced insight and not allow our geographic isolation from these conflicts to lull us into a place of...
Discernment is a form of spiritual reverse engineering. Reverse engineering is a process where something is disassembled and examined in detail to discover the engineering process involved in the manufacture of the product. Competing markets do this with...
Not all advice is wise. I recently read a piece of advice given to someone whose vehicle dashboard warning light was blinking indicating a problem. The non-mechanic advisor said “Just put a piece of tape over the light. It’s annoying.” In the last few months, I have...
Every person, business, church, and culture has an emotional and spiritual ecosystem that must be protected from the introduction of invasive species. These invaders are dishonor, fear, hatred, and a host of other things that will upset the delicate balance of life...
When I was a young man, I trained in a variety of martial arts – Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. One day, I asked my Shotokan sensei which style he thought was best. He said, “You don’t fight the style, you fight the man.” I have seen imposters who wore a gi (karate...