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When I was a young boy, my brother and I walked out into the orchard that bordered our home. We found a bee’s nest. As boys will do, we shook the nest. The bees came out enraged, looking for the flesh of the intruders. We both got stung multiple times as we tried to...
There are constants across all spiritual disciplines in the Church. One constant is the need for confession and repentance. Confession is our agreement with God that what we have done is a sin. Repentance is the act of turning away from those sins and living a life...
Many reports are circulating within the Church about failed leadership. Those reports can be discouraging. If we are not careful about how we process those bad reports, they can affect us negatively, taking our eye off the most essential ball. Sadly, we are drawn to...
Jesus said, “I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). The word for “world” is the word “cosmos.” It defines all of humanity and its systems that are hostile to God. Because of that reality, the Church should be the least stressed group of people on Earth. Jesus has...
When we learn about the gift of prophecy, our first lesson to learn is that it is God speaking, not a human. While God will use His servants to verbally transmit or demonstrate His message, it is God who is speaking to us. Knowing it's His voice that is giving us a...
In the highly volatile and dangerous moments of life, the target of our efforts to stop an aggressor must be directed at the center of their mass. Trick shots are not realistic. Only an uninformed person who does not understand the reality of what is happening will...
Last night, I had a very emotional dream. It was a dream that came to me in segments between times of sleep and times of being awake. In the dream, I found myself in a cave high on a tall mountain, bordering a steep and impassable cliff with no way to escape. The...
When I was 12 years old, my dad took my brother and me hunting in part of the Hunter-Liggett Army base located in Monterey County, California. It was early fall, and it was still hot, just like it had been in mid-summer. As we hiked, we crossed a dirt road. As we...
To the faithful subscribers on my blog, (www.garriselkins.com), you may have noticed the subscription service that sends notices for my articles, has not been working for several months. We had to cancel the contract with our previous subscription email provider due...
People want to hear only what they want to hear. If someone's heart is not aligned with God, they will reject what does not fit into their narrow understanding of what they consider to be true. As in all Isaiah's prophecies, they reveal principles about the Lord that...
Through the history of challenging social change, even when attacks come against the Lord's people, God's truth remains unchanged. The Lord does not abandon His people in a time of turmoil and persecution. As we read the book of Isaiah, it is as if we are reading the...
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...
We like to have confidence in what we believe. That confidence is not always the best indicator of what is true. Apart from knowing that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, so much of our faith needs to have a place for wonder and mystery to exist, not another...