Blog
Recently, I have noticed people are discarding portions of Scripture telling us certain texts do not apply to us or that the text does not reveal the heart of God. It is a consequential choice to make. Discarding God's word is nothing new. It has happened before in...
In the last four years, many things have happened bringing to the surface feelings and positions that reveal a divided Church. A global medical challenge, another contentious election, opinions regarding human sexuality, and other issues have revealed that we are not...
Death, disease, divorce, or any major life change are all the same in many ways. They create a set of ruins where something that was once alive, and flourishing is no longer present. It is upon those ruins that the Lord will rebuild something new. The Lord revealed...
A fresh encounter with the presence of God is coming. Our theologies, our cultural barriers, and our personal opinions will not be able to stand in His way. Time is compressing under the weight of His passion. An explosion of His presence is ready to fill the Earth to...
I sat in the morning light, in a red plastic Adirondack chair, my back to the cool winds of fall, my face toward the sun. Leaves fall all around me like crackling red-orange potato chips shaken from maple tree limbs. They cartwheel across the lawn, then catch for...
This week, we had a costly and much-needed repair project take place at our home. Our old sewer line needed replacing. It was not something we had in our budget, but such is life. Our house was moved onto our lot in 1948. It was a small officer’s...
All my life, I have been a protector. I once protected my little brother from a neighborhood bully. In the 6th grade, I got in a fight defending a Native American friend who was surrounded by mocking white kids who were issuing racial slurs. When I married Jan, I have...
If we are not speaking the truth in love, we need to stop what we are doing and disengage our voice from the conversation. To continue on with an agenda other than the sound of love, we will end up doing more harm than good, all in the name of God. Paul wrote...
The last of our grapes have been harvested their sweet fruit a memory of summer. Straggling tomatoes linger on the vine, little green ones too late to become red. Leaves have taken on color just before they fall carried by a chilled wind forming lofty piles...
Nowhere in your life are you living on borrowed time. God will grant you all the time needed to accomplish His will. Yet, it's not more time that will turn things around. Your turnaround will come because you serve a loving God who is faithful to perform what He has...
A man named Jerry Cook radically changed how I view the Church. Over a span of thirty years, I listened to Jerry speak at conferences and read his writing. I also had the opportunity to sit in several small group settings with Jerry and glean his wisdom. Toward the...
God’s acquittals are far more powerful than hell’s accusations. When your character and reputation are under attack, and it seems as if you are about to be found guilty of an unrighteous charge, never forget that God has already adjudicated your case in Jesus Christ....
The Lord wants to heal the Church of an event addiction. We have filled arenas and stadiums at great expense. We have heard the word of the Lord and worshipped with great freedom, and yet our culture has remained largely unchanged. God is inviting His event addicts...
This is a photo I took of a steel grate that covers a hole a dug by a prospector during the southern Oregon gold rush of the 1850’s. The pit is deep. At the bottom, an old antique car rests in a dirt tomb along with various discarded articles like an old miner’s stove...
When I was on the football team at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington, our coach asked if any members of the team could help a friend. The coach’s friend was a doctor who lived in the northern panhandle of Idaho. He was a sheep rancher. In the winter of 1969,...