Blog
The Sermon on the Mount has been romanticized by some without taking what Jesus said to a deeper level. We could call the Sermon on the Mount the Sermon of Doing. Jesus is speaking into a religious system of works that suit the presence of imposters, not a true...
There is a dangerous slippage taking place within some elements of the Church. It is a lessening, even a dismissal of the Old Testament. It has been described as too harsh representing a cruel God. Jesus quoted the Old Testament over 70 times. The apostles were not...
Many times, we describe the condition of a person’s life as having arrived at the eleventh hour. In that place, it appears all hope has vanished. That remaining hour before midnight still has the hope of redemption based on what we had planned. The eleventh hour is...
I always thought it was strange how I see the year’s calendar in my mind. It resembles a roller coaster. This time of year is that part of the ride when the roller coaster car is slowly ticking its way up through the last few days of December to the apex of the...
As a kid growing up in church, I heard the following words repeated over the years, “The finished work of the Cross”. I often wondered what those words meant. I have now come to understand their meaning. Jesus went as far as possible in His obedience as the Second...
Each year between Thanksgiving and Christmas my father’s rifle, shotgun and binoculars would mysteriously disappear. I wasn’t aware of this annual disappearance until one day when I asked to use my dad’s binoculars. I was told, “There not here just yet.” I was a...
Whenever a spiritual crash takes place a debris field is left behind containing the evidence of what went wrong. When the crash of an airliner occurs, the NTSB arrives at the scene to collect evidence and find the black box hidden in the wreckage. Pieces of the...
Don’t require other people to be courageous if you are not willing to live in the same place of courage you are requiring of them. Step into your place of courage without demanding that others do the same. Once there live in such a way that your life becomes an...
When things are taken from us by death or through a painful circumstance of life, our first response can be to begin looking for a replacement. We want to fill our place of loss with someone or something. We think by filling the void with a replica we can make the...
As a small boy, I remember the day I asked my father why he had so many scars across his stomach and chest. At the time he gave me an age-appropriate answer. A few years later, I asked again and then he gave me the full story. My grandmother owned a business on Turk...
When I was a young cop, I was assigned to a unit with the acronym, OCCIS. The formal name was the Organized Crime and Criminal Information Section. It was a federally funded task force sourced from multiple police agencies in the Silicon Valley of California. We...
The fulfillment of a promise God made to you is about to arrive as a beautifully wrapped gift. You will be astonished to discover the wrapping and presentation of the promise will be as equally beautiful as the gift itself. When I was a kid growing up in the 1950’s...
For a few years as a cop, I was part of an Organized Crime unit. It was very different than working the street in uniform in a marked car. All of us had beards and long hair. We looked like outlaw bikers. One of the things we routinely did was to conduct stakeouts. TV...
One of the great hindrances to becoming a healthy leader is putting yourself in a place where you always have to “produce”. If you are in this kind of environment you need to make a change in your perspective and in some cases, your actual place of ministry. You don’t...
When the sound and content of your voice is in lock step with the groupthink of a political party, a church denomination or a particular segment of society, you will eventually lose your credibility and influence in the Kingdom of God. Real credibility and influence...