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If all the prophecies we hear and are willing to accept sound like a message of unicorns and rainbows without any warnings, we are not hearing the full counsel of God. His prophetic warnings are acts of love. His warnings will lead to the release of His mercy. His...
A month ago, I clearly heard the Lord give me direction that I did not expect. If I didn’t know the voice of the Lord, I might have questioned or resisted. However, I did ask Him to confirm what He spoke to me. I asked Him to tell Jan, my most trusted voice and...
Jeremiah gets a bad rap for being too tough on sin. He speaks with clarity about the oppressive consequences of sin, yet also about God’s mercy. Jeremiah wrote in the book of Lamentations, “Her oppressors have become her masters” (Lamentations 1:5). He described...
The greatest threat to any earthly kingdom is the loss of its power. This threat is especially true when it comes to the kingdom of darkness, which is the core motivator of all evil on earth. When a threat to authority is discovered, those associated with that threat...
Last night in a dream, I was sitting with a group of leaders in the Church. As they spoke about the success of their ministries, they spoke about what they needed to accomplish as the goals of their respective ministries. In a pause in the conversation, it was my turn...
Every few months, as I hike the trails above our home, I need to transition between forest lands on a section of paved road. It had been a few months since I hiked that stretch of roadway. On a previous hike, I noticed several discarded bottles of Fireball whiskey...
The title of this post is from an old children’s hymn. Its title is appealing to some who have reduced Jesus to a warm and fuzzy cuddle doll, not the full spectrum of His life. They do not allow their theology of Jesus to hint at a demonstration of His power and...
The Lord is reordering His Church. He is examining our hearts to see if we are truly following Him or a muddled and confused version of Him and His Kingdom. After the crowd saw Jesus feed the five thousand, something happened. "When the people saw him do this...
It's hard to convince some people that what we are saying is the truth. The rejection they use to justify their dismissal is a form of disbelief, revealed through the misguided assumptions they have about our message, and their familiarity with us. Social media has...
Our ultimate extension of trust – the unfailing kind of trust - should only be placed on God, not on any human, no matter how dear that person may be to us. Even among the most trustworthy of people, no one can wear the badge of an unfailing trust because any one of...
Joseph, the father of Jesus, was a carpenter. Joseph did not work for free. He earned a living from his carpentry trade. Joseph was able to choose how his income was spent. Joseph trained Jesus in the same trade. Joseph did not do his job for free without estimating...
A lot of what I hear spoken in the Church sounds like the title of a book written by Jerry Cook, “A Few Things I’ve Learned Since I Knew It All.” Jerry wrote this book deep into his life of faith when he had to unlearn some things and then learn new things about God...
Long before I was a pastor, I worked as a police officer assigned as an intelligence agent in an Organized Crime unit. Our most important discoveries were finding the connections between groups of criminals and the organizations they represented. Some of those...
Last spring, Jan and I said goodbye to our front lawn. We gave away our lawn mower and replaced the lawn with a small orchard of fruit trees, vegetables, and spices, along with other plants that complement the growth and health of the surrounding plants and trees....
Most of us are familiar with the story of the Prodigal Son, also referred to as The Lost Son. What we may not realize is that the father referenced in the story had to go out to meet both of his sons: the returning son who had wasted his inheritance, and the older son...