Blog
There’s a fine balance between making known the spiritual gifts we use to serve the Church and self-promotion. This is not just for pastors and prophets. This is a check of our integrity that applies to all of us in every setting of life. I’ve stopped following some...
As 2024 approaches and our nation processes yet another election cycle, our faith must be built upon the victory of the Cross of Christ, not on the dangling bits of false hope offered to us by a change in government. Pursuing the latter as our primary goal will lead...
Recently, I found out there are morgues on cruise ships. I never thought people would die on a cruise, but when you have thousands of people comprising the population of a small town, the odds are someone will die along the way. It reminded me of some of our...
God intends every tight and pressing spiritual passage to be followed by a release into the wide and expansive place of His goodness and provision. Some of these passages take longer than others to accomplish. Some take only a moment or a day. Others can take weeks,...
I am thankful for two gifted editors in my life - Anna Elkins and Julie Smith. They help make sure the content of what I write is not lost in sea of bad grammar, sloppy structure or misleading content. Behind the scene is my wife, Jan, who reads the heart of...
Last night at the Elijah List conference in Albany, Oregon we entered a profound experience in worship. As worship deepened, I heard the Lord say, “I am drawing an unexpected curtain.” The curtain had the words, “3:20”, written across the front. Immediately, I knew...
One of the most powerful things we can do is speak a word of hope no matter what is taking place in the world. We can speak these words of hope with confidence because God is always winning and His Kingdom is always advancing. A word of hope is birthed from that...
At some point in our lives we will cross the halfway mark of our personal longevity where we will come to realize our remaining days are less than those that came before. This is a line whose date and position is known only by God. Somewhere in our approach to...
This week, as I prayed for the leaders of churches, denominations and religious organizations, I saw them coming together in a most unusual way. As the image developed, I saw the Lord imbedding magnets of fellowship in one shoulder and plates of receptive steel in the...
As young Samuel learned to speak for the Lord the scripture says of him, “As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him, and everything Samuel said proved to be reliable.” (I Samuel 3:19) God is not looking for spectacular people – He is looking for people who are...
Many of you have been around people who can barely contain their feeling of disdain toward you. You leave these encounters feeling dishonored. What makes the word “disdain” so demeaning is discovering its dictionary meaning – “the feeling that someone or...
Sixteen years ago, Jan and I stepped off an airplane in Medford, Oregon after four years of ministry in Europe to become pastors of a local church. The total of our earthly possessions, apart from some books and a single chair stored in my mother’s attic in Montana,...
Perhaps one reason for some of the barrenness in our prayer life is because we are not like Hannah. Hannah was barren and prayed to God for the ability to give birth to a child. In her anguish Hannah prayed, “O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, if you will look upon my...
In all of human history, the way forward has always been revealed by a word of hope. Responding in the opposite spirit will become one of our most important weapons in the spiritual war we are facing. Instead of a fear monger choose to become a hope monger. Even if...
Calendars are only a tool of time. God is not limited by the constraints of any calendar - secular or religious. He lives and ministers to us from timeless eternity. God can choose to work within our measurements of time, but He is never limited by these measurements....