Blog
After believing in the saving power of Jesus Christ, other forms of belief will follow. Those additional forms of belief will change how we form our worldview and express our faith. I recently reviewed some of the additional expressions of my faith. I believe in the...
A great sense of dread is filling the hearts of many people in our nation, even believers who should know better. We must capture that dread and make it submit to the will of God, or we will be led astray and become a tool of the enemy. Camps are being formed that...
Last week, I had three unique encounters with different people. The first happened as I was walking through our small town, and a vehicle pulled alongside. A young man rolled down his window and asked, "Are you Garris Elkins?" I said, "Yes, I am." The young man told...
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...
As the Lord was proclaiming the future deliverance of Israel, He said, “I will remove from the land both the false prophets and the spirit of impurity that came with them” (Zechariah 13:2). This is not just something that happened thousands of years ago in the...
When the Lord was restoring Israel, He said, “I am planting seeds of peace and prosperity among you” (Zechariah 8:12 NLT). He went on to say, “Now I will rescue you and make you both a symbol and a source of blessing” (vs. 13). While those words were spoken long ago,...
There is something that has moving through the Church of late that we need to explore. At the core of a whole host of doctrines of demons is the fallacy that all will be saved. Jesus said only those who have chosen to follow Him in this life will be saved and not...
Beware of “new evidence” that attempts to redefine ancient truth. This new evidence is different from understanding the context in which an issue occurred and needs to be rightly interpreted to bring understanding. New evidence that dismisses what has been understood...
We don’t do well when we leave the environment of the Spirit and attempt to live as believers in a world of compromise. That journey will put our spiritual lives in a place of jeopardy. A few days ago, after several days of steady rain, worms began to crawl out of the...
Scripture is a combination of both parables and straight-up statements that cut to the chase. The following verse goes straight to the truth: "The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness and...
As I looked across our living room, I saw the history of entertainment and news represented in the last hundred years. The old antique radio belonged to Jan’s parents. It was what families would gather around a hundred years ago to get current news or listen to an old...
As I am reading through the prophetic books of the Old Testament, I have realized that no matter how disobedient the people of God became, there is always hope because God delights in the act of redemption. In the concluding remarks of Micah, he writes of what God...
Not everything God says to us is initially comforting. Some of what the Lord says requires a change of heart to experience the comfort He offers. In some parts of the Church, a prophetic word must always be a word of hope, not correction, and that has led to a...