Blog
We need to be careful accepting the definitions provided by some theologians of what they have defined as only a metaphor. Unless we are careful about accepting all we have been taught to believe, we will accept a logical understanding for things not meant to be...
One section of Scripture has changed how I interpret the results of our faith. Faith is not an intellectual choice. It is a spiritual act - a seed that contains miraculous potential. It can release profound miracles that no human intellect can comprehend or create. It...
When the Lord created us, He placed in our hearts an instinct to know what is right or wrong. Paul wrote about people who live a life in violation of God’s original creation, he described them this way, “They began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a...
An increasing number of Christians have dismissed the Old Testament as irrelevant. Some in their dismissal have said it represents a cruel God, not the God of compassion. Those dismissals are very dangerous assumptions. As Scripture tells us our God does not change,...
There is a great deal taking place in our world that has people asking the question, “How did we get here?” The answer to the question cannot be spelled out at the moment the question is asked. We must trace backward to reverse engineer an outcome, perception, or...
Whenever God calls us to rebuild an individual life or a nation, that rebuilding process will be met with opposition. When the Israelites were instructed by the Lord to rebuild the Temple they started with the altar – a place of worship. The book of Ezra details the...
Have you ever found yourself asking, “What’s next?” We can ask that question about a whole host of life issues. What I am referring to is the next major event from a national or global perspective. I am asking about the impact that will come when that next...
The spirit of pride that caused Lucifer to fall from Heaven is the same kind of pride that will bring down earthly representations of the same spirit. Along with his blinding pride, Lucifer was accused specifically of a representation of his original sin, “You who...
Once, when I was pastoring, a woman I knew in our church made an appointment to see me. On the day of our appointment, my secretary led her back to my office. She didn’t say anything as she walked through the door and sat down. The woman looked directly at me and...
On a walk last week, I saw a group of turkeys sitting on a fence. It got me thinking about how we can become so afraid of offending someone that we shy away from expressing the truth, especially about hot-button social issues. To a passerby who wants to see a...
As summer winds down, I’m thinking of the summer of 1973. It was a special time. On Mother’s Day, I proposed to Jan, and we set the date of our marriage three months later. That summer was carefree and filled with expectations of a new life and a new future...
Where I live in southern Oregon, our valley is filled with smoke from massive forest fires. For days we have endured deteriorating air quality now defined as hazardous. Because the sun has been reduced to an apocalyptic orange glow, it caused me to ponder the words of...
New mandates are being proposed. While choices were made the first time the mandates were instituted, choices based on the available evidence we had at the time, this time around will be different. Local congregations, business owners, and their customers have become...
My wife, Jan, has said on several occasions, "A boomerang of evil is returning." What has been sent out into our world of delusion and deception demanding we agree and comply with its message will return and strike the architects of its message. We are entering a...
Because of time and distance from historic events, we tend to sanitize our interpretation of what happened. The massive sacrifices that took place in the Old Testament are such events. They were a bloody mess. During the temple dedication, Solomon had 22,000...