We ALL feel the pressure to impress. I feel it. You feel it. We all feel it. In Genesis 27, Jacob felt the same. So much so he went to great lengths to impress his father. The method he used, is one we use frequently – whether or not we realize it is another issue. …
Read More
God encouraged risk-taking. When you stop to think about what God was asking Abraham to do in Genesis 12, it really is unreasonable – according to conventional wisdom. God tells Abraham to leave home. Home represents everything that is familiar and comfortable. God says, “leave it behind.” That would be hard enough, but it gets…
Read More
It is my firm conviction Christian values have been more prized than the Christian gospel since America’s inception. That is, many of us get more excited over seeing our favorite political candidate win an election than we do over God saving a sinner. That’s why, by the way, the phrase “God and country” is able to garner energy…
Read More
In order to be a competent ambassador for Christ while living as an exile and foreigner in the U.S., you need to possess and enact a biblical worldview. The building blocks of a biblical worldview begin with the overarching storyline of Scripture: creation, fall, redemption, restoration. All of life and every culture need to be…
Read More
One aspect to emotions that makes them tricky is that the emotions we feel and express as a result of what we value, desire, and believe are instinctual. When life happens, we feel emotions in the blink of an eye. Emotions are generated from within in response to life in fractions of a second. Emotions are…
Read More
Emotions reveal desires. Fear says, “There’s something I want, but might not get.” One fear we struggle with is people. We fear people’s criticism or rejection. We perceive they have power to give us something. To put it differently, we think people can bless us. A word of praise someone offers you is a blessing….
Read More
Younger generations tend to be more suspicious of “institutional church.” Perhaps they’ve been burned by them or just turned off by people who are a part of them, but show no fruit of the faith they profess. This attitude is represented in a somewhat recent book entitled, How to be a Christian Without Going to Church, by Kelly Bean. She maintains it’s possible…
Read More
A biblical handling of the emotions is foundational for spiritual maturity. One of the anchors we need to deploy daily to keep us stabilized emotionally is God’s providence. God’s providence is his ruling over the details of all activity, human and inhuman, so as to bring about his good purposes. The providence of God is…
Read More
The church has often been labeled “out of touch” when it takes a position on an issue contrary to the cultural majority. You might hear someone say, “Almost everyone agrees on this. Why are you refusing to come around?” In almost every conversation like this one, my goal isn’t to convince the other person to see things the way I see it….
Read More
I care deeply about human behavior. For one, behavior shapes a society. If a significant portion of the population doesn’t see anything wrong with stealing, then that community will be quickly devastated by thievery. So I am all for putting place measures with teeth that discourage behavior that is detrimental to a society. However, there…
Read More