Picture yourself sitting in your living room one day. God comes to you and speaks to you audibly and says, “Brian, pack up a few things and leave the Fox Cities. I’m sending you to a country you know nothing about. Its culture, language, food, and people will all be foreign to you. I want…
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The Old Testament ultimately points forward to Jesus Christ. Learning to read the Bible this way is incredibly heart-warming and it stirs me to worship Christ all the more. Let’s take a look at another Old Testament story: Noah and the flood. Do you remember why God sent a flood in the first place? “The Lord saw…
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In Joshua 1:7-9, God instructs Joshua, the new leader of the people of Israel, twice to “be strong and courageous.” They were about to cross the Jordan River and take possession of the land God had promised Abraham centuries earlier. In the middle of this bookend to “be strong and courageous” is the exhortation to…
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The gospel is: “Jesus lived the life I should have lived and died the death I should have died.” Salvation comes to those who believe this. A question often asked is: “Now that I’ve ‘crossed over’, what should I do? Now that I believe the gospel, what’s next?” God wants us to make forward progress…
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“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7 Imagine going on a hike through the forest and getting lost. What was supposed to be a 2-hour…
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Faith. The word is thrown around quite a bit. “Where is she in the faith?”“Does he have faith?”“I have faith.” For most religious people, ‘faith’ is important. But why? “[We] know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we…
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Let’s be honest. Our prayer lives can be anemic. And often, our times of prayer only heat up when things are difficult. In those difficult times we cry out to God to solve our problems, but how much of our prayer time should be used for this kind of praying? Studying the apostle Paul’s prayers…
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Imagine a conversation like this: Skeptic: I don’t believe in Christianity.Christian: Why not?Skeptic: Because science can prove some of the stuff in the Bible isn’t possible. There’s no way it could have happened.Christian: So science is what you use to determine what is true?Skeptic: Yes.Christian: How did you decide science is what you would use to determine what…
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The perception religious people often have of salvation is that it’s a “get out of jail free card.” It’s an “insurance policy” we can cash in when we need it. One of the reasons I love to read and study the Bible is that it so frequently challenges my assumptions and makes me rethink my…
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“I know what I need. My motives are pure. Certainly this prayer request is something God would want to answer.” How often do these thoughts run through our minds? And when He doesn’t give us what we asked for, we’re perplexed and even a bit agitated. How do we deal with unanswered prayer? Jesus addresses…
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