Category: CHRISTIAN LIFE
Moving to the Head of the Line
My dad had two fears: the nursing home and a long-winded speaker at his funeral. He avoided the first; the jury still debates the second. The call from his apartment building came unexpectedly on Thursday morning. “Your dad has passed out and has no blood pressure.”...
More Joy
God has graciously given me 41 years to walk before Him (Gen 17:1), to walk with Him (Gen 5:22), and to walk after Him (2 Kg 23:3). What an incredible privilege God gives His sons and daughters. Looking back now, with terminal cancer for the past...
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall – Lie to Me!
It is an exercise in reluctant self-abnegation for me to show my driver’s license. I long for somebody to say, “But that’s not you!” Sadly, it is. As Popeye declares, “I yam what I yam.” And what I “yam” is looking fairly pathetic. Paul had this...
Losses of a Prayerless Christian
Though God is sovereign over all things, He ordains the means of prayer. There are some things He will not do unless we pray, though He always does all He purposes (Psalm 135:6). The mystery does not change this truth: You do not have because you...
Losing Heart: The Christian’s Fierce Foe
I face an enemy daily, sometimes hourly. Perhaps you know him too. Many are his names. So ubiquitous, so pervasive, so insidious is he that the New Testament identifies him six times as “Losing Heart.” Losing Heart invites us to embrace discouragement, agree to quitting, welcome...
Let Us Pray… Without Delay!
They didn’t complain. They didn’t doubt. They didn’t even strategize. Once Peter and John reported their imprisonment and the threats they had received for preaching the gospel, they immediately prayed with a gathering of believers in Jerusalem (see Acts 4:23-31). As I once heard, “Prayer was...
Leaving the Work Undone
One of the saddest notes in biblical history is found in the book of Joshua. The children of Israel were coming into the land that had been promised to them after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. God had set everything up. He put dread into...
Learning to Pray from the Praying Jesus
“Steeeeve, come in here! It’s time to praaayyy!” I heard those words from Pastor Floyd Baker often during the summer I served as his church’s youth pastor. I couldn’t go to the office without his invitation to the throne of grace. He never prayed briefly, though...
Justifying Ourselves Before Men
The Kingdom of God is filled with men and women who were once self-justifiers. People are always seeking to vindicate themselves before God and others. And, apart from Christ, how you talk, what you wear, what you drive, where you travel and what you fight for...
Is There Any Sin in Trusting God?
A well-loved Christian conference speaker once posed this question to me after his message: “Is there any sin in trusting God?” Strange question, isn’t it? The answer has to be, “No.” I know that. You know that. The man who posed the question knew it also....
