Category: Spiritual Growth
That is Not the Way You Learned Christ
Have you ever felt the lure of your old life before Christ? Maybe you ran into some friends who knew you before you became a Christian and their talk of having fun enticed you, or someone you dated before seems interested in reconnecting with you. Paul...
There’s a Place for You in the Church: The Story of a Boy Who Couldn’t Learn
Don McClure was a missionary in Eastern Africa from 1928 until 1977, when he was shot and killed by militants in eastern Ethiopia. While living in one particular village, he and his wife, Lyda, provided schooling and housing for boys. One year, they were expecting 80,...
Resurrection Now
I remember once, before I was a believer in Jesus, when I looked at pornography. I wanted to do it. As my hand moved the mouse, my mind got dark and cloudy, my head throbbed, and I hardened my heart and yielded to the driving desires...
Obedient from the Heart
Why do you think Jesus can confidently say “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27)? Or, how can he say “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15)? How can John confidently say, “By this...
Overcoming Self-Consciousness
Self-consciousness is a destroyer of authentic Christian experience. We’ve all been singing in church when all of a sudden the thought races by: “Look at me here singing. I’m enjoying this.” And from that moment on your joy in singing is somehow less real than it...
Paraphrasing Scripture as a Way to Meditate
Like a beautiful landscape or a good song, the riches of biblical literature can be experienced in multiple ways. You can read it closely, pencil in hand. You can memorize it, mulling over the verses. You can listen to it taught. Or you can simply lie...
Production or Virtue?
We are fanatics for productivity. Some of us are like miniature corporations ticking off our project objectives and meeting our target points. And for many, productivity is the canon for self-evaluation. I started to realize this about myself early in my marriage when I would get...
Praying Specifically
My dad tells a story about an old deacon who was asked to pray during a church meeting. The man stood up and after other typical worn out phrases said, “Lord, we pray for all those for whom it is our duty to pray. Amen.” I...
Love is Dangerous
“And I will gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved” (2 Cor. 12:15). These are the words of the apostle Paul spoken to the church at Corinth, a church which he had founded...
Writing Down Our Thoughts
It is a well-known fact that the spiritually facile New England pastor and revival leader, Jonathan Edwards, was taught by his father to write down almost every new thought he had, a method he practiced throughout his life. His “Miscellanies” are now an invaluable source of...
