Being a super high-achiever, I must confess I find it difficult to receive from others. Really difficult. Like you, I’m usually on the giving end, not the receiving. My pride fights hard to stay intact.
Read MoreIt’s simplistic to say that the only kind of battle going on today is the war against terrorism, though that is what the Enemy of our souls would love for us to believe. He would love to preoccupy us with the physical struggles and have us miss the spiritual conflict that rages every day of our lives.
Read MoreAchurch as God intends it is not a gathering of people who sit back and listen to one person preach. Instead, one life touches the life of another, who then touches the lives of people in his or her sphere of influence—those whom the originator would never have known.
Read MoreMay I get very personal? The pressures of our times have many of us pastors caught in the web of the most acceptable yet energy-draining sin in the Christian family: worry.
Read MoreWhen I was younger, I had the privilege to get to know the great evangelist, Billy Graham. And when he asked me to help him with illustrations in his sermons, I felt like I’d been enrolled in the finest evangelistic university on Earth. No one did it better than Billy.
Read MoreBeing a super high-achiever, I must confess I find it difficult to receive from others. Really difficult. Like you, I’m usually on the giving end, not the receiving. My pride fights hard to stay intact.
Read MoreSin has a ripple effect in families. Even in pastor’s families. Propensity to prolong one particular sin might be handed from father to son genetically. One day science may prove or disprove this notion.
Read MoreThe belief that someone could be a true Christian while that person’s whole lifestyle, value system, speech, and attitude are marked by a stubborn refusal to surrender to Christ as Lord is a notion that shouldn’t even need to be refuted.
Read MoreWe’re not always told why we’re commanded to do something. But in Matthew 5:45, Jesus tells us why we are commanded to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors, and the reason points us to a glorious, climactic reality. He says, “So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.”
Read More“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” It’s hard to imagine how controversial that one little command would have been when Jesus first spoke it. We saw in a previous post that the Jews in the first century had twisted God’s Word to justify their hatred for the gentiles—even to the point of letting gentiles drown instead of helping them.
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