Picture this: I was preaching in this little church and a Pentecostal woman, sitting about halfway back, kept raising her hand. I found it strange but kept going. She was relentless, so I finally asked her, “Do you have a question?” She turned white as a sheet. Turns out, she didn’t have a question. That was just her way of saying “Amen” in response to what I was teaching. (Neither of us ...
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When God created the world, he used a wand. No, that’s not right. When God created the world, he concocted a potion. That’s not right either.
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The greatest temptation you’ll have this year is to pursue some good purpose—some good thing you believe God wants you to have (and you may be right)—in your own way. You might say, “I feel like God wants me to be prosperous and bless me with money, but it’s not happening fast enough, so I’ll just hedge a little bit here and there, or overwork myself to make it happen.” Or, “I ...
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In the last verse of Psalm 23, David declares, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life …” (v. 6). He’s reminding himself of the truth that our Shepherd is always behind us, weaving goodness and mercy into our misery and mess. We’re accustomed to talking about the importance of us following Jesus, but equally important is that he follows us.
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When God created the world, he used a wand. No, that’s not right. When God created the world, he concocted a potion. That’s not right either.
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Recently, I’ve been listening to a series about dictators on a British podcast called Noiser. It’s a fascinating and disturbing deep dive. But one element that I find most intriguing is the circumstances that coalesce prior to a dictator’s rise to power.
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If you stumbled onto a flux capacitor—you know, like the one in Back to the Future—and you could travel back to any time in your life, what year would you choose? I think I’d choose 1997. It’s the year I met my wife, Veronica, and the year I left to serve as a missionary in Southeast Asia. There are so many things I’d like to tell my 24-year-old self.
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When Daniel was well over 80 years old, he was still living in captivity in Babylon, which by that time had been overthrown by the Medes and the Persians. King Nebuchadnezzar and all the royal family had been killed, and King Darius of the Medes sat on the throne. In order to try to bring some continuity and stability to his government, Darius kept on his court a lot of ...
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Maybe more so than anyone else in the Bible, Jonathan demonstrates the character of a true friend (1 Samuel 18–20). He faithfully modeled what deep, Christlike friendship looks like with a brother or sister in the faith. And his example is one that we can benefit greatly from today. In his friendship with David, Jonathan shows us three traits that should be present in any true friendship:
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If I asked you what you did today, what would you say? Maybe it would be something like, “Iworked a dead-end job,” “I changed some diapers,” or “I studied some material that I’ll never useagain.” But whether you believe it or not, God is using this daily faithfulness to build character inand through you. It’s not wasted time. It’s pasture time.
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