Pursuing a holistic expression of Christian faith that is true to the Bible and applicable for today’s world.
Discover What the Bible Says A man once asked me if I was covered by the blood. His request seemed earnest. I didn’t know him well, but we had had some prior interactions about faith and following Jesus. It seemed imperative to him that I say “yes.” My answer shocked him. I said, “I’m not […]
We Must Protect Ourselves from Greed and Materialism, Worshipping God Instead The Bible talks a lot about idolatry, of idols and worshipping them. Both the Old and New Testaments address this, warning against wrong worship and telling us we must put God first. As followers of Jesus, we would never worship idols today. Or do […]
Reform Sunday School as an Education Service to Your Community It may be strange to see Sunday school on this list of things we must change for our churches, but we should carefully reexamine it. Do you know the original mission of this Sunday program? It was to teach poor children how to read. And […]
The Dangers of Surrounding Ourselves with People Just Like Us It’s understandable that we want to spend time with others who are like us, with folks who all think, act, and believe the same. Yet when followers of Jesus do this it’s too easy to fall into a Christian echo chamber. A Christian echo chamber […]
Christmas and Easter Focus on Jesus, Preparing for Pentecost to Complete His Work and Reveal the Holy Spirit Though it’s been co-opted by secular society, Christmas remains as the most popular Christian holiday, celebrating the birth of Jesus. Next in notoriety stand the tandem of Good Friday, remembering the execution of Jesus, and Easter, celebrating […]
Let God Built and Protect All That We Do There are fifteen songs of ascent in the Bible. Five of them are in today’s reading. Four of the fifteen are ascribed to David and one to Solomon; the rest are anonymous. Most of them are quite short. We understand the people would sing these songs […]
Mentoring Can Help Us Grow in Our Faith and Increase Our Impact People sometimes ask me to mentor them. I’m honored that they ask. I want to say yes. Instead, I decline as respectfully as I can. Why? It’s because God hasn’t called me to be a mentor—at least not in the traditional sense. He’s […]
Celebrate Jesus’s Return to Heaven, Which Prepares the Way for Pentecost In my post The Four Main Christian Celebrations, I list for holy days (holidays) that smartly recognize Jesus and succinctly outline the key elements of his life and what he did for us. These Christian holidays are: I wonder if I should add Ascension […]
We Must Pick Up Our Cross and Follow Jesus Many people profess Jesus but follow the world instead of following him. We shouldn’t live close to the world. We should keep a safe distance. Though we don’t need to change our behavior to earn God’s favor, we should want to change in response for what […]
Embrace Scripture as Present, Available, and Relevant In most of my books and a lot of my blog posts I write about the Bible in present tense. This is an intentional effort to remind us that the Bible is not only an ancient text but also one that’s present, available, and relevant to us today. […]