Posts

When You Fail

    How has God responded to your failure?  One bedrock fact of the Christian faith is that no one is good enough to earn acceptance from God. You have sinned, and while you might make right decisions, the sum of your right decisions will never outweigh your sin. You are hopeless without Jesus’ saving grace. Jesus died on the cross, was brought back to life, and ascended into heaven, all to satisfy God’s justice and offer forgiveness for your sin. You have asked Jesus to forgive you, and committed your life to follow Him. Your eternity is secure. But how did God respond to you, as His child, the last time you failed, or the time before, or the time before that? The Christian faith is based on the belief that we can never be good enough, yet are accepted by God through grace. However, when a Christian fails, proving that he is not good enough, we struggle to process that failure in terms of God’s response.  The temptation is to think of God’s response in two flawed approaches. You
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Prayer Works

    Why does prayer work? Have you ever wondered why saying words, either outloud or in your head, to someone you can not touch or see, changes anything? As Christians we are told to pray. We are promised that God hears us, and will respond according to His will. But at times we wonder is this changing anything, or am I practicing a religious routine? For those who have ever wondered why all this makes a difference, let me remind you why prayer works, in hopes that these reminders will enrich your prayer life.  What I mean by “prayer”     A mom and her daughter are reading from the child’s Bible story book. As the mom reads of Jesus going alone to pray, the daughter asks, “Mom, what is praying?” The answer is simple, “Praying is when we talk to Jesus.” This is the first definition of prayer we learn. It is rudimentary, but efficient for young minds. As we mature in age, prayer becomes more complicated. We begin adding categories and subcategories of prayer. We speak of healing p
Post a Comment
Read more

Hope in the Pandemic

    During a season of extreme difficulty and hopelessness God led me to Psalm 27. I do not remember the exact moment, or exact circumstances into which God spoke this truth, but this passage has made a profound change in my outlook during difficulty. God used His words in Psalm 27 to deliver me from a deep pit of depression and despair, brought on by an immense feeling of worthlessness and doom. Since then, He has brought these few verses back to mind time and time again, to remind me of the great need during dark times - hope . I had lost hope. I fell victim to the enemy’s lie that all was lost, I had forfeited any claim on the benevolence of God, and my life would be nothing more than a display of failure. But as He does when we listen, the Lord overcame lies with truth and brought hope into my broken world.      COVID-19 has reached the shores of the United States. As I write this, the state in which I live has issued a shelter in place mandate. We are not quarantined at the mom
1 comment
Read more

Living the Never Again

    After hearing a moving sermon on sexual purity (which you can see here https://vimeo.com/393455560 ), I began to wonder how many times we say, “Never again.” How many times have we been confronted by our porn problem, anger issues, love of gossip, greed, lust, or myriad of other sins? The scenario is familiar. In a cavalier moment of strength we swear, “Never again. I’m done. The filters are going on the computer. I am going to conquer my tempter. I will even cut my tongue out to keep from gossiping!” Then as the space between the declaration and the temptation widens, our resolve weigns, and we fall. Again. In an attempt to help you live the never again, I want to turn your attention to something greater than your resolve - the Word of God and power of a redeemed heart. Colossians 3:1-17 will show you how to begin living the never again.      Set your mind on Christ      Living the never again begins with your mind. In verse 2 Paul says, “set your mind on things that are ab
Post a Comment
Read more

Content to Marvel

Are we amazed by less and less? I remember a world without the internet, and cars without air conditioning. And I am not that old! But now we carry the internet in our hand, and cars park themselves. A self-parking car was material for science fiction when I learned to drive. Yet the newest commercial for a self-parking car does not amaze us, on our best days we muster a , “Hey that’s pretty cool.” Technological advancement, scientific discovery, and fascinating inventions have slowly eroded the first world’s capacity to be amazed. We tend to lean toward figuring out how something works, rather than being amazed.  Inadvertently, this tendency to explain migrates into believers’ approach to the spiritual. Rather than amazement, we seek explanation. We define terms, create systems of discovering truth and present those truth in orderly fashion. In and of themselves, systems of truth and explanation are not devious. Yet, explanation is not always the proper response to the divine. So
Post a Comment
Read more

Born Again Love

Listen as Mark talks about loving those difficult people in our life through the power of Jesus. https://vimeo.com/94269853
Post a Comment
Read more

Reading God's Word, Hearing God's Voice

    As I am writing this, I look as shelves of books. Hundreds of books, ranging from classic novels to systematic theologies, scores of Biblical commentaries, books on church growth, and Christian living. Each of these books are noteworthy, having contributed to the field of literature, theology, ecclesiology, or living the faith.      I am reminded of walking through the library at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft.Worth, TX. At the time it was the largest theological library in North America. My wife was with me. She looked in wonder at  three floors of books, shelves upon shelves of volumes. With widened eyes she said, “Just think, all these books are written about one book.” And that one book, is unlike any other book that has ever existed, or will ever exist.      If we seek to live indwelt by the word of God, we must make reading that one book, The Bible, utmost priority. But as we read that book, it behooves us to keep in mind its unique nature. The Bible
Post a Comment
Read more