One great enemy working against us in our pursuit of God’s wisdom is well-intentioned friends and family around us. People seek to draw us back again to the wisdom of this world. They think they know what is best. They say they are looking out for us, but they are diverting us from the path…
Last week on social media author Carey Nieuwhof asked a simple question: “What’s your biggest leadership challenge right now?” Lying in my hospital bed I laughed and said to myself, “Funny you should ask.” At that very moment, our church team was planning a large 4th of July outdoor picnic and service while I was…
So, shall they fear The name of the Lord from the west, And His glory from the rising of the sun; When the enemy comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him (Isaiah 59:19). In the 1970s, the federal courts were the enemy of Christianity and traditional morality. Even recently, monumental…
And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. Isaiah 58:11 The New Testament equivalent to this passage are the words of Jesus Christ in John 7:37-39. If…
Do you ever get the feeling that the world is inexplicably speeding past you, just when you thought you had caught up with all the current terms? Only to find out that what you finally understand is so… really “last decade”, not merely “last year”? Some years ago, at pastors’ meetings, we heard presentations on…
In His famous Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught that the forgiveness Christians receive from the Lord is to have a profound impact on our relationships with others, so much so that a refusal to forgive indicates you’ve never been forgiven: If you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your…
To be an effective witness for Christ, we must be consistent examples of living out Christlike virtues at home, at work, and in any other place in the world. That’s what Paul teaches in the verses leading up to Col 4:2-6. Being like Christ is the necessary backdrop for speaking about him. In Colossians 4:2-6,…
I became a Phoenix Suns fan in the 1975-76 basketball season. That year the Suns made an unlikely trip to the finals behind the efforts of players like Paul Westphal, Gar Heard, Ricky Sober, Alvan Adams, and Dick Van Arsdale. The Suns are back in the finals now, and I am still a Suns fan,…
The fact that there is a “generation gap” within biblical fundamentalism should not be a surprise to anyone. This is what generations do: gap. The main issue is to determine the best way to bridge the gap. Humility must be exhibited by both the “younger” as well as the “older” fundamentalists. As a forty-four-year-old, I…
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. James 1:26-27 I…