Everybody knows that salvation is a gift of God. Ephesians 2:8 says so. We were all spiritual beggars on the side of the road when the Lord Jesus came for us. He reached out His mighty hand of grace, and by faith we took it. He saved us TO good works, not because of them,… Continue reading Salvation Is a Gift of God
There are times in our lives when fear reaches for us. Sometimes it’s caused by our fallen nature and tendency to lean on our own understanding. Other times, it’s the enemy’s bad breath in our ears. Recently, fear struck my heart like it hadn’t in a long time, and I think it was a combination… Continue reading Pray Always That You May Be Accounted Worthy
Christians have bullseyes on their backs, and just about everyone I know right now is getting pounded by the Enemy. Sometimes it isn’t just one thing, but the multiple hits in a row that whip us up into the exact frenzy the devil loves to create. We find ourselves falling, scraping our spiritual knees. We… Continue reading Lamentations 3:22-23: God’s Mercy Is New Every Morning
“Thank goodness the air conditioning went out!” As a Texan in the middle of July, I had no idea that these words would ever come out of my mouth. Unfortunately, that sentence of gratitude came after a lot of other sentences that, on hindsight, look suspiciously like murmuring and complaining. See, as is often the… Continue reading Stop Murmuring and Complaining with the GUARD Method
1 Peter 2:9 talks about how the Lord calls His people out of darkness and into His marvelous light. But how many Christians today are stuck right there on the threshold? They’re not completely in the dark. They believe that Jesus died for their sins and rose again. But they aren’t completely in the light… Continue reading The Edge of the Light is Still Darkness
This week, I was driving and lamenting to the Lord about this or that problem in my life. In every situation, I felt like I had done everything I could do on my own and had prayed for the Lord’s help for the things I couldn’t. Why weren’t things getting FIXED already? Then the words… Continue reading James 1:2: “Embrace the Suck”
“Lord, apart from You, I can do NOTHING.” I have probably said this part of John 15:5 at least five or more times this last week. See, lately I have felt like the Lord was calling me forward past a roadblock that I have no power over or knowledge of how to move. It’s a… Continue reading The Two “Nothings” of God
“I have been praying and praying, and nothing is happening.” How many times have we said or thought that to ourselves? We can start to feel like the heavens are brass, God has taken a vacation, or even that He has completely stopped taking our calls. But what if the problem isn't God at all?… Continue reading The Key to Answered Prayer
The “trust fall” was all the rage when I was young. It’s an exercise in which people stand straight up, close their eyes, and fall backwards, trusting that others will catch them before they hit the ground. It was supposed to be a team building activity, but it showed up in friend circles too. From… Continue reading Life With Jesus Is a Trust Fall
Bible stories are instructive on a lot of levels. They reach across time and culture, telling us what happened in the past on the one hand and teaching us lessons we can apply to our own lives on the other. This week, the Lord brought the lesson of Ishmael to life in my very own… Continue reading God’s Timing: The Lesson of Ishmael
