The Subtle Danger of Religious Confidence
There is a specific kind of danger that never announces itself as a threat. It doesn’t feel like rebellion, and it certainly doesn’t feel hostile toward God. In fact, it often feels exactly like faith. It is the danger of religious confidence—the quiet assumption that we are right with God because of what we know, where we grew up, or the religious "badges" we wear.
Shutting Down the Loopholes
As we look at Romans 3, Paul knows exactly what we are thinking. He hears a heckler in the back of the classroom asking questions to dismantle the argument or find a loophole for his own advantage. Paul is a brilliant man who anticipates the opponent’s argument and presents it before they have a chance to spout off. He systematically dismantles these objections to protect the church from conclusions that undermine trust in a faithful God.
Why Your Prayers Are Never Wasted
n Revelation 8, John sees something that should steady every believer who has ever struggled in prayer. He sees an altar in heaven. “Another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.” This is temple language. In the Old Testament tabernacle, and later in the temple, there was a golden altar placed just before the veil that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies. On that altar, incense was burned continually. It was the place of intercession, where the priest would offer incense and pray on behalf of the people, and the smoke would rise before God as a sweet aroma. Now John sees the reality behind the shadow. He sees heaven itself, the true temple, the throne of God, and before that throne an altar. And at that altar are the prayers of the saints. Your prayers are in heaven, not forgotten, not dismissed, not wasted, but brought before the throne of God.
Celebrity Conversions: When are they real? When are they not?
In recent years, a familiar story has played out publicly in ways that should make every thoughtful Christian pause and reflect. It involves celebrity conversions.
In 2019, Kanye West professed faith in Christ and claimed to have become born again. He was even being discipled by a sound pastor. Many expressed excitement over his conversion, while others urged caution. However, Kanye’s faith and walk with Christ were short-lived. Far from evidencing repentance, his public behavior has been marred by offensive rhetoric, sexual sin, and the pride that defined the “old Kanye.” His album Jesus Is King (released October 25, 2019) filled arenas with “Sunday Services,” and many assumed revival had come to Hollywood. But time revealed that outward enthusiasm does not equal inward transformation.
When Service Becomes Self-Service
We live in a culture that celebrates service to some degree, and Scripture affirms this calling. Jesus came "not to be served, but to serve" (Mark 10:45). Yet the heart is deceitfully wicked (Jeremiah 17:9), capable of corrupting even our good deeds into instruments of self-interest. Even the noblest acts can serve ourselves, yet Christ's service reveals love that seeks only the Father's glory.
Here is the unsettling question: What if your service isn't serving anyone but yourself?
Bring Back the Block Parties!
Most Americans don't know their neighbors' names. We wave from driveways, nod at mailboxes, and retreat behind garage doors that close like drawbridges. We live ten feet apart and might as well be strangers. The suburban dream promised safety, space, and the good life. What it delivered was isolation wrapped in quarter-acre lots.
This wasn't always the case. A generation ago, front porches were places of spontaneous conversation. Children played in the street while parents watched from lawn chairs. Neighbors borrowed sugar, shared tools, and knew who needed help. Something has shifted. We've traded proximity for privacy, community for control. And we're lonelier for it.
The block party, once a staple of American neighborhood life, has nearly vanished. It's time to bring it back.
Finding Where You Fit In This World
It is one of the most persistent questions of human life. Where do I belong? What is my purpose? How do I fit into the world around me? The question surfaces in quiet moments, in seasons of transition, in the ache of loneliness, and in the restlessness that accompanies even apparent success. It is not a new question. But the answers our culture offers have shifted dramatically.
Hope for the Empty Nest Mom
The empty nest can arrive quietly—or all at once—and when it does, it often brings an ache no one prepared us for. The house is quieter, routines have shifted, and the roles that once defined our days feel suddenly distant. I was a homeschooling mama so this change felt really intense. This season can feel lonely, confusing, and deeply emotional, even when we are proud of our children and grateful they are growing, and being blessed as we watch them have families of their own and adding grandchildren to the numbers.
Not That Kind of Sunday Best
When you walk into church on Sunday, and your heart feels heavy, do not force a smile. If tears come, let them fall. You are not performing for an audience. You are gathering with family. You are allowed to arrive as you are, with the weight of your week, the ache of your losses, or the joy that fills you. Church is not a stage. It is a place where honesty matters more than polish, presence matters more than performance, and your heart, its joy and its grief, is an offering to God.
Lost In the Pew
This is why being “lost in the pew” is so dangerous. You can sit under the Word, agree with the truth, judge the world accurately—and still be unconverted. You can condemn the culture while excusing yourself. You can look alive while being spiritually dead.
When God Steps Back
In the town hall of Copenhagen stands what many consider the most complicated clock in the world. It took forty years to build. It contains over fifteen thousand working parts. It keeps time so precisely that it loses only two-fifths of a second every three hundred years. It is a marvel of human ingenuity—beautiful, complex, and astonishingly reliable.
And yet, it still drifts.
Which raises a simple but unsettling question: by what perfect standard will it be reset? A clock, no matter how sophisticated, cannot correct itself. It must be measured by something outside itself—something truer, more fixed, more authoritative.
That question doesn’t just belong in a town hall in Copenhagen. It belongs in every human heart.
If You’re Not Your Body, Why Can’t I Be You?
Modern Western culture increasingly insists on a sharp distinction between biology and identity. The body is treated as incidental, mutable, negotiable, and ultimately irrelevant to who a person "really" is. The authentic self, we are told, resides somewhere inward: in psychology, self-perception, narrative, or felt identity.
This idea is now so common that it is rarely examined. But when followed to its logical conclusion, it produces a problem few are willing to face. If you are not your biology, then there is no principled reason someone else could not identify as you. Not like you. Not aligned with you. But you. That conclusion feels absurd. And that reaction is precisely the point.
Seed of the Woman
We know God is good, but we face the reality of a fallen world, and the great evils of this world tempt us to doubt God’s goodness. The reality that we face is that this world as we know it, though once created good, is under the curse of sin and the work of the great serpent.
In Genesis 3, we find the origin story of evil, but we also find the promise: Christ is the serpent-crushing Seed of the Woman who saves us from the curse and restores God’s very good design.
Researcher, Diagnose Thyself
A teenager scrolls through TikTok and finds a video explaining ADHD. Something clicks. "That's me!" she announces to her parents. "I have ADHD." When they suggest she see a professional, she bristles. "I don't need some therapist to tell me what I already know about myself. I've done my own research! I'm not going to let the medical establishment gaslight me."
She thinks she's resisting the system. She doesn't realize she's already been captured by it.
“In the Beginning…”
Ultimately, all of Scripture points to the fullness of God’s glory in Christ and what that means for us, and that includes the Old Testament! In order for us to grasp these truths, we have to approach the text of Scripture on God’s terms and read it according to how it was given, not according to our own schemes.
For example, the Old Testament is not merely a part of God’s story concerning God’s people before the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. It is our story. It is the story of who God is and what he has done. Ultimately, it is the story of redemption in Christ as the source and fulfilment of all existence, identity, and authority.
Restore to Me the Joy of Your Salvation
When I was first saved, I was beyond excited. My love for Jesus was brand new and overflowing. I couldn’t stop talking about Him. I wanted everyone to know Him the way I did—to experience the same joy, freedom, and transformation that had completely changed my life.
Sadly, that excitement irritated my family. They thought I was being ridiculous, over-the-top, and a little too intense. They wanted nothing to do with my new faith. Yet, in my new church family, I was received very differently. I was told many times that my joy was refreshing—that I was a “breath of fresh air.” More than once, someone gently said, “Enjoy this honeymoon phase. It’s special.”
That puzzled me. I remember thinking, “Why wouldn’t everyone feel this way? How could you not be completely in love with Jesus and want to tell the whole world about Him?”
Christmas Is War: Finding New Meaning in Skillet’s “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”
There has been recent controversy about this version of O Come, O Come Emmanuel by Skillet. Some love it, others don't. I was pondering this myself. Did they go too hard rock at the end of the song?
But I have a new outlook following the sermon on Revelation 12 titled “Christmas is War.” Pastor Dan Sardinas preached about the war that has been going on between the Woman and the Dragon in John's vision. What really stood out to me is the warfare that Satan (dragon) has engaged in to keep the Messiah from coming the first time, and the current war that Satan is waging against God's people (woman). We are at war until Jesus Christ comes again.
What in the World Is Wrong with This World
In 2013, as the Presbyterian Church (USA) assembled a new hymnal titled Glory to God, they sought to include the modern hymn “In Christ Alone” by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend. The song had already become a staple in churches around the world. There was only one problem. One line in the second verse troubled the hymnal committee: “Till on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.”
They asked the authors for a simple edit—replace “wrath” with “love.”
When the Fullness of Time Came
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” (Gal. 4:4–5)
In these few verses, Christmas is explained with more clarity than most people realize. Let’s consider what this passage tells us about Christ, His mission, and what His coming means for us.
I Heard the Bells: The Christmas Carol Born Out of Pain
Every Christmas season brings familiar songs to our ears—carols we’ve sung for years and often recite without thinking. But behind some of these songs are stories so real, so raw, that they deepen the meaning of every line we sing. One of the most powerful examples is I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.