The Measure of A Man (Part 1)
For a long time now the culture has been at war with manhood. The plain things God built into a man, the drive to lead, to provide, to compete, to stand between danger and the people he loves, got lumped together under one word and called toxic. Strength became a threat to manage. Taking the lead became control waiting to happen. A boy who wanted to win, or to protect, or to be told he had what it takes, was handed a diagnosis when what he needed was a father. What God made and called good was renamed a sickness, and a whole generation of men learned to say sorry for the way God made them.
Are You Done?
So, the question "Are you done?" is often asked when someone finishes a project, or when we have accomplished a difficult task. Yet, when it comes to the Christian life, the answer is simple. No, we are not done. Not until the Lord calls us home or Jesus Christ returns in glory. Even though your salvation has been secured. You are never done!! Don’t sit back and just think, I don’t need to do anything because my salvation is secure. We must work until the very end. Dig into God’s Word and find something to do for the Kingdom. Make yourself useful for the gospel. As long as we draw breath, we are to work for the kingdom till the very last breath we have in us.
Look to Christ: Our Confidence, Our Victory, Our Life
Brothers and Sisters, here we are in September already. I have decided to do a short study of 1 John 5, which is a great encouragement. John brings together many of the truths he has been teaching throughout his letter. He has spoken about walking in the light, confessing our sins, loving one another, obeying God's commands, testing the spirits, and knowing that we belong to Christ.
The Service of Assembly
“People who serve are people who stay.” This is a popular saying that, for a few decades now, has gained popularity as a truism within American church growth movements and around the staff meeting tables of myriad local churches. The idea behind this maxim comes from a line of thinking that prioritizes church growth via programmatic pathways focusing on guest assimilation and member retention, or as another saying puts it, a need to “close the back door.” These pathways or “assimilation systems” aim to maximize guest experience in hopes that they become regular attenders, regular attenders become meaningfully connected or members (if the church has formal membership), and members find ministries or programs in which they are committed to serve. Because of course, “people who serve are people who stay.”
Do We Live In a Computer Simulation?
Did you know that there are some people who believe that everything we know as reality is just a computer simulation? There are some people who believe that some advanced civilization is so far beyond our capabilities as a human society that they have programmed us into their own simulation.[1] In other words, nothing that we know as real is real.
Eternal Life in Jesus Christ
Brothers and Sisters, when you begin wondering whether you are strong enough to make it to the end, remember where John points us. God gave the new birth. God brought us to faith. God produces obedience. God strengthens our assurance. God preserves us so that we persevere. And God has given us eternal life in His Son. From beginning to end, our salvation rests upon Jesus Christ. The grace that saves us is the same grace that keeps us, changes us, strengthens us, and will finally bring us home…..
Not Good To Be Alone
"It is not good that the man should be alone." God spoke these words in the garden, before He made Eve. They still stand (Genesis 2:18). We were made for one another. That is how God built us. Yet we live after the fall, in a world where real closeness often feels just out of reach. Ecclesiastes says it plainly. "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up" (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10).
Loneliness is one of the wounds the fall left on us. It is the gap between the way God made us to live and the way we live now. The church is called to see that gap, to feel it, and to love the people who fall into it.
Homesick for Heaven
Okinawa is a very real part of my story. It is where I grew up, where I have memories and family connections, and where many things feel wonderfully familiar. I will probably always have a special affection for it. But as much as I love Okinawa, it isn’t my ultimate home. Neither is Florida where I currently live, or the state of Maine that I lived in for 28 years. As a Christian, my true citizenship is somewhere else. Paul reminds us, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20).
Church Discipline: When Love Refuses to Look the Other Way
Few subjects are more uncomfortable for Christians to discuss than church discipline.
In a culture that tells us to mind our own business, avoid uncomfortable conversations, and never judge anyone else, the biblical command to confront unrepentant sin can seem harsh—even unloving.
But 1 Corinthians 5 gives us a very different picture.
Paul is writing to a deeply troubled church in Corinth. They had divisions, sexual immorality, lawsuits between believers, confusion about Christian liberty, and numerous other problems. Yet Paul does not abandon them. Instead, he continues to give them gospel answers.
The Pro-Lifer's Borrowed Capital
Few convictions run deeper in the pro-life movement than its care for the mother. It has built pregnancy centers, staffed the hotlines, and opened its homes, and it has insisted, rightly, that a woman in crisis is someone to be loved. That care shapes its laws as well, and in one particular place it shapes them in a way few in the movement have examined closely enough.
The movement holds two convictions about the mother, and it holds them both with a good conscience. The first is that a woman who ends the life of her child has murdered her child. The second is that a woman who conceives a child should carry that child to birth. Both flow from a single certainty, that the child is real and the child is hers. Take the first conviction at its word and a plain question follows. If a woman who aborts her child has in fact murdered her child, should she be treated as a murderer or not? The movement flinches from the question, and it has rarely stopped to ask why.
Our Triune God
Does the doctrine of the Trinity make you think of some theologian or Bible scholar speaking fancy words? Well, I got news for you. The doctrine of the Trinity is not just something in our confession of faith. It is the way God reveals Himself to us in His Word. Even more important it’s the foundation of our salvation, our fellowship with God, and our daily comfort as Christians. Every believer already depends upon the Trinity every single day, whether recognizing it or not.
How The Silent Sin of Sloth Disguises Itself in Our Busy Age
Of the seven deadly sins, sloth is the one we are surest we understand. We picture laziness, idleness, the avoidance of work. Yet that picture barely reaches the surface of what Scripture and the church fathers named. The sin they warned against runs deeper and lies closer to home than most of us suspect.
Teaching So Everyone Can Understand
Paul's confidence was never in polished speech or impressive language. His confidence rested in the power of the gospel. The message is what saves people, not the messenger's ability to sound eloquent. That should be the desire of every shepherd and every believer sharing the gospel. We are not called to impress people. We are called to feed people….
Light in the Darkness
At 56 years old, here I thought I knew pain. Ha! Um...no. Let me tell you, this has been the absolute most painful and difficult time in my life. Ever.
I'm so sorry for ever dismissing, in my mind and without prayer, anyone who told me they had or have shingles, as if it was just a simple "painful" rash.
I'll be perfectly open and honest with you: this situation caused my depression and anxiety to surface. All I could hear was my own voice. Why me? How could God let this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? Me, me, me.
The Word of God
Ever wondered why our Bible contains just sixty-six books? Why do we have Genesis through Revelation? Why not the Apocrypha or other ancient religious books? That is a good question, and it deserves a good answer. The answer is not that a group of men sat around a table one day and decided what books they liked the best. Neither did a church council create the Bible. God did, and that is where we must begin.
The Hidden Life
We live in the age of exposure. Lives unfold in public view, privacy has come to seem quaint, and authenticity reigns as the highest virtue. Post by post, like by like, we have embraced a culture that equates transparency with honesty and self-expression with truth. Be yourself. Speak your truth. These function now as first commandments.
Preserved by Grace, Persevering by the Spirit
Beloved, have you ever thought about the difference between God preserving us and our perseverance? When we understand the difference, this can bring great comfort to the Saints, because our perseverance does not rest in our own strength. Or the ability to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. It rests in the faithfulness of God. The Bible teaches us that every true believer is preserved by God. And, because God preserves His people, they will persevere to the very end. We remain faithful because our God is faithful. Our perseverance is not the cause of our salvation; it is the evidence that God is preserving us.
Why Is the Gospel Important Daily?
Brothers and Sisters, sometimes I think we forget just how much we need the gospel every single day. We tend to think the gospel is mainly for those who have not come to Christ yet. Those who need the gospel to be saved. They certainly do and we should pray for the lost and tell sinners there is forgiveness and eternal life in Jesus Christ. However, sometimes we act as though the gospel got us through the front door. Now it is up to us to navigate the rest of the house. Beloved, that is just not true.
The God Who Names the Stars Knows Your Name
Have you ever felt as though your burdens were too small to bring before God because surely He has greater things to worry about? I do this way more than I’d like to admit.
Psalm 147 gently corrects that thinking. The God who upholds the universe never has to choose between governing galaxies and comforting His children. He does both perfectly.
Held By Grace
One of our great comforts we have is knowing that our salvation does not rest upon the strength of our grip on Christ, but upon Christ's grip on us. There is an important difference between God's preservation and our perseverance, and understanding that difference can bring tremendous peace to our hearts. Because God preserves His people, we are able to persevere. Those two truths always belong together. Preservation is God's work. Perseverance is the believer's response. Yet even our perseverance is made possible by the Holy Spirit who lives within us.