Conviction and condemnation are distant cousins. I wouldn’t call them siblings, but they do belong in the same family. They both have to do with the way we deal with our mistakes or, as the Bible puts it, our sin. They are universal feelings, yet they don’t always stem from universal actions. Some may feel […]
THE SPIRITUAL GIFTS
When a person becomes a Christian, they are told about the grace of Jesus, the love of God, and the “fellowship of the Holy Spirit”; God the father and Jesus Christ the son are familiar and have lots of dialogue in the Bible, but the Holy Spirit is pretty quiet and often overlooked. So what […]
FEAR THE LORD?
Fear is not a feeling that most of us enjoy. We avoid the uncertainty, vulnerability, and powerlessness that often make up that emotion. Fear of an opponent can become a mental barrier that keeps us from winning, and fear of failure can keep us from reaching our potential and pursuing our dreams. Fear can get […]
WHAT DOES DISCIPLESHIP MEAN?
When I became a Christian, I didn’t know what discipleship was, and in all honesty, years after giving my heart to the Lord, I still didn’t. After five years as a follower of Jesus, the senior pastor of my church took me under his wing. He was an example of a mature Christian in my […]
THE ART OF SUFFERING
Over the past several years I’ve started learning from the wisdom of people who have suffered and weathered some of the roughest storms of life. These people come from backgrounds different from my own. This wisdom has brought new sets of questions for me about the nature of pain and suffering and the place of […]
Choosing Wisely
I was 15 minutes early for my hair appointment and had some time to kill when a handsome mall salesman lured me over to his kiosk with the promise of a free gift. I instinctively reached for the little packet he waved in front of my face, prepared to snatch it and dart away. But […]
When Life Throws You Off Track
In high school, I missed sixty days in one semester because of illness. Previously an ‘A’ student, I was flunking out of high school and was threatened with repeating my junior year. I was transferred to an independent study program where I graduated with a class of four other people: a teen mom, a […]
The Grapes of Wrath
Many Christians may have questions concerning what is sinful compared to what is only bad manners. The topic of anger is one of those areas in question. Is all anger sinful or is there such a thing as righteous anger (anger for a good reason)? Is feeling angry ever okay for a believer? Psychologist Robert […]
In a Field Longing to Be Fed
The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10), and at nineteen, I was utterly lost. Jesus found me on Friday, March 12, 2004 at 4:10 PM. I encountered him face to face in a vision. Shortly after I became a Christian I moved to California to grow in my […]
ON JUDGING LESS
“The world is not simply divided between judgmental and nonjudgmental people,” writes Terry D. Cooper in his book Making Judgments Without Being Judgmental. If you think it is, you’re caught in the very vortex of black-and-white thinking from which judgmentalism is spun. The reasons we judge, versus the reasons we are judgmental, are as deeply […]