Godliness is a God-centered life. It grows, not through the pursuit of a process, but through the presence of a person. Jesus Christ is the mystery of godliness (1 Timothy 3:16). His presence in your life is your hope of becoming the person God calls you to be. Christ in you [is] the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). Contentment is finding joy in what God has given to you. The opposite of contentment is greed which destroys your capacity to enjoy what God has given. Contentment is a Christian gra...
Aug 26, 2024•30 min
What do you live for? God wants us to think big. Do we live for ourselves? Our desires? Our ambitions? Do we live for our career? Our relationships? Our family? Our friends? We live for the One who died for us. We live to glorify him. We live to give witness to his love to the people he has placed in our lives. In so doing we find fulfillment, meaning and joy because this is what we were created for. How we live, how we act, our attitudes, our reactions to hardships and life’s challenges—in all ...
Aug 19, 2024•23 min
What do you live for? God wants us to think big. Do we live for ourselves? Our desires? Our ambitions? Do we live for our career? Our relationships? Our family? Our friends? We live for the One who died for us. We live to glorify him. We live to give witness to his love to the people he has placed in our lives. In so doing we find fulfillment, meaning and joy because this is what we were created for. How we live, how we act, our attitudes, our reactions to hardships and life’s challenges—in all ...
Aug 19, 2024•33 min
Being in a place of leadership—even in the church--is challenging. A congregation is made up of diverse people: different backgrounds, personalities, preferences-- different lenses through which we see the world. There is no way that church leaders can make every member happy all the time. Leadership in the church is to one degree or another a ministry of love offered above and beyond an already busy life with multiple commitments. Whether we always agree with decisions made by our church leader...
Aug 12, 2024•26 min
In his second letter to Timothy Paul writes: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” God’s Word is true. God’s Word is practical. God’s Word is sufficient. God’s Word provides principles that are enduring from generation to generation, yet each age and each culture must wrestle with how to apply those principles to its own context and circumstances. I...
Aug 05, 2024•29 min
Aug 04, 2024•2 min
A 5k, a marathon, a Tough Mudder, tryouts for your school team—we recognize the importance of preparing well for these types of events. In many cases it can be a “do or die” situation. Preparing well requires a plan, commitment, tenacity and self-discipline. The race of life is also a do or die situation. And life is much more a marathon than a 5K. The apostle Paul encourages us today to establish a spiritual training regime that gives the Holy Spirit the opportunity to work in us the strength a...
Jul 29, 2024•31 min
A 5k, a marathon, a Tough Mudder, tryouts for your school team—we recognize the importance of preparing well for these types of events. In many cases it can be a “do or die” situation. Preparing well requires a plan, commitment, tenacity and self-discipline. The race of life is also a do or die situation. And life is much more a marathon than a 5K. The apostle Paul encourages us today to establish a spiritual training regime that gives the Holy Spirit the opportunity to work in us the strength a...
Jul 29, 2024•25 min
It’s easy to hide weaknesses when everything is going well. But what about when the pressure is on? When we experience the pressure that life can bring, what truth will that pressure reveal? Pressure can not only reveal to us the truth about ourselves, but can also reveal the truth about God to us, and to others.
Jul 22, 2024•34 min
Our church body and many others are wrestling right now with a shortage of ministry workers to meet the needs of the local church. Why are there fewer men and women going into full-time ministry work? There are, of course, many factors. Your present pastors recall the culture surrounding them when they were young and considering pursuing full-time ministry. There was great respect for this pursuit from family members and from the community. The thought was that there was no greater work than lea...
Jul 15, 2024•31 min
The household of faith is built on the reality that God has designed the members of his household be complementarily diverse. That’s a mouthful. It means that God created us all with unique gifts, skills, talents, and predispositions. This diversity provides all that is required to meet the complex needs of the household of faith, individuals, families, churches, and communities. It is a perfect design. Today we consider this design as it pertains the roles and relationships of men and women. In...
Jul 08, 2024•21 min
The household of faith is built on the reality that God has designed the members of his household be complementarily diverse. That’s a mouthful. It means that God created us all with unique gifts, skills, talents, and predispositions. This diversity provides all that is required to meet the complex needs of the household of faith, individuals, families, churches, and communities. It is a perfect design. Today we consider this design as it pertains the roles and relationships of men and women. In...
Jul 08, 2024•40 min
As the presidential election draws closer, people’s fear is tangible. Some of this fear is rational. Much of this fear is not. Our future does not rest in the hands of the man who will be elected as our next president. Our future rests in the hands of the One who created and rules over all things. Our future rests in the hands of the One who understands the ungodly, sinful nature that resides in all people and has therefore established government to curb our greed, selfishness and violence. Our ...
Jul 01, 2024•22 min
What do you see when you look in the mirror. A vast majority of people do not like what they see. And we are not talking first and foremost about appearance. We are talking about the man and woman underneath. The mistakes we have made, the people we have hurt, our failings and failures, our disappointments and regrets. If this is what see, we are not seeing what God sees. We are focused instead on what the devil wants us to see. He wants us to see sin, failure, shame, hopelessness. That is not t...
Jun 24, 2024•31 min
Many of us grew up with a healthy amount of fear when it came to our fathers or other male leaders, principals and police officers, for example. Certainly, there was benefit in this fear. We put ourselves and others in danger of great harm when we choose to break the rules. In the same way, it is healthy to fear God. His law is real, not just a suggestion. Yet, the Bible says that the law is “not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels.” What does that mean? The law is meant to terroriz...
Jun 17, 2024•23 min
Many of us grew up with a healthy amount of fear when it came to our fathers or other male leaders, principals and police officers, for example. Certainly, there was benefit in this fear. We put ourselves and others in danger of great harm when we choose to break the rules. In the same way, it is healthy to fear God. His law is real, not just a suggestion. Yet, the Bible says that the law is “not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels.” What does that mean? The law is meant to terroriz...
Jun 17, 2024•28 min
"I just want to be happy." The challenge with that sentiment is understanding what it truly means to be happy. Am I happy when I feel good? Am I happy when everything is going my way in life? A part of us recognizes that these kinds of approaches to happiness are shallow, that true happiness has to have more depth to it. Throughout the Scriptures we are told that true happiness is realized more and more as we find ourselves in greater harmony with the truth--the truth about ourselves, the truth ...
Jun 10, 2024•36 min
"I just want to be happy." The challenge with that sentiment is understanding what it truly means to be happy. Am I happy when I feel good? Am I happy when everything is going my way in life? A part of us recognizes that these kinds of approaches to happiness are shallow, that true happiness has to have more depth to it. Throughout the Scriptures we are told that true happiness is realized more and more as we find ourselves in greater harmony with the truth--the truth about ourselves, the truth ...
Jun 10, 2024•21 min
Jun 09, 2024•2 min
After a long day of work, you have earned the right to sit down in your favorite chair, put your feet up, and watch your favorite program. After a hard week on the job, you have earned the opportunity to relax a bit that weekend. After doing your job well for many months, you have earned those two weeks of vacation at the beach. This is how everyone thinks: rest is something you earn through hard work. We even teach that to our kids: no gaming until homework is done, no playing with friends unti...
Jun 03, 2024•40 min
No Christian teaching demonstrates that we have a top-down faith more than the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Scripture teaches that there is only one God. Yet that God exists as three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Incomprehensible! It is the type of teaching about which the psalmist declares, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain” (Psalm 139:6). We believe in the Triune God without fully comprehending his existence, simply because the Spirit has gi...
May 27, 2024•28 min
Jesus told his disciples that, though he was going to ascend into heaven, he wasn’t going to leave them alone. He was going to send “the Advocate,” a title for the Holy Spirit. But Jesus wasn’t sending the Spirit just to keep us company. Jesus would have the Advocate give us spiritual power so that we might participate in Christ’s saving work. Here is the final resurrection reality. The Spirit gives us the ability to raise the spiritually dead to life. We see this happen on Pentecost. The festiv...
May 20, 2024•29 min
The entirety of God’s Word can be summed up in one word: love. God’s Law is all about love. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37,39). The gospel is all about love: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…” (John 3:16). From his compassion for the sick and broken, to his sacrificial death on the cross, to the peace he provided after his resurrection, Jesus was the perfect embodiment of love. Love is his business. T...
May 13, 2024•32 min
Conventional wisdom would say if Christ has ascended into heaven, he is further away from his followers than when he was visibly on earth. The resurrection reality is that it is the other way around. Now that Christ has ascended, he is closer than ever. The living and ascended Savior has reassumed full use of all his divine power. So if you need Christ’s help, you don’t need to hunt for him in Galilee. You call to him in prayer, wherever you are, whenever you want, and he hears and acts. You wan...
May 06, 2024•33 min
Generally, our actions are shaped by our beliefs. People who eat low-carb diets do so, probably not because they hate pasta, but because they believe it healthiest. If a man buys stock in a company, it probably is because he believes in their business plan. Our beliefs shape our behavior. This is true of Christians’ belief in the resurrection. We believe that Christ’s resurrection means our resurrection to a glorious eternal life is guaranteed. That inevitably shapes how we will act now. However...
Apr 29, 2024•32 min
Generally, our actions are shaped by our beliefs. People who eat low-carb diets do so, probably not because they hate pasta, but because they believe it healthiest. If a man buys stock in a company, it probably is because he believes in their business plan. Our beliefs shape our behavior. This is true of Christians’ belief in the resurrection. We believe that Christ’s resurrection means our resurrection to a glorious eternal life is guaranteed. That inevitably shapes how we will act now. However...
Apr 29, 2024•21 min
Scripture frequently pictures spiritual care in terms of a shepherd watching over sheep. Even folks unfamiliar with shepherding are able to grasp the meaning. Sheep are helpless animals—an easy meal for predators. For sheep to survive they needed a shepherd who not only leads them to sources of food, but who also is willing to tangle with a pack of wolves. Jesus is such a shepherd. He proved he is willing to lay down his life for his sheep. The word “pastor” comes from the Latin word for “shephe...
Apr 22, 2024•34 min
A platitude is a statement aimed at helping soothe some sort of emotional unease. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Or “Life is a mystery.” Or “Good things come to those who wait.” While platitudes may be well-intentioned, at best they come off as trite. And since platitudes provide no real help, they can actually make a situation worse. Tell the one whose heart is shattering, “Life is a mystery.” They won’t appreciate your platitude or you. The resurrection gives believers the ability...
Apr 15, 2024•37 min
In most world religions, the alleged foundational event was experienced by only one person. A self proclaimed prophet would allege he alone had some special encounter with God. “No really! Just trust me. It really happened.” The resurrection reality is so very different. In the Great Resurrection Chapter (1 Corinthians 15), St. Paul writes an entire paragraph listing all the people to whom Jesus appeared after he rose, including a group of over five hundred at one time. It is like St. Paul is te...
Apr 08, 2024•33 min
The film director Woody Allen once said, “I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” Studies have shown that most people fear death to varying degrees. This fear is so common, there is even a field of psychological study called thanatology. It examines human reaction to death and dying. One of the biggest reasons people fear death is the perception of its permanency. In the normal realm of human existence, dead is dead. Someone dies, and all you have are pictures and ...
Apr 01, 2024•28 min
