I love these hope-filled words from Romans 15:13: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” (ESV) Read back a few lines. In verse 5, Paul calls your Lord “the God of endurance.” This title really gets at the center of where your hope is to be found. Let me state it plainly: your hope is not to be found in your willingness and ability to endure, but in God’s unshakable,... Read More

Feeling troubled, inadequate, weak, defeated, overwhelmed, alienated, or alone? Here are six gospel promises to embrace today: 1. The Gospel Promises Forgiveness Today Many of us carry around our sin in a metaphorical backpack of regret, bruising our spiritual shoulders and breaking the back of our faith. Jesus took the weight of our sin on himself so that we wouldn’t have to carry it any longer. He says that he will remember our sins no more but will separate us from those sins as far as... Read More

Tomorrow is the Fourth of July. In the United States, it’s a major national holiday known as Independence Day. With fireworks and picnics, we celebrate overthrowing the king of England several hundred years ago and gaining our freedom and independence as a nation. I enjoy celebrating Independence Day, but the Bible doesn’t celebrate independence. On the contrary, the Bible mourns and warns about spiritual independence. Independence is what the serpent sold Adam and Eve, and... Read More

Paid I paid some bills yesterday checks written envelopes stamped went online to pay distant accounts went to the market paid for my sustenance drugstore had my medication paid there too walked crowded sidewalks paying emotionally for my impatience paid the next day for a sleepless night I seem to pay all day every day but it is not true there was a debt my mountainous debt a heavy unbearable weight ten thousand years of work with all the perfection I could muster... Read More

I was not designed to be on my own to author my own story to compose my own rules to live with me in the center. I was not designed to look for life outside of You to treasure the creation to love people, places, and things more than You. I was not designed to rely on my wisdom to trust my imagination to rely on my thoughts to ignore Your revelation. I was not designed to follow the path of my craving to be enslaved to my desires to be ruled by my passions more than I... Read More

I hope that your church pulled out all the stops for a raucous celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Without this historic event and the promise it gives us, “we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:19). We should absolutely make Easter Sunday the biggest and best date on the calendar! But what will you do with Easter now that Easter Sunday is over? What will you do with Easter when a particular area of sin looks attractive to you, and... Read More

I love Easter Sunday. I love the celebratory music we sing at church. I love the passages of Scripture we read during worship. Most of all, I love the visual image of the Empty Tomb. In one culminating and specific moment in history, Jesus Christ summarizes and finalizes the salvation narrative. There are six things in particular that I love about the Empty Tomb. 1. The Empty Tomb reveals that God is faithful. Centuries earlier, after Adam and Eve rebelled, God promised that he... Read More

Have you experienced envy recently? That feeling of envy is not an instinctual response. You don’t see what someone else has and automatically respond with the emotion of envy. Instead, that feeling of envy is the result of an interpretation. Maybe I should phrase it more strongly: that feeling of envy is the result of a distorted interpretation. Envy looks at life through a rippled window, twisting whatever it sees. Envy separates us from reality, expanding certain facts, neglecting... Read More

When it all becomes confusing, when what is good seems not so clear, when wrong seems like it’s winning, where do you run, where do you hide? When you wonder if it’s worth it to honor worship fear obey, where do you run, where do you hide? When disappointment surrounds you and weariness sets in, where do you run, where do you hide? When your soul is growing bitter and you heart is at its end, where do you run, where do you hide? When evil... Read More