Unfulfilled Longing
What do you long for in this life? Perhaps you long for love from a parent, a spouse, or a child. Maybe your desire is for something for others, or maybe your longing is based on a desire for yourself. True longings, meaning those deep desires based on the truth of who you are […]
What Christmas is All About
Isaiah 7:14 Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. We celebrate an absolutely astounding truth during the Christmas season: Immanuel! God is with us! That’s what Christmas is all about – God left His throne and put Himself into the hands of a young girl and her […]
Judgment
We can receive wisdom from some unexpected sources. One of the most insightful statements I ever heard was made to me by a young, suicidal teenager talking about the people around her in her life. She said, “There is a glass between us, and their side is a mirror.” Her “parable” describes beautifully a phenomenon […]
Forgiveness
Forgiveness, often misunderstood in a variety of ways, is an extremely important element of our relationship with Jesus. It was important enough that Jesus gave forgiveness a prominent position in teaching the disciples how to pray. It is a topic of much discussion between Jesus and His disciples, and between Jesus and the Father, even […]
Satan’s Candy Store
Satan offers us brightly wrapped candy, very appealing to the eye and enticing in what he purports that it provides us. If we buy it and eat it, we will taste sweetness – but just for a moment. The candy then turns bitter in our mouths and the bitterness is so awful, we become desperate […]
Suffering
It is difficult to have a conversation about suffering. We prefer avoiding such discussions, for fear of hurting someone’s feelings or being accused of being judgmental. In this age where our culture has adopted a secular humanistic view, even in Christianity, whatever someone is “feeling” is good and right and true, and we are not […]
Before the Throne
How do you imagine it will be when you stand before the Throne of God in the Kingdom of Heaven? We will give an account, Scripture tells us (Matthew 12:36, Romans 14:12, Hebrews 4:13, I Peter 4:5) and everything will be laid bare. So do you imagine yourself standing before God with eyes downcast, […]
Do We Love the Truth?
To love the truth is to love Jesus, because Jesus is the truth (John 14:6). Yet, we claim that we love Jesus while we turn our backs on the truth in exchange for such things as acceptance from others, safety and ease for ourselves, and self-justification for our own lie-based feelings. So do we actually […]
Circle of Life
The interaction of freedom, choice, and responsibility, which are intertwined and interdependent, is what I call the “circle of life.” God’s Kingdom rests on these three elements. “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (II Corinthians 3:17) “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” (Galatians […]
Covenant
The covenants of the Old Testament—between God and Noah, between God and Abraham, between God and the people of Israel through Moses—offer echoes of aspects of the New Covenant between all of humanity and Jesus. The first covenant, God’s promises to start anew with Noah and to not destroy the world again through flood, points […]