Many people think the theme of war ends with the Old Testament. Not at all. Jesus says, "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matt. 10:34). In fact, his birth involved another battle in heaven (Rev. 12:1-5, 7-8, 17). The birth of Christ...
READ MOREBecause of Jesus, we have every reason to be known as people of deep hope and joy. But does that mean we are going to be running around singing and dancing and smiling every moment of our lives? Are you able to? Am I? Is that what it means to “...
READ MOREBefore we go any farther in our search, I need to make the offer of Christianity clear: There is a way to be good again. The hope of Christianity is that we get to live life like Jesus. That beautiful goodness can be ours. He can heal what has...
READ MOREI'm simply sitting on my back porch. Warm summer evening, cool breeze, beautiful sky now turning that deep navy blue just before dark.
That's when the carnival started.
Some agitated place in me started clamoring for relief. Even...
READ MOREMost of you have heard of the famous Cross, the assurance of forgiveness (and Lord knows we’ll need buckets of that as we go along). In the Cross God undergoes utter forsakenness so that we will never be forsaken. He understands sorrow, pain,...
READ MOREThe exodus of the people of Israel and their journey through the Sinai desert is one of the greatest survival stories of all time. More than two million people wandering through a land of sand and barren rock, homeless, looking for the...
READ MORESatan has an ace up his sleeve—even if his captives want out of the POW camp, he has a legal claim to them. A claim that can be broken only by blood. These prisoners can be ransomed, but only at a terrible price.
It appears the evil one...
READ MOREI drove you in disgrace from the mount of God,
and I expelled you, O guardian cherub,
from among the fiery stones. (Ezekiel 28:16)
So evil entered the Story.
I am staggered by the level of naïveté that most...
READ MOREJesus’ freedom is a difficult thing to teach on for many reasons; let me name two. First, there are certain types who will hear this and find it an excuse to live as they please. Many characters in our irreverent age “don’t care what others think...
READ MOREThe new covenant has two parts to it: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezek. 36:26). God removed your old heart when he circumcised your heart; he...
READ MOREMaybe it would be better to turn our search to the headwaters, to that mighty root from which these branches grow. Who is this One we allegedly come from, whose image every man bears? What is he like? In a man's search for his strength, telling...
READ MOREGod promises every man futility and failure; he guarantees every woman relational heartache and loneliness. We spend most of our waking hours attempting to end-run the curse. We will fight this truth with all we've got. Sure,...
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