Psalm 15 is a temple entrance liturgy. It begins with the twofold question, “O, Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?” This is an important question. In other words, the psalmist is asking, “What kind of person is...
True freedom is not the ability to freely pursue happiness as we each define it. Freedom is the ability to break free from the crooked, perverse, self-centered human nature and live entirely for God.
Be sure of one thing: following Jesus is hard. It requires you to lay down everything. You can make claim to nothing for yourself when following Jesus. Jesus talked about a lot of things in code. He wasn’t always explicit about what he was...
I grew up in a home of praying parents. Mom had (and still has) a special prayer chair in the corner of our living room. Next to the chair was a little ottoman wither her Bible and a notebook containing a prayer journal and a list of people and...
Humanity has an honesty problem. The problem of dishonesty pervades every aspect of our lives. Dishonesty is why we have locks on our doors, banks, contracts, courts, law enforcement, passwords, firewalls, and the list goes on for eternity. People...
One cannot be a serious Christian without being strong and courageous. There are two particular elements of growing in Christ that require courage and both are a result of being obedient to Jesus. First, obeying Jesus in public life requires great...
Have you ever noticed that there is a pattern to the kinds of conditions and illnesses that Jesus heals in the New Testament? For example, on more than one occasion Jesus heals leprosy (Matt 8:1–4, Mark 1:40–45, and Luke 5:12–16), paralysis (Mark...
It’s really hard to be courteous to everyone always. Actually, it seems impossible. Not long ago I wrote a Saturday Sermon about a text in the New Testament that commands Christians to be courteous to all people (Titus 3:2). I wrote...
Have you ever thought about the simple fact that people respond to Jesus very differently? There are those today who love him and willingly die for him, there are others who hate him and wish they never heard the name again, and then there are those...
I mentioned in this post that the Bible compares Jesus and the Church to a married couple. I noted that the points of comparison between the two are deep love and commitment (self-sacrificing love and commitment). This isn’t the only metaphor the...