Faith

Being a Christian is about choosing Jesus and deciding to do something incredibly daring with your life. The scriptures say that we should not fear those things which can destroy the body, but we are to fear that which can destroy the soul (Matt.10:28).  While the ghettos may have their share of violence and crime, the suburbs are the home of the more subtle demonic forces—numbness, complacency, comfort—and it is these that can eat away at our souls. From my desk at college, it looked like some time back we had stopped living Christianity and just started studying it. If [...]

1.  The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross.  This is paradoxically the way to joy and the peace of God, a joy and peace that is not of this world. 2.  What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible?  Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love.  It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own [...]

It is not sin that humbles us most, but grace. Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is, from the very nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue of man.  It is the root of every virtue. Pride, or the loss of this humility is the root of every sin and evil. Humility is the sense of entire nothingness, which comes when we see how truly God is all, and in which we make way for God to be all. We must make humility the chief thing we admire in Christ. The lesson of humility is [...]

First Half Listen to the Gentle Whisper. How can we be so successful but feel so unfulfilled? Most of us know what we believe but not what to do about what we believe. The first half of our life is about belief : accepting Christ for who He is and developing spiritual maturity. The second half is about good works : finding our ministry in the church and doing our mission in the world. The first half is about getting an education, gaining experience, learning, and earning money. The second half is more risky and involves investing our gifts in [...]

I don’t want my life to be explainable without the Holy Spirit.  I want people to look at my life and know that I couldn’t be doing this by my own power.  I want to live in such a way that I am desperate for Him to come through.  That if He doesn’t come through, I am screwed. From my perspective, the Holy Spirit is tragically neglected and, for all practical purposes, forgotten.  While no evangelical would deny His existence, I’m willing to bet there are millions of churchgoers across America who cannot confidently say they have experienced His presence [...]

Experience the Loving Leadership of Jesus The ultimate issue in the universe is leadership.  Who you follow and what directs your life, is the single most important thing about you. Grace, we must learn, is opposed to earning, not effort. As many of us know, struggling to change outward habit without changing the heart is a formula for frustration.  It’s time to go back to the development of the inner life, to the heart attitudes at the deepest level of our beings.  Discipleship must be applied to the inside of us—to the self, the ego, the ambitions, the passions, the [...]

The pursuit of holiness must be anchored in God’s grace otherwise it is doomed to failure. To some, the pursuit of holiness sounds like legalism and manmade rules.  To others, an emphasis on grace seems to open the door to irresponsible sinful behavior based on the notion that God’s unconditional love means we are free to sin as we please.  Grace and the personal discipline required to pursue holiness, however are not opposed to one another.  In fact, they go hand in hand.  An understanding of how grace and personal, vigorous effort work together is essential for a lifelong pursuit [...]

It is important that we not measure our spiritual health by the people around us, who are pretty much just like us. What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Tozer On the average day, we live caught up in ourselves.  On the average day, we don’t consider God very much.  On the average day, we forget that our life truly is a vapor. Too much of the good life ends up being toxic, deforming us spiritually.  David Goetz Has your relationship with God actually changed the way you live?  Do [...]

4 Postures we have in relating to God; Life from God, Life over God, Life under God, Life for God, Life with God To begin we must understand how the life with God posture differs from the other four. Life under, over, from and for God each seeks to use God to achieve some other goal. God is seen as a means to an end. Life from God (a genie to grant us our desires) Uses God to supply our material desires.  Primarily concerned with scarcity—not having enough.  Places self with its desires at the core.  People in this category [...]

Walk into most churches in America, have a look around, and ask yourself this question: What is a Christian man?  Don’t listen to what is said; look at what you find there.  There is no doubt about it.  You’d have to admit a Christian man is…bored.  Really Nice Guys.  We don’t smoke, drink, or swear; that’s what makes us men…dutiful. If you had permission to do what you really want to do, what would you do?  Don’t ask how; that will cut your desire off at the knees.  How is never the right question; how is a faithless question.  It [...]