The walking dead
For many of you, your neighborhoods have started to look a lot like mine does. With Halloween just around the corner, there are all sorts of yard decorations with skeletons, cobwebs, blood, gravestones, and scary images that make you think of one thing: Death. It’s an interesting thing that happens every year. We live in […]
Holy, holy, holy
I learned a new word the other day. I fancy myself to be a word nerd with a decently large vocabulary, so this doesn’t happen that often. The word was trihagion, and it’s probably not on any word-of-the-day toilet paper, unless the toilet paper is in the bathroom of a prestigious Bible college, and they […]
Let’s talk about sex (and God)
“So, what did your parents teach you about sex?” one of my friends asked a mutual friend as we devoured pizza on his back deck. His blank expression answered the question even before he replied, “I only knew what I learned from porn.” “Pastor, do you agree with everything in that marriage book you gave […]
Why did God create hell?
The 20th century was the epoch of evil. Yes, it was also a time of great advancement in technology and medicine. Yet even those discoveries were used for mass murder. Most of us know about Hitler’s gas chambers that slayed some 6 million Jews. But did you know that Stalin made the Holocaust look insignificant, […]
The path to true healing goes through Christ
“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. The righteous person may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all.”—Psalm 34:18,19 You are brokenhearted. And you are here. That is an important step. So many victims of abuse construct their own coping through self-determination. The […]
The prayer of a struggling believer
Father, I’m struggling right now. My heart is heavy, and I don’t even fully understand what I’m feeling. I know I’ve messed up. I’ve messed up a lot. Some things seem small, but they still bother me. Some things are massive failures, and they torment me. I know it’s not true, but sometimes I wonder […]
Use worldly wealth to gain eternal friendships
Some things that were valuable in 2019 have no value in 2020. For example, the plane tickets I purchased in 2019 had no value by the time I was supposed to use them in 2020. Jesus says the same thing about the value of earthly wealth in the age to come. One day, a $100 […]
Solomon’s healthy perspective
Way before COVID-19 messed with our way of life, King Solomon looked at everything “under the sun” and said that it was all hevel, which is a Hebrew word that means “mist,” or “vapor,” (often translated as “meaningless”). That means that the richest, wisest, and most successful king in Israel’s history saw the things of […]