The garage door went up and out went our minivan. For the first time in nearly 8 years, I wasn’t going to church. I was scheduled to preach, but stomach issues laid me low, so home I sat (providentially with an internet outage to remove the temptation of NFL Countdown)....

Of all the issues that cause stress and confusion among Christians, the question of divine guidance must be near the top. How can I know God’s will for me? Are there certain steps we need to learn in order to access information from God that we would not otherwise know? How does God guide me?...

By “reason,” I mean rational thinking and God-given common sense. Proverbs 3:5 does not say, “do not use your understanding” but rather, “don’t rest on human understanding, don’t make it your ultimate rule; don’t put all your weight upon it!” Instead, put all your trust in God who rules and over-rules all human decisions. There are always gaps in our know...

Many of my books sit on the shelf only being referenced once every year or two, as need arises. There are other books like "Jonathan Edwards on the Christian Life," by Dane Ortlund that I come back to again and again. And there is one chapter in this book that I find exceptionally helpful to me personally as I seek to grow in my faith; his chapter on "Gentleness: The Aroma...

We should be set free from the view of planning and decisions that make us put the weight on ourselves that only God should bear. We will not plan for everything. Sometimes we won’t know what to do. Even in our best plans, there will be the unexpected that arise. We take comfort in a God who is in control and who works all things according to his purposes....

When we looked at Galatians 5:16-17 we spoke about the flesh. But it is more than simply the flesh that threatens to undo us in this life. Ephesians 2:1-3 speaks of the trifecta of difficulty we face in sanctification. ...

In Psalm 90:12, Moses lays out a long list of petitions, asking God to act. What does he request of God? I suggest that each of you read these and pick out one or two of them to focus on this week. They can serve as a starting point to recalibrate 2019 in light of who God is and who we are....

It’s not enough to be interested or intrigued by Jesus. We can’t stop at agreeing intellectually to some facts about who he is...

In Luke 12:22, Jesus is reminding us of our value to him, so much more than other things of creation. He provides for those other things, so why are we anxious about those things that we can’t ultimately control? Jesus concludes Luke 12 with the call, “Seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.” What does it mean to seek his kingdom? ...

We should spend ourselves, no matter how many years we have left, waiting purposefully for Jesus return by working for his glory. Luke 9-19 points to a number of ways we can do this. Today, we will focus on how as we wait, we should be about the business of being good stewards of what he has entrusted to us....