faith and work on Sexual License

Joy must be morally clean. God warned Israel not to be tempted by the kind of debauched “joy” of the Canaanite festivals, which included sexual immorality, drunkenness, gluttony, and idolatry. They ha...

G. K. Chesterton was on cue when he suggested that a man knocking on the door of a brothel is in fact looking for God.

I just paid a parking ticket the other day. It was easy. I read the charge against me, flipped the ticket over, checked the box that said “I plead guilty to the charge,” filled out a check for $35 to ...

Shalom is shattered by sin, by the intrusion of a lie, a distortion of the truth that mars the pleasure of being naked, transparent, trusting and true.

A number of years ago, when sabbath laws were still a contentious issue, a church group was picketing a stadium just before a Sunday game. When Tampa Bay Bucs coach John McKay arrived, the minister co...

We can prostitute our very souls in our attempts to be successful. We can sell out, cave in and go morally bankrupt chasing the god of success. Knowing this perilous potential, Jesus himself warns us ...

How many shortcuts have been justified with the best of intentions? At the sentencing for her role in the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal, actress Lori Loughlin addressed the court:  “I mad...

My thought it is a wanton ranger,  It skips away;  I fear 'twill bring my soul in danger  On Judgment Day...

But you take pleasure in the faces Of those who know they thirst.

In Guilt and Grace , Swiss physician and Christian, Paul Tournier, writes… I cannot study this very serious problem of guilt with you without raising the very obvious and tragic fact that rel...

A being is free only when it can determine and limit its activity.

In 2010, an oil rig named “Deepwater Horizon” suffered a catastrophic failure. Due to improper installation of the cement seal, a malfunctioning blowout preventer, and cost-cutting decisions by corpor...

Work is so foundational to our makeup that it is one of the few things we can take in significant doses without harm. Indeed, the Bible does not say we should work one day and rest six or that work an...

The point of the dragonfly's terrible lip, the giant water bug, birdsong, or the beautiful dazzle and flash of sunlighted minnows, is not that it all fits together like clockwork--for it doesn'...

Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness.

Does God take our work seriously? Consider these words from Arthur F. Miller: It is wrong, it is sin, to accept or remain in a position that you know is a mismatch for you. Perhaps that’s a form of ...

In his book, Scary Close , Donald Miller acknowledges that over time he developed a mask, or a persona that kept even those closest to him from experiencing with him. As he began to peel back layers ...

For the most part, contemporary Christians pay little attention to the Sabbath. We more or less know that the day came to reflect, in U.S. culture, the most stringent disciplinary faith of the Puritan...

In a talk about faith and doubt, the Irish Londoner Charlie Mackesy shares a humorous anecdote from a friend. This friend was attending a traditional Anglican worship service with his wife and their y...

Bit by intelligible bit, a vocation lets us express our healthiest instincts, our noblest desires… In small things and in large, we can attend to the haunting inner summons of our soul.

Nearly everybody knows of at least one sin habit in their life that they wish to leave behind them. Yet, no matter what they do, it seems impossible for them to be free of this habit, character flaw, ...

The huge assumption of our social context is that work is bad and leisure is good. Our only hope for a transformed vision for vocation, work and career, and for navigating the transitions of life, is ...

There is a story of a public sinner who was excommunicated and forbidden from entering the church, He took his woes to God. "They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner." "W...

Work and let him give the fruits therefore! Rule, and let him prosper it! Battle, and let him give victory! Preach, and let him make hearts devout!”

Heavenly Father, we confess that we are unable to do all the work that you wish for us to do. We are held back by our own desires and our own apprehensions. We know that you make us bearers of your im...

I recently attended an event sponsored by Compassion International, the International Child Sponsorship Organization. The event was called “Stepping into My Shoes”. The purpose being to show children ...

We must do our business faithfully; without trouble or disquiet, recalling our mind to GOD mildly, and with tranquility, as often as we find it wandering from Him.

The Cross is the blazing fire at which the flame of our love is kindled, but we have to get near enough for its sparks to fall on us.

Keeping sabbath may involve us in relinquishing certain kinds of power on behalf of other kinds. If we allow it, sabbath may bring us to true authority, true power. The road is that of letting go, rat...

Hence, whatever certain people have in superabundance is due, by natural law, to the purpose of succoring the poor.