problems on Disciplines

Before my mentor, Dallas Willard, passed over to glory, I asked him what he thought about the rapid rise of the Christian spiritual formation movement. He said, “It is a wonderful thing, but my fear i...

After I graduated from seminary, I stopped reading the Bible. It’s been said that for all the gain that comes from dissecting a frog, all the hands-on knowledge one amasses from cutting out the organs...

Notes on the Passage Besieged from All Angles:  The context of this passage is best summed up with the words recorded throughout the letter: Trouble, Distress, Suffering, Hardship, Death at work, Ja...

The problem is not recognizing the importance of the individual. The problem is the glorification of the individual. When the individual self is glorified over the greater good of the community, right...

Pastor: Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her i...

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Historical Background In our modern world we know so much about our universe that it is easy to forget that in the Bible there is a connection between ...

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Historical Background In our modern world we know so much about our universe that it is easy to forget that in the Bible there is a connection between ...

Spirit of the Living God—Fall afresh on us this day. Spirit of God present and powerful, Spirit of God fruitful and faithful, Spirit of God filling and fulfilling us as children of the Father and foll...

Leaders help churches see that their real problems are spiritual.

Preaching Commentary Besieged from All Angles The context of this passage is best summed up with the words recorded throughout the letter: Trouble, Distress, Suffering, Hardship, Death at work, Jar...

God of grace, power and glory, and our Heavenly Father: You raise up nations in your grace and holiness; and You bring down nations who go after and serve other gods of their own making. You are good–...

I love golf. If only it loved me in return. Alas, it is a one-sided romance. My golf swing is the stuff that keeps an instructor awake at night. One kindly compared it to an octopus falling from a tre...

Preaching Commentary The Danger of Familiarity Occasionally familiarity, paradoxically, turns into an enemy of understanding, or at least becomes an obstruction. Psalm 23, perhaps the most loved ps...

In times of struggle and failure, we need to do more than pronounce judgment on what's wrong and enforce punishment. We need to talk, discuss, question, evaluate, engage, and interact with our tee...

I am struck by all the things Jesus didn’t say or do in response to the litanies of pain and defensiveness he heard from people. Jesus didn’t say to the man, “You sound like a victim to me; what are y...

A Story from the Philokalia A story is told in  The Philokalia  about a young monk who went to an older monk to confess a struggle. The older monk was appalled, telling the young monk that his strugg...

Pastor: Lord, we confess that too often we don’t live as people filled with the light of eternity. People: We complain. We focus on the problems we face and not the blessings you give. Pastor: W...

What then are we to do about our problems? We must learn to live with them until such time as God delivers us from them. We must pray for grace to endure them without murmuring. Problems patiently end...

Self-deception . . . blinds us to the true causes of problems, and once we’re blind, all the “solutions” we can think of will actually make matters worse. Whether at work or at home, self-deception ob...

Occasionally we talk about our Christianity as something that solves problems, and there is a sense in which it does. Long before it does so, however, it increases both the number and the intensity of...

A biblical apologetic is the best use of our natural faculties of thought in submission to the Holy Spirit to remove doubts and problems that hinder a trustful, energetic participation in a life of pe...

Often, though, people carry around the belief that the majority of their problems are circumstantial or situational—which is to say, external. And if the problems are caused by everyone and everything...

Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord.

If you’ve ever watched a war movie, or a film that takes place in the military, you’re likely to have encountered a specific scene, in which a subordinate will have something to tell a senior officer ...

Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.

A glutton is one who raids the icebox for a cure for spiritual malnutrition.

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Historical Background We need to understand several things about Psalm 107 before we can put it all together. First, it is the beginning psalm of Book...

The Psalmist draws us into prayer saying: Come and hear, all you who honor God and let me tell you what he has done for me. I cried out to him and God has surely listened and heard my prayer. Praise ...

The Barna Research Group reports that in the United States about 10 million self-proclaimed, born-again Christians have not been to church in the last six months, apart from Christmas or Easter.

The Danger of Familiarity Occasionally familiarity, paradoxically, turns into an enemy of understanding, or at least becomes an obstruction. Psalm 23, perhaps the most loved psalm of the entire Psalt...