You know how it goes. You are going through a difficult time in your life, and some well-meaning person asks you, “How are you doing?” I got this question a lot as a bereaved parent ten years ago. I usually felt like responding, “I feel like...
Category: Life
“You’re not listening to me!” My daughter Emma and I were talking about a touchy subject: Why God commanded Israel to kill her Canaanite enemies. “Don’t say I’m not listening to you, Dad. I am. You just keep repeating the same thing, and I don’t...
Sometimes it’s hard to find the right words when someone you care about is going through a life crisis. Still, there are plenty of ways you can be supportive in painful circumstances. After my son died in a skiing accident at the age of sixteen,...
When it comes to questions of love and wisdom, it can be difficult to know what to do. What should we do when it comes to the issues that many people disagree about? Actions or habits that are not explicitly condemned or condoned in Scripture are...
Sipping on an American Double IPA with effervescent flavors of grapefruit, lemons, and passion fruit exploding with a bitter finish, I can’t help but think of the goodness of God’s creation. When we enjoy aspects of God’s creation as he intended, we bring glory to the Triune...
God has already put his Spirit in the hearts of all believers as a guarantee of all they have been given in Christ (2 Cor. 1:22). So, if Christians already have the Holy Spirit living in them (1 Cor. 6:19), how can they better experience...
Lots of people treat forgiveness as a form of therapy. It’s a way of moving on. It’s a form of personal healing. This is not what Jesus taught. Jesus taught us to forgive as we have been forgiven. We let sinners get away with their sin,...
“The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who...
500 years ago, the German reformer Martin Luther gave great advice that is often misunderstood: sin boldly. I know people who worry so much, that they do nothing. They are so afraid to fail that they let life pass them by. They never take risks. Rather than...
Absolution—that is, the declaration that your sins are forgiven in Jesus Christ—has fallen on hard times. In many churches, you will never hear the words: “Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace!” This is a sad fact, because the grace that God has shown us...