Christians struggle with saying no: we often equate "no" with sin and true servanthood with saying yes to everything. Here's how to avoid that. [Click title to read more.]
Category: spiritual growth
Watching Your Mouth
Simple honesty is best, the Bible counsels, but beware of your own limitations. Watch what you say, and don't you dare utter anything that you don't expect to be held accountable for.[Click title to read more.]
The Jonathan Study Is Now Beginning!
Come and join my new six-week Bible study on Jonathan! [Click title to read more.]
New Year’s Resolutions and the Myth of Change
Mark my word: things will change for you this year. The person you will be at the cusp of 2018 will not be, God willing, the same person who walked into 2017. [Click title to read more.]
Your Glass Of Water
I challenge you this year to find a "glass of water" task in which you too will be spectacularly faithful. [Click title to read more.]
Why Fellowship Is Valuable When It Works
At its best, and as an ideal, Christian fellowship is (or should be) a place where we can drop pretenses, get comfortable, stretch our toes, look for and find and provide support, and enjoy the feeling of being somewhere that we're understood, loved, and supported. It's a community where the love of God is, at least theoretically, being made manifest constantly in surprising and wonderful ways. [Click title to read more.]
The Art of Holding Back
Many believers see themselves as truth-tellers, and well we should. The Bible demands that we speak in truth and in honesty and authenticity at all times, concealing nothing and without dissembling; that is, by the way, precisely why it's wrong for me to tell those white lies. But many believers also believe that truth-telling means "saying how you feel about everything at all times, no matter how hurtful or cruel, whether asked or unasked." And that is not what Biblical truth-telling is. [Click title to read more.]
Make The Small Sacrifices
Sometimes as believers we think of Jesus' sacrifice and it's so easy to become overwhelmed because it was so big. And it was. But on our end? We can start with little things. [Click title to read more.]
Don’t Be Afraid of Collateral Kindness
Let us not start policing our kindness, or being afraid that someone undeserving might receive it if we aim it in the wrong direction. [Click title to read more.]
Twitchy Christianity
The response of the believer in the circumstance is a calm and steely-eyed one. Aware that God does not change, the believer accepts even the catastrophic with a calm certainty. [Click title to read more.]
Samaritan's Song 