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The Search for Perfect Church
Church-hopping or even becoming a “non-attender” has become common. I hear many who do this defending their decision by criticizing the imperfections of the church or churches they have tried out. Perhaps the worship is too dull and unenthusiastic. Or it is too spirited and alarming. Are there hypocrites, cliques, or politics going on? What about sexual sin? We find a lot of reasons to be critical of church—and there is perhaps an unexamined assumption in our quest for what we might term the “perfect church.” Let’s see what the Word has to say about all of that. Worst. Church. Ever. The church at Corinth was located in the epicenter…
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Why First Person Messiah?
My new book First Person Messiah has been well-received—but I’m getting some questions about it. One of the main questions is, “What made you think about writing this way?” To be truthful—it was what I call a “Holy Spirit Audible.” I was leading a Sunday morning Bible class called Seeing Jesus, Walking With. It was early in the series and I had a lesson stressing the need to accept that perhaps because of our histories in churches and various teachings, we might have a skewed view of who Yeshua of Nazareth was and is. I had worked up a lesson outline to present on a Sunday in which I attempted…
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Rejoice Always, Really?
So the Apostle Paul is problematic. He says things like “Pray without ceasing” and “give thanks in all circumstances.” (I Thes. 5:17) As I said in an earlier article about the “pray without ceasing” admonishment from the same text—this one is a bit difficult. Okay, it’s a whole lot difficult. Life gets really tough—there is sorrow, suffering, loss, anxiety, and loads of stress for just about everyone. It seems in certain seasons of life all of these just mount up all at once and life gets grueling. Paul tells us to “rejoice always?” Really? God Wants You to Be Happy? I’ve heard a lot of folks say (especially doing the…
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Pray Without Ceasing? Really?
So. yeah, the Bible says to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). For the longest time I thought that was sort of metaphorical. What Paul the Apostle really meant was “pray regularly” or “pray a lot.” Not any more. Paul was on to something vital to our spiritual formation—something profound and…beautiful. We can and should “pray without ceasing,” but the reason why I thought is was metaphorical is because of some basic misunderstandings about some really important realities. The Nervous Pray-er I learned what I initially learned about prayer mainly from watching men at church lead public prayer. Way back in the 90s’ I had a group of young friends…
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The Need for a Spiritual Reset, Part II
In Part I, we discussed how sometimes when things aren’t going well in just about any area of life, we could benefit from a reset. This is especially true in spiritual matters. While many have identified problems amongst the people of God, the suggested solutions are often unbiblical and not helpful in advancing the kingdom of God. I left our discussion last time with a tease about what the Spirit informed me when I was asked to preach on the topic of “Does the Church Need to Change?” His answer was, “Yes.” What needed to change? What did the guy who taught others how to initiate and sustain conversations, to…
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Spiritual Reset? Could be Good…
“Honey, my computer is doing this weird thing, it’s really slow and this window keeps popping up,” said my lovely wife on the phone. I was 1,600 miles away on a trip, being asked to fix a computer I couldn’t see. At some point my advice was “turn it off and then back on again.” In other words, reset. I was doing the preflight inspection on a McDonell Douglas MD-11. We were getting all sorts of strange warnings on cockpit displays and nothing seemed to remedy it. We called the mechanics, they saw all the confusing indications and decided to “take all the power off and then back on again.”…
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Yeah, What Moses Said…
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but it took me a long time to notice something. There is one Psalm in the Bible that was written by…wait for it…Moses himself. I know, he’s just a person like you or me, but he is so central to the Bible story. In his faithfulness to God he saved his nation—and thereby played a huge role in bringing my Savior into the world. Moses is cool. Of course, in the spirit of “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Rom. 3:23) he was also a hot mess. To save his own bacon he claims his beautiful wife was his sister…
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Revival, the Spirit, and Your Spirit, Part II
Why I Am Concerned for Our Young Revivalists In part one of this blog series, we talked about the challenges of understanding how the Holy Spirit works as the Scripture instructs us, and one of the cultural reasons why we should pray King David’s prayer and beg that God would “….try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any grievous way in me…” (Ps. 139:23). That reason is narcissism—for we live in an incredibly self-promoting time. Self-promotion is so common now that we hardly notice it. Are we participating in “revival” for the advancement of God’s Kingdom, or for our own image? In Part II, however, I…
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Why Do Superhero Movies Appeal Today?
The Reason Behind My New Book Superhero: Being Who God Says You Are Isn’t it strange when someone claims to believe something strongly, but the entirety of their life demonstrates this claim to be untrue? While an increasing majority of people around us claim to believe in moral relativism, autonomous individualism, narcissistic hedonism, and reductive naturalism—the most popular superhero movies go completely against these claimed values. The question is, why? Can I tell you that the reason why is an encouraging spiritual reality that can ignite your passion to live as the person God intends you to be? Let’s unpack our friends and neighbors tension between their claimed values and…
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Revival, the Spirit, and Your Spirit, Part I
We live in an exciting day. Revival appears to be breaking out on a number of college campuses. This has led to a number of online interviews, social media posts, and blogs (yes, here’s another) about the nature of revival. Is this revival that seems to have started at Asbury college genuine? I think so, but I perceive it didn’t just start at Asbury. What happened there was perhaps the most visible event to date; and it is so encouraging. I perceive it is a signaling event by the Holy Spirit to awaken other believers to what some of us have already noticed—that God is moving amongst his people and…
