If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love (John 15:10, esv). In any great endeavor, there comes that point—after all the planning, all the build-up, all the cheerleading and dream-casting—when it’s just time to get to work. Time to […]
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6–7, esv). Peace is the calm assurance that what God is doing […]
The Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners (Isaiah 61:1, nasb). I will never forget the first time I saw the Rockies. I was maybe eight years old, riding in the back of […]
The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple (Psalm 19:7, esv). God’s Word transforms us. It changes and renovates us. And according to Psalm 19:7, it converts death into life and spiritual ignorance into wisdom. The word law in “the law of the Lord” translates the Hebrew Torah as […]
Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” And all the disciples said the same (Matthew 26:34–35, esv). We all know the gist of what Peter […]
“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:18–19, esv). So much time is wasted by looking back. In the world around […]
Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place […]
“Do you want to be healed” (John 5:6, esv)? Whether you’re in the midst of a rough marriage, a health crisis, or just feeling the weight of our sin-worn world, nothing in your life is going to change until you change the way you think. You have to care enough to hope for something better. […]
You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also (2 Timothy 2:1–2, esv). Have you ever seen the home of a hoarder? Some of us […]
After we were brought safely through, we then learned that the island was called Malta (Acts 28:1, esv). I think we can all agree that this life—even the Christian life—is no merry-go-round at Disneyland. It’s generally hard, gets harder, and sometimes feels like it’s close to nearly blowing apart. Such was the experience of Paul, […]