Lifestyle

Self-Help?

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space][vc_single_image image=”2468″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]The gospel is not self-help! God is not even remotely into self-help. If we had the power to help ourselves, then God would have been an idiot to let us crucify him. We couldn’t help ourselves after we sinned in Eden, we have failed to help ourselves since then, and we will … Read more

Self

We’ve really got to get over our self. Self walks a fence rail, leaning one moment this way toward God’s kingdom and another moment toward our broken and irreparable world. He is finally about to tear down that fence, and the direction a person is leaning when he does will determine the side where he … Read more

An amazing adventure!

The church has been devolving for centuries, closing in on itself, becoming less the living body of Christ and more a religious organization. Those who have seen it happening thought it couldn’t be true. And, if it was true, they didn’t know what they could do about it. Others came to believe that’s just what … Read more

God’s kingdom or man’s world?

I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.[1] Where do you live? We all have two worlds to choose from. There’s sinful earth—which isn’t just damaged, it’s ruined, irreparable and … Read more

Changing our perspective

Eight years after Neil Armstrong stepped out of a rocket ship and became the first human being to set foot on the moon, NASA began its Voyager mission. The twin probes were able to travel nearly 36,000 mph, which was good, since their mission was to explore Jupiter, the fifth planet from the sun, along … Read more

Totally God’s

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space][vc_single_image image=”2431″ img_size=”full”][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]There’s a lot more to talk about in God’s kingdom than sin. But sin is still pervasive among God’s people, so the rest will have to wait. It reminds me of the 1948 film classic, The Treasure of Sierra Madre. A couple of vagrants meet a grizzled prospector in a Mexican flophouse, talk … Read more

Come nearer

The image on the right is our Sun! Three hundred thousand times the size of Earth, blazing at nearly eleven thousand degrees Fahrenheit, its magnetic field stretching through interplanetary space to the outer limits of the solar system.[1] No one has ever seen the Sun like this before! It’s the first “closeup,” via the world’s largest … Read more

Role playing

In theater, a cue is a signal for an actor to do or say something or an instruction for a technician or stage hand. A line is spoken, which cues a response, sound effect, lighting change or the end of a scene. Now and then, though, somebody misses a cue.  Imagine what you would do if you … Read more

The world’s not ending quite yet

CNN wrote a piece today about a psychic who claimed back in 2008 that “around 2020, a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as … Read more

Ezekiel’s revelation

As I was praying this morning, I was reminded of the valley of dry bones. In the Spirit of the Lord, the prophet Ezekiel was set down in the midst of a valley that was full of bones.[1] And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I’m sure that many … Read more