Salt and Light?

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When Jesus told His disciples to be like salt and light, He meant those as positive metaphors: salt causes others to thirst for God, while light illuminates truth and shines compassion into dark places of despair. But salt and light can have negative connotations too. Salt stings when rubbed into a wound; light causes people to avert their eyes when someone fails to dim a car’s high beams on a two-lane highway. In a similar way, inauthentic Christians can cause others to recoil from God. Read more

Cosmetic Christians

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Cosmetic Christians are those whose skin-deep spirituality looks pretty on the outside but doesn’t penetrate deep enough to change their behavior and attitudes. People are repelled by cosmetic Christians. People today are not looking for perfect people – they are looking for authentic people, real people with real life struggles but who apparently have a better way of handling what they are faced with. People today are looking for disciples of Jesus who have integrity and whose actions line up with their beliefs. Read more

Tired of Doing it Alone?

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We often get things in life backwards. We try, we fail, and then we finally pray. But, as believers and disciples of the Lord, we should be following His example and He always prayed first and then acted upon what He heard the Father speak. And, because of this, Jesus never failed. Read more

Sanctified Stupidity

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Many believers appear to be having trouble with stupidity. In fact, at times as I speak to people one-on-one, I feel like asking, “How can anyone be so stupid and still breath?” But then, maybe it is simply a demon of stupidity and I simply need to cast it out of people.

What I am referring to is the vast number of believers who simply ignore the Bible and yet think everything will be fine when they stand before the Lord at their personal judgment the second after they die and their soul and spirit leave their body. And remember, you don’t know when your appointed time with death will be so it is good to think ahead, prepare and plan even a bit.

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A Link in the Chain

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Remember, when it comes to winning the lost you are simply one link in what is often a long chain. We need to remember this truth when we get discouraged because apparently no one is being impacted by our testimony. As well, we need to understand that all the links in the chain – the beginning, middle, and end – are vital to leading a person to faith in Christ and becoming a disciple. Read more

See and Seize

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In John 4 we are told about a conversation between Jesus and a woman drawing water from a well. Jesus asked her for a drink, and she quizzed him concerning why he, a Jewish man, would break the cultural customs to talk to a Samaritan woman. But Jesus wasn’t interested in such mundane matters. He saw an opportunity to turn the conversation toward a much more important topic. Read more

Great Change Requires You Change

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In are in a season of great change in the Church worldwide and here especially here at home. And, one of the lessons I learned many years ago as a leader is that leading change demands personally changing. When God wanted to change something in the world, what was the first thing He did? He changed the person He was calling to lead the change. This was true of Moses (Exodus 3), Isaiah (Isaiah 6) and Paul (Acts 9). Read more

Jesus Plus Nothing

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Someone asked Dr. Billy Graham how he had stayed so humble over the years, especially in light of everything he had accomplished in his lifetime? Of course, Dr. Graham did not think that he was humble, but he answered, “When you start each day in the presence of the living God by praying and reading your Bible, it’s hard to go through life feeling big.”

That is the secret of true success. While people are looking for bigger methods, God is looking for smaller people. God does everything through people who understand that without Him they are nothing. And, God does nothing through people who think they are everything.

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Fishing Season is Officially Open!

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God expects us to be talking to others about His Son, Jesus. That’s right. Call it evangelism, soul-winning, witnessing, giving your testimony … He expects us to be out there telling others the night and day difference that Jesus has made and continues to make in our lives. Why does He expect us to? Easy question to answer: He commanded us to do so and as disciples who love Him we obey Him.

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Compassion is not Feelings

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Compassion is only compassion when you cross the street and go to someone. Too often, we confuse emotion with compassion.

Jesus was often moved with compassion – sometimes the Bible uses the term “pity” and “mercy” but the intention is that Jesus had compassion on people and this compassion always moved Him to action. That might mean laying hands on the sick and healing them; feeding the 4,000 or the 5,000 so they would not have to return home hungry, raising the widow’s son so she would still have someone to be the bread-winner and care for her; and even to letting the rich young man walk away and continue in his ways – not chasing him but letting him go so his hunger would increase and he would, one day, return and turn to Jesus.

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