If you’re in Christ, God relates to you not like a king to a servant or a boss to an employee but as a father to a child, with warmth and depth, tenderness and care, attention and intention.
All in Christian Life
When Jesus Calls
As he began the most important work the world has ever seen, Jesus invited a group of complicated sinners to come along. Discipleship was important to Jesus. His choosing of them, his investment in them, and his deployment of them was the way he changed the world.
Will You Trust Him?
The Christian has a hope that a non-Christian cannot have. It is the hope that everything in this life is meaningful.
How to Make the Most of Your Daily Bible Reading
At the start of the year, I stood before my church and presented an opportunity for each of us to enter into a daily experience of joy. I held a Bible in one hand and a reading plan in another.
Saying Yes to Christ is Saying Yes to Joy
True grace gives us the backbone to stand up for God’s purpose in the world. We become willing to suffer for the cause of Christ because Christ is the purpose of all human history. He’s the only thing ultimately worth living for. Spreading his gospel of freedom is worth all the bondage of this world.
When I'm Not Productive...I'm Loved Anyway
I wonder: have I made a god out of productivity?
When Your Son Needs Fatherly Approval
I had no idea the whole night was a test of my approval. Andy believed he passed. He did. But he was the only one testing. He had my approval all along.
The Bible's Call to Imitate the Prostitute
Imitate the prostitute is not a familiar cry. But the Bible is not an ordinary book. Christianity is not a run-of-the-mill religion. The claims of Christ are sweeping, gathering up prostitute and eunuch alike. Only the God whose power to save the worst of sinners can use those sinners as examples for the faithful. God’s ways are not our ways, and his call to us is as broad and deep as his saving of us.
The Seeds of the Worst Deeds Are In Your Heart
David’s sin didn’t start with Bathsheba in his bed. David’s sin started with Bathsheba in his mind. David should have nipped it in the bud. Instead, he let it flower, growing with anticipation as he awaited Bathsheba’s arrival. If ever there was an abuse of power, David was the abuser, Bathsheba was the victim. After all, who refuses the king?
Dying to Racism, Living to God
Remember Galatians 2:11-14, when Paul opposed Peter to his face. Why did Paul oppose him? When certain Jews came from Jerusalem, Peter withdrew from eating with the Gentiles to eat with the Jews. Peter, who knew the gospel, stepped outside the gospel with his racism. Paul rightly saw this as an anti-gospel move and called Peter out on it. Peter’s racism wasn’t a private problem, it was a public heresy.