Then God Said...

If the love of a father will not make a child delight in him, what will? Put, then, this to the venture: exercise your thoughts upon this very thing, the eternal, free, and fruitful love of the Father, and see if your hearts be not wrought upon to delight in him. -John Owen  At the very core of us, who do we believe God to be? I bet that we see God through what we think we know about him, and not what he says about himself. Most of us develop our thoughts of God by what others tell us he is like, or our relationships that represent God to us (pastors, parents, ministers, etc.), and by lies that we believe. The above quote is so striking because it reveals that what we think about God is how we will interact with God. For instance, if we are afraid of him, then we will not come near him. On the other hand, if we know that he is loving, then we will come to him. Think of this in terms of the friends you keep. Have you ever kept a friend you did not love? God tells us that he i...

“so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders,” 1 Thessalonians 4:12 NIV How we live our life matters; life does not simply give casual moments to be squandered and thrown away or wasted in the passing of time. On the contrary, it is the moments of life that we can never gain again, even as you are reading this there is a moment passing by that you will never get back. For us, the question is, how are we living our life? Are we winning with our life or are we loosing our life? How we answer these questions is of utmost importance. The critical component to winning and loosing in life is determined by posture. What is our posture toward the moments of life: one that positions us to live from a place of power, or one that we feel that life is out of control and we're a helpless passenger along for the ride? I heard a phrase years ago by Mike Bickel that marked me life forever, "If you do not quit you win." Think about it: Rudy, the Norte Dame football...

"Your life is hidden with Christ in God." Colossians 3:3 What would the garden look like if Adam and Eve were good stewards of it? What would our life look like if we were good stewards of it? It would be something more beautiful then we could all ever imagine. There is more than what we are living for; we must labor with God to find it, cultivate it and live in it.   This was the thought running through my head this past week as I was driving down I-40. One of the mystical paradoxes of God is that he has given everything for life in him, yet it is up to us to find it; it has all been given, but we must seek it out to gain it; for, our "life is hidden with Christ in God."  If this is true, then it  begs  the question, what is required to find this hidden life with Christ in God? While there are many things we can use to search for this life, just as a detective has many ways to search for clues, so we too have many ways to search for the life God has gi...

If the Church is the Bride of Christ, then it should be good for our marriage. I want to give you three reasons the Church has been good for my marriage: 1. My wife and I have weekly quality time together. This is especially important since we have kids. We get an hour and a half to enjoy each other's company, sometimes we even snuggle and kiss! This is also a time where we get to connect on a level much different than any other time or place during the week. Our sense of oneness is increased as we both pursue God--there is a dramatic weaving together that happens with God who created us, our marriage, and the Church as his Bride.  2. My wife and I have community around us. The best relationships my wife and I have ever had have come from our church-going life. There are people who know how to love well: they know how to treat you with respect and honor, they are there for you in hard times, they are people you can count on when you need them, they are people who know...

Celebrating my recent 31st birthday in April and my son being born the same month, I have been thinking a lot of what life was like when I was a kid, how I will be a father to the two of my boys, and the wisdom that I will pass down to them. Today, I just want to write about five things I have learned over the past 30 years and how they have helped me: "The glory of young men is their strength" (Pro 20:29). We can spend the strength of our life on a lot of things: some things that yield great return, and some things that only turn to ash and nothing. I have spent my life on both and have found that when I have used my strength to work with the Father it was never wasted. In fact, there are decisions that I made when I was 18 that are still paying off for me today, and the reason they are still benefitting me today is because I chose to use my strength to obey God. There are also things I decided to do at 18 where I chose to spend my strength to serve myself and I am s...

Picking up where we left off last week, I want to look at how obedience brings inheritance. First off, if you would like to read through the other posts about obedience visit the archive here . It Costs Everything If we understand obedience the way God does (as a virtue for us, not against us), then we will see it as something that is a major blessing in our life. Think about it with me, when have you ever done something you know is wrong and thought it to be worth it?  Confession: I drive too fast, and I'm always the one that gets caught for it. Friends of mine drive like Ricky Bobby everywhere and never get caught; I'm the guy that does it for five minutes and gets pulled over and issued a speeding ticket. Every time I think to myself, "that was stupid!" Now I will be paying the cost for the ticket for years to come. My point is, that we all have done things in our life we knew we shouldn't have, and said "that was stupid," wishing we...

Introduction Obedience. Such an unfamiliar word and concept in our post-modern culture where individualism, personal rights, and relativism is so prevalent in our lives. This is also a concept that we are not inherently born with; it is something we have to learn. Even my two year old son is showing signs that he wants to do whatever he wants--you ask him if he wants to eat and he replies, "no..no..no..." you ask him if he doesn't want to eat and he replies, "no...no...no..." Makes us laugh every time. It is also very puzzling to us though, as we are asking ourselves, "where did he learn this?" As we are introducing obedience I would propose to you that we are all born with rebellion into our hearts, and that obedience is something that is learned, and it is also something that is very valuable to our lives, as we will see here. Childlikeness Because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in. -Proverbs 3:12 NIV   ...