Understanding beyond the cross

Are you a parent?  If so, you have undoubtedly had that moment where your eyes were opened to certain behaviors your parents had when you were a child.  It seems that once you have children of your own, your eyes are opened to how a parent actually thinks.  Whether you had parents that gave you

Bouncing back…

Who (at least my age) doesn’t remember the commercials for these little toys.  Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.  The thing with these was that they didn’t have the best stability.  It didn’t take much for them to ‘wobble’.  The slightest tap and they were moving.  But their base, their foundation, was solid enough

Dead or Alive?

So what does an 80’s rock band have to do with biblical prophecy?  Nothing but the title.  Because while Jesus is telling His disciples about the end times, they are likely wondering if they will be dead or alive?  “You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some

Truth or Fear?

Everybody knows the game, Truth or Dare.  You either tell the truth no matter what, or you take a dare.  There’s no in between.  I want to talk about something close… Truth or Fear. When you are challenged about what you believe, about your faith or convictions, how will you respond.  There is no in

Less than 100%

Have you ever noticed that even “pure” gold… 24kt gold, is actually not “pure”?  As you see in the picture here, even “pure” gold is actually only 99.99% gold.  Even with all the refinement, there is still the smallest amount of impurities left behind.  Now gold is actually soft and modifiable so the closer it

Remember who you are…

There’s nothing more ironic than James Earl Jones (voice of Darth Vader) saying to his son… “Remember who you are”.  But as Mufasa, he pulled it of swimmingly.  Simba had been believing a lie and now Mufasa is reminding him who he really is. Jesus told a couple parables back to back in Luke, that

Thank you Daddy

As a father of six, I have a very long list of amazing experiences related to my kids. But as a father who had either fostered and adopted, there are some experiences that seem to come more out of the blue. As I raise my kids from birth, I teach and train them and so

Beyond convincing

“If only…”  these are truly sad words we have all uttered at some point in our lives.  Typically they are uttered about ourselves, “If only I had made that choice”, or “If only I had passed that choice by.”  They are words of regret.  Sometimes they are uttered about our loved ones.  And for many

We ALL belong to Him

It dawned on me today that we Christians often misstate something about new believers.  It is common to say that they are now ‘children of God’, or they now ‘belong’ to God.  The fact is, they were His already.  But simply being His does not mean they are yet saved. Let’s examine how Christ explained

When legalism hurts

We all know of bad laws we wish were not there.  Sometimes this thinking is strictly across political lines and others it’s not so obvious.  When you are talking about a law, written by elected officials, over thousands of pages… it’s easy to lose track of what the purpose of the law originally was and