We often have this false idea in the Western world that the battle’s all in the mind, that it’s all about how we think. If that were true, why do people smoke, do drugs, drink excessively, eat excessively, and do all sorts of things they know is bad for them? There must be something else […]
This post is based about Jesus’ parable of The Prodigal Son. If you’re not familiar with it, read it first here. Here’s my paraphrase of this story: Younger son wants his due.He wants it now.It’s his just right.Just ask him, he’ll tell you. Father knows best.But consents to give worst becauseHe knows younger son needs […]
In every situation, no matter how jacked up it is, the thing we need in the heat of that moment is an attribute of God. In fact, God intentionally engineers every negative situation, and every encounter with difficult people, to show us and teach us another attribute of himself. In the Bible, showing means knowing. […]
The worst bondages are the ones we don’t realize we have. We’ve been like this so long, it seems normal. But it’s not normal. Bondages keep us from living our best life, and Jesus has healing for us. But to live in his freedom, we need to understand how we get trapped and how we […]
As Christians, when we see someone hurting, we all want to help. That’s good, we should. The problem is, many of us have never been trained how to really help someone who’s hurting. We don’t know how, or even what to do. Often, unfortunately, well-meaning Christians do more harm than good. As the church stands […]
What does living in freedom look like? We are, sons and daughters of our Father, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We are princes and princesses, destined to be kings and queens ourselves. In fact, we are kings and queens now in our spheres of influence. Do we act like it? Do we […]
Are you ready to go deep today? Because in this post, I’m going to talk about what we all want and desperately need, but we’re all terribly afraid of. Deep down, sometimes way down there, we all want intimacy. But how can we embrace the intimacy we’re simultaneously longing for and terrified of? Intimacy == […]
Anything involving humans can always be improved, and relationships are no different. But before we can improve one, we need to understand what makes the quality of a relationship better or worse. The quality of any relationship is measured by the depth of the connection between the people involved. The best relationships are a safe […]
People are people. We get saved, and we’re instantly justified before God by the blood of Jesus. But we’re not instantly sanctified. We bring all our godless behavior with us into the church. Being justified means being forgiven. Cleansed of our sin. No longer cannon-fodder for Hell. We were saved from hellfire and brought back […]
We have a nasty habit of blaming trauma survivors for the trauma they endured. In the church, outside the church, it makes no difference. We wrongly blame trauma survivors for the trauma perpetrated upon them through no fault of their own. Yes, unwise choices can put you in a situation where trauma is more likely […]