The beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-12 are pretty self-explanatory, if very counter-intuitive. But there’s one in particular that’s often misunderstood. At least it was by me for a long time. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). But there’s a world of difference between peace making and peace keeping. […]
When someone has seriously wronged us, especially when they don’t acknowledge the wrong and their hurtful behavior still continues, it’s really easy to put them in the Bad Guy Chair. This automatically puts us in the Good Guy Chair. Which on the surface doesn’t seem so bad. After all, we’re the innocently wronged party here, […]
A young man went to a wise old guru with a problem, something he just didn’t understand. The young man asked the guru why he can’t take back hurtful words he’d said to someone. He’d apologized, but the relationship wasn’t the same. Why can’t he fix this? The wise old guru took the young man […]
Have you ever been so angry you could spit fire? I sure have. Usually it comes from being deeply hurt. When we’re hurt and angry with another person, we often forget who the real enemy is. We easily get deceived into thinking the other person is the enemy. There is an enemy. He wants to […]
It’s story time again. As Saul of Taurus found out one sunny day outside Damascus, one experience can trash years of theoretical study. In the Hebrew culture and hence in the Bible, “knowing” means “experiencing.” The ivory tower head-knowledge-only that we’ve come to value so much is from the Greeks and Aristotle. The Hebrews had […]
We have compassion on people acting badly when we understand their motivation. Not that we put up with it, but then we can respond from a spirit of love rather than from self-righteousness (which doesn’t help anybody). So if we want to speak life to a lost and dying world, it’s important to understand the […]
I’m learning to take a Sabbath rest. God’s teaching me about this. I’m learning to take a regular godly rest. Honestly, it’s not going very well. My spirit gets it. My heart leaps at the idea, but can’t articulate to my brain what it looks like. So my brain is confused. What am I gonna […]
A rural pastor was out visiting his peeps. In the course of chatting with a local farmer, he asked him, “If you had two cows, would you give one of them to the Lord?” “Why, of course, Pastor. Absolutely. Wouldn’t even think twice about it,” responded the farmer. The pastor asked another question. “If you […]
“What’s in your hand?” That’s what God asked Moses (see Exodus 4:2). God was calling Moses to do the impossible – return to Egypt and lead a couple million people from slavery to freedom. And Moses was trying to get out of it. Moses was holding his shepherd’s staff. God showed Moses how to do […]
Being a math guy, I was rather upset about this. Most subjects are similar to mathematics. The teacher gives a lecture, and then you go practice what you were just taught in the homework. Safe. Predictable. Totally not how God works. God teaches life like a physics class. In physics, you go into the lab […]