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Knowing Christ and Him Crucified
“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Cor. 2:2, TNIV)
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Mediocre is my motto
Two interesting articles in The Atlantic Monthly. One was a column by James Parker on late night shows. This column explained clearly why I don’t particularly like late night shows. They don’t mean anything. This quote was very clarifying for me: “Like Seinfeld, The Larry Sanders Show was deeply committed to superficiality, honoring the intuition of the ’90’s viewers that…
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Being a Confessional Pentecostal… or is it a Confessing Pentecostal?
It shows how much I don’t know… and I readily admit it. But there is something that is becoming evident to me: I want to be more confessional in my Pentecostal roots and beliefs. I want to be more “credal.” Is that a word? I just got a spell-check squiggly… (This isn’t going to be a very formal treatise.) This…
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The Nature of the Kingdom
I heard this from Dallas Willard years ago: “The nature of the Kingdom is to ask.” I am running into this over and over in John 15 and my study for Sunday. ASK. Ask whatever you will and it will be granted. Crazy stuff like that. The Kingdom is about asking. It’s relationship. It’s not about getting an update downloaded…
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I am going to get this…
Eventually, after all these years of walking with Christ, and all these years in ministry, I just may begin to get this. Or not. But I come across these verses and I am blown away! (And this is just John 15 and 16 where I am studying for Sunday’s message). “If you remain in me, and my words remain in…
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The Call to Follow
I am preaching on the last part of John 1 this Sunday. It is the call to discipleship. John uses key words in describing the process of discipleship. Some of John the Baptist’s followers were pointed toward Jesus, so they followed. They wanted to know where he stayed. His response: “Come and see.” The call to discipleship is the same…
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Popularity of Mysticism
Who woulda thunk it? This Ross Douthat column in the New York Times reflects on the popularity of so many mystical practices, but it has its downside. We are dabbling in so many things, we are diving into nothing. We are not fully entering into ANY of the practices, so we might think we are mystics, but the proof is…
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New Year… New Opportunities
I enter this year with hope, as always. I enter this year with plans, as always. Then, I look back on a year and realize… well… not many things may have ended up happening as planned. Consistency and intentionality are always key. This month begins a journey. The Lord has been challenging me on prayer and fasting, so I enter…
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The Healing Presence of Jesus
The Church should be about the healing presence of Jesus. My wife told me about a dream she had, and then I was reminded of two incredible stories in Acts. In Acts 5 it was Peter walking down a street and people could be healed by Peter’s shadow touching them. In Acts 19 it was Paul working at his trade.…
Category: Spiritual hunger
