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The place of vocation
Vocation, according to David Brooks in The Road to Character, is core to a “good life.” We need a calling. We won’t find satisfaction in using work to serve ourselves alone. We will keep chasing unattainable ambitions and goals. If we give our lives to simply “serving the community” we end up wondering if people appreciate us enough. The key…
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Spiritual power
I am meditating through the temptation of Jesus in Luke 4 again. I am continually challenged with the thought of Jesus being full of the Spirit, then led BY the Spirit into spiritual battle. We pray for spiritual power, but we don’t want the battles. Miracles don’t happen in calm times. Jesus didn’t walk on water when the sea was…
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Where Character is Built
Character is not built in the smooth sailing. It is not built in anything that is something from the outside. Character is built in the course of inner confrontation. When we struggle against pride and sin we find the ability and resolve to overcome. That is the place of character. David Brooks in his book The Road to Character says…
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David’s Mighty Men
I am prayerfully walking through 2 Samuel now as I look at spiritual warfare. In Chapter 23 there is the story of David’s mighty men. Amazing heroes who would go the distance for David. They caught his heart, loved him, and would battle anyone anywhere on his behalf. I think of that and am deeply thankful for not only mighty…
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Sin won’t go away
We want to rename it, ignore it, ridicule the thought of “sin,” but the fact of it just won’t go away. We do our best to ignore it, though. Bill Arnold in his commentary on 1-2 Samuel in the NIV Application Commentary noted this: Once “sin” is no longer in the church’s vocabulary, there is no longer a need for…
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5.17.15 Joshua, Israel, and Crossing Over podcast
“Joshua, Israel, and Crossing Over” – A sermon from Heights Church Subscribe in a reader or on iTunes
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Why conversations fail and the public square doesn’t want “religion”
This review of a biography on Richard John Neuhaus has a particular insight that I find true generally of our inability to have decent public discussion anymore. An ethicist friend once told me he had a hard time reading Neuhaus. “I know there is stuff to learn from him,” he said, “but given the things that I find so irritating,…
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Crazy faith and foolishness
My journey in prayer and Scripture currently has me reading prayerfully through the Old Testament narratives beginning in 1 Samuel. The prayerful journey is to think in terms of spiritual warfare. 1 Samuel 14 is a story that draws me because of the contrast between Jonathan and Saul. I remember youth speakers really embellishing this story when I was in…
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When things go WELL in a city
It’s easy to get caught up in the stories of Baltimore, Ferguson, and so many more places and possibly think, “Wow… NOTHING seems to be going right.” What we don’t get to hear enough of is when things go WELL in a city. My city, where I pastor, is an inner ring suburb of the Twin Cities. In my time…
