Several years ago, returning from a trip, I stepped inside the front door and felt like I had walked every one of the four hundred miles I had just driven. I had spoken six times in four days, and had driven through four different states to get where I needed to go. I pulled into…
Learning to Love… Sacrificially, Passionately, and Crazily!
Dr. John Barger gave an extraordinary address to a gathering of men on December 12, 1987. The address included his testimony of how he had walked the road from being a domineering husband to a serving one. The crux of the message, however, wasn’t just that husbands can do better. We all know that. What…
The Eight-Pound Seminary Professor
The Eight-Pound Seminary Professor Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. — 1 Timothy 5:1-2 No, my baby daughter didn’t teach me about predestination or transubstantiation, or about how…
Fall in Love with Mercy
Editor’s Note: It’s Sit & Listen Saturday at Devotionals Daily. Enjoy reading as well as listening to this devotion from Gary Thomas, from his devotional Devotions for a Sacred Marriage. Listen on our blog below or on your Alexa device by enabling the skill and then prompting, “Alexa, ask devotionals to read today’s devotion.” Falling…
Walking on the Wild Side of Parenting
In our enthusiasm to celebrate children (a good thing), we are sometimes tempted to overlook the key Christian doctrine of original sin. A child can be raised by godly parents, yet still choose to live an ungodly life: A wise son heeds his father’s instruction, but a mocker does not listen to rebuke. – Proverbs…
Like Father, Like Son
Spiritual impact is by no means directed solely by biology. On the contrary, many adoptive fathers and stepfathers have had far more impact on their children’s lives than the children’s biological fathers. One mother told me of the time her husband and their adopted son went to a Promise Keeper’s rally. One of the speakers…
Jesus Said, “Become Like Little Children”
This idea that God can use children to teach us, that we have an opportunity to gain spiritual insight from those we are called to raise and teach, comes from our Lord himself, who in this regard was something of a revolutionary. In the first century, children enjoyed little esteem and virtually no respect. While…
Is Better Better?
In God’s worldview, some values rise higher than comfort and happiness. Consider the most concise verses in the Bible on spiritual formation: We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. — Romans 5:3-4 In Paul’s mind, character gets built by learning to persevere through difficult…
Sacred Parenting: Perfecting Holiness
Every Day Is Like an Airline Emergency Have you ever noticed the severe discrepancy behind the very few verses in the Bible that discuss the “how-to” of parenting and the hundreds of Christian books that confidently proclaim “God’s plan for parenting” (or something similar)? If the “how-to” is so important, why can’t we point to…
Encouragement: You’re Prime!
Therefore encourage one another and build each other up. — 1 Thessalonians 5:11 In the classic 1904 novel Freckles by Gene Stratton-Porter, a kindly couple gives a young man who is “intensely eager to belong somewhere” a new chance in life by offering him employment.1 The boss’s wife treats Freckles like a son, becoming the…
- 1
- 2