For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. — Romans 3:23-24 All of life is a gift of grace… and the call of grace is to live a gracious life. ~ Max Lucado, from In…
Reordering Our Thoughts
Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. — Joshua 1:8 What consumes your thoughts most days? When given the chance, where does your mind wander? Are you frequently…
I Give Up Online Bible Study Week One — What Is Surrender Anyway?
God is not interested in signing off on even our best-made plans. God is much more interested in our surrender, our surrender to Him. ~ Laura Story So, here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-word, and walking-around life — and place it…
What Is Surrender Anyway?
I don’t know what you are facing today, but I know what it’s like to face circumstances that are out of your control. Life can be swirling around us, it can be overwhelming and hard. We long for peace over a situation, but we try to hold on tightly for control because we feel we…
We Are Transformed Daily as God Renews Our Minds
Do you want to have greater resistance to temptation, more wisdom in decision making, and increased influence among your friends? Each of these skills is rooted in your mental patterns and in meditation. We must remember that rewiring our minds is an ongoing spiritual operation. Though we are redeemed at Calvary, the process of…
A Love to Die For
Dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice — the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but…
Dads, Be the Hero
We talk about our moms as the center of the family. And in certain critical ways, they always will be. But as fathers we have just as important a role to play in the lives of our boys and girls that goes beyond carrying the family’s mantle of leadership. We must get back to the father’s traditional roles of…
A Living Sacrifice
Parents with older children had warned me about this project, the crowning glory of seventh grade, but I still wasn’t prepared for how much work it involved. Each student had to build a to-scale model of the tabernacle of the Lord as outlined in Exodus 36–39. Have you ever read a detailed account of the…
Refocus: Pray About Everything!
You swing your best when you have the fewest things to think about. – Bobby Jones Stewart Cink and I had been working together for only a few months in 2009 before he had the opportunity to play at one of the crown jewels of golf: the British Open. The oldest championship tournament in golf, it was being played…
The Good Dad: A Call to Sacrifice
Picking up a Ken doll and playing with your daughter and her Barbie Dreamhouse sounds, well, just about as unmanly as you can get. It’s not much like extinguishing a fire that very well might burn down the entire Grand Canyon. But to me, the willingness to grab that Ken doll and play with your…