The devil said to [Jesus], “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.” And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is…
Checkered Pasts Don’t Check You Off God’s List
The journey to become Missy’s mama started when I was seventeen years old, when Cindy Whelchel — my best friend in high school — and I led our youth group Bible study through the theme of adoption in Scripture. We made a pact to adopt babies that no one else wanted when we grew up. We were as sincere as…
Satan Stalked Him
He faced all of the same temptations we do. — Hebrews 4:15 You and I know what it is like to endure a moment of temptation or an hour of temptation, even a day of temptation. But forty days? That is what Jesus faced. The Spirit led Jesus into the desert where the devil tempted Jesus for forty…
The Lie: There Is No Devil
The Truth: The Devil of the Bible is real and he is our enemy. In the moments after my baptism, after that soggy hug with Miss Kay, we stood outside the church building. There Miss Kay told me what Jason had said. She said, “Jason asked, ‘Does this mean the Devil doesn’t live in Daddy…
This Is How I Start My Day: Preparing for Adventure
Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in Your law. — Psalm 119:18 Oh, how we underestimate the power made available to us when we spend time with God. Our earthly eyes are so limited because they don’t allow us to see what is happening in the heavenly realm. A daily battle is…
Did the Devil Really Make Me Do It?
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. — 1 Corinthians 10:13 Early on in my…
Giving Thanks for God’s Abundance
Consider it Thankfulness is a skill we can develop with practice. It’s just a matter of pausing and noticing the abundance with which God has filled our lives. We can choose to view life through the lens of deprivation (noticing everything we don’t have and worrying that there is never enough for us) or through…
Unstoppable: We Are at War
We are in a spiritual battle. The enemy does not want us to fulfill our destiny. * When you say yes to God and join His cause, overnight you may go from running with the wind to running against the wind and not even know how or when the wind changed. Knowing that we have…
The Reason for My Hope
God’s Plan: Redemption Eventually we all find ourselves staring into the face of truth. The Bible says that man’s soul is “full of troubles” (Psalm 88:3), filled with bitterness, grief, pain, and guilt. Adam and Eve paid a price for their disobedience. They were driven out of the Paradise of God, His very presence, into…
Are You Under Attack? God Is With You!
There are always doubts. We doubt because God, while He gets louder, is still invisible, because of the people questioning your sanity and the difficulty of just following a wild invisible God into uncomfortable spaces. We doubt because of the risk, the cost, the abandonment of rights and comforts, the disapproval of people you really…