Your soul is the vessel God fills, yet there is no room for Him to fill if your soul is wrung out, twisted, haggard, fried. Put another way, your hands cannot receive a gift while they are still tightly clenched. That is the condition we are trying to recover from and avoid further commerce with.…
And Now for Something Completely Violent
Horrific Violence, Some of It Involving Bears In 2013, the journal Pediatrics published a study that found movies rated “PG-13” were, on average, more violent than movies rated “R.”1 The reason for this, as far as anyone can tell, is that it’s easy to make violent acts seem less violent simply by neglecting to show…
Eternal Instants
We played every game we knew. We ran up and down the hall. We played “find me” behind the couch. We bounced the beach ball off each other’s heads. We wrestled, played tag, and danced. It was a big evening for Mom, Dad, and little Jenna. We were having so much fun that we ignored…
Worship on a Mission
We don’t have to look too far to see beautiful, vibrant examples of people who took God at His Word regarding their respective missions, because they’re literally everywhere. But I want to go straight to my favorite source for an intentional reason. If we want to see a good example of someone using what they’ve…
Pain Is a Microphone
There Will Be Blood Pain is a microphone. And the more it hurts, the louder you get. Suffering isn’t an obstacle to being used by God. It is an opportunity to be used like never before. This truth leaps off the pages of Scripture again and again and again. Joseph suffered for years as a…
Secret Messages Inside New Folsom Prison
Editor’s note: Casey Diaz was a violent gangbanger whose crimes had caught up to him landing not only in jail but in solitary confinement. Then he experienced a miraculous encounter with Jesus and chose to follow Him. As he grew in his faith, he began to look for ways to share the Gospel among…
Knowing Hope
Guide me in your truth and teach me, for You are God my Savior, and my hope is in You all day long. — Psalm 25:5 I was running late to an appointment. To make matters worse, traffic on the freeway was stopped as far as I could see. I’ll never make it, I thought.…
Respect: Give It and Pursue It
Respect is incredibly important to men, not just in the NFL but in all walks of life. We crave it from our peers, our friends, our family, and especially our girlfriends or wives. Plenty of authors have pointed out that most men would rather feel unloved than disrespected. There is a reason why the Bible…
Being Unoffendable: The Ridiculous Idea
Okay. So this may sound like the dumbest thing you’ve ever read, but here goes: You can choose to be “unoffendable.” I actually heard a guy say this at a business meeting. That is striking to me for a few reasons: (1) I’d never, ever thought about that before; (2) I remember something from…
When God Gives You More Than You Can Handle
There’s no easy way to attach the word cancer to your world and not make all who love you cry. I kept thinking about that statement everyone loves to throw out in times like these: “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” But that’s not actually in the Bible. God does say He…