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I may feel exhausted or discouraged or wounded by events in my life, but do I recognize the underlying battle?

“How long this world will suffer, how long I will suffer… Do you hear my cries? Do you know the brokenness?”

Living under the new covenant of Jesus’ blood, we also get to see the beautiful picture of Jesus drawing people from every nation, tribe, and tongue to Himself.

There’s nothing like a natural disaster to inspire people to ask deep questions about the meaning of life, justice, and the existence of evil and hardship.

The rainbow is not a promise that life will get better after experiencing a storm. The rainbow is the promise that God will send a rescue, that God will be our refuge.

I feel glimmers of joy as I walk the aisles of Target perusing Christmas decorations or when I’m driving in my car listening to 24-7 Christmas radio, but I also feel sad.

We look forward and say there is a better day coming because of Jesus. And not only do we look forward, but we hasten it by living today as a renewed people in the midst of that broken world.

The great news is, we already know how the battle ends.

It’s not that God was any less present to them or working any fewer miracles of deliverance and preservation among them over those years; it’s just that they stopped seeing Him. They stopped recognizing His faithfulness to them. And I do the same thing.

Sometimes, hard things happen, and they’re just hard, and no ah-ha moment comes later when you realize how every painful piece of the puzzle was indeed working together for your good.

I sit there and soak it up with a candle lit and music playing, because the orderliness of the house makes me feel in control and relaxed for the 5 minutes that it stays that way. Maybe heaven will smell like cleanliness and soap...

How often do I “rest” by binging on show after show? Or fritter my time away on silly articles on Twitter or Reddit? Or squander my Saturday on a unimportant book?

"Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul" -Mark Twain

This Sunday, as we unpacked hospitality, and love was intertwined in every part. Fear creates exclusive community, but love gives way to inclusive hospitality.

You see, I’m not that different from Nebuchadnezzar. He wanted to build a legacy for himself, and he did. Just like him, I’m trying to build a legacy… And I’m anxious when I think that I might not accomplish these goals or, even worse, that having accomplished them I might see them taken away from me.

"There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He." -Friedrich Nietzsche

Jesus sings us into a new mode of existence. Jesus sings the nations into submission. Jesus sings hearts into love. Jesus is Christmas in the room. The hope of Advent and the hope of Christmas is that Jesus Christ is in the room…

Wanting to be the favorite is a struggle in vain, as God has given us an even playing field, always coming from wretchedness, being made into His righteousness through adoption as sons and heirs of His kingdom.

Maybe you vacillate between "having it all together" parenting and "I'm drunk" parenting. Maybe you want to fix your kids. Maybe you want to have compassion but don't, want to be interested, but aren't. Maybe you don't really know or aren't really sure, because you have checked out... Parenting does expose. It shows us our idols.

Practical steps for cultivating intimacy in marriage.

Our priority as a church is to be a faithful presence of Jesus in a broken world, that we would live, speak and serve as the very presence of Jesus, and this includes in the area of sexuality.

We know the Disney movies that end in riding off into the sunset, living happily ever after, etc. As a child, my favorite parts were watching the prince transform throughout the movie. The beast, the frog, the thief became the perfect prince all while the girl remained sinless. I wanted this for myself...

Lament is to be a regular rhythm of our worship. Lament awakens us to the realities of our world and the disorientations of our life. This past week has seen violence and revenge along racial lines. It won't be done away with by a quick prayer. Lamenting helps us to remember and repent and cry out to the only One that can help.