As many of you know, most of the readers of this blog have had a pretty rough couple of days with recent events. I thought I would use my post today to lighten the air a little bit by posting a humorous poem I wrote about 6 months ago. I will return to my normal content tomorrow. All of the events in the poem actually happened… except the falling in love part. I was in the car with some friends on a trip to Chicago over Christmas break. We got stuck in traffic and kept passing this car full of girls, who were presumably sisters. I was bored and this poem is the result of my antics. (more…)

God has been dealing with some of my spiritual laziness lately. When I am on a religious high it is easy to follow God. I can get into worship, I can pray for hours on end. However, all it takes is a few changes in my body to bring me down from this state. If you make me tired or hungry, you reveal my zeal for what it really is: emotion. This all wouldn’t really be a problem except for the fact that I tend to get tired and hungry and grouchy fairly often, and that seriously cuts into my ability to seek God. I want to be the steadfast Christian that will follow God in difficult times. Like Peter I promise Jesus that I would die for him, but when it comes time for my faith to be tested, I shrink away. (more…)

I thought it would be a good idea to follow up yesterday’s post with one on repentance. Rose made the comment that many people don’t want to come and seek God because they don’t really want to face themselves. This raises an important question, “what is repentance?” I don’t know very many people who are all that afraid to say ’sorry’ to God. Usually it is a relief to get things of your chest; make a clean slate of it all and forget about it. However, it is a much different thing to actually come to the place of giving something over to God and abandoning a way of life that you have been cherishing for so long. (more…)

In talking to people about God, I often tell them that they really need to seek Him. This is often met with a blank stare or a confused comment. People seem to think that seeking God is some mystical kind of lifestyle that has to do with monk robes and candles. However, when I say “seek God” I mean an action that is as definite as playing basketball or watching a movie. I stand on the promise of scripture that if you seek God, you will find him. Too many Christians have never really heard from God because they have never really sought him.

People generally think of requests when they think about prayer. They think about talking to God and asking him for things. However, the most valuable part of prayer is when God talks back. Most of us never experience this because we aren’t really listening. (more…)

Sorry for the lack of posts in the past two days. I was out of town attending a funeral. Posts will resume tomorrow as usual.

All too often I see Christians hopping around from church to church. Most of the time, they give the usual reason of “God called me…” Who can argue with that? However, this muddled confusion of wandering sheep couldn’t be further from the heart of God. Instead, the underlying reason for most of this church shopping is that people were challenged with something they didn’t want to own up to at their old church, or they got in a fight with someone that they didn’t want to resolve. Because churches rely on your attendance for their dollars, they do everything they can to seduce individuals who are looking around for a new body. The effect on the way we do church is devastating. I would like to see Christians called back to committed relationships where life is given to the church rather than ‘me’ centered relationships where people suck life from the church. (more…)

If you consider the madness of the Corinthian church, Paul’s priority in addressing her problems is really quite surprising. Most of us would have busted out of the Greeting with all guns blazing at incest and ecclesiastic intoxication (1 Cor. 5 and 11), but Paul recognized a more central, more dangerous problem.

Much like today, believers in Corinth were mixing their faith in Christ with faith in the personality of a ministry. This wasn’t a different religion or a cultish spin-off that Paul was addressing, but men who considered it worth the cost of division to identify with a non-Jesus characteristic.

Does this not happen today? In Corinth it was “I follow Paul” or “I follow Apollos”; in Contemporary Christian America it’s “I follow R.C. Sproul” or “I follow Rick Warren”. Believers inundate themselves with ministry “materials” and migrate from one conference to the next, never actually drinking divine motivation from the secret place with Christ. (more…)

Last night I watched the first episode of the BBC program Planet Earth. I was stunned by the amazing camera shots and high definition images. As one of my friends said, “This looks more real than real. If I went to that place, it wouldn’t look nearly as cool.” The presentation of distant and exotic parts of the globe reminded me to worship God. I think it is very easy for us to get caught up in our problems and the things going on right around us. We can forget to praise the Creator of this fantastic world we live in. I can easily become discontent with God because things right around me don’t look so wonderful. It is also easy for modern Christians to come before God with a flippant ‘buddy’ attitude, forgetting that he is the Lord of all that is, Maker of heaven and earth. (more…)

“Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness.” –Luke 11:34-35

We need to watch ourselves. Jesus is simply stating a spiritual law here. The stuff that comes into you from the outside, the stuff you see, affects your insides. All too often we think we are unaffected. We think it is fine to watch the movie, because we would never do any of the things in it ourselves. The question is never, “what can I do and still be Christian?” The question is always, “how can I become more like Christ?” (more…)

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” –1 Peter 5:6-7

I don’t really believe that verse. I know I believe in the Bible, but I guess I don’t believe the Bible when it tells me this. At least you wouldn’t think so by the way I live sometimes. A lot of problems arise in the Christian life when we don’t really trust God. We think that what he wants from us is oppressive and not really for our own good. There are sometimes areas in my life that I want to hold onto. I clench my fist around these like a child, but God has been a father for a long time, and he knows how to pry my fingers open. (more…)