Theology

The Sins of Omission

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If you were raised in church, you were probably warned concerning certain sins. Oftentimes, different churches have certain sins they really highlight to which they really want you to abstain. It seems that Christianity is often perceived as the “thou shalt not” religion.

In your experience, what are the top 5 sins that you have been taught to avoid?
Thou shalt not have premarital sex?
Thou shalt not drink, smoke, or chew (or date girls who do)?
Thou shalt not curse?
Thou shalt not gamble?
Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain?

Did you ever know that there are sins of omission? These are the failures to do the “thou shalt’s.” Take a moment and read James 4:15-17.

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I Wish My Life Would Change

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You want a better life than you have right now.

I may not know you personally, but I am sure of that fact. You want more money in your bank account. You wish your boss saw you were deserving of a promotion. If you are married, you wish your wife saw that you were right all the time. If you have children, you would jump for joy if they just obeyed you the first time you gave directions. You may be somewhat pleased with your life right now, but you deeply wish it was better. You earnestly desire a blessed life.

We all desired to be blessed, but are we willing to receive the blessing?

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Courageous in Lancaster

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I had the extreme privilege to go and minister with Second Baptist Church Lancaster, SC last night. They were having a “Courageous” weekend, and I got to serve their church in some really special ways.

They had a men’s only screening of Courageous on Friday night.  Sunday morning, their pastor, Brian Saxon, had preached on fatherhood.  From 4 to 6, I taught a large group of guys who gave up a Sunday afternoon nap and a football game concerning fatherhood.  We took a 5 minute potty break, but we got into God’s Word and talked about what it meant to lead our homes.

At 6, I got to preach to the entire congregation.  Adam Langley and his crew did a great job leading worship – so wonderful to be led by him!

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Make Up Your Mind

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Joshua was used by God to bring God’s people out of the wilderness into their own land. Once the Israelites had procured the Promised Land, Joshua delivers a final word of instruction. In light of all that Israel has experienced, Joshua challenged Israel to determine if they would follow Yahweh exclusively (Josh 24:14-15).

At this pivotal moment in their history, Joshua decided to lead the nation no longer as a fearless commander facing Israel’s international problems but as a bold preacher combating Israel’s spiritual problems. Before he presented the ultimatum, Joshua appealed to God’s work in the past among the Israelites. As Joshua relived Israel’s history (Josh 24:3-13), he quoted Yahweh’s voice and reminded the people that every victorious battle was due to Yahweh’s intervention and not the Israelites’ strength.

In Joshua 24:14-28, we see one of the greatest moments of drawing the line in the sand and demanding people to choose a side..

Just like the Israelites, it is time for us to make up our minds. Will we serve God, or will we serve some other god that has secured our attention?

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Don’t Misrepresent Christ

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As you can tell from the picture, the Agnews have been hard at work.  Recently moving into another house, we are getting things ready for Baby Gloria’s arrival.  The boys have been a huge help with their tool belts on removing floorings, sanding, and cleaning up.  For some reason, Eli likes to take his shirt off when he really starts working.  Love this kid.

From the entire process of selling our house, buying another one, and working with everyone from bankers, insurance agents, construction geniuses, and servicemen, I have learned a bunch this time around.

While I am learning a bunch about fixing up a house, I am learning more about the witness that I am in Christ.

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“You’re a REALLY Big Bear!”

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Psalm 107:33 He turns rivers into desert,
springs of water into thirsty ground,
34 and fruitful land into salty wasteland,
because of the wickedness of its inhabitants.
35 He turns a desert into a pool of water,
dry land into springs of water.
36 He causes the hungry to settle there,
and they establish a city where they can live.
37 They sow fields and plant vineyards
that yield a fruitful harvest.

38 He blesses them, and they multiply greatly;
He does not let their livestock decrease.

43 Let whoever is wise pay attention to these things
and consider the Lord’s acts of faithful love.

After reading a book about a family of bears one day, my firstborn came up to me and said, “Daddy, I’m a little bear, Mommy is a big bear, and Daddy, you’re a really big bear!”

In addition to his comments causing me to diet the next week, I also realized the power that perception has in the eyes of a child.  I’m a tall dad.  My toddlers think I am ginormous.  When a balloon escapes their grasp and heads towards the ceiling, they came looking for me.  When they want to soar above the crowd, they come begging to sit upon my shoulders.  Contrastingly, when they are in trouble, I can tell that our height difference also causes them to sit up a little straighter when I walk in the room.

Don’t read anything more into that comment.  The fact is they are small, I am big, and that causes them sometimes to have a reality check.  I believe that’s one of the reasons God makes babies so small (in addition to wanting women to survive labor).  He wants children to have a healthy fear of their parents.  The problem only comes when they think they are my size.

Our problems come when we think God is our size. 

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Consistently Inconsistent

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Psalm 92:10 You have lifted up my horn

like that of a wild ox;

I have been anointed with oil.

11 My eyes look down on my enemies;

my ears hear evildoers when they attack me.

12 The righteous thrive like a palm tree

and grow like a cedar tree in Lebanon.

13 Planted in the house of the Lord,

they thrive in the courts of our God.

14 They will still bear fruit in old age,

healthy and green,

15 to declare: “The Lord is just;

He is my rock,

and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”

Consistently Inconsistent

I am one of the most inconsistent people you will ever meet.  I will bowl great for three frames, and then I will reside in the gutter the rest of the game.  That’s not entirely true.  I will reside in the gutter of the lane next to me for the rest of the game.  At New Years, I will begin a steady diet and exercise routine that lasts until someone brings out the meatballs.  I will start a span of regularly responding to emails, and then I will have a setback and not reply to anyone for six weeks.  I crave consistency.

In my spiritual life, I am even worse.  On a mission trip, I will turn into super-evangelistic boy on the field only to revert to an unashamed coward when I return home.  My devotional life will get intense after a convicting sermon only to last until the guilt finally wears off.  An answered prayer turns me into an intercessory advocate until I stop seeing immediate results to my prayers.  I want to do better.  I honestly do crave consistency.

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How to Fix Lethargic Worship

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(Whenever I am trying to remember how big God is and if he can handle my current problems, I look at this picture and remember: God is good.)

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
His faithful love endures forever.
2 Let the redeemed of the Lord proclaim
that He has redeemed them from the hand of the foe

3 and has gathered them from the lands-
from the east and the west,
from the north and the south.  – Psalm 107:1-3

How to Fix Lethargic Worship

The cure for lethargic worship is a good memory.

In Psalm 107, the psalmist expresses praise to God based upon his faithfulness in the past. He reminds the worshipers that God is always good and deserves our gratitude.  He had rescued them from the hands of their enemies.  He had rescued them from their circumstances and gathered them back together again.

Have you ever felt in worship that you were just going through the motions?  You stood up and sat down when you were instructed.  You mouthed the words to some songs on a screen or in a hymnal.  You left the same way in which you entered.  The best way to describe your worship was lethargic.

The cure for lethargic worship is a good memory.  God has shown up all throughout your life. When you have called on God, every time he delivers.  The only proper response is worship.  Each new day is a reminder of God’s faithfulness to us.

When we were in the middle of our adoption process, I was forced to remember this fact often.

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A Healthy Fear of the Lord

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Psalm 86:15-16

15 But You, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God,
slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth.
16 Turn to me and be gracious to me.
Give Your strength to Your servant;
save the son of Your female servant.

Our fatherless society is killing our perception of God.

Whether you like to admit it or not, your relationship with your father often alters the way you view God.  If your father was absent, you might find difficulty accepting that God is near and cares for your smallest concerns.  If your father was a temperamental dictator, you might view God as the angry deity in the sky waiting to pummel you with lightning bolts whenever you step out of line.  If your father was a softy and a pushover, you might find yourself living more loosely because God would never really punish you for breaking his rules.  If your father was simply a detached provider, you might find yourself accepting God’s blessing without ever desiring his company.

Most likely, God is a lot different than you father.  God’s plan is that your father imitate him (Eph. 3:14), but unfortunately, that rarely happens.  We rarely see a combination of both love and holiness.  While God has many attributes, theologians categorize all attributes under those two headings – love and holiness.

This description of God, first mentioned in Exodus, is repeated many times throughout Scripture.  The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth.  What is so shocking to us modern readers is that someone can be both compassionate and angry.

A common misconception is that Jesus of the New Testament was compassionate and the God of the Old Testament was angry.  How do you explain God’s constant rescuing of idolatrous Israel and how do you explain Jesus chasing religious people out of the temple with a whip?

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The Walmart Dilemma

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We have all experienced the Walmart dilemma.  You enter into the massive store full of your city’s most eclectic citizens with the intention of buying one needed item.  As the greeter wishes you a good day, you coach yourself that you don’t need anything else except that one item.  As you return to your car, you are unaware of how you just spent $50 on drive-by items.

What’s even worse is when you have bags full but have forgotten that one item for which you came.  The Walmart dilemma is that you lose focus on what you came for because you are overwhelmed with all the other items clamoring for you attention.

The psalmist is in a similar position.  Other gods are present and vying for his worship.  The world powers claim they need not to swear their allegiance to the Lord.  Circumstances are apparent that distract his focus.  So, what does the psalmist pray?  He prays for an “undivided mind” in order to fear God’s name (v.11).  He is acknowledging the presence of distractions, and he is asking for God’s help to leave the store with solely the one item.

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Does Prayer Really Work?

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My prayer life has been divided. Not so much in a division of what I pray for, but I have experienced the complete opposites of the spectrum concerning how prayer actually works. We all say that prayer is important and that prayer works, but what actually happens during prayer? Do we change God’s mind on the issue at hand? Is it just a tool that God uses to draw us to himself? Here are some of the options:

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Holding My Son Down in the Hospital

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This picture was taken a few weeks ago.  Eli was having some minor surgery, but as many of you know, surgery for a 3-year-old is never minor.  When your child is taken from you, knocked out, cut on, comes back loopy with tons of chords sticking out of him, it’s never a fun encounter.

I prize myself on being a tough father.  I’m that “it will be alright” kinda dad who can grasp that bumps and bruises are learning tools.  I was not expecting the kind of emotional turmoil that I went through that day.  I don’t know if it was the first time that my son was out of our protective care or what it was, but it was hard.  It was hard holding my son down for strangers to do things to him that hurt.

When he began to wake up, he laid on Mom a good long while and seemed content.  Later, they needed to check on him and begin to remove connected wires and such, so he was handed to Dad (thanks, a lot!).  Eli looked up at me and said, “Daddy, I want to go home.  Take me home, please.”

“I will in just a minute baby, but you have to let these people make you feel better.”

When they started to work on him and I had to hold him down, the look in his eyes was something I had never seen before.

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Trading the Ultimate for the Immediate

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At Passion 2011, Andy Stanley gave a great message concerning temptation.  One of the lines he repeated over and over is that temptation is the act of “trading the ultimate for the immediate.”

The ultimate is faithfulness to your spouse, the immediate is the temporary meeting of a desire.

The ultimate is a godly legacy engraved in your children, the immediate might be another round of golf.

The ultimate is heaven’s rewards, the immediate is the passing riches of this world.

When we encounter temptation, one verse helps me more than any other verse in the Bible:

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I Love Jesus

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The other week, I had one of those cherished moments as a father.  The pic above is a cropped pic of my son, Obadiah, in a restaurant bathroom.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he will hate me one day, I understand, but I couldn’t pass it up.

As I waited for him to complete his business, he looked up at the two rails on the wall and shocked me with what he said:

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The Rapture Did Not Take Place on May 21, 2011

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Above is a video of Harold Camping, the man behind the prophecy that the church would be raptured on May 21, 2011.

It’s now May 23rd.

While so many of made jokes concerning his prophecy, I honestly feel pity for him.

Harold_Camping

It appears in all that I have seen and read that he honestly believed it.  He also believed it the first time he made the prophecy but then figured out he had made a mathematical error in his equation.  And with numerous followers supporting and funding his cause, he is left to deal with the people on the earth he was so sure he was leaving behind.

So did you believe the hype?  Did you secretly wonder?  Did you wonder if the cicadas were more than a mere nuisance and they were actually a sign of the times?

I was asked a lot of questions over the last week, and this was my response:

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Thirsting for God

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1 As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, God. 2 I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while all day long people say to me, “Where is your God?” 4 I remember this as I pour …

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Should Christians Rejoice That Osama Bin Laden’s Dead?

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After reading and hearing so many interesting takes on feelings concerning the death of Osama Bin Laden, I had decided to write what I believe would be a proper biblical take on the subject.  In my own hometown, people have been very supportive or very offended by our local newspaper’s headline.  Can we actually rejoice that he is dead?  Some people say as an American we can, as a Christian, we cannot.

As I started to write a post, I found a link to where John Piper wrote on the subject so wonderfully.  He is smarter and more godly than me, so I am sharing his post in lieu of mine for your reading pleasure.  This post is from his Desiring God website:

God’s emotions are complex—like yours, only a million times more. Right now, your emotions about bin Laden are not simple, i.e. not single. There are several, and they intermingle. That is a good thing. You are God-like.

In response to Osama bin Laden’s death, quite a few tweets and blogs have cited the biblical truth that “God does not delight in the death of the wicked.” That is true.

It is also true that God does delight in the death of the wicked. There are things about every death that God approves in themselves and things about every death that God disapproves in themselves.

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Parents, God is Not the On*Star Button

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It is impossible for you to try to raise your children in a godly manner.

You can’t do it, but Christ in you – the hope of glory – can (Col. 1:27). Too often, parents attempt to raise their children with godly intentions minus the godly interventions. Instead of relying on our own strengths, we need to learn to abide in Christ.

Presently, many cars come with On-Star capabilities. When in trouble, the driver can push a button, and help comes to him. Once the crisis is averted, the driver dismisses the On-Star helpers and goes about on his own for the rest of the journey.

Many parents approach life the same way. When crisis hits, they hit their knees and beg for divine intervention. Once God helps them out of the situation, they see little use for him anymore. This approach is worse than shameful, it is ignorant. If we think we can make it one step without God, we really don’t comprehend who we are dealing with here.

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Unpacking the U-Haul (The Problem with Emotional Hoarders)

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With the A&E TV show, “Hoarders,” America has become exposed to people who are unable to part with their belongings.  These hoarders hold onto absolutely everything in which they become unaware of how their stuff is suffocating their lives.  When a hoarder decides to move homes, he or she finally can comprehend how much baggage they have weighing them down.

We do the same things emotionally.  We try to move along in our lives, but we have stuff in the back of the U-Haul slowing down the process.  Just like hoarders, you have some baggage that you have collected and you have some baggage that you have received.  In order to go the next step in your life, you need to address both.

Joseph lived with all types of baggage.  As the favored son of Jacob, his prideful stories told to his brothers kept him out of favor with everyone in his family except for his father.  His brothers beat him and sold him into slavery.  While taking a stance for purity, he was wrongfully accused of rape.  After helping others out in jail, he was left and forgotten about to rot in prison.

Joseph had baggage.  Some he collected, some he received, but he had to deal with both.

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Be Careful Little Eyes What You See (OG, Obie, & the Cereal Bowl)

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I snapped this picture on my phone this morning at the breakfast table.  Uncle OG was finishing off the last drop of his milk in his cereal bowl while my oldest son, Obadiah, learned from the entire spectacle.

Never a dull moment in the Agnew house.

“Oh, be careful little eyes what you see…”

This song was in my head going to work this morning.  You can imagine how Obadiah finished his cereal off after watching his Uncle OG.  Oh, the things my family teaches my boys!

While this episode is simply humorous (and I hope it made your day 😉 ), it was a great reminder that my boys watch my every move.  Would I really be happy as a father if they mimicked my every behavior?

Would I be proud if they copied my:

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College Bible Study – 2 Weeks Left!

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It’s hard to believe that we only have 2 more weeks of our college Bible study at North Side.  I have LOVED pouring into these students this year, and I think I have some great ideas for next year and even something for those around this summer. For the remaining 2 weeks, I have some special things in store. Next …

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Should I Tithe While in Debt?

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One of the most frequented asked questions I receive from people concerning giving is: “should I tithe while in debt?”

My short answer is yes.

Now, here is the medium answer concerning why I say, “yes.”

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Praying With Your Eyes Wide Open

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When we were little, adults taught us to pray with our eyes closed.  I suppose it had something to do with eliminating distractions or focusing on the One that we can’t see physically.

My son, Eli, has a different approach.

And I don’t plan on stopping him.

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Anticipating the Arrival

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There’s nothing like going home to me.  I wish you could follow along with me my drive up the driveway after work every day.  The excitement is at different levels at different days, but normally I walk into 3 people jumping around and cheering like I am the best person in the world.  No matter how hard the day had been, this hysteria at 5:10 makes all things right in the world.

The other day, as I noticed Obadiah and Eli’s faces pressed against the window, banging on it with their hands, I thought they had gotten taller.  Turns out, they had climbed up on the window sill anticipating my arrival.  I don’t know why Eli was still peering out the window when I was standing behind him, but regardless, it was a special moment as they climbed up eager to see my truck arrive in the driveway (even if they did disobey by climbing up there).

The reason they get that excited is due to their perception of the person they are anticipating.  I don’t think I’m that spectacular, but in this season of life, they do.  And they show me in how they eagerly wait and celebrate my arrival.

The problem is that we aren’t that eager concerning Jesus’ return.

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Imitation is the Sincerest of Flattery

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“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.”  -Ephesians 5:1

Last night in our C-Group, we dug in deep into Ephesians 5 and sought to learn what it meant to imitate God.  One of the guys made a great point at how his son wanted to imitate him because he looked up to him.

I could relate.  It amazes me that these two wonderful boys, Obadiah and Eli, look up to their father.  Over the last few weeks, they have hopped around like they were on crutches  tryinb to be like Daddy.  Obie keeps telling me has a boo boo on his foot like me.  On Christmas morning, when they both got guitars, they stepped up to the microphone, stomped on foot pedals, and said, we are “playing and singing like Daddy.”

If imitation is the sincerest of flatteries, then I am a flattered man.

During group last night, I realized something with massive implications: they imitate me because they want to!  You may be thinking that is obvious, but do you get the spiritual implications?

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What is the Age of Accountability?

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Much debate surrounds the issue of the age of accountability. When the disciples asked Jesus who was the greatest in the kingdom (Matt 18:1), he sat a child down before the disciples to answer their question (Matt 18:2). It would have been pointless for Jesus to exalt a child to hold the mantle of who belongs in the kingdom if …

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Spoiled Rotten

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13 For you are called to freedom, brothers; only don’t use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in one statement: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out, or you will be consumed by one another.
(Galatians 5:13-15, HCSB)

Spoiled Rotten

As a parent, I have certain rules and stipulations by which I prefer my children to adhere. My wife and I have standards of bed time routines, dietary selections, and level of freedom bestowed upon our children. We want our children to have fun, but we have certain rules we prefer them to live by.

That is, until they go and spend time with their grandparents.

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Stop Church Hopping

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There is a growing epidemic in the United States concerning church hopping. More churches’ membership numbers fluctuate not due to new converts but due to revolving membership doors. When someone becomes upset with music styles, church programs, carpet color, differences with another member, frustration with a staff member, or any other reason, people move their church memberships like they would …

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Election, Limited Atonement, and Other Things That Make You Think

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After Jeff’s message on Sunday dealing with election and predestination, I have gotten the chance to have some great followup conversations with church members.  That means, people have had some questions.  So, I thought I would give you a brief summary of some of the conversations.

  1. God is God – If God says that to get into heaven, you have to stand on your head and cluck like a chicken for 475 days straight, you have to.  He’s God.  Get over it.  So the first rule before entering into this conversation is just because something doesn’t feel right or fair doesn’t mean it might not be reality.
  2. Election is in the Bible – Like it or not, the concept of election and predestination are in the Bible.  Are they as thoroughly explained as church discipline, the Great Commission, or Christ’s work on the cross?  No.  But the concept is there even if it isn’t explained in Scripture as thoroughly as we may desire.

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“Sex is Evil, Sex is Sin, God Forgives, So Let’s…”

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15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! 16 Do you not know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey—either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to, 18 and having been liberated from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.
(Romans 6:15-18, HCSB)

New Management

I was in a restaurant in Colorado eating dinner on a mission trip. This restaurant was one of those joints where it was encouraged to write on the wall to inscribe your name or your wisest thought. Among the walls of inscriptions, my eyes caught a glimpse of a poem that someone had penned: “Sex is evil, sex is sin, God forgives, so let’s begin.”

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Show Them Who’s the Boss

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12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under law but under grace.
(Romans 6:12-14, HCSB)

Show Them Who’s the Boss

As a father of two two-year-olds (no, that wasn’t a typo), I am frequently having the conversation about who is the boss in the house. It is amazing to me that someone so little can have such audacity to think that the world obviously revolves around him. As a parent, sometimes I feel that I say “no” much more than I say “yes.”

I will regularly look at my sons and say, “You’re not the boss. Daddy is the boss. You obey what Daddy says. This is not a democracy. You don’t even get a vote.” I’ll never forget that one day I was telling my oldest two-year-old, Obadiah, that he was not in charge and that I was the boss when he interrupted me and said, “No, Mommy’s the boss!”

He was on restrictions for the next week.

When someone or something tries to be in charge when they shouldn’t be, things get chaotic. In a home, it results in bad behaved children, in a spiritual walk, it results in bad behaved adults. Sin does not have the right to rule in our lives, yet it does rule when we obey sin’s desires. As Christians, sin has lost it’s authoritative power over us. It is gone. Yet we give sin the throne when we give up the fight and yield to sinful desires.

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Family Resemblance

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1 Look at how great a love the Father has given us, that we should be called God’s children. And we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know Him. 2 Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself just as He is pure.
(1 John 3:1-3, HCSB)

Family Resemblance

As a young boy, I would often hear from someone how one of my features resembled either my mother or my father. Some people could actually tell I was their child even if they had never met me. Now as a father, I always enjoy hearing from people who they think our boys look like. Sometimes I have left a room to have someone tell my wife, “I won’t tell your husband this cause I don’t want to offend him, but your children look just like you.” I always laugh at that. I’m not upset if my children look like their mother (I did choose to marry her, you know?).

It’s a fact of life: children share family resemblance with their parents. It might be the way they look, the way they talk, or they way they behave, but children often resemble their parents.

As children of God, we are called to do the same!

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Don’t Go in Debt on Black Friday

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Thanksgiving is this week and what does that mean for America?  We are already focused on Christmas consumerism.  We are getting ready to honor the incarnation of God himself by going into debt up to our eyeballs.  Dangerous stampedes will happen all over our country on Friday to obtain gadgets before others do on the cusp of a day to celebrate gratefulness to what we already have.

Maybe there is a different way.

Before going shopping on Black Friday, I want to offer you a few tips:

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You’re Not An Orphan Anymore

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8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him, 9 because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, no longer dies. Death no longer rules over Him. 10 For in that He died, He died to sin once for all; but in that He lives, He lives to God. 11 So, you too consider …

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Courageous Writers’ Conference

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Last week, I had the privilege of brainstorming with the Sherwood Pictures Team and LifeWay leadership for the upcoming “Courageous Bible Study” based on the Courageous movie coming in September 2011.  I was humbled when they asked me to be a part of the writing process, and I am even more humbled after spending a week working on this material.

I can’t go into too many details concerning the film or the curriculum, but I can share some things with you so you can make this a matter of prayer:

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The Little Engine That Could God

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[Yesterday, I preached on a message at North Greenville‘s Chapel I am loosely calling “The Little Engine That Could God.”  I wrote out the intro in manuscript form.  It was a message on the omnipotence of God.  I’ve been praying about writing a book on the attributes of God by looking at a negative image of God, then correcting it through the Scripture’s teachings.  Writing Freshman 15 for college students was very challenging but also very rewarding (you can learn more about the book here or order it on Amazon here).  Praying about it and would love you to pray with me about if I should go further.  Here is the intro:]

“I think I can.  I think I can.  I think I can.”

 

We all remember this iconic phrase from the children’s classic The Little Engine That Could.  This favorite tale recounts the story of a train hauling toys up the mountain to some needy children.  When the train is unable to make the steep trek, the toys try to chorale other passing trains to carry them up the mountain.  Either due to disinterest or inability, all the trains refuse the responsibility of carrying this load.  Eventually, a little blue engine comes by who is unsure if it is able to pull the load up the mountain.  Seeing the disappointment in the toys‘ eyes, the engine decides to give it a shot.  Repeating that famous phrase over and over again, the engine eventually musters up enough strength to help those out in need.

Many of us follow The Little Engine That Could God.

No one would readily admit to following that God, but we prove it by our actions.  When encountering difficult situations in our lives with what seems to be insurmountable odds, we look for the best and the brightest to come to our rescue.  We research and poll people concerning what they would do.  We seek direction from doctors, teachers, preachers, counselors, and every expert you can imagine.  Once we exhaust all of our human resources, have made meager attempts of our own, we address the King of kings and Lord of lords and utter one of the most tragic phrases resonating in our churches today, “All we have left to do now is pray.”

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Christian Freedom

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Many Christians engage in certain practices that seem possibly loose but claim they have the right due to “Christian liberty.”  The verse that they are casually quoting comes from 1 Cor. 6:12 where Paul says: “All things are lawful for me.”  But most people don’t finish his thought where he states that not all things are beneficial.  He also states …

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Kick the Ball High Daddy

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My favorite part of my day is playing outside with my boys in the evening.  We ride cars and push wagons and play ball.  After we have sweated a ton, we eat a popsicle on the kitchen floor and get ready for bed. As we have been learning to catch and throw and kick, something interesting has happened lately.  I …

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Religion’s Attempt to Rescue

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While attempting to answer the God Question in our day and time is truly difficult, it is not impossible. Religion attempts to address the God Question and provide a belief framework by which a person can live. Religion may be defined simply as “the center of life that gives meaning.” Religion is a framework for life. Each religion attempts to …

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The God Question

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If God exists, everything changes. He, she, it, they, or whatever you think this divine being might be called, if God does exist, everything will change.  Everything must change.  If a divine being rules over the universe, then we might be wise to determine how that being wants us to live in that universe. When I say that everything changes, …

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