November 2014 Blog Posts (15)

The Perils of Forgetting Who You Are

There’s a lot of amnesia going around lately, and I wonder if you might be a victim. To my surprise, I’ve discovered that I’m a recovering amnesiac myself. More on that in a moment, but first let me give you some background on the kind of amnesia I’m referring to.

Several years ago, my wife and I watched a rather lame made-for-TV movie on the Lifetime network. A woman was comatose…

This Thanksgiving I find myself reflecting on the responsibilities we all have when we realize how blessed we are. On this day when we recount the blessings we’ve received from God, it’s also a great time to ask ourselves how we can BE a blessing to others (Genesis 12:2).

One day King David woke up with this same quest on his mind:  (2 Samuel 9:3)

If you know David’s story, he had experienced lots of hardships on his way to becoming king and fulfilling his destiny. As…

“I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.” (Charles Dickens)

When we’re exhausted, we can seek God’s strength and glide gracefully on eagle’s wings. That is not to say it will be easy—we may have trouble envisioning such beauty, and it may be all we can do just to get to our feet. But if we take God’s hand, He promises to help us fly high above the mediocre world below. On His wings of proven love and absolute truth, our Lord pilots us above gloomy clouds of…

Since my last posting, as the opportunity comes my way again for reflections. What is the situation with our world? So many answers would likely come in depending on on the side we belong. To believers as we rejoice seeing people turning to the LORD and are being discipled, yet in many regions of the world, wars, poverty and some dreadful things are occurring unabated.

I have also had the opportunity of reading opinions of some notable people that have shaped our world, I wondered why…

When you’re a kid growing up in a small Pentecostal church, knowing God’s will is a big deal. You want to know the formula for getting it right.



Just when you thought you came across something in the Bible that might be “it,” the “anti-fleece” sermon would roll around the next Sunday to remind you that you were wrong. Again.



The “anti-fleece” was a popular sermon I heard a lot growing up. The gist was what not to do when seeking God’s will.…

My mother used to worry about me since I exhibited zero musical skills. She actually bought me a trombone and hired a teacher. He showed me the positions on the slide and the sound each made, then quit during the second lesson, when I played “Whispering Hope” by ear. I sang in the church’s Youth Choir because I was the Pastor’s son. I should have suspected something was wrong when the director suggested that I shouldn’t feel forced to sing in the choir. Yet I love music. Most of my family…

“The collapse of the Wall is proof that dreams come true, and continues to offer hope wherever freedom and human rights are threatened or trampled on.” (German Chancellor Angel Merkel)

Sunday, March 9^th, marked the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the event that heralded the collapse of the communist system. More than 300,000 participated in the celebration. Eight thousand helium balloons stretching across nine miles…

“Gratitude is from the same root word as grace, signifying the free and boundless mercy of God. Thanksgiving is from the same root word as think, so to think is to thank.” (Willis P. King)

Thanksgiving is more than a holiday on the calendar; it is an attitude of heart that praises our Creator and Savior every day we live.

Surely our greatest blessing is the mercy of God—preserving our lives, forgiving our sins, restoring…

“What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.” (Robert F. Kennedy, The Pursuit of Justice, 1964)

The evil of violent religion was graphically illustrated again this morning when 47 people were killed and 79 wounded in a bombing outside a school in northern Nigeria. An attacker disguised as a…

Churches all over the world claim to have Jesus “in the house,” but sometimes there is scant evidence to support that claim. Mark 2:1-12 provides us with a vivid outline of what it looks like to have Jesus actively working in our gatherings. The chapter begins by saying that Jesus had come back to Capernaum, His home base, and word had gotten out “that He was at home.”

I pray that this kind of word-of-mouth marketing is happening for your congregation today. Long before…

The longer I live, the more convinced I am that most people are paralyzed or imprisoned in some way. No wonder the Bible tells so many stories about those who got healed of paralysis or set free from bondage and imprisonment.

When we read such Bible stories today, it’s easy to miss how these events apply to our lives. If we’ve never been physically paralyzed or lame, we can struggle to relate to the paralyzed man in Mark 2:1-12 or the lame man in Acts 3:1-12. And if we’ve never done…

I’m currently reading an excellent book by Matthew Aaron Perman entitled What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done.  I highly recommend you get a copy.  So, today I want to share a couple of paragraphs from the book. 

“Teaching morals alone will not result in morality. You…

When I was a student at Dominion Junior High, I had a rather idyllic life and no concept of emotional wounds. But lately I’ve found myself reflecting on the lessons I learned from a physical wound I experienced in gym class one morning.

We were running track events that day, something I never was very good at. While trying to jump over a hurdle on the school’s crude cinder track, I caught my foot and plummeted to the ground. Although the main thing hurt was my pride, I also incurred a…

When I was a kid I loved to go to the local YMCA. My dad’s boss, Mr. Meek, would buy memberships to the Y for the families of his employers, an incredibly kind gift. As a member, I could get my buddies in for a small fee. We would head there many weekends and weekdays over the summer.



Besides swimming, there was a room full of table games like foosball, ping-pong, and whatnot. One day while standing idly in the game room, someone tapped me on the shoulder saying, “Hey, buddy!”…