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FEATURE: Spiritual Formation
What are spiritual gifts? What is the disagreement with Christians over spiritual gifts? Is there common ground for Christians regarding spiritual gifts? Is there a rubric for evaluating a Christian’s view & use of spiritual gifts? This brief primer will explore these questions.
A big reason why believers don’t evangelize (witness) is because they simply don’t know how to. If you couple fear, or distractions, or complacency, or not thinking you’re qualified with ignorance, you get a lethal mixture for inhibiting one’s evangelism. This blog-article will explore some simple ways of how to evangelize, equipping you with some of what you may need to be more confident when you do go.
Here are 10 pithy points from 2Thess ch1 with no added commentary. May the Spirit minister to you from these points as He did to me.
For about a little more than a week now I’ve been reading through Amos for my morning devo with Jesus. Today I was reading through chapter 5 and I got hit with how some of the points in vv10-24 are similar of the Church’s past and applicable for the Church today.
Why would God create Adam & Eve if He knew they were going to sin? Why not fix the problem before it starts? This question has been asked across the ages. And praise God He gives us the answer in Scripture! But is His answer the answer you would give?
This question is the 2nd of this 3-part series hosted by P4CM during October entitled “Tackling Tough Questions”.
It’s not why do bad things happen to good people, though I do answer this question too. The better question is, why do good things happen to bad/evil people? This question is the 1st I get to answer from a 3-part series hosted by P4CM during October entitled “Tackling Tough Questions”.
Many Christians give many reasons why they aren't engaged in carrying out the Great Commission. In this final blog of this 4-part series, I address the most common reasons why most Christians don't make disciples and why some of those reasons are lame, irresponsible, disobedient, and dangerous.
From all of what is said about discipleship, what is the most important? What would you say is the heart of discipleship? There is one right answer, and it sets the tone for all of discipleship.
The Bible teaches many things about discipleship. But if we had to sum it up, what would that look like? In this second blog, I'm going briefly and broadly show the four sides that frame what the Bible teaches about discipleship.
Many well-meaning believers have either complicated or over-simplified discipleship, leaving fellow Christians confused as to what discipleship actually means and what is actually considered discipleship. Hence, this first blog is on clarifying discipleship.
As a new year approaches, with new commitments, plans, goals, and so on, I figured what better time to post about how to go about planning and discerning God's will. I hope this blesses you like it did others in prior years.
I unquestionably believe Psalm 23 is a must scripture memory for every Christian. It is jam-packed with declarations and assurances about God as our Shepherd and us as His sheep.
Since God can be nothing less than incredible, the worship He deserves and requires can be nothing less than incredible. We are going to skim through the story of Nehemiah, park at chapter 9, and see how our incredible God showed up during then, the incredible worship the Israelites responded with, and how all this relates to us now.
From January until today I have been spending my morning devotion with God in Genesis. No commentaries. Just me, the Holy Spirit, and His Word. Each day I would read either a chapter or multiple chapters, and then I would journal my personal gleanings and takeaways from my reading that morning.
One morning, during my time in the Word with God, I found myself at Psalm 111. I don’t recall what led me there. But clearly the Spirit wanted to minister to me from this Psalm specifically. After a quick read through Psalm 111 something caught my attention.
What do you do when you have questions, problems, need guidance or advice? What about “following your heart”, what do you do for guidance in that area? What about with conviction, where do you go for counsel and accountability? Who is in your ear? What do you do?
I was reading the book of James for my morning time with God throughout the months of August and September. As I read along, I took notes of some reflections. May my notes from my time in James encourage and challenge you as well.
Many read Colossians 1:15 and get hung up on the term "firstborn". What does that mean? How is "He" the firstborn?
Lately, I have been in several conversations regarding women not being able to teach or lead men/mixed groups within the church. This is controversial, so I've responded as balanced and objective as I could. Yet, these conversations have made me want to revisit this topic scripturally again.
A friend of mine questioned how to deal with the problem of not being as zealous for God as once before. May you take heed to what I told her, and may it minister to you in someway.
One day on Facebook I happened to read Mark Driscoll’s status update. He said something about Christians drinking alcoholic beverages. The comments on his update erupted with a flood of people speaking for it and against it. This led me to start thinking, “Is it really that serious?
How do you know what you believe is “the” truth? Is it by faith? Don’t other beliefs say faith is there answer too? How do you know which “Faith” is right? There has to be something that distinguishes one from another, truth from false, right?
NEWEST POSTS
In 2022, I was asked to address my unique calling of bridge building in the Church. You can think of this as some relational practices within a faith family filled with fallen people.
In October 2023, I guest-preached at Paramount Baptist Church (Hagerstown, MD) on Colossians 2. The aim was to show how Paul demonstrated ways we can strengthen our foundation of faith & obedience in Christ in the face of how our enemy tries to lure us away today.
Sometime last year, I received one of those emails that makes you smile as a pastor. This was one of them. A person was unsure about being saved, finding decent people to befriend, reading the Bible, etc. I hope my answers can help or encourage you as it did them.
During the summer of 2022, our church hit a serious crisis. I took some time to pray and was led to the book of Joshua for a short series on “Facing Change”. If you are facing a crisis, or in a season transition, or facing some kind of significant changes in your life, then I hope this series will encourage and equip you for whatever it is you’re facing.
I was asked a multi-part question regarding the relationship between the Old Testament laws and the Christian. This is my brief write-up on this topic.