Posts with the category “message-series”

Imagine standing in the corner of the room as the scene plays out. We are here to listen, to observe and learn. Solomon enters; he kneels beside the bed of his father, David. Years have shrunk to hou...  Read More

It started in secret, but David’s sin that began behind closed doors was beginning to seep out from the cracks. Nothing could stop it. Not even the body of a dead man. The prophet came to him with a p...  Read More

Todd Henry wrote, “It’s possible to succeed your way into failure when you lose sight of the bigger picture” (emphasis added). Mr. Henry was making the point that in our work lives we can get so caugh...  Read More

Ever had those moments? When it seems there is no way out of a tough situation? Young David was being falsely accused and chased by King Saul in Psalm 57. As you know, Saul and his men came into the c...  Read More

There is a bench with an iron back and wooden slats. The arms curve downward like a ram’s horn. It sits at the edge of deep water that’s fed by a spring beneath the earth. The pool is aquamarine in th...  Read More

It was a rough day for Israel. Encamped along the battle lines opposing the Philistine army, they had listened to the taunts of a giant. They had listened and they were afraid - cowering in their self...  Read More

Samuel filled his horn with oil and made his way to Bethlehem, with thoughts swirling in his head. It wasn’t long ago he had anointed Israel’s first king. Had it really gone wrong this quickly? At fir...  Read More

As Peter wrote to the early church about brotherly affection and love, I wonder if he was remembering words he had heard in an upper room. He sat at the Passover table the night before Jesus’s death a...  Read More

If I were to pray just one prayer for our church, it would be the words of this verse. In my opinion, it covers everything we need: hearts that are (1) convinced of the love of God, and (2) gripped by...  Read More

Eleven years ago, when we lived in Missouri, I decided to challenge myself in recognition of my 50th birthday. I signed up for a marathon. I had been running some - 5-milers mainly, but I was nowhere ...  Read More

I’d known him my whole life. I knew he was the youngest of three brothers. I knew where he went to church and school and who his best friends were. I knew he played guitar and lifeguarded at the pool....  Read More

The word virtue brings me back to a heavy, tan book from my childhood. On road trips to visit my grandparents in the Texas panhandle, my mother would read us stories from The Book of Virtues. It was f...  Read More

My family wasn’t big on ceremony, but I remember two events that marked the entryway into the grown-up world for my brothers and me. The first, which came when we turned twelve (or so) years old, was ...  Read More

One of the great scenes in the Bible, on the other side of Jesus’ resurrection, has to be what happened on the road to Emmaus. A couple of Jesus followers are on a walk. Like many people do when they’...  Read More

Death is a somber cloud that hangs over Holy Week. I know Sunday is coming. I know that Christ will not stay in the ground. Yet I also know that every passing Easter finds me a year closer to my own g...  Read More

Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see. And as the Savior passed that way, He looked up in that tree. And he said, “...  Read More

A religious person is not necessarily a born-again person—even when their religion is steeped in the gospel. I know because I was one, an “almost” Christian....  Read More

We have no idea what Christ has for us on the other side of self-denial. Much of what we see in the moment of decision appears to be loss, like God is intent on taking something away from us. He’s cut...  Read More

There’s a lot of talk these days about gender equality. But that was not the case in the first-century world that Jesus was born into. Women were routinely treated as second-class citizens with dimin...  Read More

In Luke 7, Jesus does something incredible. He goes out of His way to raise the only son of a widow from the dead. Here, we see His great compassion for us in the midst of our suffering, and we see Hi...  Read More

Have you ever stopped to think what it would take to truly impress Jesus? I mean, He created everything that ever was! He existed before all things and holds everything together (Col. 1:17) so could t...  Read More

We were walking out of Walmart when she approached us. Right away, we could tell she was quite different from us in every way. She asked for a ride home across town, but it was obvious she needed so m...  Read More

Charlie Taylor is not a familiar name to most, but if you were to ask his friends, they probably would have described him as a quiet man who loved mechanical things. Some others considered him a mecha...  Read More

James K.A. Smith says, “we can’t not be desiring some kingdom”.[1] Woven into the fabric of our existence is a longing for how we ought to live and how the world around us ought to be. Smith suggests ...  Read More

There are whispers going through the Nazareth synagogue today. Joseph’s son has returned to His hometown and stands for a Sabbath reading. He’s handed the scroll of Isaiah and finds just the passage H...  Read More

It was just an ordinary December night when she asked, “Mommy, does everybody switch families?” The tree lights sparkled behind her as she snuggled deeper into the couch and waited for my answer....  Read More

We will never choose to serve a God we don’t believe has delivered us. We might make overtures. We might try because it seems right. We might even actually serve in some capacity for a season. But to...  Read More

I’ve often heard that God is willing and able to give us so much more than we could ever imagine; we just never ask. What surprises me about Joshua chapter 10 is that God has already done so much for ...  Read More

At the city of Ai, God used both defeat and victory to teach His children profound lessons about covenant relationships. For starters they had the painful reminder that the benefits they enjoyed from...  Read More

Joshua 7 is always uncomfortable for me to read. One man sins, and his entire family pays the price for it. Oh, and 36 Israelites die in battle, too. It seems so harsh—to allow the whole nation to be ...  Read More

It was a new day for a new generation. After 40 long years in the wilderness, they were finally about to enter the promised land. And not without some fanfare. God had just shown off in a dramatic, Re...  Read More

What makes a memorial memorable? First, a memorial is truly memorable when it is God-ordained. Amid moving an entire nation from one side of a river to another on dry land, God told Joshua to send me...  Read More

When the Israelites arrived at the Jordan River as recorded in Joshua 3, it was their second time. Forty years earlier, their parents and grandparents had been at that place. And things didn’t go well...  Read More

We are all born in the middle of a story. We are not isolated simply to our moment or our generation but connected and influenced by the generations that have come before and, through our actions, inf...  Read More

According to legend, sometime in the 15th century, a Japanese military commander broke his prized Chinese tea bowl. He sent it back to China in the hope that it could be repaired. When his tea bowl wa...  Read More

I don’t usually like to write using sports analogies. As an athlete through high school and college, I heard my fair share of “life is like sports; sports are like life” anecdotes. However, in Paul’s ...  Read More

Contrary to what his name suggests, my son Bear is a cuddler. Not just at bedtime either. He’s pretty much down to cuddle at any point in the day. To his mother’s delight, it’s been that way all 8 yea...  Read More

Blind Bartimaeus was a beggar. There was little else for him to do. He could not see; therefore, he could not work. Begging by the roadside was his only livelihood. It might have been all he’d ever do...  Read More

“Go make disciples,” Jesus said. But, um… What exactly does that mean? Fair question. Discipleship can feel ambiguous and intimidating....  Read More

Our words, try as we might to fulfill them, sometimes return empty. We cancel plans, we let others down, or we bite off more than we can chew and come up short on what we have promised....  Read More