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God encourages us to seek to know him more – but he also reminds us that he has his secrets! Scripture:        Deuteronomy, chapters 28-29; Galatians, chapter 6 Deuteronomy 29:24-29 (NLT): And all the surrounding nations will ask, “Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why was he so angry?”  And the answer will be: “This happened because the people of the land abandoned the covenant that the Lord, […]

Too many times, we excuse a failure to completely obey God by saying that “it’s the best we can do.”  In other words, “good enough.”  But “good enough” is never good enough when it comes to God’s way! Scripture:        Judges, chapters 1-3; 1 Corinthians, chapter 12 Joshua 2:1-5 (NLT): The angel of the Lord went […] Source link

Parents were invited into the chapel at The Covenant School in Nashville on Monday morning, like they are every school-day morning. They sung and prayed with the roughly 200 elementary students and 40 or 50 staff at the Presbyterian Church in America school and listened as pastor Matthew Sullivan “raises it to another level,” as one student put it, with his kid-friendly Bible lesson. A few hours later, though, parents […]

Ask most Christians the date of the next Easter and they’re likely to Google it. Though highly associated with springtime—at least for those in the Northern Hemisphere—the date for Christianity’s most important holiday changes from year to year. Chinese people can empathize with an unpredictable spring holiday date. Often landing within a few days or even on the same day as Easter, qing ming jie(清明节), or the Qingming Festival, invites […]

My introductory class in seminary ended with me making a lifelong pledge. Our professor had told a story about sitting on a plane next to a young woman years before. He had engaged her in conversation with the intent to share the gospel, only to find out that she already professed to be a Christian. However, she sheepishly confided that she didn’t know how to study her Bible. He proceeded […]

As someone who came from outside the liturgical expressions of Christianity, I had a certain suspicion of the whole enterprise. I thought the liturgical tradition, with its vestments, rituals, rules, and customs, was the very thing Jesus had come to destroy. I intuited that what God wanted was a broken and contrite heart. He owned the cattle on a thousand hills; he didn’t need our formalized prayers and spiritual sacrifices. […]