Praying for you: Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever […]
Your enemies are afraid of you. Who are you afraid of? When the ten spies Moses sent to Canaan gave their evil reports, they lied about the nations’ opinions of them. “We are like grasshoppers in their eyes…” (Numbers 13:33). When Rahab the Jericho dweller told Joshua’s spies what the nations thought of them, she told the truth – “I […]
I walked a mile with Pleasure, She chattered all the way; But left me none the wiser For all she had to say. I walked a mile with Sorrow And ne’er a word said she; But the things I learned from her But oh, the things I learned from her When Sorrow walked with me. “Along the Road” by Robert […]
If you have read what I wrote about the Bible in 2016 (Using the Bible), you know that I am convinced that everything written in the Bible is not a promise to you. If it were true, you would need to be running most of the time to escape all of the promised curses that can be found there. If […]
You enjoy membership in at least one tribe. Some people have several memberships. One of your tribes may sit at your dinner table. Another may sit around your board room table. Soccer moms can get tribal over their sons’ & daughters’ teams. Tribes have something in common that makes working together and identifying with each other increase their safety or […]
Black swans have always been around. Because Europeans (who have always thought they knew everything) had never seen one, they didn’t think they existed. They had a popular proverb that had variations like, “As unlikely as a black swan,” or facetiously, “As rare as a black swan.” In 1697, Dutch explorers to Western Australia became the first Europeans to see […]
I was trained by Campus Crusade and Navigators (two highly respected evangelical campus ministries that are both effectively teaching and equipping believers to serve) that “repent” means “a 180° change in behavior.” Today this astonishes me. Partly because they have so much of what they each do so very correct, but partly because this misinformation is so off target. The word […]
I haven’t seen in Scripture that David, at the campfire on the end of the day on which he survived fighting a bear with no weapon in hand, thanked Yahweh for preparing him for a future fight against an asinine giant. I don’t think he recognized the value of the fight beyond that of the lives of the sheep who […]
Our considerations of each other can exceed the considerations we would give ourselves or demand of others for ourselves. Sometimes they should. The more I extend provision and promotion and encouragement to the other parts of the body of Jesus, though, the more I empower them and encourage them to be the support I need to advance in my own […]
Engagement levels for your work include physical, mental, and emotional. Physical labor doesn’t have to be taxing. It could be simply typing or talking. Mental levels of labor require having to think about what you’re doing, making decisions instead of simply pulling a lever or pressing a button on cue with a prompt. Emotional labor is what it costs to […]