Success is not based on bodies in a room. Success is based on whether or not disciples make disciples who can stand on their own, make more disciples (highly reproducible), and are highly obedient to Christ. It’s Jesus or bust. We’re in this thing for eternity.
Read MoreThese are not ordinary days. God is doing a new thing, and we need to respond well. He will not wait for us at the platform while we deliberate whether or not we will get on the train. Life will not return to business as usual in 2021. Pastor, if you try to cling to your Sunday morning model, your ministry will collapse. The Sunday morning model is dead. Make disciples who make disciples on a Thursday night. A Monday afternoon. Saturday morning.
Read MoreThe LORD commands that Israel observe her annual Feast of Booths, "Sukkot," by remembering how they lived in booths during their wilderness wanderings. Strangely, the actual Exodus doesn’t mention that the people of Israel slept in booths when they left Egypt.
Or does it?
Read MoreJim Caviezel’s latest movie Infidel just hit theaters, exploring what it’s like to be a Christian in Iran today. Hear the real story from a real disciple of Jesus in the Islamic Republic of Iran—because they have some advice for Christians in the West as we navigate the upheaval of 2020.
Read MoreYom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, commanded to be observed annually in Leviticus 16. That chapter opens, however, with Aaron’s two sons, who “drew near to the LORD and died,” tragically highlighting humanity's fundamental problem: how can we draw near to God when our sin means approaching Him is death?
Read MoreAt first glance, the celebration of Rosh Hashanah doesn’t seem very important. The Israelites are commanded to rest, to eat, to drink, and to make an offering to the Lord. But they are also commanded to gather together and remember the blast of the trumpet. What trumpet blast are they supposed to remember, and why is it crucial in recognizing the Messiah?
Read MoreFrom the beginning of time until the present day, people of faith have endured “torture…Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. Two millennia have passed since He promised to “not leave us as orphans.” How then do we navigate the tension of living in a time where promises of God have not yet been fulfilled? We rest in the hand that holds us even when we’re sifted.
Read MoreScripture is full of stories about nameless and faceless servants who went thankless in this age. How many of us are willing to play a role that is excruciatingly sacrificial, but is never given a title? This role is quiet, humble, and astonishingly God-glorifying.
Read MoreHis love bears all things, endures all things, and doggedly believes and hopes for the best things. This is what restores us on Galilean shores with breakfast around a fire. This is what silences all our own confusion with just one question:
“Do you love Me?”
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