The Everlasting Gospel or Plan B?

An author I read recently was empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of hav­ing an alter­nate plan in case the orig­i­nal plan failed. He called it “Plan B.” That is good advice. We all expe­ri­ence fail­ure. No mat­ter how well we plan, we can­not be cer­tain our plans will suc­ceed. Sometimes I make plans, and for one rea­son […]

Which Art in Heaven

In his book Kneeling with Giants, Gary Neal Hansen explores the meth­ods of prayer prac­ticed by the renowned of Christendom. He devotes an entire chap­ter to Martin Luther and allows the Reformer to expound the virtues of the Lord’s Prayer. To Luther, the Savior-taught prayer is the trel­lis on which all his prayers approached heaven. […]

This Unresolved Issue of Death

It hap­pened again for the umpteenth time. I called to tell an old friend about recent deaths in my fam­ily, and she flipped to a tale of the death of some­one she knew. It’s not that I was demand­ing the floor, but, rather, some­thing was obscur­ing any expres­sion of sym­pa­thy. Seemingly, she had been denied […]

In the Beauty of His Holiness

Our adult Sunday school class is study­ing the Book of Esther this sum­mer, and God is expos­ing truths this eager learner has never seen before. For instance, He said one key to under­stand­ing the ancient story is sim­ply to accept that the king of the 127 provinces of Media/Persia is sov­er­eign. His laws are absolute. […]

Living Parables

Scripture says of itself that all of it is God-breathed; all of it is inspired by God (2 Tim 3:16). Maybe we have done well to mem­o­rize a por­tion of scrip­ture and to ingest the Spirit of Holy Canon, but isn’t it pos­si­ble that, in empha­siz­ing that which we have been shown, we have over­looked […]

Staying in Tune

You are sick and ask for prayer. People respond, “We’re think­ing about you.” Or, “We’re send­ing vibes your way.” We have already talked about the bib­li­cal per­spec­tive of thought in two pre­vi­ous blogs. But what about vibes? Is this just an expres­sion of New Age phi­los­o­phy? Or do vibes have the power to bring you […]

More on Thoughts and Vibes

Gene’s soft Texas drawl is always a bless­ing to hear on the other end of the phone. We chat­ted a few min­utes and learned the health sta­tus of one another and our respec­tive spouses. Just before sign­ing off with the usual “We-love-you-all-please-call-again-soon,” I gushed out, “It was really good to hear your voice, Gene. You all are often in my

“Vibrations” or Prayer?

If there is any unity of expres­sion in the newslet­ters mis­sion­ar­ies are wont to send, it is found either in their requests for prayer or in their thanks­giv­ing for it. All mis­sion­ar­ies desire and need prayer for their daily liv­ing, for their min­istries and for those to whom they min­is­ter. So do the rest of us.  […]

Hunger for His Kingdom (Part 2)

I first started think­ing seri­ously about the king­dom of God when I was at Fuller Theological Seminary in 1988. The king­dom of God was the main theme of the School of World Mission where I was attend­ing. In almost every class the pro­fes­sors referred to the king­dom of God. Although I grad­u­ated from the school […]