If you were going to take all the responsibilities we have as church members, and pick just one word that summarizes them, the word the Bible would pick most often, is love. For example, Ephesians 5…

Justification by faith is important. It glorifies God. It humbles us. It unites Christians. One reason Paul wrote the book of Romans was because of tension between Jewish believers and Gentiles…

"But you will say, what is the gospel but a verbal story told us when preached, or read, or meditated on? It represents Christ to us but as words do and words are shadows, pictures, and indeed less lively…

Why should we fast? When should we fast? How should we fast? We have been looking at what the Scripture teaches about fasting over a series of posts, and we have seen that fasting can be an important…

It's possible to know what Jesus did on the cross and even teach about what Jesus did on the cross without really appreciating the implications of that for the way you attempt to serve God…

Why should we fast? We are looking at some very basic principles for understanding how we should fast. First we look to Scripture. Second, we find examples. Third, we consider the examples to discern which we ones we are supposed to glean fasting principles…

We are all about the cross.Or are we?I am afraid that sometimes we fail to apply the way God worked through the cross to our lives as believers. The disciples in Luke certainly did. In Luke 9, Jesus shows several symptoms someone is forgetting about the cross…

Do you fast? People in the Bible definitely did. What can we learn from the way they fasted? We are going to have to work a bit. Drawing principles from examples is a little bit more difficult, than from straight up commands or instructions…

One problem with the way we approach life is we often leave the cross out. In other words, we think about life without applying what Jesus' dying on the cross tells us about God and how God’s working in this world. We act like what Martin Luther called “theologians of glory”…

We are looking at what the Bible teaches about fasting.Emphasis on Bible.It's possible to fast and not accomplish any spiritual good. How we fast must be directed by the Scriptures.Fortunately, we have material to work with…

Is it wrong to be afraid of the Coronavirus? It depends. God gave us fear for a reason. As Jay Adams once explained, “Fear . . . is not wrong. God implanted all emotions in man. . .

It’s easy for us to use prayer as an excuse for not witnessing. I remember when I was in college, I had a friend who wanted to witness to one person a day. One day, he asked me to come along…

We have to go back to what the Scripture teaches because fasting is not profitable, in and of itself. It is not like, hey I just stop eating food and the magic happens. I know sometimes people think if there is a religious practice that we find in the Bible, doing it will always be good for us…

Your speech matters. In previous posts we have seen that. And we've considered what bad speech looks like and what good speech looks like…

I have not heard many people talk very much about fasting where I come from. Unless it's intermittent fasting for health. But, not fasting for spiritual purposes. Africa is a little different. Fasting is a big deal in Africa. That could be a good thing…

If you believe the gospel, it should impact your tone of voice in parenting. In Ephesians 4, Paul puts it like this, “Put off…clamor.” And the word clamor basically means yelling…

Many parents within the church, especially conservative churches, know they have a responsibility to call their children to obey. One of their primary goals is to produce obedient children who love the Lord…

We are living in a culture that wants to excuse all sin. Knowing that, it shouldn’t surprise us that our culture goes to especially great lengths to excuse children’s sin. For almost every sinful behavior there is a ready-made excuse…

Your speech is powerful.It has a tremendous impact on your life and the life of people around you. There's a way of talking that changes lives for the better and a way of talking that changes lives for the worse…

Satan has schemes. You need to know them. What are some of his favorite strategies? In previous posts, we've talked about lying, blinding, hindering, persecuting, tempting, misdirecting and dividing…