Posted: March 14, 2024
I am not satisfied with my prayer life. But who is? Well, maybe you are; I don’t know. But I am not. I am convinced that we pray mostly out of selfish desires. We pray for things to happen—things we believe we need, things that we believe God should want for us! And sometimes we
Continue Reading “Praying 2.0”
Category: Blog
Posted: March 7, 2024
John writes about “a woman who had been caught in adultery.”1 The scribes and Pharisees brought her to Jesus as he was teaching in the temple. Obviously, they did this to shame her and to trap Jesus into contradicting himself. “And placing her in the midst they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman has been
Continue Reading “Forgiven and Forgiving”
Category: Blog
Posted: February 29, 2024
Happy leap day! 😀 Here is some useless information. It takes the earth 365¼ days to rotate. Therefore, every four years we add an additional day to the calendar to make up for the extra time. We are supposed to feel like we are taking a leap by adding this day; therefore, it has been
Continue Reading “Leap Thoughts”
Category: Blog
Posted: February 22, 2024
Jesus tells the story of the sower who sowed his seeds in four places: on a path, on rocky ground, among thorns, and on good soil. The thorny place intrigues me the most because it “is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the
Continue Reading “Unfruitful Christians”
Category: Blog
Posted: February 15, 2024
For those people still hoping to fall in love, here is some unsolicited advice: Don’t fall for it! Don’t believe for one minute that falling in love is the prerequisite to a good relationship. Many people fall in love. And out of love. I, myself, fell in love quite a few times—and lived to tell
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Category: Blog
Posted: February 8, 2024
The last two traits on Peter’s great list that God “has granted to us all”1 are brotherly affection and love. Although they might sound like the same thing, they are not at all. Brotherly affection is kindness. Kindness is always that thing that is never required, always unexpected, and rarely experienced. If mercy is unmerited
Continue Reading “Brotherly Affection and Love”
Category: Blog
Posted: February 1, 2024
One of the things Peter says we have been granted is steadfastness. Other translations use the words endurance, patience, and perseverance. If self-control is the hardest trait to master on Peter’s list, steadfastness is a close second. Why? Because we love to quit. We abandon, grow weary of, lose interest in, and walk away from
Continue Reading “Steadfastness and Godliness”
Category: Blog
Posted: January 25, 2024
Self-control. Peter tells us to supplement our faith with—among other things—self-control, which can be defined as temperance or discipline or abstinence. Although it is an admirable trait, few really want to obtain this one. It indicates giving up things and restraining ourselves from giving in to things. I don’t believe I have ever heard a
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Category: Blog
Posted: January 18, 2024
Here is the list of qualities we should pursue in order that we can be “partakers of the divine nature”1 of Jesus. It includes virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. I am not certain if these qualities are in a particular order, but it seems that they might be. 🤓 After trusting
Continue Reading “Goodness and Knowledge”
Category: Blog
Posted: January 11, 2024
There is no secular part of our lives. There are no separate compartments in which we should categorize what is religious and what is not. And yet we do. We label some music as “Christian” and everything else as “secular.” So, are we saying that “secular” music cannot have a “Christian” message? 🤔 Of course,
Continue Reading “Secular Things”
Category: Blog
