Jesus (not 2021) Is the Dawn From on High
Post-Christmas blues are a reality every year, but I imagine that they could be especially high this year. So many people are talking about the excitement of 2020 ending, and longing for the newness of a fresh start on the calendar. While I understand the longing and the hoping and the hunger for a new […]
Jesus Arrived to Defeat Your (Real) Enemies
Many have said that nothing unites like a common enemy. In business, startups will unite as insurgents to take down the incumbent. In politics, leaders bring people together against the other side. Defeating a common enemy can be a powerful unifier and motivator. In a divisive year there seems to be a greater desire to […]
10 Proverbs for Consuming and Contributing on Social Media
When I moved to my role as vice-president of LifeWay, my boss Thom Rainer encouraged me to use a blog and social media to connect with church leaders. It was the fall of 2011. I signed up for Twitter a month later. Several years later I signed up for Instagram. Though I was not an […]
Where Is Your Thanksgiving Spirit? (13 Reasons to Recapture Gratitude)
In the Book of Galatians, we find the apostle Paul was astonished and unsure of what to do with the Christians who lived in Galatia. At one point, they were overwhelmed with God’s love expressed toward them, but they drifted from grace and were attempting to earn God’s approval by their good works. God’s people […]
God’s Will for You in 2020: Be Thankful
One of the most common questions Christians ask in our modern culture is “What is God’s will for me?” “What career? What city? What car?” “What is His will for me so I will be the happiest I can be?” When we scan the totality of human history, we realize that those types of questions […]
3 Warning Signs Politics Is Becoming Your Religion
In his classic work The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis writes from the perspective of a senior demon giving instructions to a less-experienced demon on how to get someone to reject their Christian faith. Screwtape, the senior demon, advises Wormwood, his nephew and the younger demon, on how to get “the patient” to turn from […]
Help Me to Love Here and Long for There (My Prayer on Election Day)
As followers of Jesus we live in a holy paradox of loving the place where we live (the city, state, country, etc.) and longing for the day when Christ will return and graciously give us our eternal inheritance. We are to love where the Lord has placed us, serve the people we live among, and […]
11 Ways I Am Minimizing the Downside of Using Social Media
When making a choice between two possibilities, it is wise to evaluate the risk and the reward, the upside and the downside of each possible direction. Thus, when you decide you can work hard to minimize the downsides of your decision because you made the decision with awareness of the potential pitfalls of the decision. […]
Compelling Quotes From “Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now”
Several years ago, Jean Twenge released a research-based book called iGen and her findings on what smart phones have done and are doing to children and adolescents grabbed my attention. After discussing the book for several months, and even interviewing Jean Twenge on a podcast, Kaye and I decided together that our daughters would not […]
A Tale of Two Pandemics (And Being Compassionate About Both)
The definition of a pandemic, according to the dictionary, is a “disease that occurs over a wide geographic area.” CoVid clearly meets that definition as the virus has spread across the globe, and over 200,000 people in the US have died. And as we all have recognized, CoVid is not the only struggle that people […]