“Let Us Worship” event in Washington DC

Never before has our nation needed God’s grace and mercy and healing. 2020 has seen so much unrest and division with so many fearful about the future. But, beloved, God is at work! He’s moving in our midst, if we will but lift our eyes to Him. And one way He’s been moving is through Sean Feucht’s “Let Us Worship” rallies in our cities. I agree with Sean when he said, “God is going to change the script over our cities.”

The message that still must be heard

It’s seems we’re living in a time when we’ve lost the plot about what’s most important. With cancel culture and so much anger, fear, and division, we’ve lost what makes us feel most alive, most human. We’ve forgotten our source of joy—other-centered, self-giving love. To quote the song, it’s what the world needs now…but it’s the one thing there’s so little of….

The best spiritual vaccine against deception

Since Coronavirus has been sweeping through our nation and the world in 2020, I thought it would be good for us to look at a deadly virus of another kind—deception—and the best spiritual vaccine we have against it. This “virus” can lead to spiritual derailment, or worse, our leaving the faith altogether. We can come into contact with it through personal disappointment with God, believing bad theology, embracing false teaching, or being influenced by skeptics who try to talk us out of believing in God altogether. The infectious rate from this particular virus has been alarmingly high in recent decades. And this is tragically sad since it does not need to be so.

The epic battle over our affections

I’ve said many times here that the heart is the gatekeeper to everything we will receive from God. It’s the rudder that determines the course of our life (Prov.4:23). It’s with the heart that we believe (Rom.10:10). But I also hope to show you that our heart will determine who will win the battle over our soul. With this in mind, let’s look at a very familiar passage from John’s first epistle.

The Gospel: God, love, fellowship, and joy!

The Gospel is not ultimately about forgiveness of sin. While important, that’s only a means to a much greater end. The Gospel is, first and foremost, the good news about God. For we see Him in the life of His Son, Jesus Christ. And, through Jesus, we see that God is love, and at the heart of Love is divine fellowship, and at the heart of this divine fellowship is fullness of joy, which He desires to share with us!

A Day of Reckoning

I found myself at an interesting juncture, reading 2 Peter 3 while watching 50,000 gathered for prayer marches and solemn assemblies of repentance at our nation’s capital last weekend. It’s good for us to humble ourselves and pray, not just for our nation, but for ourselves. Because, for all of us, there will come a day of reckoning.

How to keep a vibrant faith

How do we live a consistent vibrant faith? To be vibrant means to be full of energy and enthusiasm. The etymology for the word, enthusiasm, is instructive. It’s directly from Late Latin enthusiasmus, from Greek enthousiasmos, meaning: “divine inspiration”…from enthousiazein to “be inspired…be rapt, be in ecstasy.” In other words, to be filled with the fullness of God (Eph.3:19) and His joy! (John 15:11).

Walking out our redemption

Graham Cooke said, “We’re saved once, but we get redeemed from our old ways every single day! We’re learning how to be a new creation.” This is critically important to understand if we’re going to walk in what God intends for us. While Paul said “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith” (Eph.2:8), he also said, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”(Phil.2:12).

Turning traps into triumphs in Christ

I want to continue where I left off last time about how we can thrive during troubling times. We should understand, first and foremost, that God has appointed us to live a fruitful life, and that our fruit should remain (John 15:16). But we also know there’s a diabolical strategy set against us, designed to keep us from living this fruitful life.

Overcoming in troubled times

We win. I thought I should start with that reminder. It’s important that we remember this every day, especially in a crazy year like 2020! When all hell breaks loose around us, we need to remember that heaven is for us, and the One who holds the cosmos together abides within us.

You know that, right?