Throughout Western history, Christianity has endured seasons when our faith should have been forever defeated, if not obliterated. The Church of Jesus Christ should have had a funeral with the fall of the Roman Empire, the spread of Islamic armies, the Enlightenment, political upheaval in Europe, or the philosophical attacks…

“So what do you think?” came the question from my pregnant friend and her husband as we stood together on a wet, bleak hill in the English countryside. Shivering and trying to avoid being blown away by the relentless, gale-force winds, my husband and I took in the full scale…

Paul speaks about suffering from his first-hand experience. In 2 Corinthians 11:24-27, he recounts: Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a…

The airplane cabin was almost completely quiet, except for the occasional clicking of the flight attendant’s heels, responding to a passenger's call for hot tea or a pillow. Night had fallen across the vast expanse of sky somewhere between London and Johannesburg – at whatever point along that trajectory we…

The fable of the wise servant and the philosopher has an important lesson for us. Xanthus, the philosopher, sent his faithful servant Aesop and told him to bring the best food he could find for a sumptuous banquet. Aesop went to the market and brought back tongues from all kinds…

Once Satan convinced Eve to question God, getting her to eat the fruit was a small hurdle. Anytime you find someone confused about God's word, sin is inevitable. It's the obvious next step. And sin always feels less sinful when we have company, so Eve convinced Adam to eat the…

The cross of Calvary's crucified Lamb is where the bankrupt culture of a fallen race encounters the transformative power of sacrificial servanthood. In other words, Golgotha is not the singular site of Satan’s defeat. It is more than just the place were you and I find adoption and restoration –…

With all that’s going on in our nation, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that we must have a great spiritual awakening. We know who ultimately wins and we know that God is building a kingdom that cannot be shaken. As believers and followers of Christ, we have been commissioned and commanded…

I would never have guessed that the Winter Olympics could illustrate a spiritual truth so well, but as I watched the coverage, I realized that a couple of events demonstrate two different approaches to our faith. One is good; the other is not so good. Consider the bobsled. It has…

Many years ago John and I were members of a wonderful church in Southern California. A young man also attended there who had an amazing spirit and an even more amazing testimony. “Daniel” was from Uganda; he had lived there under the brutal reign of Idi Amin. He had been…