One of the most important things you can ever learn is to appreciate who you are. Other people may try to pigeonhole you or force you into their preconceived notions of who or what you should be, but God created you to be unique. Sometimes in the media I get…

I admit it: I love football. If you’re not a fan, don’t quit reading yet. Because whether you like the sport or not, there’s something we can all learn from a basic truth of the game. When the season kicks off in September, it’s anybody’s game. Sure, there are favorites…

We should be clear about one thing, right off the bat: There is no way to be alive and avoid doing and saying foolish and even idiotic things, things you’re bound to later wish you hadn’t done and said at all. Not being able to forgive yourself for your boneheaded,…

The Oscar-winning film The Blind Side tells the story of the Tuohy family and their adopted son, professional football player Michael Oher. Now, the Tuohys tell their story in the new book In a Heartbeat. This week’s Words of LIFE comes from their book.  If the message you take from…

I have written many important letters, but never one more important than this one. As always, I am referring to issues of life and death, but this time it also includes the life, or death, of freedom we just celebrated on July 4th. Betty and I have been married 47…

I will never forget a life-changing encounter with the Lord. I’d been a Christian for only a few years, was still single and living in an apartment in North Carolina. One night, awakened from a deep sleep, I found myself jumping up from my bed and shouting, “I’m just looking…

"You talk about Jesus Christ?" the woman in the brothel asked. I told her that I did. "Make my sister walk," she said, pointing to a woman sitting on the floor. "That is my sister. She hasn’t walked in four years. And for the last 15 days she hasn’t moved…

“You are the light of the world—like a city on ahilltop that cannot be hidden." (Matthew 5:14) So, here we are...Americans divided along ideological and political lines. We are divided on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, over how to deal with a crumbling economy, the mortgage crisis, health care,…

Pilate had a problem. The Jewish leaders kept bringing Jesus Christ before him and demanding his crucifixion. He could not find any justification for it, but he needed to keep the peace between the Jewish people and the Roman government. Pilate's brief interrogation of Jesus brought little clarity to the…

“Whiplash” often describes the emotions I go through as a pastor. Recently, I experienced a whiplash day.  Let me give a little back-story to help you understand. Over the course of the past two years, Brandi and I have had two sets of friends who experienced the loss of a…