Knowing & Being Known

I coined a new phrase. Tiptoe Preaching. In short, Tiptoe Preaching is preaching that avoids hard-hitting facts using flowery language to teach Biblical Truth.  What do I mean by that? Colleen and I were invited recently to speak at a small conference here in our local community. As we prayed about the topic chosen, it became clear that God wanted us to deliver a powerful truth.  “Believers and The Spiritual Plateau” was the topic. The truth is how…

Women are image bearers of God. Women are co-heirs with Christ. Women are valued, worthy, powerful, and needed. There is a reason the Enemy fears women and has poured his hatred onto our very existence. Let him be afraid, then. For “we are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9). We are more than conquerors through Christ who strengthens,…

Greetings, fellow travelers. You who journey with Jesus Christ, partaking of the divine nature, grafted to the life-giving vine, and working out your salvation with fear and trembling. Today I bring a word of encouragement, inspired by very real and personal recent events. This is my testimony. We serve a timeless, all-powerful, loving, merciful God. The God of Abraham, Moses, King David, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush,…

My friend’s eyes revealed what I was feeling—fear! We two teens had behaved poorly and were now cowering before the camp director. The man, who knew our dads well, shared lovingly but pointedly that our fathers would be greatly disappointed. We wanted to crawl under the table—feeling the weight of personal responsibility for our offense. God gave Zephaniah a message for the people of Judah that contained potent words about personal responsibility for sin …

The spirit of our day is a soft acceptance of everything — except deep conviction in anything. This is where Jesus will suddenly confront the world as a great rock confronts the river flowing ever downhill. He is immovable. The cry used to be for “tolerance,” by which we meant, “We have very strong differences, but we will not let those be the cause of hatred or violence between us.” Now it is something else, where all convictions are softened…

The Nicene Creed succinctly describes our Savior’s two natures—human and divine. It reads: “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God … true God from true God ... For us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.” This fact was universally acknowledged by both angels and human beings (Matthew 16:13-17; Luke 1:26-35; John 11:27). Even the…

A man owned more than $400 million in bitcoin, but he couldn’t access a cent of it. He lost the password for the device storing his funds, and disaster loomed: after ten password attempts, the device would self-destruct. A fortune lost forever. For a decade, the man had agonized, desperately trying to recall the password to his life-altering investment. He tried eight passwords and failed eight times. In 2021, he lamented that he had just two more chances before it…

I am here to tell you that you can get your heart back. But I need to warn you—if you want your heart back, if you want the wound healed and your strength restored and to find your true name, you’re going to have to fight for it. Notice your reaction to my words. Does not something in you stir a little, a yearning to live? And doesn’t another voice rush in, urging caution, maybe wanting to dismiss me altogether? He’s being melodramatic. What.…

Genesis 18:1-33 tells us about unexpected visitors to Abraham’s tent: Three men appeared out of nowhere, declaring that Sarah would give birth to a son. This announcement—which was surprising enough since it came from strangers—was even more unusual because of Sarah’s advanced age. Before long, however, Abraham and Sarah rejoiced when God kept His promise and gave them Isaac. A few chapters later, though, God told Abraham, “Take now your son,…