Restored in Him

Have you ever come home after traveling and experienced a feeling of security and delight? There’s often a reassuring sense of comfort upon opening the door to familiar things and the awareness of being where you belong. The apostle John was given glimpses of our future home, the new Jerusalem. You may be surprised to know that there were no church buildings in John’s vision, “for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Revelation 21).…

It’s a good idea to pause every now and then to evaluate our spiritual development. Although we will experience different phases of faith throughout life, our goal should be to continue growing. Which phase sounds like you? Hesitant faith is characterized by struggling to believe God: We hope He’ll answer our prayer, but we’re just not sure. Sometimes doubts creep in because we’re looking at the situation, not at the Lord and His Word. Or maybe our…

Patience, we can learn a lot about the topic from the story of Paul’s trial. Instead of letting his accusers stir him up, the apostle patiently went through the legal process. He refrained from attacking the opposition or decrying the injustice of the charges. And eventually Paul’s peaceful manner won favor with the governor and earned him a hearing for the gospel (Acts 25:24-25). We need the Lord’s help to grow in patience like Paul. This will involve our ;…

I think it was Archibald Hart who pointed out that because we are so accustomed to moving pedal to the metal in our own world, the thing we overlook in the Gospels are all of the in-between times when Christ and his followers were walking from one town to another. When the record states, “The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee,” (John 1:43) we project our own pace upon it, not realizing it took the boys three days by foot to get there. Three days just…

Tomorrow I will be attending the funeral of the most significant individual to ever have come into my life. Better said she brought me into this life. Mom recently celebrated her 100th birthday. It was a great day. Not a day she would have ever predicted seeing. We called her the “energizer bunny”. She kept going and going. Always the one in her personal care home with a smile and a word of encouragement for someone that needed it. She made certain that all…

The Holy Spirit’s presence is essential for the Christian life. Despite our best efforts, we have no ability to produce Christlike character on our own. Although we’ve been declared righteous through faith in Jesus, we still succumb to sin, pressures of the world, and the deceptions and temptations of the devil. Thankfully, we have a resource that is greater than any hindrance—God’s omnipotent, indwelling Spirit. He continually works to transform us…

Lean food rations, waterproof boots, and a map are some of the essentials carried by hikers on the John Muir Trail. The John Muir Trail is a 211-mile path in the western United States that winds across creeks, around lakes and woods, and up and over mountains, encompassing 47,000 feet of elevation gain. Because traversing this trail takes about three weeks, carrying the right amount of supplies is critical. Too much and you will run out of strength to carry it all; too…

In 2020, Alyssa Mendoza received a surprising email from her father in the middle of the night. The message had instructions about what to do for her mother on her parents’ twenty-fifth anniversary. Why was this shocking? Alyssa’s father had passed away ten months earlier. She discovered that he’d written and scheduled the email while he was sick, knowing he might not be there. He’d also arranged and paid for flowers to be sent to his wife for…

In the years that followed the Fall and our exile from Eden, mankind got worse and worse. Cain killed Abel; Lamech threatened to kill everybody else. The wickedness of the human heart seemed out of control and unstoppable, even by the curses. People were living for seven, eight, even nine hundred years. Can you imagine the arranging that one person could accomplish with that sort of time on his hands? Stubbornness seems to come with old age. Haven't you heard your…