I heard a thought-provoking sermon by Kris Vallotton recently regarding God’s promises and miracles. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12 He argues the reason that desire fulfilled is a tree of life is because the promise comes in the form of a seed–one which […]
faith
One Day at a Time (Healing School 9)
I think uncertainty is a gift when dealing with God's promises of healing. If you had told Abraham the day after he received the promise from God that he would have to wait 25 years to see its fulfillment, he might have given up then and there. I probably would have as well. I think […]
Me & Joseph (Healing School 6)
One day, maybe even tomorrow, I will be healed and intermittent chronic pain will be simply a memory. Similarly, after a while, Joseph was able to serve as second command of Egypt. It’s a happy ending to the story. But I guarantee it was not an easy one to live. How he chose faith every […]
Prisoner of Hope (Healing School 5)
The first pale crack of sunlight peaks through iron bars. Your roll over and brush off the smudge of mud and dirt on your elbow, rising up to a sitting position. The air is stale and quiet. There was evening, and there was morning. The 1442nd day. Three – going on four – years you […]
You are Three + the Democracy of Healing (Healing School 4)
(Click here to read the introduction to the series Healing School.) For you to approach the subject of healing, you need to know what you are healing. What … are you? You see, you were not exactly an original. When God made you, he was redesigning after a pattern. The pattern was none other than […]
The Tension (Healing School 3)
I believe and will tell anyone that I am fully healed. Yet just an hour ago I was experiencing serious pain. Crazy talk? Let’s look into this. Smith Wigglesworth, a well-known healing minister from a century ago, would see remarkable miracles of God. I heard one story where he punched a man in the stomach, […]
Jesus: Don’t Judge? (pt. 2)
Okay, maybe judgment isn’t such a bad word after all. What, then, could Jesus mean by His words in Matthew 7:1? Well, first, who is Jesus talking to in Matthew 7:1? Check the context. Four verses later, He addresses his audience as, “You hypocrite.” Now, I will be the first to admit that I and […]
Jesus: Don’t Judge? (pt. 1)
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged” (Matt. 7:1). These oft-quoted words remain a favorite of Generation X and millennials, but what do they really mean? The term “judging” is used by my generation with an almost universally negative connotation. “Don’t judge.” “Only God can judge me.” “Don’t judge me if you don’t […]
The Struggle is Real (pt. 2)
In my mind, it was not the biggest loss of the night by any means. Atlanta’s epic collapse was overshadowed by something far greater. How ironic that it was a young American man in the most American of settings that showed me the reality of my situation in this culture?
Jesus: Go Watch Some Birds?
My apartment smells like sweet potato fries with adobo and curry seasoning. The kitchen is half cleaned and hot. I walk outside to the cul-de-sac that rounds our apartment community. It’s unseasonably cool for a fall Georgia day with a glassy grey sky behind brown, bare tree limbs. I look into the tree and see […]
Jesus Says NO to Self Defense?
There is plenty in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount to wrestle with. Does he really mean, “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and threw it away”? Does he really mean, “Blessed are those who mourn”? Wait … um, doesn’t the Bible also command me to rejoice? (See Philippians 4:4; Nehemiah […]
Jesus Has a Brand?
It is interesting how powerful a symbol can be. There is one particular logo I have seen in many different languages (the one shown above is in Amharic, the most common language spoken in Ethiopia, where I went in 2012). The same is true for the other languages in which I have seen the classic white […]