March 3, 2026

Mark 10: 28 (NIV)

Peter said to him, “We have left everything to follow you.”

No one who ever participated in Jesus’ vision of kingdom life ever remained the same.*

When we think of someone giving his life to Christ, we usually think of the bad things he leaves behind: a destructive lifestyle; guilt; hopelessness. But sometimes – perhaps most times – new Christians are faced with rearranging their whole lives. Leaving everything to follow Jesus is not as simple as it sounds.

I knew a young woman who was living with a man and depended on him to help provide for her and her two boys. Becoming a Christian meant ending the relationship – which she did eventually, but it caused an upheaval in her life. 

Many people have chosen Jesus over family, careers, wealth, and power. (See Matthew 9: 9 and Luke 19: 1-10 to read of two men who made the right choice; and Mark 10: 17-22 to learn about a man who couldn’t bring himself to give up his old life.) Becoming a follower of Jesus can certainly be disruptive. There is no guarantee of a happily ever after in this life just because you chose wisely. But Jesus responds to Peter’s declaration with this promise: “No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (. . . and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.” (Mark 10: 29 and 30.)

According to Oprah Winfrey, as posted on Facebook, “The only courage you ever need is the courage to live your heart’s desire.” But the Christian's twist on that statement would read: “The only courage you ever need is the courage to sacrifice the life you want.”*

Many people believe that having decided to follow Jesus, they have safely arrived at their destination. But they’re actually stuck at the terminal. Jesus’ invitation speaks more about movement than arrival.*

March 2, 2026

Amos 8: 11 (NIV)

“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land – not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.”

To most Christians, the Bible is like a computer software license. Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click, “I agree.”*

This prophecy in the book of Amos refers specifically to Israel at a time in their history when the words of the Lord were just words. Amos’ job was to predict their coming punishment for removing God and his ways from their daily lives. Life was good – prosperity and peace reigned throughout the land – and they were religious after a fashion. So, Amos’ announcement about the famine of hearing from the Lord probably didn’t alarm many of the people.

Would it alarm you if you were faced with a famine of hearing the words of the Lord? What if your Bibles were confiscated and burned? What if our Bible apps were outlawed and disabled? How would it affect your life? Would it not matter since you never read it anyway?

There are Christians in other parts of the world who suffer from a famine of God’s Word every day. For some, it is merely a matter of there being no Bible in their language. For others, they are too poor to own one. And many Christians are persecuted by their government and denied access to the Word. I pray for my brothers and sisters whose walk with God is not enriched by a daily dose of his written word. 

Does the thought of broken water pipes suddenly make you thirsty? Does the thought that your Bible might be snatched from you make you crave a taste of the Bread of Life?

More alarming than the ACLU’s desire to ban the Bible from every square inch of public space in this nation, is that the Bible has been exiled from most Christian homes.*

March 1, 2026

Job 2: 13 (NIV)

Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights.  No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

A ministry of presence is life-giving to a friend in need.*

Do you know what your “love language” is? I think most of us have two – one that we “speak” and one that we respond to. The language in which I express love the most fluently is “words of affirmation” but the one that speaks to me is “quality time.” I think it was Job's love language, too. His friends heard about his troubles and they got together to go comfort him. And for a whole week, they indulged Job’s apparent need for quality time. They waited for Job to break the silence before they began to speak. My kind of friends!

It’s so hard to know what to say to or do for a friend who is suffering. I haven’t mastered the skill myself but the attempts by Job’s friends illustrate some "dos and don’ts" for offering words of comfort - some obvious, some implied.

• The closer you are to the person, the more likely you are to know the right approach. If you aren’t so well acquainted, look to him or her for clues as to their preference.
• Don’t be so afraid of saying the wrong thing that you don’t say anything - but it doesn’t matter if you say the right thing if you don’t know when to shut up. (Read the rest of the Book of Job to see how his friends blew this one!)
• Prayer is always appropriate. Even people who don’t believe in prayer don’t usually mind if you offer to pray for them. (If they do mind, well, they can’t stop you from praying silently!)
• This one is for the person on the receiving end of the attempts at comfort: be gracious. Job listened to his friends as they spouted some good-intentioned nonsense. Their words probably didn’t help much but I think the fact that they cared enough to be there was soothing to his aching heart.

Jesus offered words of comfort on various occasions but in John chapter 11, we see what Jesus did to offer comfort, rather than something he said. His friend Lazarus has died. Jesus knows the story is going to have a happy ending but still, when he saw the grief of Lazarus’ sisters and the other mourners, he was “deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” Then, we read, “Jesus wept.” 

There is no need to worry that you don’t know what to say when you love someone enough to cry with them.

You must be close enough to feel their pain before they’re close enough to feel your love.*

February 28, 2026

Acts 17: 11 (NIV)

Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

[It is] tragic [that we] have had our seeking done for us by our teachers.*

What made the Bereans so special? First, they received the message with great eagerness; and second, they didn’t trust the messenger – even though that messenger was Paul. If you can’t trust Paul to preach the truth, who can you trust? The answer is: you don’t know who to trust, so you must do as the Bereans did: examine the Scriptures daily.

Perhaps you are on the same train of thought as I am right now . . . If we can’t trust what others tell us about the gospel, why do we need preachers?

I live in Florida where lots of people make their living as fishing guides. Now you might wonder why anyone would need to hire a fishing guide – you have a boat, you have all the necessary gear and bait, you know where the lake is. But the guide knows where the fish are and he can help you find them, too. Now if you let him do the actual fishing for you, you aren’t really fishing, are you? But when he helps you catch fish and teaches you some techniques, maybe someday you, too, can be a fishing guide.

Listen to your preacher/teacher/group leader with eagerness. He/she has studied and prepared and they know where the fish are, but if you are going to actually fish, you have to do it for yourself!

None of us can hire a preacher and expect him to study for us.*

February 27, 2026

Revelation 4: 11 (NIV)

“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

The . . . earth itself is . . . named as a witness of God's existence and his goodness. . . . The order and symmetry of the universe, the marvelous balance in nature, the incredible complexity and efficiency of the natural world, and the heavens which declare the glory of God, are all witness of the glory of God; and yet . . . none of these things tells men anything of God's love.*

One summer, my camp “crush” was a boy that my friend thought was conceited. I told her I didn’t mind that he thought he was great because I thought he was, too. On a much grander scale, I think of God that way. It is not ego that makes him demand that we glorify and honor him; it is his worthiness that compels us.

What makes him worthy? If his power was the only attribute employed on our behalf, he would be worthy of our awe. From nothing, he created everything. Of all the advances of modern science, none can top that. But his power accompanied by his love is a combination beyond description or understanding. Without his power, his love could not have saved us from our sins. Without his love, he would never have used his power to save us.

It was God’s will to bring all things into existence and that is all I know about his reasons. It was also his will to provide for our redemption. Again, I confess to ignorance of his reasons but I know that his power and his love were combined in his Son, Jesus Christ, and that is all I need to know to declare him worthy of praise.

Love undergirds all of God’s attributes.*

February 26, 2026

II Timothy 2: 23 (NIV)

Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.

“You have made yourself unnecessarily elaborate.”*

In my former career, one of my responsibilities was the training of temporary employees. Because they had so much to learn in such a short time, with only one day of actual application of their training, I wanted them to know that it was okay if they had to ask for help. I told them, “The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask.” I wasn’t lying to them – if they had a question about a procedure, I needed them to ask it rather than to do it wrong – but there really is such a thing as a dumb question. And I believe that Paul would agree: “Foolish questions deserve no answers.”*

It was typical in the culture of New Testament times for “learned” men to sit around and debate unanswerable questions. One writer warns, "A fool may put questions which a wise man cannot answer.”* He cites an example of a woman who liked to pose the question, “How can God be without a beginning?” Her argument (there’s that word!) was that if God never began, then there is no God. See how that kind of debate is pointless?

We’ve all witnessed that guy in the Bible study who asks what he thinks is a deep, probing question – one of those “unimportant subjects of inquiry and debate.”* I admire those intrepid Bible teachers over the years whose delicate handling of the situation avoided the quarrels about which Paul warns Timothy. Not only does Paul clearly not want us to have anything to do with such time-wasting activity, I think it is safe to say that he doesn’t want us to be “that guy.”

God doesn’t want us to be afraid to ask genuine questions concerning our faith. Our lack of knowledge or understanding is nothing to be ashamed of as long as we keep seeking the truth. And as someone has wisely observed, “There will always be issues and doctrinal nuances that keep us debating unendingly. But Jesus is still there as the one thing that keeps our relationships united.”*

God loves an honest question.*

February 25, 2026

I Timothy 4: 16  (NIV)

Watch yourself and your doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Regardless of what its bearer may claim, any message not in harmony with Scripture is not true.*

Paul urges us, through his words to Timothy, to be careful of the doctrine we adopt. This is good advice for everyone, of course, but especially for preachers, teachers, group leaders – and me. Every day I run the risk of leading someone astray with faulty conclusions and misunderstandings when I post another installment in my blog.

How do you “watch yourself and your doctrine?” The short answer, according to Paul, is to persevere. Here is how to put Paul’s advice into action:

• Base your doctrine on what the scriptures say, not what you read somewhere else (including here!) It’s fine to discover what others have to say but compare their words to the Word and see how they measure up. If you can’t back it up by scripture, you need to back off! 
• Pray – for wisdom to discern the truth for yourself and that your students, congregation, or other audience will be blessed by what you are saying. 
• Practice what you preach. There’s no better way to grasp the meaning of a passage than by living it. Your impact on others becomes more powerful when you model the message. Living holiness, as opposed to just preaching holiness, “puts power in the message.”*

By persevering in the Word, we save ourselves and our hearers. That’s what Paul said. It’s in the Bible. Look it up and see!

It is only when truth is discovered that it is appropriated. When a man is simply told the truth, it remains external to him and he can quite easily forget it. When he is led to discover the truth himself, it becomes an integral part of him and he never forgets.*