Jeff, Author at Transforming Truth

When the Sunday worship gatherings come to an end, somebody is assigned to turn off the lights and to lock the doors at the church. Those rooms where, just a few hours before, there echoed vibrancy, truth, life, celebration, joy and power…now sit in stillness, darkness and silence. More than once in my twenty-plus years…

“Let Your work be shown to your servants, and Your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!” – Psalm 90:16-17 Psalm 90 is a good one for the beginning of…

Sometimes a verse in the Bible will get inside of you in a way that it becomes impossible to shake. Not that we would ever want to shake off something in the Word of God, but there are seasons where the Holy Spirit will tattoo your heart and mind with a verse that just stays…

Over the last few years I have been led by God to place a strong private and public emphasis on what the Scripture teaches concerning the person and work of God the Spirit. For some, this shift in my public emphasis was a struggle over the years, as most of my history was rooted in…

Jeff_lyle

These days it seems that so many Christians from various backgrounds and cultures are all sensing the same thing: the beginnings of true revival are occurring. It is common for us to hear, “Revival is coming!” That noncommittal anecdote leaves plenty of latitude for us to shrug for years if true Revival never actually arrives.…

Wishing all of you an enriching Christmastime and a bountiful year to come! I plan to resume writing after the New Year and new decade begins. Refuse the toxic smog in our culture and breathe in deeply the fresh spiritual air of your salvation, His grace, your eternal place in an everlasting family and the…

For many years as a younger Christian, I rarely thought of my need to personally encounter the presence of God. I assumed He was present because I had a healthy understanding of the doctrine of God’s omnipresence. God is always everywhere, right? What more do we need? In fact, I felt back then that I…

Two thousand years ago, here is a little of what was happening in Heaven and on Earth: God the Father declared in Heaven that the fullness of time on earth had arrived – He sent His Son to us with an unstoppable plan of rescue. The Supreme God would become fully human as the…

As we sometimes tend to glamorize the faith of the saints in Scripture, and as we wish that we had faith and like theirs, let us remember: Jacob was only different after God pinned him to the ground and gave him a permanent limp. Esther only found faith and courage after losing her family and…

It is the ending of another year, and many people are feeling the weight of those holiday blues pressing in against their hearts. It is strange how the holidays seem to separate folks into two groups: those who celebrate the season and those who survive it. December is a great time for us to experience…

“I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that You have done; I ponder the work of Your hands.” – Psalm 143:5 As we approach the final days of this decade, I think it is helpful for all of us to get a little bit contemplative about the last ten years. That sense…

“And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and His name one.” – Zechariah 14:9 What better reminder could we find today? As millions of people who are called Christian meet in tens of thousands of worship centers with hundreds of differing denominational splinters dividing us,…

It was twenty-two years ago today on a Saturday night in Duluth, Georgia. By the time the everything began, it was already starting to get dark outside. The church was filled shoulder to shoulder with people. Amy intentionally wanted her wedding day to keep Jesus situated front and center, so she planned and prepared for…

What’s the longest time period you have ever allowed yourself to remain discouraged? Some people are naturally upbeat, positive thinkers, glass-half-full types of folks. Others have to work hard at maintaining a grasp on the positive, affirming and hopeful. I was talking with a man some time back and noted that he had a negative…

It has been my practice not to invest much of my public communication to the world of politics. Frankly, it is an unworthy steward of my time, thoughts, energies and words. Not to sound cavalier, but I have a much higher calling than to dedicate myself to the sad world of American politics. This present…

“I made My vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord GOD, and you became mine. Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you, and anointed you with oil.” – Ezekiel 16:8-9 These obscure verses from the prophet Ezekiel’s book have me thinking today about…

Today, it would serve us well to slow down a bit, catch our breath, and think upon the patience of God. We look at a world blanketed in unbelief, pulsing with immorality, boiling with outrage, and ringing with the noise of absurdity, so it is easy for us to acknowledge that God is very patient…with…

Recently, I have been thinking much on the issue of unbelief. It’s kind of an ugly word…unbelief. In the context of Christianity, unbelief is the dreaded enemy of our soul. Unbelief ruins many more Christian lives than immorality – it just isn’t as obvious to the eye. So many of us might be tempted to…

For many years I did not believe in the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit. In those days, when I read First Corinthians, chapters 12-14, I understood those references to things like prophecy, miracles, healings, and tongues as being gifts to the historical church that no longer had present day availability to Christians. Around 1999,…

transforming truth

I was going through some old files on my hard drive and stumbled across this breakup letter I wrote in 2005. Sometimes I forget how long the process has been for me to live as one fully extracted from the trappings of status-quo, Bible-Belt Christianity. Based on the original date, I am going on my…

Psalm 18:32-34 – “The God who equipped me with strength and made my way blameless. He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights. He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.” Sometimes, we sense inwardly that we…

There is a cooperation between the Christian and God. He is sovereign, so God has total power and authority over all of His creation, yet God invites His people to cooperate with Him in order for their lives to arrive at the place He appoints for them. There is no legitimate way to presume that…

There are a couple of things swirling about in my heart as I get back into my office for the first time today in over a week. Last week, I spent an uninterrupted week in a prayer room in Missouri, listening for the voice of God, reading His word, interceding for numerous things and writing…

There is a way in which to live the Christian life that results in a strong sense of consistent inner assurance that things are well between you and God. There is another way in which to live the Christian life that is lacking that sense of assurance. You may be surprised that the Father desires…

Do you have more regrets about the things that you said (and wished you had not) or things you didn’t say (but now wished you had)? Most of us speak more than we might realize and, if you are of the fairer gender, you speak nearly three times as many daily words as your male…