You & Holy Spirit
If someone asked you if you would want to spend today with Jesus walking right by your side, physically present with you, able to be seen, heard and touched, you would likely not hesitate to affirm that you would love this opportunity. I believe that most of us would trade anything for this possibility. Can…
Borrowed Prayer
If you have never spent time reading the book of Puritan prayers and praise, The Valley Of Vision, you really should get yourself a copy. On this hopeful Sunday, I allow one of the prayers from this book to hover over us. “Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the…
Two Seasons For Growth – Part 2
I began first grade in 1975 in Doraville, GA. My family lived in an apartment complex called Plymouth Colony and, though we had next to nothing, I remember that year as a really happy time. In those days, a six-year-old could walk out of his family’s apartment on a Saturday at 9 AM and stay…
Two Seasons For Growth – Part 1
There is a happy woman in Hoschton, Georgia. She has been nearly giddy over the dropping temperatures. She spoke in excited tones when she saw some browned leaves on the ground at the foot of the maple tree in our yard. Out of nowhere, there has appeared on my front porch a large, ceramic pumpkin with…
One Year Ago Today…
On the first Sunday of October in 2015, I awoke refreshed, having spent most of the previous two days with a group of men whom I’d never met before. Pastor Dustin Pennington of Cornerstone Fellowship had asked me to come and pour into the men of his church as they spent the weekend in a…
What Should We Make Of The Chaos?
It has been a challenge lately for me to keep my best focus on tasks at hand. For several weeks, in the periphery of my thought life has been this tugging, and it has been hard to suppress. Praying to the King about this, I told Him that I needed to hear from, Him because I…
Your Regrettable Trip To Egypt
One of the amazing aspects of the bible is that it is timeless in its central themes. Though the cultures of the human authors in scripture were different from our own, though science and technology were basically nonexistent then, though information came forth at that time in a slow trickle, and in our day in…
War & Peace
Lord Jesus, This is Your day – the primary day of the week when Your name is proclaimed, Your songs are sung, Your sacrifice is exalted, strength is gained so that Your mission is advanced, and Your salvation is offered to broken recipients. We wake on Sundays with stirred anticipation about what Holy Spirit might…
I Got Saved Twice
Set free from my bondage in a dramatic 1994 encounter with Jesus, and immediately thereafter immersed in religious fundamentalism, I considered myself saved, sanctified, separated and sincere. My Christianity was displayed in those early years through a commitment to remain steadfast to an ever-elongating list of Do’s & Don’t’s. I easily marked other believers with…
15 Years Later: Our Enemy Does Not Sleep
Today I take a moment to remind us that there is certainly such a thing as evil. We would do well to also acknowledge that evil resides within people – people who are alive today. Further still, we in America must acknowledge that some of these evil people have committed their lives unto the death…