Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “emotions”
I love to do biographical studies of the people we find on the pages of our Bibles. There is something about intentionally focusing on an entire life of someone whom God chose to memorialize in His Word. Elijah, that grizzled Old Testament prophet, has been a regular source of encouragement for me over the last twenty-five years. Elijah is presented …
Over the years, I have been asked more than once why and how I went from being a solely expositional, theological church leader to one who believes and practices the more experiential components of Christianity. I usually try to clarify that I have never been ONLY about theology. My very conversion in 1994 was one of profound and inexplicable power …
In 2011, my family experienced an unexpected, unpreventable catastrophe. When my wife, Amy, and her mom were on their way back to our house from picking up my birthday cake, a car coming the other way crossed the center line and hit them head on. The result was horrific. Amy’s precious mother never regained consciousness and passed to Heaven several …
One of the amazing characteristics of the Bible is that its revelation is presented to us in transparency when it comes to the faults of the people on its pages. When the Holy Spirit inspired the writers to inscribe the truths of Scripture, He did not allow those human authors to pretty anything up. Adam blamed his wife when he …
Sometimes it lodges in pretty deep before we are even aware of it. Somewhat like a blemish that appears on the face overnight while we sleep – we wake up and discover something is gnawing at us. Often the result is irritability, or perhaps a heaviness of heart that attaches itself to us like undesirable emotional lint – we can’t …
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” – Romans 15:13 What an incredible prayer that Paul offers for us here. His desire is that we would experience a filling, a stilling and a spilling through believing the Gospel, …
In my previous post, I addressed the reality of the Christian’s periodic valley-like experiences. In that season we can experience one or more of the following undesirable realities: 1) dryness 2) distance 3) discouragement and 4) desperation. My own personal testimony is that breakthrough typically comes when we have gone fully though our times of desperation for God. Desperation is …
Every now and then, 10 minutes in the bible will wreck me for about an hour. Sometimes it makes me wish I had not even opened that sacred book at that particular moment. Occasionally it helps me discover that I am not always in the mood for God to arrest my attention in the middle of what was supposed to …
So I got some folks perturbed with me this week when I made a couple of statements about my support of having armed security at churches. I was informed that Jesus was against that. They told me that I violated the spirit behind “thou shalt not kill” when I asserted that church leaders have an obligation to protect their flocks …
You don’t always feel your faith, do you? The strength that God has given you – there’s not a constant sense of it being there each moment of every day. The peace that Jesus promised us, and has given- why do you not always experience that inner tranquility? What about confidence? None of us have experienced even a full week where …
There exists a place that Christians don’t often speak of. This place is unpleasant and, in the history of the Church, nobody has ever requested to go there. But most of us have done so at one time or another. This place is cold and dark, hollow and quite lonely. It is not fixed in one location because believers in …
The weekend ends. Your freedom is replaced with duty and responsibility. Traffic is once again your enemy, and your next opportunity to avoid all your have-to’s is approximately five days away. Yes, it’s Monday and you may find yourself less than enthusiastic about this reality. I share your pain on most Mondays, but today is different. Today I’ve chosen not to stagger …
The Puritan prayer handbook, The Valley of Vision, is a treasure in my personal library. Receiving some heartbreaking news this week, I took comfort from these words from that precious book. Perhaps they will also help some of you. – Jeff O SPIRIT OF GOD, Help my infirmities; When I am pressed down with a load of sorrow, perplexed and …
It is no secret that I am not overly fond of Mondays. I apologize if that disappoints you, but I have never liked Mondays. Thanks to The Bangles 1986 hit, Manic Monday, I have even had a theme song to serve as permission for me to dislike Mondays. Yet, Mondays do not give me a free pass, so I have …
In a very simple illustration during Sunday’s message, Father gave breakthrough to many people. I should not be surprised because the moment in the message was basically a last minute thought which hit me about an hour before I was to preach the morning service. It was not elaborately planned nor sermonically scripted. I was not even confident that I …
There are a lot of things wrong with our country today but I would like to take a moment and highlight something that is wise, good and profitable with the good ol’ US of A. In America a man can only have one wife – this is a really good thing. In all fifty states bigamy has been illegal for …
“The worst evils of life are those which do not exist except in our imagination. If we had no troubles but real troubles, we should not have a tenth part of our present sorrows. We feel a thousand deaths in fearing one, but the (the Christian) cured of the disease of fearing.” – Charles Spurgeon If there is one …
Here’s a risky confession for a pastor: I’ve found myself very recently spending much of my times of prayer calling out to my God as I ask Him where He is, what he is up to and why He doesn’t answer my cries with clarity. Have you ever found yourself in this place? Of course you have. Have you ever …
Speaking with an elderly lady in the midst of suffering, I hung up the phone yesterday after spending some time wanting to identify with her in her pain. I’ve learned over the years that sometimes knowing that someone else listened to us, sought to understand our struggle and took a few moments of time to remind us that we are …
Our minds cloud easily. Clutter enters one worthless piece at a time and, before long, our thoughts are in disarray. Somewhere along the line our emotions become tangled up in the nest also and we find ourselves having difficulty in discerning what we should think, how we should feel and where we must turn. In the meantime there are our …
The week is not yet halfway through and I’ve been welcomed into the lives of a handful of friends who are groaning with burdens: two of my sisters in Christ are caring for their fathers who are gravely ill, one near death and perhaps already gone as I write these words. There is also a married couple who are battling …
How many days have you spent with fear, dread or anxiety? I’ve come to the conclusion that some level of one of those negative forces haunts me for a portion of nearly every day. It could be something as small as a moment of worry about the welfare of my wife – where is she? Is she okay? How is …
How would you classify your conscience? Some posses a sensitive conscience which pierces them quickly and deeply each time they transgress. Others among us have a dulled conscience which has been insulated through layers of unseen callouses, built up through years of willful sin. There are also Christians who have the experience of the Holy Spirit’s conviction of wrongdoing while …
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 slant on just about everything …
Perhaps one of the most uncomfortable occasions in a Christian’s life is to come to the conclusion that your faith is much smaller than it should be. Usually this moment occurs when there is a challenge that looms so large that it opens a door of doubt in your heart and, once Doubt enters, he brings with him his sorry …
