...and a time to speak...

As I was driving home the other day, I passed a local church whose marquee out front said "We support radical inclusivity." I read it and my first reaction honestly was one of utter annoyance. I know that sounds terrible, but let me explain. On this particular church's website, Inclusivity is listed as a core value and explained like this: "We embrace all as expressions of God." Hmmmm, where to even begin. I have to assume that this statement most likely reflects this church's stance on sexual orientation. So if that particular characteristic is covered as an "expression of God" then I also have to assume that someone's porn addiction, alcoholism, drug abuse, habitual gossiping and/or stealing are also just expressions of God in their personality, right? I mean, surely they are not saying that "all" includes only one thing? No, the word "all" means just that and if your stance is that one sin is okay, then ALL sins are okay....

Since the beginning of this year, I have really been enjoying reading through the bible in chronological order for the first time. One of the best things so far has been a series of Psalms written by David that have followed the accounts of David's life and reign in 1 Chronicles and 1 Kings. Many of these Psalms are already grouped together, but in the traditional bible format, I wouldn't read them directly after reading the account of his life. They were so much more meaningful to me this time around having just finished what can only be described as one of the most compelling biographies in all the bible. With Father's Day right around the corner, many times I would catch myself highlighting various passages of David's Psalms while thinking about the role of Godly men in general. I, clearly, am not a man, but I can glean a lot of things from David that I think would be of utmost importance to a man throughout his life. I can read the account of David's life a...

Ladies, it is almost always certain that no matter where we live, what language we speak, what color our skin is, whether we are rich or poor, whether we are city dwellers or country folk, whether we are outspoken or shy, etc., etc., if we are also mothers, then somewhere within all of us is a mama bear. We have been given the divine privilege of bearing our precious littles and more times than not we are also their primary caregivers. I understand fully that there are plenty of phenomenal dads out there who do a fantastic job of the caregiving as well, but this happens to be a Mother’s Day post so I am narrowing my audience a bit. Mamas, this is a message directly to you who are worn smack out. Just tired. Why? Because you fight every single minute of every single day for the good of your little people. I know we don’t live in a war-torn country here and I don’t mean that sort of fighting (although we would do it if it came to it). I just mean you are engaged in a constant battle of...

I’ve been plagued recently with trying to understand why faith comes so easily to some of us while it seems an impossibility for others. Why is it that some of us can look at a rainbow and see nothing but God’s promise to Noah and his family and others can see nothing but the refraction of light caused by the sun shining during a rain storm. The truth is, of course, that both of these are correct. It’s just that those of us who are in constant pursuit of God will inevitably see God in every detail of our lives while those that are not tend to regularly miss Him. So the ultimate question is, what are you in pursuit of? Your career? Your children? A husband/wife? The weekend? Your next vacation? Whatever it is, if there is no pursuit of God that co-exists at the same time, without a doubt your faith (or what could be your faith) will suffer. Deuteronomy 4:29 says “But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find Him if you search after Him with all your heart and with a...

I am about to call someone out and this person will know exactly who they are when/if they read this because we just had this conversation not long ago. This person is literally one of the people I love the most in the whole world and what they said really isn’t bad at all. In fact it was just a passing comment, but it got me thinking. The comment was something along the lines of “your blog posts are making me (and others this person knows) feel guilty.” When they said it, we just laughed it off and moved on to other things, but as I said it kind of got me thinking a little bit about the way in which I speak. The title of this post comes from Ephesians 4:15 which says “Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.” This chapter of Ephesians is a call to “holy” living for all who are believers in Christ. “Holy” meaning to be set apart, to be different from the surrounding culture. Verse 15 above is a g...