Answering Stereotypes

Answering Stereotypes

If it were not for some shadow of truth, stereotypes wouldn’t exist.  But just because they exist, doesn’t mean that we have to be guilty of using them to easily and conveniently label people.

In fact, I believe that it’s wrong altogether to use stereotypes, for the simple fact that no matter what the stereotype, even if it’s true of some, it most certainly will not be true of all.


Read more...

What Will You Teach Them

What Will You Teach Them?

I could not comprehend the love I would have for my children until they arrived.  I have loved friends and family members and my wife, so I thought I understood what it meant to love another person.

But then my kids were born and, words truly fail me, I cannot explain my love for them.


Read more...

Large Versus Small

The summer between my freshman and sophomore years in high school, my mother and I moved from a larger town to a smaller town. 

Athletically speaking, I went from a baseball team with twenty players, to a team with only nine.  And just in case you aren’t familiar with baseball, there are nine defensive positions on a baseball field.


Read more...

New Series: The Afterlife

I’ve been working on a new, temporary series, to fit in between Acts 13, which we just finished, and Acts 14, which we’ll begin in a few weeks.

What I aim to do with the series is to answer several questions, and do away with misguided ideas, about death, the final judgment and the afterlife.


Read more...

Don’t Miss the Point

Tonight, we are having a chili cookoff fellowship!


Read more...

Paths

In the Bible, options that we have pertaining to how we think, choose to spend our time and decide how to live our lives is often represented by the metaphor of paths.

Psalm 119:105 teaches us that God’s Word is a light that allows us to see and follow God’s path.

And Proverbs 16:9 teaches us that we may plan the way we want to go, but the Lord directs the steps we take as we go.


Read more...

To Be Wanted

In a recent lesson, I was making the point that God doesn’t need us, but that He wants us.  I was trying to make the point that being wanted was better than being needed, but I’m not sure that I communicated what was in my heart fully regarding this wonderful truth.

As is often the case, sometime later I though of what I wished I would have said.  I’d like to share that now along with some additional thoughts.  I hope it is beneficial to you.


Read more...

Considering Our Service for Christ

One of the worst impressions that a Christian can give to an unbeliever is the impression that if they follow Jesus, things in their life will be better.

Of course, I would also say that it’s a true statement that anyone’s life is better for following Christ, but the danger lies in the way that we define “better.”


Read more...

Where Change Begins

There are some things that we have the ability to change ourselves.  And if we are having trouble making changes, there are probably a hundred thousand books and articles that will supposedly tell you how.

But there are some things that we do not have the ability to change ourselves.  There are some changes that only God can make.  For instance, no matter what we do, we do not have the ability to save our own soul.  God had to do something to make that change a possibility for us, the change from damned to saved.


Read more...

A Discouragement of the Church

All members of the church are uniquely different.  Some have more in common than others, but the vastness of our differences will always exceed our similarities.

Differences are a good thing.  God created us uniquely different so that we would fulfill uniquely different destinies doing uniquely different service for God (Ephesians 2:10).


Read more...