As the latest round of racially-based sin has struck our society over the past few weeks, I have thought back to the tension I felt in the sermons I preached on race about a year and a half ago. In one sense, addressing the sin of racism is simple: to demean or dismiss or devalue anyone on account of their skin color is a sin in the eyes of God. Furthermore, the Bible is clear over and over again ...  Read More

Biblical Descriptions of God   While the Bible provides for us some formal/official names of God (i.e. Yahweh, Jehovah, Adonai, Elohim, etc.), there is also an extensive list of comparisons used to help us get a glimpse of him and his character. Here is a sample list, though by no means exhaustive, of various images God is compared to: Lion (Isaiah 31:4)Eagle (Deut. 32:11)Lamb (Isaiah 53:7)Hen (Ma...  Read More

Seeing Clearly   In Exodus 3 we find Moses face to face with God on a mountaintop. In fact, mountaintops would go on to become a significant place for Moses, a place where he experienced the Lord in intimate and unique ways. Later he would receive the law from God on the same mountaintop; then, he would get to look onto the Promised Land from a mountaintop; finally, he would make a posthumous appe...  Read More

My parents have always held missions in high regard and the importance of spreading the gospel around the globe. In my growing up years, stories were read, principles taught, pennies were saved, and prayers were offered. Not only did Dad and Mom teach it, they lived it by leading countless domestic and international short-term mission trips. I had the privilege of participating in some of those. T...  Read More

God’s Wilderness Lessons The wilderness is a place used throughout scripture to shape and form God’s people. Thought we may not necessarily physically go to wilderness places to be shaped by God today, we certainly experience seasons of wilderness, times where we are waiting and things are hard and slow. So, what are some lessons the Lord teaches his people through wilderness experiences? We are t...  Read More

Well, we have effectively entered the next phase of attempting to navigate a COVID-19 world. If we thought quarantine was difficult, now we have the challenge of figuring out how to regather. In some ways this may be the trickiest phase yet. And why is that? Mainly because we all have different thoughts and opinions about when and how to do that. Though we have been given some guidance by our civi...  Read More