When Guilt Overwhelms For some of us guilt is a consistently nagging struggle. In other words, we feel perpetually guilty to the extent that we find it difficult to experience any consistent joy in the Christian life. While “godly guilt” is always attached to specific sin, one sign of guilt that is not from the Lord is that we tend to feel guilty about everything all the time; guilt becomes like a...  Read More

A key aspect of cultivating faithfulness in the Christian life is to remember that faithfulness flows out of faith. In others words, faithfulness is produced by the Lord at work within us, rather than our own efforts. Or, to put it yet another way, faithfulness is cultivated through dependence rather than independence.There are two passages from the New Testament that do a really good job of showi...  Read More

What can God NOT do?One of the fun things to explore when it comes to understanding God as one who is sovereign (i.e. one who reigns and rules over the entire universe and works all things according to his will) is to consider what things God can NOT do. At first glance it may seem contradictory that God would not be able to do certain things if he is in fact sovereign over all things. But there a...  Read More

Last month we made an unexpected announcement: due to very generous financial giving, we were able to pay off the remainder of our building debt! This has eliminated several more years of making a mortgage payment, allowed us to tithe to local and international ministries, and has created for us an increased budget to explore what it looks like for us to continue to be “worshipers in community eng...  Read More

Does God give us more than we can handle?This is an often-heard question that relates to the idea of being tested by the Lord. It probably comes from familiarity with 1 Corinthians 10:13: “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be...  Read More

The Bible contains a number of passages that are particularly difficult to understand, much less apply to our daily lives: Below I have listed three considerations in how to approach particularly difficult parts of the Bible:Context: Though context is always important in reading the Bible well, it is especially important with difficult passages. To read “in context” is to read what is around the p...  Read More