Christmas is a celebration. And that is appropriate. It should be. We celebrate the advent of our Savior. God has come to us in the person of Jesus, and that is worthy of celebration. But we have turned the celebration into glitz and glamour. Now we have television specials—Christmas at Rockefeller Center. Now we have commercialization and the task of “finding the perfect gift.” Now we have lights and decorations and Clark Griswold. And I’m the world’s worst. You should see the front of my house. There are probably enough lights to land a small plane on our driveway!

But in reality, Christmas is not about celebrating the glitz and glamour, and the bright and shiny, it is about celebrating the insignificant and the ordinary and the outcast. Continue reading →

If Christianity is about anything, it is about forgiveness. Christianity is not about getting better. It is not about tips and techniques to help you yell at your children less, become financially secure, or become more fulfilled in life. And it is not about feeling better. It is not about warm fuzzies, or sentimental sayings, or being nice to people. Nor it is not about knowing more, or better. It is not about learning more or thinking better, having thoughts or even beliefs that are true. Christianity is not about doing better or feeling better or thinking better. It is about being forgiven. Continue reading →

Some years ago, I was at an elementary school Awards Day. It was the end of Buddy’s third grade year and it was Third Grade Awards Day. If you have been to something like this, then you know what they are all about. All the third-graders were seated on one side of the gym, and all of the camera-laden parents were on the other side. The teachers and the principal were up on the stage and one by one each teacher would come to the microphone and give awards to her students. Each third-grade class would come up when it was their turn and the children would line up at the side of the stage. Then their teacher would call each student by name and read off the awards as he or she came up to receive them. It was quite an exciting affair. If you could measure the importance of an event by the number of video cameras involved, no presidential news conference could hold a candle to Awards Day. Continue reading →

As Christians too often we use Christian jargon to say things that we don’t really mean, and I’m the chief of sinners here. How many of us have ever said, or written in an e-mail, “I’ll be praying for you,” but then never do? If we intend to pray, we often don’t actually do it. And some of us simply say it as a euphemism for, “I care for you and I hope things get better.” And that’s not a bad a feeling, but then we drag God into it to sort of Christianize our sentiments.

Here’s another one, Continue reading →

So, a friend of mine died recently. He was young, in his mid-60s. And he was exercising, of all things, when he died of a heart attack. He was a dear man, gentle, loved the gospel of God’s grace, a pastor. He intentionally made an impact on younger men in the ministry. Whenever you would see him, he would invariably have a younger man with him, maybe two, and they would be talking—I’m sure about life and ministry and the sweet message of the gospel. He wasn’t famous—you’ve probably never heard of him—but he leaves a legacy in the lives of many.

I shared this news with a friend via e-mail. He used this sentence in his reply. “God’s timing is inscrutable.” Continue reading →

I do love Christmas—the whole Christmas season. I told the family on our way to a Christmas Eve worship service that I was sad that it was Christmas Eve already. Christmas Eve means the beginning of the end of the Christmas season. I love everything about Christmas: decorating the tree, putting up lights, Christmas cookies, time spent doing fun things with family and friends. And, like everybody else, I enjoy the gifts. I enjoy giving gifts. I enjoy the look on Kim’s face when she opens up something she didn’t expect. I enjoy the anticipation of watching the kids open something that I know they are going to like. And I enjoy the gifts given to me! I keep an on-going Christmas list; if I didn’t get something this year, I just roll it over to next year’s list.

And I personally have no problem with the gift-giving aspect of Christmas. Continue reading →

In my last blog, I made this statement. “Jesus pleased God because Jesus is God.” Now, that sounds like a simple and even obvious statement, but I want to try to amplify and explain that statement, because I believe that it has real implications for our lives.

First, I would amplify that statement by saying it like this. Only Jesus can please God because only Jesus is God, and the only things that please God are the things done by God. Now if that is true, the implications of that statement are crucial. Continue reading →

In my last blog article I made this statement. “Obedience is not godly unless it requires Jesus.” Really I think it is more accurate to say that obedience is not truly obedience unless it requires Jesus. The Pharisees were not obeying God; if they were they would have welcomed Jesus. Their behaviors were not evidence of an obedient heart toward God, and only God can bring about obedience in our heart. They were religious, just not obedient.

So why is it that the only things that please God are the things done by God? Continue reading →

Recently Kim and I were talking about another couple’s marriage. We’re quite good at that . . . talking about other people and how they should be better! At some point one of us said something like this. “Well, she just needs to be more submissive.” That was probably me. And of course Kim responded by saying, “Well, he just needs to love her sacrificially.” And I think we were right. In reality they just needed to obey the Scriptures.

But is it that easy? Well, the answer is yes, and no. Certainly the solution to most, if not all, of our issues in life is to better obey the Scriptures. The more we obey the Scriptures, the more we honor God, the more we live out the purpose for which God made us, the more we enjoy God’s blessings. But the moment we think that obedience is easy is the moment we start to fall.

Let me make a statement that speaks to this, and then try to defend it. Obedience is not godly unless it requires Jesus. Continue reading →

Recently I received some good news. I didn’t win the lottery, but something quite beneficial occurred, something for which I had been praying. And I was really happy. And then, typical me, I began to dissect it.

Here’s the question. How do we celebrate in a gospel-based way? You see, God did not change. He was the same before I received this news as he was after. And I was not constitutionally different. My circumstances, however, changed, and so my mood went from nondescript to elation.

And that told me something. Continue reading →

Last week I tried to introduce a new Foster Family Christmas tradition—Family Yard Work Day. Virginia and Buddy were home from Auburn for their Christmas break. Kim was off work. I was off work. I thought it would be a great time to get a lot of little yard clean-up projects done and enjoy time together as a family. I thought wrong! Continue reading →

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). Kim and I attended a worship service yesterday and we heard the pastor preach on this verse. This is an incredibly forceful verse with a lot of strong ideas. Peter calls us God’s beloved, he urges us, he says that we are aliens to this world, and he declares that our sinful desires are “passions.”

But the idea that caught my attention was that the passions of our flesh wage war against our soul. They wage war. Continue reading →

Among many other things, the Scriptures portray God as our avenger. Jeremiah 51:56 describes the Lord as a God of recompense. Simply put, this means that one aspect of God’s character is that he will right all wrongs. Does that characteristic of God strike you as unusual? When I hear the word “avenger,” I think of some caped-crusader, some super-hero, like Superman or Batman. But when I hear the word “avenger,” I don’t usually think of God. Continue reading →

I was reflecting this week on how difficult it is for me to repent. One of the main reasons is that I don’t recognize my sin that clearly. I read recently the story of the death of John Murray, Professor of Theology at Westminster Seminary back in the 50’s. It is recorded that some of his last words before passing into the presence of his Savior were these: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” When I read that, it really struck me. Here was a man of God, one who loved Him and knew Him well. As he was preparing himself to enter the presence of God, he was asking God for mercy. Continue reading →

Life is all about God. Too often we think that it is about us. But it is not. It is all about God. Paul said this in a sermon when he spoke to pagan religious leaders in Athens. In describing God, he said, “In him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28). We have our life “in God.” Everything we do we do in him, and for him, and because of him, and through him, and in front of him. And most of us would agree with that, at least intellectually, but few of us really live like it. I know I don’t.

This really comes to light when we fail or struggle or suffer. Continue reading →

Jesus came not to condemn. He came to save. He didn’t come to criticize or critique. He didn’t come to instruct or advise or counsel. He didn’t come to help us be obedient or clean up our act. He didn’t come to make us better people. He came to make us new people. You see, better people don’t get to heaven. Only new people do, those who have been born anew by the Holy Spirit. He didn’t come to make us savable. He came to actually save us.

The gospel is not about what we are supposed to do for God. It is about what God has done, and continues to do, for us. Continue reading →

I really enjoy the miracles of Jesus, but not for the obvious reasons. Most would enjoy the miracles of Christ because they show his power, over nature or situations or people. To me, the miracles of Jesus reveal the gospel. Take the feeding of the 5000, for instance. The disciples come to Jesus and tell him to send the great crowd away to get food, since it was late in the day and some had come from a distance to hear him. This is when the story gets interesting. In Matthew’s version of the story (14:13f) Jesus looks at his disciples and says, “They don’t need to go away; you give them something to eat.”

Now what strikes me here is this. Continue reading →

I preached this past Sunday on the miracle of Jesus calming the storm. The story may be familiar to you. Jesus and his disciples get into a boat to go across the Sea of Galilee one evening. Jesus was exhausted from teaching all day so he went to the back of the boat and fell asleep on a cushion. At some point, an incredible storm blows in. These were experienced fishermen who knew this lake well, and yet they had never seen a storm like this. Matthew uses the Greek word “seismos” to describe it. We get the word seismology, the study of earthquakes, from it. This was like an earthquake on the water, Continue reading →

I love the parable of the Talents in the Bible. It is found in Matthew 25:14-30, and you should look it up. Here is the gist of the story. A landowner or a businessman of some sort was going on a trip. So he called his servants together and entrusted to them his money. This was not unusual. He probably used his money as capital that he loaned to others at interest. He used his money to make money. While he was gone, he wanted the loan business to continue. Now, keep in mind that these were not servants in the way that we might think of servants or slaves. These “servants” were skilled accountants or businessmen who managed the affairs of this landowner. They had business abilities and they knew what they were doing.

He gave three servants three different sums of money: five talents, two talents, and one talent. This must have been an incredibly wealthy landowner, and he must have had great confidence in these servants, because he gave them each a huge amount of money. A talent was equal to 20 years’ wages for a laborer. At, say, $15/hour, this would have been equivalent to about 3 million, 1.2 million, and 600 thousand dollars. Continue reading →

Several years ago, I went to Tanzania on a mission trip. I went to teach African pastors how to study the Bible better. And I obviously experienced a lot of differences between that culture and my own. I was an alien, a stranger to that culture. Everyone spoke Swahili, the climate was different, the food was unusual, and I was usually the only white-skinned person (except for my teammates) for miles. And I experienced a lot of discomfort and difficulty. I was out of my routine and didn’t have my normal conveniences. I was away from my family. I couldn’t communicate. I never felt comfortable. But, you see, I was not supposed to. Continue reading →