I was thinking through some plans recently. Nothing major, just a few tweaks here and there. Then I heard the Holy Ghost say, “Ok, but did you ask Me?” I had to stop. The honest answer was no. I hadn’t asked God about any of it. It didn’t seem important enough to bother Him with. But that thinking reveals something. Somewhere along the way, I had decided which parts of my life were worth bringing to God and which parts I could handle on my own. The big decisions got prayer. The small ones got my own judgment. Scripture doesn’t Read More
Category: Spiritual Warfare
Deepest Recesses of Your Heart: Form or Power?
When the music stops, what’s left? When the lights go down, the band goes home, and the room goes quiet, does your worship stop with it? Matt Redman’s “The Heart of Worship” was written to bring a church back to this question. God is not after the sound. He is after the one behind it. If God searched the deepest recesses of your heart tonight, what would He find? Some of us want the form but not the power. We know the songs, the posture, and the language. We can lift our hands on cue; but Paul warned Timothy about Read More
Trusting God: The HOW Is Not My Business
I keep a note on my laptop titled “Musings.” It’s nothing fancy, just a running list of things I’m thinking about, wrestling with, or talking to the Lord about when nobody else is around. A couple of weeks ago, my pastor said something that landed in that note and hasn’t left me alone since. She said: “The HOW is not my business; Trust God!” I sat with that for a long time. Because if I’m honest, I’ve prayed plenty of prayers where I said the words “I give this to You, Lord” and then spent the rest of the week Read More
The Prepositions of Grace: In Him, By Him, Through Him
There is a language the Spirit of God loves to speak, the language of “In Him.” Scripture declares, “For in Him we live and move and exist [that is, in Him we actually have our being]” (Acts 17:28). This is not poetic exaggeration. It is the foundation of your existence. Before you were a believer, before you knew His name, your very breath was sustained in Him. But salvation moves that truth from the natural to the supernatural. Now you don’t just exist in Him, you live in Him. John’s Gospel opens with a declaration that changes everything: “In Him Read More
Count it all Joy!: Enduring the Pressure
“Consider it nothing but joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you fall into various trials. Be assured that the testing of your faith [through experience] produces endurance [leading to spiritual maturity, and inner peace]..” (James 1:2-3). Notice what James does not say. He does not say count it some joy. He does not say rejoice when the trial is manageable, or when the loss is small, or when the diagnosis is treatable. He says count it all joy — the totality, the whole weight of it. Not a fraction carved off and handed to God while we keep the rest for Read More
Stand Firm: God’s Strength for Every Battle
Life is beautiful; it’s also a battlefield. Whether we recognize it or not, we are engaged in warfare every day. Some battles are visible—the struggles with finances, relationships, health, disappointments, and uncertainty. Others are invisible; the spiritual battles that rage in our minds, hearts, and souls. As followers of Christ, we must understand that while we live in the natural world, we are also participants in a spiritual war. The apostle Paul reminds us: For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the Read More