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Hope for those who mess up

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Hope for those who mess up

I love the Psalms. And I thought I knew them well. There is a great deal of comfort and encouragement in those 150 chapters. But I never realized how equally full of pain and despair they are until I started writing a year-long daily devotional (hopefully to be published).

David was nothing if not open and transparent. You never had much doubt where he was coming from, or what he was going through. He had experienced it all. Warfare, deceit, dishonesty, and worst of all, betrayal from close friends. The Psalms are known for their repetition of the phrase, “How long, O Lord, how long?”

I’m glad David was so open. He’s a great model. Many years ago, I used to go to conferences with big name speakers who advertised all their successes, and came away discouraged. Then I started to go to conferences with speakers who were more interested in using the example of their own weaknesses to advertise God’s glory, and I came away blessed.

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Be still and know that I am God

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Be still and know that I am God

Be still and know that I am God. 

It’s a verse from Psalm 46 that’s on a thousand plaques. But we get its meaning totally wrong. Discovering the right meaning, though, leads us to great encouragement. 

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

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Time for a test

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Time for a test

“Everyone loves a test!”

If that were a true or false question, the correct answer would be easy.

I’ve spent the last few days marking exams for the course on Revelation I’ve been teaching at seminary this summer. It was nice to be on the judging side, rather than the student side. I can’t remember how many hundreds of tests and exams I wrote, but I wish I’d had a party after the last one.

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Hope for the desperate

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Hope for the desperate

What happens when depression or anxiety strikes people who love the Lord? 

The body of Christ should be the greatest place to get help, but there’s a problem. To begin with, for anyone, Christian or not, there’s more shame associated with emotional issues than there is with physical sickness, because mental health issues seem to reflect on our worth and value more than physical illness does.

But what makes it really hard for Christians to ask for help is the fear that, in addition to this, people will also question the reality of our faith or our walk with the Lord. And so we hide. And it gets worse.

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Render to Caesar

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Render to Caesar

Politics is one big nuclear hot potato zone into which preachers enter at their peril. And Jesus’ enemies knew that.

They were plotting, Matthew tells us, how to “entangle Jesus in his words.” And how better to do that than by getting him to make a political comment? Many preachers since have indeed been entangled in the political web by their ill-spoken words. And so they asked Jesus whether or not it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. They thought they had this one wrapped up. If he endorsed Caesar, he would be a traitor to the Jews. And if he defied Caesar, they could head straight to Pilate with the evidence.

As it turned out, Jesus was a little smarter than them. He asked them to provide a coin, and pointed out Caesar’s image on the coin. Then he simply said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they walked away.