Damage to Rails After an Earthquake in New Zealand Our lives are crooked, broken and in need of repair. Forgiveness is our need, but knowing our need does not insure that we will take the forgiveness offered. Knowing we need to be forgiven and actually wanting to be forgiven are two very different things. One … More Repairing the Soul
It’s been about 25 years since an eye problem I suffered through in my early thirties began to produce what was eventually diagnosed as “night blindness”. I first began to notice that I couldn’t see stars at night. Today, if my wife and I are out, she normally drives on the way home if the … More Night Blindness Parallell
Usually, on special days, like the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Independence Day, I fly an American flag in the front of our house. At the same time, I am against flying an American Flag in a church and never allowed it in any of the churches I pastored. A church is a place to … More Today, I Started to Fly the Flag of Israel
Cultivating the Fear of God as a Lifestyle This past Sunday I had the privilege of teaching a class on the fear of God. This was my third session of about 8 in the class. Today’s assignment for me as a teacher was “How do we cultivate a life that demonstrates a fear of God?” … More Developing a Heart that Fears God
Fourteen years ago, I started an experiment. I had left pastoral ministry two years before to raise my own support and travel and speak for the Great Lakes District of the Evangelical Free Church, helping train and equip churches and pastors to expand their evangelistic footprint through church planting and more effective proclamation. It was … More Fourteen Years Ago
Repeating History Three hundred five pages into the second volume of William Manchester’s epic biography on Winston Churchill, I found a series of paragraphs that should haunt the politicians and political leaders of the West. Unfortunately, I fear that most of them are dull and insensate to the threat of repeating history. The invasion of … More Lessons from the Invasion of Czechoslovakia
I have been passing this link around to my friends and prayer partners ever since one of my prayer partners shared it with me. The sound file is short, just three minutes and 48 seconds but it will thrill your spirit. You can listen, or read the transcript but whatever you do, I hope you … More A Philosophy and Perspective on Prayer that Will Encourage Your Spirit
The difference between outreach and evangelism is essentially this—outreach will almost universally get you pats on the back while evangelism will eventually get you persecuted. Outreach does not replace evangelism but it can be powerfully productive as a handmaid to evangelism OR an excuse for not doing evangelism. It can be the cowards way of … More “What is ‘Outreach'”?
Transferring guilt to another so that the guilty can go free is at the heart of our faith. J. Sidlow Baxter, (1903-1999), an Australian pastor and theologian, and a valiant and trustworthy expositor of God’s word from a previous generation reminds us of the central truth of our faith. It is good for us to … More Justification and Forgiveness
I learned a new word today and it stimulated some new thoughts. “Sprezzatura” is a kind of studied carelessness, especially as a characteristic quality or style of art or literature. Sprezzatura ([sprettsaˈtuːra]) is an Italian word that first appears in Baldassare Castiglione‘s 1528 The Book of the Courtier, where it is defined by the author as “a certain nonchalance, so … More Christians Need to Learn the Art of Sprezzatura
ChosenRebel's Blog 