The saying “no man is an island” is cliché and overused, but the gist of it is true. God made us to be relational beings. He didn’t create us to be autonomous, self-sufficient, loners. He created us for fellowship, and togetherness. And to use another cliché, he created us for community. Not so we can tout how community focused we are, or even that we are authentic, real people. These are good things to strive for, in fact they are crucial to living life as Christians.
Will You Please "Like" Our Church?
We've enjoyed getting settled here in Little Rock and finally feel like we have some time to actually think, plan, and relax. After a wonderful three-day weekend, it was back to reality today and with it came a new development with our church plant...we have a Facebook page! When you are in the beginning stages all developments are a big deal.
Count It All Future Joy
I’ve thought a lot about the experience of suffering and the Bible’s response to our suffering this past year. Before our miscarriage and infertility I quickly passed over passages on suffering, not because I didn’t see them as important, but I just didn’t relate to them. I had faced trials before, but nothing that really made me wrestle with God’s good plan for my life in the way I have recently. I don’t doubt his goodness; I just need to understand it more than ever before. While difficult, that is a good result of our suffering. It causes us to lean hard into him and desperately seek his face because without his presence in our lives we are hopeless.
Piper on Romans 8:28
"If you live inside this massive promise [Romans 8:28], your life is more solid and stable than Mount Everest. Nothing can blow you over when you are inside the walls of Romans 8:28. Outside Romans 8:28 all is confusion and anxiety and fear and uncertainty. Outside the promise of all-encompassing future grace there are straw houses of drugs and alcohol and numbing TV and dozens of futile diversions. There are slat walls and tin roofs of fragile investment strategies and fleeting insurance coverage and trivial retirement plans. There are cardboard fortifications of deadbolt locks and alarm systems and antiballistic missiles. Outside are a thousand substitutes for Romans 8:28.
It Was a Good Friday
Headed to Little Rock
Who's Afraid of a Genealogy?
In preparation for Easter next week I started reading through the Gospel of Matthew. I decided to read two chapters a day in order to get my heart ready for the celebration of our Savior’s death and resurrection. So often we get stuck in the busyness of life, and even a holiday season, that we forget the purpose of the event. Reading two chapters in the evenings has helped me slow down and think about what the life, death, and resurrection of Christ meant not only for me, but for the entire world.
Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath
In college interpreting the Sabbath was always a hot topic. Sure we all believed it was in the Bible and that rest was designed for us by God, but were we really supposed to rest from everything on Sunday? If you said that the Sabbath on Sunday was law for today, people cried “legalist!” If you believed the primary issue was taking rest, and the Sabbath was really a day of your choosing, you were labeled a libertine.
Luke 6 and a Coming Blessing
Missions Wednesday: Libya
It’s hard to turn on the television anymore without seeing a plethora of news reports coming out of Libya. Libya is one country in a string of countries in the Middle East/North Africa that have recently faced great turmoil and unrest. For us here in “stable” America it might seem like one more news story that plays on repeat on the Today Show every morning. But for Libyans, it’s their life. Living under a dictatorship for years and the hope of freedom is of great concern to them. And as people created in the image of God, what happens to Libyans should matter to Christians.