When ethical and moral imperatives are proclaimed as sufficient, even abstracted from Jesus, the result is a crossless Christianity in which the central message becomes an exhortation to live according to God’s rules.
We must be willing to suffer, to give our all for Christ, to persevere until the end in order to obtain the final reward.
Every serious pastor labors under a heavy weight. This is not belly-aching or an embellishment, but rather this is the reality of being a pastor.
There’s never a “good” time to plant. You’ll always find valid, even logical reasons for putting it off.
We need to be vigilant for the truth and to defend the faith. At the same time, we need to be careful about drawing lines too tightly.
If you can’t make time to meet God through the Bible and prayer now, it’s very unlikely you will when (if) life does slow down.
A wife’s fulfillment of her role will be one of the evidences of perseverance in the faith.
Our hearts determine how we respond to change because the heart is mission control center for human functioning.
Pastor, you are a Christian first. If you did not carry out your calling effectively, rest in the finished work of Christ and in the knowledge that you are a child of God by faith alone.
In May of 1792, William Carey powerfully argued that the clear teaching of the New Testament was that Christ had accomplished everything necessary for the ingathering of the nations.
In my prayers, I rarely fail to be grateful for God’s saving grace in Christ, but I realized that I seldom thank him for the daily grace that keeps me saved.
These habits are not unique to long-tenured pastors. But they do seem to be most consistent among those pastors who have been at one church for at least ten years.
Only a life fully exposed to God’s Word and soaking in the community of Christ can bring to light the mess our social media feeds seek to avoid, and properly develop our growth in Christlikeness.
The first five years were brutal. There were three different movements to get me fired. In the midst of all the hostility and adversity, God was still building his church.
Do you love the members of your church enough to minister to them through song?
Jesus laid out a good rule of thumb for all of our online interactions when he said, “love your neighbor as yourself.”
It seems as if everyone is talking about pastoral mentorship these days. Not a week goes by that I don’t receive something in the mail at my office that reminds me of the importance of training younger men in pastoral ministry—a task that I embrace and seek to practice wholeheartedly. But most of the material…
The aim of change for any declining local church is revival, growth, and maturity in Christlike love for God and His people. As a pastor, nothing gives me greater joy than to see God’s people being renewed in their desire to know God intimately, to praise Him passionately, and to love His people without hypocrisy.…
