Disobedience to God's Word needs no encouragement; it's abundant enough, thank you. Yet without intending to, local churches frequently establish patterns that hinder actually doing the Word.

The formula is deceptively simple: Expose people ...

During the first couple of years I walked with the Lord, my prayers went something like this:

"God, help me to get that job.""Jesus, please heal my throat.""Lord, send enough money to pay these bills.""Father, take away ...

Let's play a game. No, not Chutes and Ladders—sorry. The long slide that thwarts my march to victory right before I defeat my three-year-old son is just too frustrating. Instead, take out a piece of paper and write down your last five prayers. ...

Numbers can be deceptively powerful. They can actually take prisoners. I'm proof. Until recently, a number was holding me captive. It did not need chains to keep me down; only my own insecurities. This number had nothing to do with my finances or my ...

I would like to attempt the impossible: to answer the 35 most frequently asked questions about Heaven. Obviously, it would take more than an article, more than a lifetime, and more than human wisdom to answer any one of these questions adequately. But ...

Snowy sludge. Gloomy noon skies. Christmas credit card debt. No new movies that are any good. By the time January arrives, many Christians are depressed. That means they wonder what's wrong with them—or their faith.

Neither mere January ...

I should've trusted the worship leaders at my church more—but I didn't. So when the video rolled and the cheesy, deep, deejayish voice announced, "And now, a Thanksgiving presentation … " I rolled my eyes. Oh, boy. Here we go, I thought. ...

What is man that you make so much of him, that you give him so much attention, that you examine him every morning and test him every moment? Will you never look away from me, or let me alone even for an instant? (Job 7:17–19)

If you had asked me ...

There's a foundational belief within Christian culture that may be killing us. It's so deeply embedded in our collective consciousness that accepting it has become akin to accepting that the earth is round. It is the belief that we have to be fed for ...

Jesus often surprised people with teachings that cut across the grain of human nature. "Lose your life to save it." "The first will be last." "The meek will inherit the earth." "Rejoice in persecution." "Pray for your enemies." "It's better to give than ...

In what she later called "the most transporting pleasure of my life on the farm," Isak Dinesen went flying across the unspoiled plains of Africa with her friend Denys Finch-Hatton. In the film version of Out of Africa, the character playing Denys first ...

Love means never having to say you're sorry," proclaimed a sappy romance novel from the 1970s. I have come to believe the opposite, that love means precisely having to say you're sorry. A sense of guilt, vastly underappreciated, deserves ...

Several years ago while on vacation, our family ate at a restaurant that claimed to have the largest buffet in the United States. We swarmed the mind-boggling array of culinary delights as though we'd never seen food before. By the time we finished ...

The very idea of beauty makes many sophisticates cringe nowadays. It seems utterly out of touch with postmodern ambiguity, since the notion of beauty implies absolute standards widely agreed upon that address an objective reality: "That is beautiful." ...

It is a wonderful thing to be a child of God, a Christian. You have made your apology to God, believed on the truth of the resurrection of Christ, and by faith he has saved you. Somehow, however, the joy of the Lord has not become your strength. You ...

You may have gone forward at a Billy Graham rally and accepted Christ. You may have responded to an invitation at the end of a morning service. You may have prayed with a Sunday school teacher or parent years ago. You may have listened to a TV evangelist's ...

Mark reminds us in his first chapter that Jesus was a man of prayer: "In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed" (Mark 1:35). This characteristic of our Lord is noted in all the Gospels, ...

Mark Twain reportedly said, "Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can read." His remark is a testament to the power of kindness which we all admire in people and would like to practice more consistently. But as universally ...

As a child I had the privilege of spending a month on the farm with my grandparents each summer. I learned to drive a tractor, feed chickens, and herd cattle, but the most important lesson I learned came before dinner each evening. As we assembled around ...