Tag Archives: Sovereignty of God

The Agonizing Will of God and our Sanctification

When Pain Paves the Way for Salvation: Several years ago I sat and wept as I listened to Pastor Bill Wilson of Metro Ministries share his testimony, and the stories of the many children they serve through his “Sunday School church” in Brooklyn, New York and around the world. As a child, Bill Wilson was abandoned by his mother on the streets of New York. One day, as they walked down the street together, she instructed him to sit down on the curb and wait for her to return. He sat and waited for three days and she never came back. A Christian man noticed Bill alone and stopped to find out if he was okay. He picked him up, brought him home, and paid his way to a Christian summer camp where Bill heard the gospel and was saved by God’s grace. He now runs Metro Ministries which serves [...]

Quit Fighting the Sovereign Will of God

The First Fruits of Our Day I want to just take a moment at the beginning tonight and share a bit about what mine and Shane’s evenings look like once we put the kids to bed. We like to put our kids to bed early so that we can have time to spend together, and more importantly time to spend with our Lord. As soon as the kids are tucked in and their door is closed we try our best to get our Bible’s open right away and to begin reading and studying from wherever we left off the night before.  Our goal right now is to read and study a new passage one night, then study it further and blog it out the next night. After spending anywhere from 1.5-2 hrs (sometimes longer) doing our devotions we share with each other what we’ve discovered and learned and talk it [...]

A Mob Sent by God

Matthew 26:47-56 K.P. Yohannan: This past Sunday my husband Shane and I visited another church so that we could listen to brother K.P. Yohannan, founder of the ministry Gospel for Asia, speak. We have heard him preach online and I’ve begun to read his book “Revolution in World Missions“, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to meet him in person. He is a dear friend to our dear friends at Living Waters Ministry and so even though we had never met before we feel great love for him and we love his ministry. During the service he shared several stories of the suffering people in India, in particular. One story at the end though really wrenched my heart because it was about a five year old boy that he had seen on the front cover of a local newspaper who was photographed lying on his side on the street [...]

God Plans

God doesn’t just know, He Plans – Matthew 26:20-15 God only knows? Have you ever used the phrase, “God knows”, in reference to a difficult or uncertain situation? I know that, for us anyway, we’ve said it a lot. When we’ve been in car accidents, or when something tragic happens to someone we know, or even if it’s something minor like locking our keys in the car we have often shrugged and said, “Well, God knows. He’ll take care of it.” There is nothing wrong on the surface with a statement like this, it’s just incomplete. Several months ago we decided to change our go to phrase from “God knows” to “God plans”. Of course God knows what is going on in our lives, but it doesn’t catch him off guard and it’s not a mess he has to clean up. God doesn’t just know, he plans, and he does [...]

Teach Us How to Pray – The Lord’s Prayer

The Disciples Prayer (a.k.a.) The Lord’s Prayer Opening Thoughts: You know when a topic is so huge that you just know you can’t do it justice. I’m going to attempt to unpack something that is so massive that I tremble as I write. I’m not a Bible scholar, nor do I profess to be, however I believe God gives all who truly possess His Spirit and who seek Him the wisdom and ability to decipher the Scriptures. So as I am writing this I’m totally depending on His Spirit because I DO NOT want to be wrong about it. Praying as I type actually. The Catholics: Have you ever heard the term “Say 10 Hail Mary’s and 10 Our Father’s”? I simply cringe when I hear terms like this when used as some type of expression or penance for sin. I was in a church about a year and a [...]

Wasted on Jesus

Matthew 26:6-13 “And the things of the earth will grow strangely dim…” When you become a follower of Jesus everything in your life becomes about the eternal. Possessions lose their luster in your sight, media of the world becomes bland in comparison with the Bible, vacations and holidays are enjoyable and nice but don’t even come close to the place you know that Jesus is preparing for you. Granted, we occasionally lose sight of these truths when we become distracted by life’s trials, but a true follower always regains his footing on the straight and narrow towards the beautiful before all is lost. “Whether fine or stormy…” Recently I started reading The Little Pilgrim’s Progress by Helen L. Taylor to my 5 year old son. I am amazed at how the story can hold his attention (he is a very active 5 year old boy), it’s always “one more chapter [...]

Hide and Seek

No One Seeks God – Romans 3:9-20 Opening Thoughts: I know this title likely has some of you a bit confused. Well, now that I have your attention, please track along while we discover that no one seeks God. New Ways: I’m not sure what your thoughts are on this, but I have observed over the past several years that the church in a general sense, has come up with some pretty slick ways of making new converts in a world filled with outward moralist’s but who are totally uninterested in the Gospel. We have studied the culture, watched the movies for good sermon analogies, identified with the music in order to draw crowds (in fact I know of several churches that open up their services to ACDC, Coldplay and Lady Gaga…. I’m not even kidding). We have become very good at making people feel comfy in a church, or [...]