The Practice of Repentance: Most of us don’t naturally enjoy repenting when we’re wrong, but for leaders especially, repentance is a powerful, essential, and liberating practice.

9 Ways To Battle The Darkness: I love Jesus and he loves me. But I have struggled with fear, anxiety, condemnation, and even depression my whole Christian life. I actually struggled so much with these issues that I had to resign from my first pastorate. I wasn’t eating, I couldn’t get out of bed, I was having demonic nightmares, and I was thinking about suicide. I’m not out of the woods yet, but I have learned a few things in going through these struggles about God’s grace despite our failures to trust him. Though each of us faces unique circumstances, here are a few lessons I have learned that I pray will help as you, too, battle depression, condemnation and anxiety.

How Jesus Changes Motherhood: Trying to be the perfect mom can be a crushing weight, and sometimes Mother’s Day only makes it worse. We hope these stories from regular moms relying on Jesus in the midst of failure and imperfection will encourage you.

Offer Advice Very Carefully: Giving advice goes poorly so often, it is worth more careful thought about how we give it. We all need advice. We seek it every day. That is a wise and natural part of being a creature rather than the Creator. But we also know that advice can run from helpful to horrible, and it can bless a relationship or hurt it. 

What Kind of Church Should You Belong To?: Being in a healthy local church is critical to the spiritual health of men. But how do you know if you’re in a healthy church?

Miracles In a Modern Age: Anyone familiar with Jesus knows he spent a lot of time healing people. Those healings seem so foreign to modern disciples, as if from a far away land, the stuff of mythology or fiction. Yet, his healing ministry didn’t stick with him; Jesus spread his power to heal into the lives of his followers. Does this mean that we too, as modern disciples, should practice healing? What should we expect when praying for it? Let’s take a quick look at the 1st century to get our bearings. Then, we can turn to our response in the 21st century.

 "How should the Great Commission affect marriage?" 

photo credit: mugfaker via photopin cc

There and Back Again: Except, that is, for one night when I panicked. I was lying in bed, waiting to fall asleep. This was the first time I had faced the death of someone close. All at once, it occurred to me that we had no idea what would happen to my grandmother. None of us had closed our eyes in death, and that meant none of us knew what she would see when she opened them. The horror of the unknown washed over me. I realized it wasn't really her death that I was afraid of. It was my own.

7 Symptoms of Eternity Amnesia: Everyone in ministry gets discouraged by difficulties and struggles, but sometimes we bring more suffering on ourselves because we forget eternity. Could it be that there are times when you live and minister as if there is no such thing as forever?

To Experience God's Love: Many Christians live at a great distance from a felt experience of the love of God. So much Christianity in the West is shallow and satisfied. It affirms a creed, but it so often lacks spiritual life. Across the country there are millions of people who have a faith, who've been brought up in the church to believe Jesus died and rose, but they have no living experience of God's love.

9 Ways To Battle Depression, Condemnation and Anxiety: I know from personal experience the difficulty of battling depression, condemnation and anxiety. The fight can take many forms, ranging from legalism to thoughts of suicide. Whatever the case, it is all overwhelming. Though each of us faces unique circumstances, here are a few lessons I have learned that I pray will help as you, too, battle depression, condemnation and anxiety.

The Porn-Free Family Plan: I want to protect my children in a world like this, but I want to do more than that. I want to disciple my children to live virtuously, to use these new technologies for good purposes instead of bad ones. I believe this is a crucial part of my calling as a parent. To address this great need, I have put together what I call The Porn-Free Family Plan. It is a plan designed to protect my children from online dangers so that I can train them to use their devices and technologies well.

Why Doesn't God Always Heal The Sick: It’s hard to imagine a more difficult, confusing, and controversial topic than why God chooses not to heal in response to the intercessory pleas of his people. I don’t profess to have all the answers, but I think I’ve got a few.

‘ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED’, OR ‘PRESERVATION AND PERSEVERANCE IN CHRIST’?: At that point, the challenge is to explain a doctrine of perseverance that gives both the full assurance that those “whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30), as well as the need to “continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard” (Col. 1:23).

photo credit: K. Peter Schmidt via photopin cc