Loving People on the Southside of Heaven
For am I now trying to win the favor of people, or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of Christ (Galatians 1:10, HCSB).
Memorialized in vinyl back in 1973, “Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown” was a number-one hit for the late Jim Croce. Brown will forever be remembered as the baddest man on the south side of Chicago. At least until he met…
Fishing for Souls: Success vs. Failure
Welcome again to Strengthen Your Walk. I’m Jonathan Scott. When it comes to success and failure, we can easily identify that in certain areas of life. For instance, in sports, it’s what’s on the scoreboard. When it comes to agriculture, it’s the harvest you bring in. When it’s fishing, it’s how many fish did you catch? Unfortunately, in evangelism, we judge success and failure by how many people…
Schizophrenia Stole Their Lives: Let Me Have My Son the Father Cried
The human heart, created in the image of God, longs for things to be right and fair. When our sense of justice is attacked, the natural response is “How can you let this happen, God?!” We seldom realize it in the moment, but our pain-filled cry echoes God’s own heart. Cristobal Krusen captures this transcendent truth in his cinematic masterpiece, Let Me Have My Son. This semi-autobiographical…
Exit Your Emotional Roller Coaster
Do you enjoy roller coasters?
It’s my guess that people like roller coasters for the same reason they like scary movies. There’s an undeniable adrenaline surge when you think your life’s in jeopardy.
But I’m not sure that’s a healthy way to live.
I’ve discovered that many people who no longer ride roller coasters at Disney World are instead riding roller coasters of a different kind.…
3 Ways to Stop Spending and Start Saving
Did you know nearly 40% of Americans can’t cover a $400 expense from their savings?1
People give many different reasons for not being able to save money, and I’ve heard them all. Some people do have it harder than others, but I’ve also seen enough single moms work three jobs to change their family tree, and enough blue-collar dads retire as millionaires that I’m prone to believe most of us are…
Sidewalk Prophets’ Dave Frey: One Great Big Family (Part 1)
https://youtu.be/y8BBCYFAYRI
Dave Frey is the lead vocalist and one of the founders of the hugely popular contemporary Christian band, Sidewalk Prophets. Dave and fellow founder Ben McDonald formed the band while attending Anderson University in Indiana before moving to Nashville. Once in Nashville, their career began to take off. They have four full-length albums, beginning with their debut…
Picture Deeper Truths
“This is speaking allegorically, for these women are two covenants: one coming from Mount Sinai giving birth to children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother."—Galatians 4:24, 26 NASB
Paul said that when the Old Testament referred to two covenants, it was speaking “allegorically.” The Greek word, used here for the only time in the Bible, is the root…
New Words, New Ways
Did you know your words can change your life?
I started smoking when I was nine years old and smoked for many years after that. I liked it! So when I decided to stop, it was really difficult.
Every time I tried to quit, I’d last a few hours and then be running around, digging cigarette butts out of the trash or looking for cigarettes in my coat pockets – anywhere I could think to look.
I…
Living on the Promises: The Holy Spirit
Jesus' Special Promise: The Helper
What’s so significant about the Holy Spirit as a promise? He is the source of all other blessings and promises. Without the Spirit, we would not be able to enter our full inheritance as God’s children.
Throughout Scripture, we find the Holy Spirit acting in various roles. As the third person of the trinity, He was present at creation:
In the beginning, God…
Fishing for Souls: Engaging the Resources
Welcome again to Strengthen Your Walk. I’m Jonathan Scott. We’re continuing this series of evangelism and I want to share with you about how to engage the sources of power for evangelism that I’ve discovered in my ministry of evangelism, the Word of God and also prayer.
As a matter of fact, when Paul was mentoring Timothy in 2 Timothy, he said this to his friend, “You know that from infancy,…