Typically, evangelicals are shy about Lent. The 40 days prior to Easter—Sundays excepted—are known popularly as a season for giving up chocolate or other extras in order to show God how much we love him. With such impoverished notions, it is no wonder that Lent has fallen on hard times...So should evangelicals bother with Lent? Whatever the popular conceptions, the season can encourage gospel-centered piety...
Read MorePastor JR Vassar brings thoughts and answers to some hard questions over the Doctrine of Election.
Read MoreWe must pray for our enemies and desire their salvation. Christians need to renounce the spirit of Jonah who wanted the destruction of God’s merciless enemies and hated the thought of those enemies receiving mercy from God. But, God does not delight in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11) and desires that all people come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). If that is God’s heart, should it not be ours? Should we desire the destruction of the wicked? Death to all of God’s enemies? Our call is to follow the command and example of Jesus who told us to love our enemies and pray for them, and who himself laid his life down for his enemies, even praying for their forgiveness as they killed him. Again, if we are calling for missiles but not praying for missionaries, we have lost touch with the heart of God...
Read MoreThe process of adopting our daughter went very smoothly and every step of the way the Lord continued to reveal His heart to us. Adoption is the perfect example of how God's Love works. When our daughter came to us she was so frail. At 1 year old she weighed just 14 pounds. She was dirty, undernourished, and terrified. She did not understand who we were or that we already Loved her deeply. As she grew she became stronger. Her fears gave way to joy and seeing her begin to smile at us as we talked to her filled our family with some much elation that we could not imagine how we had ever lived without her...
Read MoreFinding this diagnosis was not a pleasant experience. During a particularly painful exam where I had to hold my arms above my head for over a half hour, I began to feel despair creep in as I struggled to keep my arms up and hang on to my Joy. In that moment, the Holy Spirit gently reminded me of Christ hanging on the cross. It was not a detached challenge to "be stronger"; it was a gentle reminder that He has also suffered...and that I was not alone. In that moment my heart and body were strengthened, and my Joy was restored...
Read MoreMy daughter completed her treatment and returned home to begin rebuilding our family's relationship, but the road to restoration was a complicated one and shortly after she returned home, we found ourselves at odds again. I was determined to make our relationship work but all my best efforts continued to fail. Months later, sitting in a church service, I found myself once again unable to communicate what was happening in my heart. But this time it was not because of my battered relationship with my daughter; it was because I was suffering a stroke...
Read MoreAfter mourning this loss for a short time, we mustered all the resolve we could find and began our fertility treatments again. But this time our hearts were simply too broken to endure the rollercoaster process any longer. We discontinued the treatments and tried to come to terms with the idea that we would never have a child of our own. During this extended season a number of friends had suggested the idea of adopting a child. This was something that we believed in but the Hope of having our own biological child had always been our focus...
Read MoreInterruption is God’s invitation. God is inviting us to see him all around us, in the lives of others, in our conversations, in our serving those in need. Interruption is not simply a matter of our hearts developing patience, it’s about experiencing life! It is one of God’s ways of waking us up to what’s around us to see there’s perhaps more to be done than our task for the day, as important as it may be. Interruption is God’s enhancement of our art and his tender way of encouraging his creatures to be a part of the kingdom come...
Read MoreThis is the power of our Pray 30/20/10 initiative. We are becoming a praying people through the act of praying. We are learning to cultivate a praying habit so that we might have a praying heart. By taking 30 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes during the day, and 10 minutes at night to seek God in his Word and in prayer, we are learning to look away from ourselves and to look to God. This season of prayer can be a turning point in our lives. We might very well be on the verge of some new works of God as he responds to our persistent prayers. If you have not taken the Pray 30/20/10 challenge, I encourage you to take it up today. Make it a part of the regular rhythm of your life. Join us as we strive with God’s help to become a church serious in its intention to be a praying people.
Read MoreSunday, August 30 was the most emotionally taxing sermon I have ever prepared for and preached. I dealt with the issue of abortion, delivering a polemical and pastoral message on the moral wrong of abortion. I looked at the question, “what is the unborn?” and answered that question from Scripture, Science, and Common Sense...
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