Category: Faith

Faith

Does Repentance Have a Regular Place in Your Prayer Time?

Chris

Repentance is a word church folks prefer to avoid. While it’s true we want to be reminded of grace, love, mercy, forgiveness, spiritual cleansing, and wholeness, we tend to rush toward the words that feel good and forget about the difficult, but necessary word which opens the door to the rest.

The act of repentance is most often discussed when we are inviting people to believe in Jesus Christ. He will forgive every fault, wipe away every failure, and wash away the stains of our selfish living. All we have to do is repent and believe.

We need to be reminded how repentance is not meant only for our initial salvation, the day we drew near to God and believed in His Son, Jesus. Repentance is God’s call for us, every single day.

Continue reading “Does Repentance Have a Regular Place in Your Prayer Time?” →

Faith

What Would You Ask For This Christmas?

Chris

[dropshadowbox align=”center” effect=”lifted-both” width=”80%” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]My good friend, Kevin Senapatiratne, travels around North America encouraging Christians in prayer through his ministry Christ Connection and books like Enjoying Prayer and his revised edition of Charles Finney’s Lectures on Revival. I shared this guest post on his blog this week. [/dropshadowbox]

 

Christmas is a season filled with every kind of emotion. It contains some of the greatest highlights of the year, while there are those who find it bothersome, a lot of work, and even discouraging.

Jesus came to share God’s gifts of love, joy, hope, peace, and good news. We celebrate and have incredibly happy moments with family and friends. But there are times when all we feel are the burdens, worries, and stresses of the season.

One of the craziest elements about Christmas is presents. Gift giving can be extreme stressful, even though it is often born out of love. “What will we get them? How much should we spend? Which style should I wrap it in? Will they even like?” I wonder how much the Wise Men worried over the gifts they brought to the newborn King.

It can also be hard to receive gifts. To make things easier, we prefer to ask for certain things. It’s better to nudge towards something we’d really enjoy than be ungrateful for the gift from a friend or loved one. What if we took the time to ask God for gifts in our lives?

Continue reading at www.ChristConnection.com →

Faith

#MerryChristmasStarbucks Exposed a Critical Nerve in the Western Church

Chris

It’s all over Facebook. You can’t miss it. Even Indiana Jones is in on it now. Starbucks removed “Merry Christmas” from their red cups (if it was ever there before). A simple change by an international company has split the Christian community in two.

Some want to “prank” Starbucks. It isn’t a boycott; quite the opposite really. The plan is to introduce ways to get Starbucks to do what it has decided not to do: acknowledge Christmas. No one is trying to close stores or hurt the company’s bottom line. The original video actually calls on Christians to bring their business to any and all Starbucks locations to reintroduce Jesus and Christmas.

The other side of the battle is annoyed that anyone would go to so much trouble over something so trivial. It’s a coffee cup. “What would Jesus do?” Start a revolution, an international prank-fest? If you don’t like it, drink your coffee somewhere else. #MerryChristmasStarbucks isn’t worth the bad publicity it produces for the church.

But is it really that simple? It never is. The fact the campaign went from a positive video on one guy’s Facebook page to negative and pocking-fun memes galore reveals how big a nerve was hit. The church just found out it has an exposed nerve, and it doesn’t have anything to do with coffee cups.

Continue reading “#MerryChristmasStarbucks Exposed a Critical Nerve in the Western Church” →

Faith

Keep Your Life “In Tune” with God

Chris

Are you one of those people who really enjoys watching people blow it on American Idol? One of the biggest draws for some wasn’t the talent drawn to the competition, but the eventual disasters to eventually audition before the judges. The producers must have known this was true, making sure to include several vocal meltdowns from each audition city.

Music is a huge part of my own life. I’m not star quality, but I know when I’m “pitchy” or “scooping”. A worship leader friend of mine told me in high school that I had an ear for music. I didn’t really understand what she meant at the time. Over the years, though, I’ve realized how much my “ear for music” can get me into trouble.

There is one question I always ask my worship team before we get started for practices. If I don’t ask it early, it comes out as soon as my ear tells me something is off. I can hear with something goes out of tune before most people around me. It’s a curse I have, really, and my poor team members get to enjoy it. But my ear for an instrument’s tuning points to a valuable lesson about how we live for Jesus.

Continue reading “Keep Your Life “In Tune” with God” →

Faith

Planet Earth from a Tourist’s Perspective

Chris

My office door is on a side street next to the church. Everyday I get a glimpse of how a local bed and breakfast is doing. They’ve had the busiest summer I’ve seen during my five years in the community.

Today I was heading out for a meeting and I saw a couple of ladies heading out for the day. In typical tourist fashion, they were taking pictures of the B&B house, one another, and the surrounding area. Our little community had piqued their interest.

Sometimes we forget to enjoy the place we are at. It happens in the cities we grow up in, the workplaces we’ve given our lives to, and even the planet we live on. From a spiritual perspective, how would the world look different if we stopped and saw it as tourists?

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Faith

Don’t be Afraid of the Fear of the Lord

Chris

Most of us woke up this morning in a place of safety. Whether your doors were locked or your windows left open, you felt safe enough to close your eyes and go to sleep without wondering if something or someone was going to harm you. We are truly blessed to have this safety.

Others live in constant fear. There are places of unrest around the world where people don’t know what they will wake to. Will there be food for them to eat? Will strangers be holding a gun or a knife to them? Will there be peace or war? Will they wake up at all?

We equate fear with a horrible existence. “How can people live like that?” we ask. When it appears in our “safe” part of the world we call it paranoia or chalk it up to a psychological disorder. The Disabled World website lists and defines 87 known phobias. Yet Scripture tells us the importance of a unique type of fear.

Continue reading “Don’t be Afraid of the Fear of the Lord” →