For most of my Christian life, I was trained to pray to God a certain way. This form of petitionary prayer is essentially an exercise in begging God to be merciful, or kind or loving towards us or those we love most. Honestly, this is how I’ve prayed to God for over 40 years now. But recently I’ve started to realize how pointless and stupid this is. Why? Because what I’m doing is begging God to be good, and that... Read more
For those who are Deconstructing their faith, the common denominator for many of them is a complete overhaul of how they see and understand the Bible. To put it another way: Once you realize that God didn’t write the Bible and that we did, you’ve taken your first step outside of the fear-based traditional Christian control machine. Because more often than not the Bible is used as a bludgeon to keep Christians safely behind the razor wire of religious captivity.... Read more
Dozens of studies, surveys and reports all confirm the fact that the Christian Church in America is in decline, shrinking, dying out and becoming more internally divided than ever before. We’re polarized over political tribalism. We’re separated by our doctrines. We’re scattered apart by our differences. It’s nothing new, but at least there was a time when our leaders would fight for unity and work hard to mend wounds and heal the divide. Not much anymore. I spent a few... Read more
One of the most fundamental disagreements between Jesus and the Pharisees had to do with how they viewed God, and this influenced how they understood Holiness. For the Pharisees, Holiness was a very strict code. It had everything to do with how they viewed God – Powerful, aloof, set apart and much too Holy and perfect to even glance towards anyone who was a sinner. Because of this view of God, the Pharisees behaved in much the same way: Too... Read more
You make His heart sing. He can’t stop thinking about you. He throws back His head and He sings over you. The voices of the angels ring in His ears night and day, but what He yearns for most desperately is to hear your voice calling out His name. You think you’re worthless, but He thinks you’re worth dying for. The value He has placed on you is greater than you can imagine. He literally gave His life to be... Read more
The Greek word for “worship” is proskyneō and it is translated as “to kiss, to lower oneself in humility or reverence, to adore, to surrender completely to another”. So, when Jesus let go of His equality with God [see Phil. 2] and humbled Himself and took on the form of a servant, and became nothing, He was doing exactly what anyone does when they worship something. Jesus “lowered himself in humility” Jesus became a servant to mankind. Jesus adored us and gave... Read more
As a member of the Christian Anti-Terrorism Task Force you join an elite team of valiant men and women who have devoted their lives to transforming enemies into friends for more than two thousand years – and counting. Our founder – Jesus of Nazareth – was the first to show us the unstoppable power of love. One of our early converts was a former terrorist who was, himself, transformed by the irresistible love of Christ and went on to write... Read more
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6) Last month most everyone who follows Jesus took the time to remember the birth of the Prince of Peace. We sang songs that announced the incarnation of Christ and we re-read the scriptures that reminded us of the angels who sang of peace on... Read more
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about how God never wanted animal sacrifices and how Jesus just forgave sins all the time without the shedding of blood, or even repentance from the person in advance. Specifically, I pointed out “7 Examples Where God Forgives Without Bloodshed.” To add to that, I’d like to point out another difference between the Old Covenant concept of sacrifice and the New Covenant twist that Jesus brings to the equation. Under the Old... Read more
You’ve probably heard about the “Gay Jesus” film on Netflix that has been creating a lot of controversy lately. Most people I’ve talked to about this have not actually watched the film. To be honest, neither have I. But whether you’ve watched the film or not, I think we can still have a conversation about the subject matter and hopefully agree that a gay Jesus is not only not controversial, it’s not blasphemous either. Here’s why: Being a gay is... Read more
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