glory

Many years ago I was listening to Christian radio. It was in the early 90s and there was a lot of talk about self-esteem. In fact, if you were raised in the 80s and 90s you probably remember the government, media, books and lingo associated with the self-esteem craze. Maybe you were small enough to...
Where I live signs of spring usually arrive by the beginning of March. Although my favorite season is fall, I am always happy to see the flowers bloom and trees make new leaves. It reminds me that although I could not see it during the winter months, God made the flowers and trees in such a way...
Your teen-age daughter wants to start dating a young man who is quite nice, very likeable, professes faith in Jesus for salvation, but his dad is an adulterer, even while remaining married, and is verbally abusive toward women. What do you say to her, and why? Someone on pastoral staff at your...
There I was: Already running late for an appointment and stuck in traffic behind a line of cars behind a horse and buggy. In my frustration, I thought to honk my horn at the primitive horse-drawn carriage but was stopped when I remembered the all-important truth: God is sovereign. What I perceived...
Public worship can all too easily feel lacklustre and mundane, not just for a congregation, but also for the one entrusted with leading it. This is not some new phenomenon. It has been a challenge for the church throughout its history. Indeed, it was at such a low point in the history of worship,...
A colorful coat given to a boy. An evening walk on a palace roof. A red cord hung from a prostitute’s window. These brief scenes from over three thousand years ago should have no bearing on our lives today. Yet these moments were used to bring about the most important event in human history: the...
Another Christmas season is upon us. As the world around us magnifies boxes and bows, decorations and displays, parades and parties, sleigh bells and snow balls, let us, as believers, magnify the Lord. At the beginning of Luke’s gospel we learn about two women—Elizabeth and Mary, who by God’s grace...
When was the last time you wandered in the desert wastes of addiction or anger, dissensions or divisions, enmity or envy, idolatry or impurity, sensuality or strife, finding no way to fulfill the hole in your heart, but desperately trying to anyway? When have you faced betrayal or blame, cancer or...
How little we appreciate the privilege and blessing of prayer. That we, sinful mortals as we are, should have access to God beggars belief. That he should even consider us, let alone countenance our requests is astounding. Yet he calls us to pray, he has opened the way of access in Christ for us to...
“In the Last Days of Narnia, far up to the west.” This is how C.S. Lewis begins the end of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle . I reread this book last year, right in the middle of the pandemic lock-downs, and since doing so I’ve found myself more and more referring to the book to help find...