Relationships are hard. People are difficult. This is what my bank teller told me when I suggested that the meaning of life is found in relationships. She said that people had hurt her and disappointed her and so from now on she would restrict herself to her husband and kids. Many people [...]
So how do we receive from God? How do we expand the boundaries of our influence and spiritual authority? Last week, Dennis McNally taught us that we do not receive because we earned it. All we receive from God comes because of His grace, not our good works. It is always a [...]
For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. [This makes the holiness of the Old Testament look pale in comparison.] And if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts! Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very [...]
Sin is not the bad things that we do but the deep desire within all of us to be independent from God – to be our own bosses. Man started out as children of God in the Garden of Eden [the garden of pleasure]. Through stepping away from God as Lord and Father man became [...]
Mark gives a great sermon on How to Hear God.
We need the perseverance of Jesus to endure the delay. I think most of us know this by virtue of our experience with doubt. The question is; what can we do about it? How can we survive the delay? How can we wait well? Delay always brings difficult questions and a terrible temptation. The questions [...]
Many of us have seen the ink drawing which, at first glance, appears to be nothing more than wandering lines on a page. We are told it is a drawing of an ugly old hag. Soon we see the ugly old hag and we can’t believe we didn’t see her immediately. At this point, we [...]
The following post is a collection of excerpts from Mark's sermon. Listen to the podcast for the full sermon. The Bible says that Jabez was an honorable man and from this we can deduce that his prayer for blessing and an enlarged territory was not a selfish prayer. He was asking for blessing in order [...]
We are told that we need to “know” God but rarely are we told HOW to know God. We are told that God wants an intimate relationship of love with us but we are not told what our part is or how to do it. Join Mark on Thursday nights from 6:30-8:30 pm; Jan 22, [...]
Here are some thoughts from Chapter 6 of "Is God Religious": It hurts to see Him reduced to the level of employer or boss. Not only that, it just doesn’t work. If we have to compete selling just another religion, then we are going to lose. As religions go, Mormonism is much more attractive, if [...]
Science has failed to answer our deepest questions concerning the purpose and significance of human life. As a result, our culture is turning to the supernatural realm for the answers. The Bible is literally filled with the supernatural power of God intervening into human affairs. Not only does God act supernaturally into the lives of [...]
We speak often of “life in the Holy Spirit” but often it means different things to different people usually depending upon our differing theology about the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit. This is unfortunate because life in the Spirit is a much deeper reality than simply whether or not you believe in the supernatural [...]
It is not possible to over emphasize the centrality of love in the Kingdom of God. The only thing that rivals the centrality of love is the centrality of truth. In our evangelical tradition truth has been emphasized more often than love with the sad result that we tend to become highly qualified Pharisees. [...]
Not only has the game changed but two very destructive lies have been injected into the game. Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you must agree with everything they believe [...]
As Christians we are to be a truth telling people. We believe in capital "T" truth. We believe that just as there are God designed laws that govern the physical world there are God designed laws that govern the moral world. We believe that there are absolutes that govern moral choices and that these do [...]
This is part two of Deliver us from Evil - see Part 1 And this brings us to the central difference between authority and religion. Jesus began his role as teacher by teaching about the Kingdom of God but he didn’t stop at simply teaching about it. Jesus demonstrated the Kingdom of God by demonstrating [...]
We had a very interesting video testimony scheduled for last Sunday about a family set free from years of negative spiritual activity in their home, referred to as "haunting". I decided that I should take the opportunity to speak on the subject of our Christian authority over evil. There is a very illuminating incident in [...]
Did I get your attention last week with my statements about Christians and truth? See post here if you missed it. It has the sermon link too. Truth = change and change = increased responsibility. I am thinking of the story of Jesus and the man at the pool of Bethesda. A crippled man has been [...]
We Christians think of ourselves as truthful people. We say we not only know the truth but we love it as well. Being a Christian, I have a lot of Christian friends. Being a pastor, I have known a lot of Christians over the years, in good times and bad. I find the above statement very [...]
