Love

“Run to God and His Shelter”

“May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.” – Psalm 19:14 Today, my encouragement to you is to run to God and His shelter when you’re feeling overwhelmed. What does this mean exactly? It means to gain the courage to build awareness of our thoughts and feelings, because ultimately, God is the creator of these emotions. In modern society, many of us, especially men, have learned to suppress our feelings and not become emotional, however, God does not desire that for us. Instead, God wants us to acknowledge our emotions when we are anxious: “I’m feeling this way right now, and that’s okay.” It’s a good idea to process it. When a situation stirs your emotions, you can say, ”I’m going to run to God, into His shelter, to His spirit and His word, as

August 9, 2022 No Comments

Teach the Children

“But Jesus called the children to him and said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.’ ” – Luke 18:16 Born in 120 BC, Jewish scholar Simeon ben Shetach felt strongly that children should be taught the Torah, which is basically the first five books of the Bible. He emphasized that aside from adults, our children also need to know an incredibly important part of human history as shared through the Word of God. There’s a wonderful book written called When Children Became People. And the argument was that in the ancient world, children were not considered people. They were considered property. And it was commonplace for children to be sold into slavery, to be abused, and in the worst cases, to be sacrificed and tortured to pagan gods. It was the Jews who, in

July 13, 2022 1 Comment

This is Jesus’ Heart

“When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.’ So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, ‘He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.’ ” – Luke 19:5-7 Jesus had an eating ministry. The heart of Christ is reconciliation, grace, forgiveness, and mercy, and particularly, He likes to do this with food. You might have heard me say this every Sunday back in the day. We used to serve communion and before I would invite people to take part, I would say, “Jesus has an eating ministry and He’s continuing it now in communion.” So much of Jesus’ ministry was inviting sinners — or people who were not supposed to associate with righteous people, to His table. The Bible speaks of a

May 27, 2022 1 Comment

Called to Love

“And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” – Matthew 22:39 Each and every one of us is called to love by God. In late March, the Creed of the Beloved that I introduced over ten years ago, received a small upgrade. I have spoken this Creed daily in my personal life, and as you know, we say it as a congregation on Sundays. For the last six years I have thought about how we can live out the final phrase of the Creed. It states, “I can trust my friend Jesus and share His love with the world.” That is true, we should love the world. At Hour of Power, we are a global ministry and we love the world. However, as people, God actually doesn’t call Christians to love the world. He sends us into the world, but who does He call us to love?

May 7, 2022 1 Comment

Soften Your Heart

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” – Ezekiel 36:26 In my own life experiences, I have struggled with addressing various issues with a hardened heart. In our world today, we know how to power up, and to tell it like it is, feeling like we have to always be tough on the outside. Today, I want to challenge you to soften your heart! First soften your heart to God, then to your friends and co-workers. If you are married, soften your heart to your spouse, your kids if you have any, or your parents. God has good things in store for you, but our hearts must be softened to fully receive them. Suffering through bad experiences can indeed make us feel despondent and discouraged. Maybe in

May 6, 2022 No Comments

Let Jesus Into Your Loneliness

“Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” – Psalm 27:10 We’ve been talking about feelings of loneliness and how we tend to feel disconnected from others because we are afraid they will reject the parts of us that are flawed. Consequently, we put on a false front and pretend that we are stronger and more “okay” than we really are. However, I want to tell you resolutely today that pretending is the world’s way, it is not God’s way! Your Heavenly Father gives you permission to come to Him broken, beat up, doubting, hurting, and frustrated and in return, He gives you rest for your soul. He yokes you to His abundant life, and then naturally, with little effort on your part, He fills you with freedom, joy and other eternal treasures your soul needs to thrive. The sad reality is that when you don’t

May 4, 2022 1 Comment

You are not Alone

“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.” – Psalm 68:5,6 For the next few days, we are going to be talking about something that’s (unfortunately) more and more universal in our world — loneliness. Isn’t it interesting that when we punish a child, we give them what’s called a “time out,” which involves being alone for a period of time, often with no toys or interaction? And when a prisoner is out of line, they are further punished by going to a place of solitary confinement. Here, they are completely alone and often in the dark for a number of days or weeks. It’s a known fact that loneliness is one of the worst things for the human spirit and feeling

May 2, 2022 No Comments

The Surprising Truth About Heresy

“In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it.” – 1 Corinthians 11:17,18 What do you think of when you hear the word heretic? If you’re like most Christians, you probably think of someone who ascribes to and promotes a false doctrine. Like maybe they don’t believe in the Trinity or they don’t believe that Jesus was the Son of God. Surprisingly, this may not have been the Apostle Paul’s intent when he used this term! The root word used to derive heresy is hairesis, which in Greek means “one who chooses.” So a heretic, in Paul’s view, is someone who causes division in the church by choosing their own way over God’s. Thus, it

April 30, 2022 1 Comment

Servant Leadership

“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.” – John 13:14 What do you think about when you hear the phrase “love your enemies”? If you’re like me, it’s possible that you ask yourself the question, “Do I really have enemies?” If you’re a Christian and one who is serious about your walk with God, it may feel strange to define people as enemies — especially if you are trying to live at peace with everyone. But what happens if you replace the word enemies in that question with competitors. How do you love your competitors? More often than not in our modern world, we are dealing not with people who are out to get us specifically, but with those who are out for their own gain. They view everyone in the world as a competitor, and that includes you.

April 26, 2022 1 Comment

Grace and Goodness Overcome Evil

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” – Romans 12:21 I remember when I first got to seminary. I was a young 25-year-old who knew everything because, well, I had the Bible and that was all I needed. However, being part of a Reformed denomination, I was told that if I wanted to be a pastor, I needed to go to seminary. So on my first day, I waltzed into a class and a really well-known theologian was my professor. At one point that day, when he made an assertion about something, I stood up and literally said to him out loud, “You’re wrong!” He didn’t lash out at this point nor did he make me feel embarrassed, he simply began asking me questions. As he worked on dismantling my argument one probe at a time, I gradually lost confidence in my position and sat down

April 25, 2022 2 Comments

“Run to God and His Shelter”

Teach the Children

This is Jesus’ Heart

Called to Love

Soften Your Heart

Let Jesus Into Your Loneliness

You are not Alone

The Surprising Truth About Heresy

Servant Leadership

Grace and Goodness Overcome Evil

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