Prayer and the Path of Life

By: Dr. Michael Allen Sometimes pastors point out that a person’s checkbook says quite a lot about them: their priorities, their loves, their values. That’s surely true. Perhaps not so frequently mentioned is that our prayers serve as a barometer of sorts regarding our loves and passions. What do we pray about? What things do we praise God regarding? What experiences summon forth our thanks? And what leads us to cry out in desperate need and longing? The psalmist prayed for many things. In fact one of the endearing qualities of the Psalms is that they do serve as what one […]

-Read More


Four Keys to Understanding the Bible

By: Dr. Sam Lamerson Whether you have been in church your entire life or are brand new to the faith, you will undoubtedly, at times, encounter Bible passages that are difficult to understand. The scriptures themselves speak of this, as the Apostle Peter says, “. . . just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as […]

-Read More


Searching for Deeper Faith

In 2010, pastor and award winning author Jim Belcher took his family to Europe for one year, seeking rest and renewal for himself and a deeper faith for his family. Through travel and the study of more than a dozen heroes of the faith, he wanted to introduce his four children to a consequential faith, one that would stay with them when they went off to college and sustain them for a lifetime. What they would discover on this adventure would change their lives forever. What lead you go to Europe for an entire year? That’s a pretty drastic move. […]

-Read More


God is like Jesus

By: Dr. Jono Linebaugh During a battle on the European continent in 1944, a chaplain came upon a fatally wounded solider. The dying man only had enough life left to ask one question. Starring into the chaplain’s eyes in that final moment before his would forever close, he asked, “Father, is God like Jesus?” Before we rush to the obvious answer to this question, it’s worth pausing to ensure that we hear it at its proper pitch. The question is not simply an intellectual test, a pop quiz asking you to write “true” or “false” next to the statement “God […]

-Read More


Becoming Real

Dr. Michael Allen Oftentimes we overlook the obvious. We search our houses for glasses we are already wearing. We scan what seems to be the whole cosmos for keys that were right where they should be. And, far more serious, in important discussions about the Christian life, we manage to avoid precisely those passages where the apostle Paul speaks most candidly about the Christian life. I suspect that for most evangelicals, Romans 12-16 is functionally inoperative – these are the missing chapters that we just can’t see (likely because they follow the soaring heights of the first eleven chapters, with […]

-Read More


You are the Woman at the Well

By: Dr. Warren Gage “Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well?” (John 4:12) The sun was climbing high to midday, bright and hot, as she stepped outside with her empty water jar. There would be no one else at the well at this hour. Most women went to the well to draw water later in the day, enjoying the cool of the evening and the company of their friends. But there was one woman in Sychar who chose to endure the heat of the day and go to the well alone, for in so small […]

-Read More


A Helper Suitable

Dr. Warren Gage Good News The Bible begins with a wedding, and ends with a wedding. Genesis opens with a garden wedding near a river alongside of which grows the Tree of Life. Revelation closes with a garden wedding near a river alongside of which grows the Tree of Life. God’s creation of a bride for Adam also reflects the gift of a bride for Jesus Christ, whom the New Testament calls the “last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45). In the garden, Adam was put into a deep sleep. The man, though still sinless, was wounded in his side. God took […]

-Read More


Between “Once Upon a Time” & “Happily Ever

By: Dr. Warren Gage “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son…” (Matthew 22:2). Children love fairy tales. Grown-ups, too, never seem to outgrow the charm of folk tales. We are made that way. Simply read a bedtime story to children and watch the magic and the music in their wide-open and wonder-filled eyes. Stories teach us to imagine. They take us to far away kingdoms and to “once upon a time.” The best stories are always about a wonderful love that wants to happen. We share the dreams of a maiden […]

-Read More