When you are waiting for God to fulfill His promise, keep watching with a smile. Let your childlike trust become your testimony as you entrust yourself to your heavenly Father.
“The case for the reliability of the New Testament Gospel eyewitness accounts is dependent on the trustworthiness of its authors. In cold-case criminal trials, eyewitness accounts are typically evaluated through the lens four critical questions.” J. Warner Wallace then gives a succinct overview of each of these four questions and the evidence supporting them.
“One can sometimes do good by being the right person in the wrong place.” —G.K. Chesterton
“A great leader never sets himself above his followers except in carrying responsibility.” —Jules Ormont
“There is a great difference between worry and concern. A worried person sees a problem, and a concerned person solves a problem.” —Harold Stephens
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Before a leader can cast a compelling vision for an organization, he or she has to be living a compelling personal vision. Greg and I explain why this is an indispensable first step.
This clip is from an episode of The Craig and Greg Show where we are discussing the first book in our new series of books called Business by the Book. The first book is What the Bible says about a CEO’s vision-casting.
Check out my other podcasts, my books, and so much more by clicking here.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
On this episode of The Podcast, let’s talk about seeing something brighter in the darkest of times.
Check out all of the Scriptures I reference in this video here.
You may seem some glimmers of light in your dark place—like Paul did in the Roman prison—but even if you don’t see anything but darkness, make the choice to worship. I need to remind myself that God has a plan for my life and that He is working out all the details for my good and to bring glory to Himself.
Let’s change our self-focused “Why me?” to God-focused worship as we say, “Thank You, Jesus, that You are using me to build Your kingdom!”
In the month of Kislev in the 20th year of the Israelites’ exile in Babylon, Nehemiah began to pray for favor when he spoke with King Artaxerxes. In the month of Nisan—four months later—Nehemiah was finally given the opportunity to speak with the king about his heart’s desire to travel to Jerusalem (Nehemiah 1:1–2:6).
Jeremiah dictated all of God’s words to Baruch in the 4th year of King Jehoiakim’s reign. Presumably, Baruch begin sharing these words immediately, but it wasn’t until the 9th month of the 5th year that these words appeared to hit home (Jeremiah 36:1-6, 8-9).
In the 3rd year of King Cyrus’ reign, Daniel was shown a vision from God and he began to pray for God to give him the meaning of the vision. Twenty-one days later and angel arrived with the answer (Daniel 10:1-12)
Zechariah and Elizabeth prayed and tried to get pregnant until Elizabeth became post-menopausal. Even after they stopped praying and stopped trying, Gabriel told them their prayer had been heard and Elizabeth became pregnant (Luke 1:5-25).
God’s timing is perfect!
What has God promised you? Are you still praying for it? Still believing for it? Are you still doing what you need to do to see it happen? If God spoke it to you, He has not forgotten you! Don’t believe the lie that the window of opportunity has closed!
If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed. (Habakkuk 2:3)
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Jude calls Christians to contend for the faith without contention and without compromise. Instead, we are to loving serve Jesus by engaging with others mercifully, peacefully, and lovingly. This means we have to contend without quarreling.
But that’s easier said than done because people love to pick fights, and we hate to lose an argument.
Look at the ministry of Jesus. His adversaries couldn’t get around the perfect logic that He used based on Scripture, so they came up with all sorts of controversies in the hope of tripping Him up and silencing Him. They posed seemingly unanswerable dilemmas like: In heaven, which one of the seven brothers will be married to the woman they all married on earth? Should we pay taxes to Caesar? Should we pay the temple tax? What’s the greatest commandment of all? They tried to get Him to take the bait about religious traditions, laws concerning the Sabbath, and the punishment for a woman caught in adultery.
Jesus never got fluster or frustrated—He never took the bait to quarrel with them, but He simply stood unwaveringly and lovingly on God’s Word. But once again, that’s easier said than done!
King Solomon pointed out the difficulty of this in Proverbs 26:4-5. Do we answer a fool or not? Yes, but we answer wisely not foolishly.
I believe Jude would agree with Solomon, Jesus, Paul, and Peter, but then he uses three examples that could spark a controversy:
the fate of fallen angels (Jude 6)
Michael and the devil arguing over the body of Moses (v. 9)
Enoch prophesying (v. 14)
But notice that how Jude uses these examples by not addressing any more than what we already know from Scripture. In this way, Jude keeps this from becoming a foolish, quarrelsome controversy (v. 10).
Notice the consistent instruction of the Bible on how to handle critics:
Michael the archangel: The Lord rebuke you! (also 2 Peter 2:11)
Jesus: Away from Me! (Matthew 4:10) and Get behind Me! (Mark 8:33)
James: Submit to God and then resist the devil (James 4:7)
Peter: speak gently, respectfully, and with a clear conscience (1 Peter 3:15-16)
Paul: warn people without becoming quarrelsome (2 Timothy 2:14, 16, 23-25)
In Luke 13:1-5, Jesus addresses two events that could have become quite controversial, but Jesus defused the controversy by simply saying, “No matter what, everyone needs to have their sins forgiven by God.” Paul continued this singleminded focus on Jesus. I love how the Amplified Bible captures his words in 1 Corinthians 2:2. And then Paul encourages his friend Timothy to operate the same way (1 Timothy 1:15-17).
Don’t let foolish controversies sidetrack you from the faith entrusted to us, but take everything back to Jesus as He is revealed in the Scripture.
If you’ve missed any of the other messages in our series called Earnestly Contending, you can find them all here.
We have a culture where respect for others is eroding quickly. The Bible makes it clear that reverence for God results in respect for people, and respect for people helps us reverence the God who created them.
“The real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.” —G.K. Chesterton
Dr. Louis A. Markos has an insightful article on the works of C.S. Lewis that help us learn how to stay human. “Christians today who are committed to restoring a proper view of man have an ally in the greatest apologist of the twentieth century, C.S. Lewis (1898–1963). Though Lewis offers much help in his best-known apologetics books (Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce) and his beloved Chronicles of Narnia, we would do well to expand our reading of Lewis to include his searing critique of modern educational philosophy (The Abolition of Man) and his anthropologically incisive science fiction novels, The Ransom (or Cosmic) Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength.”
The ICR has an article about a fascinating new dinosaur that was unearthed. “Even now in the twenty-first century, paleontologists are still at a loss as to the origin of the dinosaurs. As recently as 2024, five evolutionists stated, ‘Today, inspired by clues from fossils and footprints from a lost world, scientists continue to piece together the puzzle of how various dinosaur groups arose, behaved, and diversified.’ In contrast, the creation model argues that all dinosaur kinds were created during the same period—specifically on Day 6 of the creation week—several thousand years ago. From this perspective, the lack of definitive transitional forms or ancestral precursors in the fossil record aligns with the expectation that dinosaur kinds appeared fully formed and distinct, as observed in the fossil record.”
Axis’ Culture Translator discusses an article posted in Harper’s: “Many have written about how porn warps the expectations users have for relationships; this article demonstrates that, for young men in particular, pornography is often willingly embraced as a complete replacement for human connection. … Woven throughout this subculture is also conscious self-degradation; as the Harper’s article points out, ‘ruin your mind,’ ‘go deeper,’ and ‘give up on life’ are embraced as the movement’s rallying cries. Many young men and women are trapped in this spiritual prison, convinced there is nothing better to live for. Who will show them the way out?” Two helpful resources are Fight The New Drug and Pure Desire.
Leaders need to learn that disagreement on your team is normal and can be healthy. Disagreement doesn’t mean people distrust their leader, but it may mean that they want the bring out the best in their leader. Check out the full conversation Greg and I had on this subject.
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We can all agree that disagreeable people are some of the hardest to work with, constantly shooting down ideas without providing anything constructive in return.These types of people can quickly put a strain on any organization if left unchecked. However, we need to be careful not to lump disagreement into the category of disagreeable. In this episode Greg and I discuss why people in disagreement are actually the exact opposite of disagreeable, and are a valuable asset to your organization.
[0:00] Introduction
[1:02] A strong quote about “no men” from Dick Brogden—“Strong leaders respect and need ‘no’ men. It is weak leaders who surround themselves with the ever agreeable. Unity requires honorable disagreement. Otherwise, you don’t have unity; you just have uniformity.”
[2:06] Disagreeing people are not necessarily troublemakers.
[2:59] What bothers me about disagreeable people?
[3:49] Opinions vs facts have to be considered to determine if someone is disagreeable vs disagreeing.
[4:36] Leaders are required to listen more to people who disagree with them.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
If you go to the doctor because you sense that something is wrong, you want your doctor to tell you the truth. A doctor who avoids telling you the truth because it might hurt your feelings doesn’t put you on the road to recovery.
If this is true for medical doctors, isn’t it more important for soul doctors? After all, even the best doctors cannot keep your physical body alive forever, but your soul will live eternally.
If God has given you His Word to share, He says, “I will make My words fire in your mouth” (Jeremiah 5:14). Deliver that painful—but absolutely vital—diagnosis to help people recover from the ravages of their sin.
To soften the words, to water-down the medicine for the sake of people’s feeling or for the desire to be liked by people, is to become a quack, a false prophet. God says of these charlatans, “They dress the wound of My people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14, 8:11).
Then God says,
The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests exercise rule at their own hands and by means of the prophets. And My people love to have it so! But what will you do when the end comes? (Jeremiah 5:31)
The healing word is often a hard word. It might even be considered by those plagued by the ravages of sin to be a harsh and painful word. But the only path to healing is the medicine found in God’s Word—the healing balm that comes from exposing my sin, repenting of my sin, and finally enjoying the healing of God’s forgiveness.
We must always speak the truthful healing word in love because eternity is at stake!
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the Word. (Ephesians 5:25-26)
Dr. Henry Halley points to seven images the Bible portrays of how Jesus interacts with His saints.
“1. The Shepherd and the sheep emphasizes both the warm leadership and protection of Christ and the helplessness and dependency of believers (John 10:1-18).
2. The vine and the branches points out the necessity for Christians to depend on Christ’s sustaining strength for growth (John 15:1-8).
4. The cornerstone and building stones (Matthew 21:42) accents the foundational value of Christ to everything the church is and does, as well as Christ’s value to the unity of believers. Love is to be the mortar which solidly holds the living stones together (1 Corinthians 3:9; 13:1-13; Ephesians 2:19-22; 1 Peter 2:5).
5. The head and many-membered body, the church, is a vibrant organism, not merely an organization; it draws its vitality and direction from Christ, the Head, and each believer has a unique and necessary place in its growth (1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 27; Ephesians 4:4).
6. The last Adam and new creation presents Christ as the initiator of a new creation of believers as Adam was of the old creation (1 Corinthians 15:22, 45; 2 Corinthians 5:17).
7. The bridegroom and bride beautifully emphasizes the intimate fellowship and co-ownership existing between Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:25-33; Revelation 19:7-8; 21:9).”
You can read all of the Bible verses listed in this post by clicking here.
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Jude calls Christians to contend for the faith without contention and without compromising the truth. Last week we learned that one of the first disciplines to help us do this is: Study God’s Word and then study it some more.
What do we mean by using the word “study”?
Paul counsels his friend and protege to study God’s Word (see 2 Timothy 2:15 in the KJV). But the word study (Greek: spoude) simply means diligence aimed at a goal. So what’s the goal? To contending for the truth (2 Timothy 2:14-18, 22-26). Jude is addressing a similar issue ( see Jude 4).
Just as Paul told Timothy to stick with “the Word of truth,” Jude says we need to be reminded of God’s Word (Jude 5).
Jude is writing to people who probably have first hand—maybe even eyewitness experience—knowledge. They have either heard it from someone who was right there, or perhaps from a friend who heard it from someone who was there. And yet, certain godless men have already slipped in among you and are teaching lies.
Jude goes back to Scripture (vv. 5-7):
Israelites delivered from Egypt rebelled against God and died in the wilderness
angels who were in God’s presence were expelled from heaven and await an eternity in hell
the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah experienced deliverance from Abraham but chose to debase themselves
Jude says, “In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies” (v. 8) by changing “the grace of our God into a license for immorality” (v. 4).
So we study the Scripture to apply it first to our own lives (James 1:22-25).
Jude uses four examples of people who knew the Word of God intimately, but in their pride wouldn’t apply it to themselves: Lucifer, Cain, Balaam, and Korah (vv. 9-11).
The devil—pride is what turned Lucifer into satan.
The way of Cain—God warned him about sin crouching at his door, but he ignored it.
Balaam’s error—he tried to calculate how close to disobeying he could get without actually disobeying because he wanted earthly rewards.
Korah’s rebellion—the Greek word for “rebellion” is antilogia: literally anti + Logos, or contradicting the Word of God.
Jesus warned the most learned men of His day against this (John 5:39-40) and we need to humbly receive God’s Word in order apply to our lives.
If I don’t diligently study the Scripture, I cannot apply it to my life and I am doomed to repeat the same fatal errors. I must study God’s Word diligently so that it can change me. Only then may I teach others (1 Timothy 1:3-7).
If you’ve missed any of the other messages in this series from the Book of Jude, you can find them all here.
When you are waiting for God to fulfill His promise, keep watching with a smile. Let your childlike trust become your testimony as you entrust yourself to your heavenly Father.
Craig T. Owens 