“Like” A Lion

March 20, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

“The Bible says the devil prowls around like a roaring lion. The keyword is like. He is a poser, and his bark is worse than his bite. Refuse to believe his lies or to cower to his intimidation. When he reminds you of your past, remind him of his future! Fight back with the words of faith. Fight back with songs of praise. …

“A lion’s roar is meant to communicate dominance—to assert its authority in a territory. And the only thing that will silence a lion’s roar is the roar of a more powerful lion. … satan may roar at you, but he cannot touch you. He is the one in a cage. You are the one that’s free.” —Mark Batterson, in Chase The Lion

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Are You Healthy Enough To Love Serving Others?

March 20, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

Jesus was wholly healthy. That is to say, He was healthy in every aspect of His life—mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally (see Luke 2:52). This is important to note because Christians are called to be healthy in all of these same areas.

The phrase Dr. Luke uses about Christ’s growth is a telling one: Jesus grew in favor with men. People liked having Jesus around. The word for favor is from the same root word where we also get grace. So Jesus was a graceful man.

What does it mean when someone is graceful? It means they are pleasant to be around … you feel safe around them, knowing they will never belittle you or put you down … their focus is on your agenda, not their own … they are a “there you are!” person, not a “here I am!” person.

Bottom line: they are filled with love for others.

Jesus was healthy in His mind, His body, His spirit and His emotions, which allowed Him to be in a unique place where He fully knew how powerful He was, yet He chose to use His power not for His own benefit, but to serve others (see John 13:1-4).

Healthy love loves God and then serves God by loving and serving others. Only a wholly healthy person can truly serve with a right attitude…

  • People with unhealthy thoughts won’t serve because they don’t know they’re supposed to serve.
  • People with unhealthy bodies can’t serve because their disease won’t let them.
  • People with unhealthy spirits shouldn’t serve because they are promoting hypocrisy.
  • People with unhealthy emotions don’t serve because their attitude gets in the way.

Jesus not only told us His loving service was an example for us (John 13:15-17), but He went on to say that our loving service would be an example for others (vv. 34-35).

Healthy love loves God and then serves God by loving and serving others.

Do you have that kind of healthy love? Are you becoming wholly healthy enough to serve?

Ask yourself these questions:

  1. What do I know that I’m not yet doing?
  2. What will it take for me to turn knowing into doing?
  3. Can people tell I am growing wholly healthier year by year?

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Poetry Saturday—If All My Days Were Sunny

March 18, 2017 — Craig T. Owens
If all my days were sunny, could I say,
“In His fair land He wipes all tears away”?


If I were never weary, could I keep


This blessed truth, “He gives His loved ones sleep”?




If no grave were mine, I might come to deem


The Life Eternal but a baseless dream.




My winter, and my tears, and weariness,


Even my grave, may be His way to bless.




I called them ills; yet that can surely be


Nothing but love that shows my Lord to me! 




—Anonymous










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How To Get Back Up When You Slip Up

March 16, 2017 — Craig T. Owens 




“Although your foot may slip often, yet your heart cleaves to God’s commands and will not let you lie where you fell, but you get up again, resolved to watch your step better. Know this, then, that your sincere respect for the commandment is ample evidence of your title to the promise.


“When David confessed to his love for God’s law he did not question his title to the promise: ‘I hate vain thoughts; but Thy law do I love’ (Psalm 119:113). He did not say that he was free from vain thought but that he hated them. And he did not say that he fully kept the law but he loved it, even though he sometimes failed in total obedience. Because of the testimony which conscience gave concerning David’s love for the law, his faith settled the question once for all: ‘Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in Thy Word’ (Psalm 119:114).”


—William Gurnall, in The Christian In Complete Armor






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Thursdays With Oswald—Love God First, People Second

March 16, 2017 — Craig T. Owens 




Oswald ChambersThis is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.


Love God First, People Second


     We erect terrific standards, and then criticize men for not reaching them. The standard of Christianity is not that of a man, but of God; and unless God can put His Spirit into a man, that standard can never be reached. … 


     If I am not related to God first my love becomes cruel, because I demand infinite satisfaction from the one I love; I demand from a human being what he or she can never give. There is only one Being Who can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. … 


     There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill behooves any of us to talk about the rest of us. … Remember that “there is none good but One, that is, God.”


From Shade Of His Hand


When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandments were, the first one He listed was love God with all you’ve got. Then, said Jesus, the second commandment is love others.


The order is crucial! If I try to love others first, my finite love will dry up. But if I make loving God the priority, then I become a channel of Infinite Love.


Only God’s love can satisfy my heart. Only God’s love can equip me to truly love others.






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7 Passages From “The Christian Book Of Mystical Verse”

March 15, 2017 — Craig T. Owens 




A.W. Tozer had a great ear for poetry that would help Christians better glimpse the heart of God. In his collection called The Christian Book Of Mystical Verse he shares dozens of these poems. Check out my review of this collection by clicking here, and then enjoy these short passages I have highlighted.


If you enjoy poetry, I post a new poem every Saturday. Enter your email address in the box to the right, and click “Sign me up!” to be notified whenever a new poem is posted.


We from Thy oneness come,


Beyond it cannot roam,


And in Thy oneness find our one eternal home. —Frederick William Faber






Break off your tears, ye saints, and tell


How high your great Deliverer reigns;


Sing how He spoiled the hosts of hell,


And led the monster death in chains:


Say, Live forever, wondrous King!


Born to redeem, and strong to save;


Then ask the monster, Where’s thy sting?


And, Where’s thy victory, boasting grave? —Isaac Watts








Thus doth Thy grandeur make us grand ourselves;


’Tis goodness bids us fear;


Thy greatness makes as brave as children are,


When those they love are near. —Frederick William Faber








My sins, my sins, my Savior!


They take such hold on me,


I am not able to look up,


Save only Christ to Thee;


In Thee is all forgiveness,


In Thee is abundant grace,


My shadow and my sunshine


The brightness of Thy face. —John S.B. Monsell








Then, my soul, in every strait,


To thy Father come, and wait;


He will answer every prayer:


God is present everywhere. —Oliver Holden








O Love Divine! that stoop’st to share


Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear,


On Thee we cast each earth-born care,


We smile at pain while Thou art near. —Oliver Wendell Holmes








My heart is at the secret source


Of every precious thing.


Now the frail vessel Thou hast made


No hand but Thine shall fill;


For the waters of the earth have failed,


And I am thirsty still. —Anna Laetitia Waring








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False Peace

March 14, 2017 — Craig T. Owens 




“A false peace is sweeping through many churches today, a peace that will fail in the troubled days ahead. Moses called stubborn Israel ‘self-blessed,’ meaning self-deceived. He warned Israel that a curse would come upon all wicked, disobedient children of God who walked in idolatry. They would plaster over their sinful ways with a false sense of peace: ‘When he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart’ (Deuteronomy 29:19).


“Moses is describing the child of God who decides to satisfy his lust for evil by finding a cozy doctrine that tells him he’s still saved, heaven bound—while still sinning. He says to himself, ‘I will do as I please and still not lose the peace in my heart.’ False peace!” —David Wilkerson (emphasis added)






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The Christian Book Of Mystical Verse (book review)

March 14, 2017 — Craig T. Owens 




Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. In this case, the writings A.W. Tozer collected between the covers of this book is exactly what the title says—The Christian Book Of Mystical Verse: A collection of poems, hymns, and prayers.


A.W. Tozer was a first-class scholar, but he didn’t stop with mere head knowledge. He loved plunging deep into the spiritual realms to let God touch his heart, mind and emotions. So we find among his extensive library, collections of poems and mystical writings to enliven the heart and mind.


Don’t get thrown by that word “mystical.” Tozer himself describes it this way—


The word ‘mystic’ as it occurs in the title of this book refers to that personal spiritual experience common to the saints of Bible times and well known to multitudes of persons in the post-biblical era. I refer to the evangelical mystic who has been brought by the gospel into intimate fellowship with the Godhead. His theology is no less and no more than is taught in the Christian Scriptures. … He differs from the ordinary orthodox Christian only because he experiences his faith down in the depths of his sentient being while the other does not. He exists in a world of spiritual reality. 


I have a natural bent to be more left-brained, logical, and fact-seeking. Years ago I discovered that poetry and other “mystical” writings unlocked my right-brain hemisphere with all its emotion and passion, and made the left-brained stuff so much more real. The collection of writings in this book “scratches an itch” unlike any academic book ever can.


Should you read The Christian Book Of Mystical Verse? I think so. Tozer said, “This is a book for the worshiper rather than for the student.” So if you are longing to worship God more deeply, this is a great book to dive into deeply.


I am a Moody Publisher book reviewer.






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God Prepares Us For Battle

March 13, 2017 — Craig T. Owens 




“See you not, then, that God may take away your comforts and your privileges, to make you the better Christians? Why, the Lord always trains His soldiers, not by letting them lie on feather-beds, but by turning them out, and using them to forced marches and hard service. He makes them ford through streams, and swim through rivers, and climb mountains, and walk many a long march with heavy knapsacks of sorrow on their backs. This is the way in which He makes them soldiers—not by dressing them up in fine uniforms, to swagger at the barrack gates, and to be fine gentlemen in the eyes of the loungers in the park. God knows that soldiers are only to be made in battle; they are not to be grown in peaceful times. We may grow the stuff of which soldiers are made; but warriors are really educated by the smell of powder, in the midst of whizzing bullets and roaring cannonades, not in soft and peaceful times.


“Well, Christian, may not this account for it all? Is not thy Lord bringing out thy graces and making them grow? Is He not developing in you the qualities of the soldier by throwing you into the heat of battle, and should you not use every appliance to come off conqueror?” —Charles Spurgeon (emphasis added)






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Becoming Spiritually Fit

March 13, 2017 — Craig T. Owens 




To me this sounds weird: Jesus grew spiritually strong. Think about that: Isn’t He already God?!


When Jesus came to Earth as a man, the writer of Hebrews says He was made like us humans in every way. So just as you and I have a spiritual health to maintain, so did Jesus while He was on earth.


Dr. Luke noticed this as well when he noted that Jesus grew mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally. Luke notes His spiritual growth by saying Jesus “grew…in favor with God.” In other words, God was more and more pleased by what He saw developing in His Son.


Yesterday I listened to Pastor Josh Schram explain the parallels between our physical health and our spiritual health. He said that we all know what we need to do to grow physically strong—eat the right food, exercise, get proper rest, and have some way of monitoring our health.


It’s exactly the same way spiritually! We need…


…a good diet—Man does not live on bread alone but on every Word that comes from the mouth of the Lord (Deuteronomy 8:3). Jesus repeated this truth when He was confronted by the devil, and lived it out every day.







…proper exercise—All the health food in the world won’t do us a bit of good if we just sit around. It’s the same with the Bible: we can read it, memorize it, and talk about it, but if we don’t exercise it we won’t get spiritually fit. Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only (James 1:22).


…the right amount of rest—We can’t be in perpetual “go” mode if we want to be healthy physically or spiritually. Jesus knew the value of rest, and frequently He would “withdraw to deserted places and pray” (Luke 5:16).


…to monitor our progress—James talks about the Word of God being a mirror for us, and Paul advises us to “examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5).


But here was the most important takeaway for me in Josh’s message…


Health is not just one big one-time choice. Health is small daily choices.







A good question for all of us to ask ourselves: Am I making good daily choices which will help me grow spiritually fit like Jesus.


I so enjoy sharing the teaching duties with a couple of really solid pastors-in-training in our church. They have helped me develop this series called Wholly Healthy, and have taken part in sharing messages in various aspects of this series. Please watch how Josh lays out the plan for our spiritual fitness.








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