My courage and my success are directly tied to my obedience of God’s Word. The life of Joshua is just one example. Check out this full message here. I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.
“Christ is more of an Artist than the artists. He works in the living spirit and the living flesh; He makes men instead of statues.” —Vincent van Gogh
Bryan Windel echoes something I’ve frequently said on this blog, “The Bible is rooted in real history. This is why archaeology is such a valuable tool; it helps us uncover the biblical world and provides us with important background knowledge about the people, places, and events described in the text.” Bryan was a part of a dig at Shiloh (where Joshua and Samuel play key roles) and he shares some of his observations and discoveries.
“I trained four years to run nine seconds, and people give up when they don’t see results in two months.” —Usain Bolt
“Those who have turned the tide of history have turned it by means of prayer. This should be the motto of every follower of Jesus Christ. Never stop praying, no matter how dark and hopeless it may seem.” —Billy Graham
I love these stories of hope from To Write Love On Her Arms. They have lots of great words of encouragement for you to share with others.
God’s grace is so amazing. It keeps coming in like waves on a shore. God’s grace is unearned by our efforts, undeserved despite our sins, and unending for all of eternity! Check out this full message here. I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.
“The humble servant of God is grateful for God’s past blessings, unashamed of his daily dependence on God, and confidant of God’s loving reply to every new request.” —Craig T. Owens
“There’s no shame in failing. The only shame is not giving things your best shot.” —Robin Williams
I’ve often said that praying, “God, here are my plans; please bless them” is an arrogant prayer. Instead, humility prays, “God, what would You have me do.” Proverbs 19:21 makes this point clearly. In his commentary on The Book of Proverbs, Dick Brogden noted on this verse, “God always gets His way over man’s ideas. In our hubris we think we know better than God, so we either make plans and then ask for His endorsement or we stand in judgment of what He is doing as if He should have asked us to endorse His plans. Folly judges only by results in Machiavellian crudity, but things going right doesn’t necessarily mean they were right, and things going wrong doesn’t necessarily mean we were wrong. Let us remember we are prophets, priests, and proclaimers, not pragmatists.”
“You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things—to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals.” —Sir Edmund Hillary
Speaking of an exemplary work ethic, David Mathis writes, “However firsthand your experience as a soldier, athlete, or farmer, Scripture stands ready to fill in, supplement, recast, or override our personal experiences (or lack thereof) and teach us a Christian work ethic—for our own joy, the good of others, and the glory of Christ.” The biblical text Mathis uses to help us learn this Christian work ethic is 2 Timothy 2:1-7.
Marvin Olasky has a sobering and insightful post entitled “United States of Abortion.” He wrote, “For nearly four centuries, the frequency of abortion in America has depended on how citizens and residents answered five questions.” The five questions—and his five answers—are a mini history lesson on which all Christians should reflect.
“If you are ever inclined to pray for a missionary, do it at once, wherever you are. Perhaps he may be in great peril at that moment.” —Amy Carmichael
From the vastly large solar system to the microscopic level, the beauty and genius of our Creator is seen. A new report published in the journal Nature delves into the complexity of our tiny cilia. Only an all-wise Creator could fashion something so precise!
If you are looking for an easily accessible online library (especially for researching older books), check out the Internet Archive.
Though a professing atheist, Richard Feynman poetically mused that “you might say the ‘hand of God’ wrote that number, and ‘we don’t know how He pushed His pencil.’” What number is that? Physicists call it alpha (α): “That number is 0.00729735256—approximately 1/137. This is the fine-structure constant. It appears everywhere in the equations of quantum physics.” Another remarkable signpost to a magnificent Creator!
Some of our best lessons are learned in difficult places, so let’s not be too quick to rush in and soften the blow for someone who has taken a tumble.Check out the full conversation I had with my podcast partner Greg. And be sure to check out all of my videos on my YouTube channel.
“A champion is one who gets up when he can’t.” —Jack Dempsey
Once again, archeological finds in Israel confirm the historicity of the biblical accounts of the kings of Judah and Israel. John Stonestreet shares some of the most recent finds. Jewish archeologist Nelson Gluek states, “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference.”
“The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.” —Jonas Salk
Scott Hubbard writes, “Stepping into leadership means stepping into mistakes, regrets, and many small but stinging failures. And surviving in leadership, I am learning, means stepping upward on those mistakes—owning them, learning from them, and having the stability in Christ to keep leading after them.” Read more about how leaders can fail well.
J. Warner Wallace addresses the claim that all religions are true or are essentially the same.
“The Scriptures represent the Holy Spirit, not only as moving, and occasionally influencing, the saints, but as dwelling in them as His temple, His proper abode, and everlasting dwelling-place. And He is represented as being there so united to the faculties of the soul, that He becomes there a principle or spring of a new nature and life.” —Jonathan Edwards
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We are more likely to act ourselves into feeling good than we are to wait until we feel good about something before we act on it. That self-initiative is a true leadership separator.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
One of the things I remember the most about my Mom is her fierce belief that God had a plan for my life. There were times I struggled in my belief, but she was tenacious in her faith on my behalf. I’m here today doing what I do—which I love doing!—because of my Mom’s faith-filled, persistent prayers. So if I could give two words of encouragement to godly mothers who are praying for their kids it would be this: Don’t quit!
In 2 Kings we meet a godly woman who very much wanted to be a mother. While she waited and prayed for an answer to this prayer, she kept ministering to others. One of the men who benefitted from her gracious hospitality was the prophet Elisha. Whenever the prophet would pass through Shunem, he would stay that this woman’s house, where she and her husband had prepared a room especially for him.
It appears this Shunammite woman is married to a man much older than her. They are without a male heir, so if her husband dies she will lose everything—no property, no voice, no source of income. Clearly this has to be a concern for her, but she doesn’t mention this to Elisha when he asks how he can bless her for their care for him. Perhaps she had resigned herself to the thought that her barrenness was a hopeless situation, but Elisha told her that in a year’s time she would become pregnant with a son. She must have been disappointed before because she says, “Don’t mislead your servant,” as if saying, “Don’t get my hopes up again!”
However, God does give this couple a son, and that little boy is dearly loved! At a very young age, this boy dies suddenly. This could have been a time that anger or depression could have been expected. But not with this woman!
Remember when we looked at Psalm 42 last week? The psalmist was grateful for the experience he had in God’s presence, but now that there is a setback of some kind he is struggling with the “Where is your God?” taunt from his enemies.
When God answers our prayer, the devil loves to whisper, “Lucky break. You didn’t really deserve this.” So if anything goes wrong he can lie again, “See, I told you so!”
This is where we must not merely listen to those thoughts but talk back to them. Perhaps the Shunammite said something like, “You’re right, I didn’t deserve this or earn this gift of my son. This is a gift from God’s grace. God promised this son to me and I believe God will preserve what He gives.”
Moms, you must cling to God tenaciously in faith-filled prayer!
This godly mother shows us what tenacious faith looks like. She took her son into Elisha’s room, placing him on the prophet’s bed, and she quickly sends word to her husband that she is going to find Elisha. When her husband asks what is wrong, her faith-filled answer is, “It’s all right.”
As she gets close to Elisha’s home, he sees her in the distance and sends his servant Gehazi to ask, “Is everything okay?” To which she gives the same faith-filled reply, “Everything is all right.”
When she finally gets to Elisha, she grabs onto him and says words that must have gotten Elisha’s attention immediately: “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” These are the exact same words Elisha said to Elijah three times on the day Elijah was taken to heaven. Just as Elisha clung to the promise of God’s blessing, so did this mother (see 2 Kings 2:2, 4, 6).
God did answer her prayer and raised her son back to life. But this wasn’t the end of the blessing.
Remember that a widow without a son has no standing in the community. To be saved from a famine in Israel, this woman and her family lived for seven years in Philistia. While they were there, her husband died and squatters took over her property.
But in God’s perfect foresight and timing, this woman and her miracle son walked into the king’s throne room just as Gehazi was telling the king about the miraculous resurrection Elisha prayed for. The king is so moved by this story that he doesn’t just restore her land, but he orders the squatters to pay back to her all of the income they earned from her land during the time she was away!
Not just restoration, but blessings beyond imagining (see 2 Kings 8:1-6).
We don’t know who wrote Psalm 116, but it very well could have been this boy who was raised to life. The opening verses talk about God’s deliverance from death, but then the psalm says, “I serve you just as my mother did” (v. 16).
This woman’s tenacious faith resulted in immediate provision for her, a legacy of faith in her son, and a testimony that is still encouraging us 3000 years later!
So let me repeat this to godly mothers who are praying for their families: Don’t quit! There are eternal testimonies and rewards coming that you cannot even perceive!
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Recently Greg got a call from an educational institute asking him for advice on how to help their athletes “toughen up.” Unfortunately, they’re not alone, it seems like resilience is in increasingly shorter supply across the board these days. As a leader, it is your job to help instill grit into your team. Not tearing them down, but showing them that you view them with more potential.
[17:54] Data from the Mayo Clinic that encourages us to develop grit.
[19:34] What happens to reach that have teammates who don’t show stick-to-it-iveness?
[21:04] A leadership separator is action over feelings.
[24:00] The wrong and right ways to handle disappointments.
[25:53] We can help coach you to bring out the resilience in yourself and your team.
Check out this episode and subscribe on YouTube so you can watch all of the upcoming episodes. You can also listen to our podcast on Spotify and Apple.
The Holy Spirit can speak to us through other people. Be sure to check out all of my videos on my YouTube channel.
“A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats.” —Charles Spurgeon
“It is possible to adopt an outward demeanor of great meekness, while inside our appetite for applause is insatiable. . . . Oh, what a constant companion, what a tyrannical commander, what a sly, subtle and insinuating enemy is this sin of pride!” —John Stott
“Every word from God comes with the power to make that word happen.” —Kevin Berry
“The question is not, ‘Should we pray for the lost people of our community?’ The question is, ‘Will we?’ Will we pray for our neighbors, our community, our nation, and our world? Will we seek the peace of the world and the wellbeing of all our fellow humans before the Lord in prayer? [Jeremiah 29:7]
“If we will not, then we must face up to the fact that we are disobeying a divine mandate, abandoning our neighbors to their folly, and stoking the fires of indifference—if not outright scorn—for the unbelieving world around. But if we will pray, who knows what God might be willing to do?
“Those prayers may be prayers of anguish and anger at times; but they must also be prayers for God to work in the hard hearts of our unsaved neighbors, just as He has worked in ours, to bring new life, forgiveness, and hope to those who now live apart from God in a world full of rebellion and sin.” —T.M. Moore
Axis is a great resource to help parents communicate effectively with their pre-teen and teenage children. In the wake of the school shooting in Nashville, Axis posted this: “We have created resources to help parents and caring adults have conversations about violence and school shootings. Consider our Conversation Kit on Violence, our Parent’s Guide to School Shootings, our Parent’s Guide to Talking About Violence, and our Parent’s Guide to Anxiety, for starters.”
“Failure is a part of success. There is no such thing as a bed of roses all your life. But failure will never stand in the way of success if you learn from it.” —Hank Aaron
Writing Shepherd Leadership opened the door for me to have a lot of conversations with pastors, and I discovered just how beat up so many of them feel. As a result, I am working on a new book called When Sheep Bite as a way to help these pastors not just survive, but thrive in their ministry. I am self-publishing this book, and I could really use your financial investment in this project. I’ve got some special offers for you. Please check out this link and prayerfully consider helping me help these hurting pastors.
I love learning more about the historicity of the Bible! If you do too, check out this archeological biography of King Jehoram. And if you would like to keep the history of the kings and prophets straight, this side-by-side chart is one of the most downloaded resources I have ever produced.
“I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” —Michael Jordan
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I love reading, and I love sharing my love of good books with others! Here is a list of the books I read and reviewed in 2022. Click on a title to be taken to that review.
I thought this was brilliant insight from the weekly Cultural Translator newsletter from Axis—
In the Q&A portion of one of his lectures, Jordan Peterson was asked about his thoughts on abortion. At one point he said, “The discussion regarding the legality of abortion is nested inside a larger discussion about the morality of abortion, and that’s nested inside a larger discussion about the proper place of sexuality in human behavior. And to me, that’s the level at which the problem needs to be addressed.” Although he doesn’t offer specific prescriptions about how to do that, it’s a helpful way to position the conversation.
In many people’s minds, sex is appropriate whenever the parties involved consent to it. In this view, sexual activity outside of marriage becomes a foregone conclusion. Abortion is then regarded as a necessary adaptation for this new undeniable sexual ethic. In that same Q&A, Peterson says, “Let’s say you are in a position where you are inclined to seek an abortion. The question is: how did you get there?” The literal answer for 99% of pregnant women is via voluntary sexual intercourse—but when our culture frames “sexual expression” as an inevitability, it can seem hard to envision other safe paths forward apart from abortion.
For some, it’s too late to think proactively. Along those lines, one of the primary pro-choice arguments has been that having children too soon will plunge parents into permanent poverty. But when the church is at its best, it has rallied together to provide for those who could not provide for themselves. Acts 2:44-45 says about the early church, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.” Other ancient sources record that the early church was known for saving and protecting unwanted children, who were sometimes left outside to die.
Although some may frame “celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision” and “thinking about how to be more holistically pro-life” as somehow in tension, the early church models both a care for babies and for their mothers. May God give us grace to do the same.
The 1440 Daily Digest had an interesting article for the July 4th weekend entitled “Happy Birthday, America.”
Congratulations, America—Monday marks the 246th commemoration of the day the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress. The Congress actually voted to separate from Great Britain two days earlier, and possibly didn’t sign the document until August. Some argue the US didn’t really become a country until we began operating under the Constitution in 1789.
Still, since then, the country has grown from 13 colonies with about 2.5 million people to 50 states and 14 territories with a population of more than 330 million. The economy has swelled to roughly $24T. Advances in public health—public sanitation, the germ theory of disease, and more—have cut the child mortality rate from more than 45% to under 1%, and our citizens live 35 years longer on average.
We’ve built almost 4 million miles of paved roads and more than 5,000 public airports. More than 2.7 million miles of power lines electrify the country, with about 85% of households having access to broadband internet and 92% having at least one computer. In 1800, 95% of the population lived in rural areas, and now about 83% live in urban areas. The US has also been responsible for more than 800 human visits to space—the most of any other country with a space agency.
While there will always be challenges to face and improvements to make, we’ve come a long way since the beginning. So grab a hot dog and your drink of choice—here’s to the next 246 years.
“The measure of a country’s greatness is its ability to retain compassion in times of crisis.” —Thurgood Marshall
“I trained four years to run nine seconds, and people give up when they don’t see results in two months.” —Usain Bolt
Craig T. Owens 