Jesus asks us to proclaim the message about Him, not argue about Him. The best witness is one who truthfully shares his or her personal life-changing experience with Jesus. There is never a reason to quarrel about this! Check out this whole message here. I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.
“In 1977, 40 years after arriving in Guatemala, the Franklins retired from full-time ministry, returning to the United States. They made numerous short-term trips back to Guatemala to rejoice with the people who had become their family. From the five small groups of believers they found in 1937, God had blessed them with 600 established churches, 700 licensed ministers, and 55,000 Assemblies of God believers.” What an amazing testimony of faithful, Christ-honoring ministry!
“Enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people’s freedom.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt
“When we are out of the way of duty, we are in the way of temptation.” —Matthew Henry
“Work of the enemy! Such deeds he loves: friend at war with friend, loyalty divided, and confusion of hearts.” —Gandalf, in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Return of the King
I absolutely love the leadership insights I discover during my daily Bible reading. I have turned many of these insights into an ongoing series called Godly Leadership.
“Before one can correctly understand the work of the Holy Spirit, he must first of all know the Spirit Himself. A frequent source of error and fanaticism about the work of the Holy Spirit is the attempt to study and understand His work without first of all coming to know Him as a Person. … If we think of the Holy Spirit as so many do as merely a power or influence, our constant thought will be, ‘How can I get more of the Holy Spirit,’ but if we think of Him in the Biblical way as a Divine Person, our thought will rather be, ‘How can the Holy Spirit have more of me?’” —R.A. Torrey, The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit
Romans 8:28 tells us that God uses ALL things to accomplish His purpose for our lives. Too many times I tried to rush through things without getting anything out of it. I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.
He is 98 years old and he’s still busy serving other people! I pray we can all be as selfless and vibrant in ministering to others until the day God calls us home.
“When with an eye of faith we behold Christ crucified we ought to weep, not for Him, but for ourselves. We must not be affected with the death of Christ as with the death of a common person whose calamity we pity, or of a common friend whom we are likely to part with. The death of Christ was a thing peculiar; it was His victory and triumph over His enemies; it was our deliverance, and the purchase of eternal life for us. And therefore let us weep, not for Him, but for our own sins, and the sins of our children, that were the cause of His death; and weep for fear (such were the tears here prescribed) of the miseries we shall bring upon ourselves, if we slight His love, and reject His grace, as the Jewish nation did, which brought upon them the ruin here foretold.” —Matthew Henry, on Jesus’ word, “Do not weep for Me” in Luke 23:28
J. Warner Wallace shares three responses Christians can give to those who make the claim that Jesus didn’t think He was God. In this video, Detective Wallace talks about a section of his website that gives further evidence. You can find that section here.
The Institute for Creation Research is a group of scientists explaining how science points to a Creator. What does Creation have to do with Easter? “Any view of Christianity that incorporates long ages of death and suffering before Adam makes a sham of the Cross. This Easter season, as we remember our salvation made possible by the death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross and His triumphant resurrection from the grave, let us understand it within the ‘big picture’ of a ‘very good’ creation that was ruined by our rebellion but restored by the willing sacrifice of our great Creator-Savior.”
“One measure of the greatness of a man is not only that he practices what he preaches, but also that he doesn’t consider himself above the ordinary means of grace that all Christians need.” —John Piper
“Beware of idleness—satan sows most of his seed in fallow ground.” —Thomas Watson
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
The prayer that Jesus taught His follower is a prayer for citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. These are not just some magical words to pray whenever we don’t know what to pray.
We come to a part of the prayer that has confused some people. Jesus instructed us to pray, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13).
So some people have asked, “Does God tempt us?”
No, He doesn’t! The temptations flare up when the ungodly desires within us are given an opportunity to seize what we think will make us happy (see James 1:13-15).
All three of the synoptic Gospels tell us that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit to the place where the devil would tempt Him (Matthew 4:1; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-2).
Jesus went through all of this so that He would be assured that He was fully equipped for the intense scrutiny He was going to undergo for the next 3+ years. At the end of that time neither the Sanhedrin, Pontius Pilate, nor Herod Antipas could find any semblance of sin in His life.
The word Jesus uses for temptation in Matthew 6:13 comes from the root word peirazo, which means to assay. We don’t use that word too often today, but it means a testing, an experiment, or a trial, to prove something’s fidelity, integrity, or virtue.
Just like an assayer would test a rock for the quality and quantity of a precious metal found in it, so we are tested to determine our fitness for what God has in store for us. Remember that the beginning of this prayer is a desire for God’s name to be hallowed and His Kingdom to be made visible through our lives.
Hebrews 5:9 says that Jesus was perfected (the Greek word is telios), which is exactly what Jesus wants for us—Be prefect [telios] even as your Heavenly Father is perfect [telios] (Matthew 5:48).
In order to know this perfecting process, we have to be tested and assayed (James 1:12, 2-4).
Like all of the other phrases in this prayer, this one is both an acknowledgment (I will face temptations) and a petition (I need Your help to overcome the temptation). This is not necessarily a prayer to keep us from temptation, but to keep us through the temptation. We want to be empowered to pass the test.
A loving teacher prepares us for the test, gives us the test, and then gives us the results so that we know we are prepared for the next level. So remember that this prayer is addressed to our loving Heavenly Father. He prepares us for the test so that we can pass the test. We never walk an unknown path—we never are given a test unless He has fully prepared us for it.
So let me give you four thoughts to consider:
Don’t rush ahead because that’s pride. Jesus went when the Holy Spirit led Him.
Don’t lag behind because that’s fear. Think of the Israelites who fearful of the “giants” in the land and wouldn’t move forward.
Don’t be discouraged by a temporary failure. The phrase immediately before this says, “Forgive us our debts.” If you fall short, ask for forgiveness and move forward again.
Do give in to the righteousness Jesus has made available for you. This is what will help you stand firm in your time of testing (1 Peter 1:6-7).
Just like Jesus, our Father wants to perfect you and lead you up to higher levels.
If you’ve missed any of the previous messages in this series looking at the model prayer Jesus taught us, you can find them all here.
If Jesus hadn’t come to earth in the flesh and lived here victoriously over sin, we would have a loophole to keep on sinning. But He did indeed live a sinless life, die to pay our penalty, and was resurrected to indwell and empower us to overcome sinful lusts.
So, since Christ suffered in the flesh for us, for you, arm yourselves with the same thought and purpose—patiently to suffer rather than fail to please God. For whoever has suffered in the flesh—having the mind of Christ—is done with intentional sin—has stopped pleasing himself and the world, and pleases God—so that he can no longer spend the rest of his natural life living by his human appetites and desires, but he lives for what God wills. (1 Peter 4:1-2 AMPC)
What a gift Jesus has purchased for us: Freedom from the ensnaring power of sin!
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Our sixth spiritual discipline—confession—is at the pinnacle of our growth as maturing saints. That’s because many of the other disciplines will culminate in one saint confessing to another saint. Confession not only keeps us strong as individuals, but it keeps the whole Christian community in a strong, healthy place.
The story has been told about two monks who had woven plenty of baskets to sell in town on market day. On the way to town they devised a strategy where one monk would sell at one end of the market and the other at the opposite end. At the end of the day they would meet at a designated place to go back to the monastery. One monk sold all of his baskets and returned to the meeting place. He waited, and waited, and waited. It wasn’t until the next morning that the second monk appeared.
“I cannot return to the monastery with you,” he told his waiting friend. “I have committed a terrible sin. I was tempted, and I gave into the temptation and committed fornication last night. I have broken my vows to my brothers and to God, so you will have to go back without me.”
The first monk listened to his friend and then answered, “Come, my friend. We will go back to the monastery and repent together.”
He was really saying to his friend, “I can identify, because under the same circumstances I might have done the same thing. Perhaps if I had stayed at your side I could have held you accountable, so I bear mutual responsibility for your stumble.”
The early church is described in terms of togetherness. James, the early leader of the church in Jerusalem, was a part of this togetherness and used it as an important conclusion to his book of instructions to the saints—
Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.… My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins. (James 5:13-16, 19-20)
James wants the saints to be together in prayer, together in worship, together in confession, and together in rescuing their fellow brothers and sisters. The word he uses for “confession” means an out-loud profession or agreement. When he says, “confess your sins” he uses a word that means a deviation from a standard, or a falling short of God’s word.
James sees this ongoing confession as a preventative to “a multitude of sins.” In this instance, the word he uses is an outright violation of God’s laws. In other words, the small deviations can add up to something deadly.
Paul uses a similar idea when he writes, “Let us purify ourselves” (2 Corinthians 7:1). The implication again is that we are confessing both individually and corporately. I can be a huge blessing to my brothers and sisters by going first in confession (Matthew 7:1-5).
In each of our previous five spiritual disciplines I’ve shared a “so that” statement to help us keep perspective of why we need to employ those disciplines. For confession, here’s our focal point: I confess to other saints so thatwe can be mutually accountable in our growth toward purity and maturity.
Confession is good for us individually and corporately, so let’s continue to use this to strengthen everyone.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
I don’t think there’s any arguing that Jesus must have been the healthiest Person to ever live. Dr. Luke records His growth in just one succinct verse: “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52). Every word of Scripture is inspired, right down to the order the words are penned. So when Luke says first that “Jesus grew in wisdom,” that is our indication that a healthy mind is the foundation for every other aspect of health.
I recently received an email from a Christian brother asking for prayer and counseling in overcoming lust and pornography. I naturally agreed to pray with him, but I also said, “Before I offer you any strategies to try, let me ask you a quick question: What have you already tried to get victory over this?”
He replied, “I’ve tried praying, watching videos on it, and basically saying no to the devil. But the temptation comes when I am weak and I think, ‘I can just try again tomorrow!’ And then I fall into it. I am just tempted at times throughout the day, and sometimes I fight it with prayer, but other times I just fall right into it basically without even trying.”
What my friend is dealing with here is a natural, unconscious response. Our brains like well-worn paths because it’s very easy and comfortable for our minds to automatically respond as they have responded before. As in the case of my friend, it may be heading down a path of lust that leads to pornography. For others, it may be unhealthy choices made in response to certain triggers, or it may be the anger that flares up into biting words when a certain someone pushes your buttons.
We head down that well-worn path unconsciously and automatically. Our immediate response might bring some temporary relief, but usually, we’re not very happy with where we’ve ended up once again.
If we are going to make a new path—or a new, healthier response—we first need to become aware of the well-worn path we automatically go to. So my counsel to my friend who emailed me for help was to start keeping a journal. I wrote back:
Your willpower alone isn’t going to cut it (as you’ve probably realized). Here’s the first step I would suggest: keep a journal of every time you are tempted to lust or porn. Write down what you were feeling, was it day or evening, what was happening just before that, did you have time in prayer and Bible reading that day or not, how did you fight the temptation, were you successful or not? I think as you keep track of these things you will begin to see some triggers and some patterns. Maybe you were physically tired, or lonely, or hungry. Maybe it was a certain person you talked with or a show you watched. Maybe it was after checking your social medias or after a super-hard day at work. When you start to see patterns of what is causing you to go to porn for relief, you can recognize them earlier and head them off before they grip your mind so strongly.
Psychologists call it metacognition when we think about what we’re thinking about—when we think about why we are taking a certain well-worn path again.
We don’t think about our thinking very frequently. We keep thinking along those well-worn paths out of habit, not because we want to go down those paths. This is where the Holy Spirit is invaluable: He helps us see those well-worn paths, identify which paths are unhealthy or unproductive, and then help us begin to carve out a new path.
It’s not just thinking about right things, but thinking rightly about all things—even the painful things or the triggering things.
In Ephesians 4:22-25, Paul counsels us to take off the “old self” and “put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore” (and this is an important conclusion) “each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor.”
Do you remember that Jesus taught us to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:28-31)? Paul says we are to speak truthfully to our neighbor, so doesn’t that mean that we have to first speak truthfully to ourselves? Yes, we do! If we are going to make new paths for our mind, we are going to have to talk to ourselves differently.
My cousin Dick Brogden wrote, “A primary theater of spiritual warfare is in our heads and thoughts. The primary weapon of the enemy is deceit. He starts with attractive little lies and half-truths, and works his way up to blatant, ridiculous, perverted nonsense. Winning the battle for truth in the mind is critical to winning the war. If we lose enough of the little skirmishes, we can believe and do any wicked thing. If we daily combat lies with light and truth, we will stand firm.”
The “little lies and half-truths” will keep us trapped on our old, well-worn paths. But identifying those lies, and speaking the truth to them, will help us travel down new paths that lead to health and freedom.
Let the Holy Spirit be your Counselor. Let the Holy Spirit help you think about what you’re thinking about when you’re triggered to unconsciously head down the unhealthy well-worn path. Let the Holy Spirit help you see a new path. And then let the Holy Spirit empower you to stick with it—to keep doing the hard work of blazing a new path.
I am going to build on this series of messages about a Christian’s mental health, but let’s start with this simple prayer:
Holy Spirit, help me make new paths.
As you pray this, listen to how the Holy Spirit will guide you away from the unhealthy, unconscious, well-worn paths, and will then lead you into the new, healthy path that brings you freedom.
God will give you everything you need to minister to others. But there’s one thing you have to do first…
“He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in God; but he who really thinks has to believe in God.” —Isaac Newton
Back in 1929, Donald Gee shared three temptations that Pentecostals needed to be cautious of avoiding: (1) selfish satisfaction, (2) fanaticism, and (3) the temptation to forsake the pure worship of God in exchange for popularity. Check out the full article here.
I really appreciate the leadership insights from Dan Reiland. That’s why I was so honored to have him write such a nice endorsement of my book Shepherd Leadership! Here is an important post Dan wrote for leaders, warning us of 5 ways we can misuse our spiritual authority.
Don’t wait until you feel like doing the next good thing, just do the next good thing and the good feelings will follow. Not only that, but you will motivate others too!
“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.” —Booker T. Washington
“Forgiveness does not excuse the offending behavior. Forgiveness excuses the offender. The fact that God forgives us of sin, does not make sinning okay. The fact that we forgive someone of their sin towards us, does not make the sin okay.” —Kanayo Situ
“The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.” —Alfred Lord Tennyson
“In life you can take things one of two ways: you can take them for granted or you can take them with gratitude.” —G.K. Chesterton
T.M. Moore has an excellent post on how we can prepare for temptation before it even comes. Please check out this whole post which concludes with this thought, “Make up your mind, each day, that you’re going to resist temptation with prayer, preparation, and resting in the Word of God. Let the Spirit Who brings conviction and repentance be at work within you before you come upon the nets and snares of temptation, and you’ll be in a much better position to overcome the evil that threatens to engulf you, with the good choices and conduct that please the Lord and honor Him.”
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
There is a mistaken belief that urges or yearnings or cravings that humans have are sinful and must be quickly squelched. To that end, many will deny themselves absolutely anything that brings them pleasure.
But what God creates, He calls “good” and even “very good” (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). In one part of the Creation account, we read that God created “trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food” (2:9). Things used in the way God created them are both good and good for us. The Creator knows the best uses, and He shares these with us. He also knows the harmful misuses, and He warns us of these.
He still uses the same tactic today: he attempts to turn a craving for a legitimate good into an irresistible, entitled pursuit for more. This is what he did with Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden, trying to get them to doubt God’s wisdom in forbidding them from eating that one tree (Genesis 2:16-17, 3:1-6).
Adam and Eve needed food, and God gave them a craving for good food. But they didn’t need the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil—they just wanted that forbidden fruit.
When wants become “needs,” “needs” become idols.
Once again, satan tried the same strategy with Jesus. Jesus had a craving for food after 40 days of fasting, but His Father said, “Not yet.” Notice how satan again tried to get Jesus to question God’s wisdom with his “if” questions at each temptation. He even quotes a Scripture out of context to try to legitimize turning a want into a need (Luke 4:3, 7, 9).
When wants become “needs,” “needs” become idols. And when “needs” become idols, our unfulfilled cravings create anxiety. And when anxiety persists, sin is usually not too far behind.
So any anxiety in our hearts should alert us to the idols of wants-turned-to-“needs.” In other words, make sure what you are calling “needs” aren’t just wants in disguise.
How can you do this? By asking yourself these four questions:
Is this an earthly craving or an eternal craving? Cravings for earthly things will ultimately fail because this world is temporary (1 John 2:17).
If I don’t get this thing, will I die? If I answer “no,” it’s probably a want.
Will this craving bring me closer to God? Jesus said, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him” (Matthew 6:8). So let’s ask ourselves, “If this longing is fulfilled, will it make me more dependent on God?” If the answer is “no,” then it’s probably a want.
Will this craving glorify God’s name? Jesus taught us to begin our prayer with an attitude of longing for God’s name to be glorified (Matthew 6:9-10). We can definitely spot wants we’ve turned into “needs” when we are looking for personal gain. Check out this verse from the prophet Isaiah—
And therefore the Lord earnestly waits, expecting, looking, and longing to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed—happy, fortunate, to be envied—are all those who earnestly wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him—for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship! (Isaiah 30:18 AMP)
God longs to be gracious to you, so He puts cravings in your heart that can only be satisfied by His presence. Lucifer and Adam and Eve all lost God’s “matchless, unbroken companionship” when they tried to appease the wants-turned-to-“needs” idol. It doesn’t have to be like that for us! Ask the Holy Spirit to help you spot those wrong cravings and turn them into cravings that only God can satisfy.
“Years ago, I tried to top everybody, but I don’t anymore. I realized it was killing conversation. When you’re always trying for a topper you aren’t really listening.” —Groucho Marx
A reminder from a class I recently taught: you don’t have to go to a church building to be the Church of Jesus Christ—
“When the Holy Spirit is ignored or rejected, religious people are forced either to do their own creating or to fossilize completely. A few churches accept fossilization as the will of God and settle down to the work of preserving their past—as if it needed preserving. Others seek to appear modern and imitate the current activities of the world with the mistaken idea that they are being creative.” —A.W. Tozer
Dr. Kristin Collier is a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan and director of the school’s Program on Health, Spirituality and Religion. In a recent keynote address to medical students, she had some wise words: “The risk of this education and the one that I fell into is that you can come out of medical school with a bio-reductionist, mechanistic view of people and ultimately of yourself. You can easily end up seeing your patients as just a bag of blood and bones or human life as just molecules in motion. You are not technicians taking care of complex machines, but human beings taking care of other human beings. Let’s resist a view, of our patients and ourselves, that strips us of our humanity, and takes away from the very goal of why we went into this profession in the first place: to take care of human beings entrusted to our care in their moments of greatest need.”
This is a short clip from a full-length video I provided exclusively for my Patreon supporters. Would you prayerfully consider supporting this ministry for just $5/month? All new supporters through the end of September will get access to both my content and access to all of the content I have already published.
I absolutely love the leadership insights I discover during my daily Bible reading. I have turned many of these insights into an ongoing series called Godly Leadership.
Craig T. Owens 