“No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the very sign of His presence.” —C.S. Lewis
“Loving God will include obeying all His commands; it will include believing all His Word; it will include thanking Him for all His gifts; but the essence of loving God is enjoying all He is.” —John Piper
[VIDEO] This is a fascinating TedTalk from Susan Cain on the power of introverts…
John Piper is in the midst of an excellent series in his video teaching series called Look At The Book. This series is about Christ’s teaching on anxiety. It will be a 9-part series, so here is a good recap of the first few lessons.
[VIDEO] Did it only take Adam and Eve to see the entire earth?
“You can’t love Christ too much. You can’t think about Him too much or thank Him too much or depend upon Him too much. All our justification, all our righteousness, is in Christ. This is the gospel—the good news that our sins are laid on Christ and His righteousness is laid on us, and that this great exchange happens for us not by works but by faith alone.” —John Piper
“The beginning of true revival comes when a godly company of believers takes on the Lord’s burden for a church or a city trapped in sin. This godly company fasts and prays, pleading with God to begin rebuilding the walls and gates that will protect His people from every enemy.” Read more in David Wilkerson’s post The Beginning Of Revival.
Even in the midst of ISIS persecution in the Middle East, there is some really good news!
[VIDEO] How do scientists come up with the date for Adam and Eve?
Now that the Spring weather is here, get outside for some fresh air … listen to the birds, smell the flowers, look at the beauty around you! “A study of rodents, published in Science in 2013, indicated that the brain’s place cells are much less active when animals make their way through computer-generated landscapes than when they navigate the real world.” —Nicholas Carr
“We have men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.” —Omar Bradley
“No man who enters upon the office to which I have succeeded can fail to recognize how every president of the United States has placed special reliance upon his faith in God. Every president has taken comfort and courage when told…that the Lord ‘will be with thee. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Fear not—neither be thou dismayed.’ … Each of our presidents in his own way has placed a special trust in God. Those who were strongest intellectually were also strongest spiritually.” —John F. Kennedy
“If you want a population to adopt your innovation, you have to create a problem that is solved by adoption. And that problem is almost always related to, ’what about the others?’” Check out this insight from Seth Godin on product adoption.
[VIDEO] Greg Koukl addresses on Christians can demonstrate Christ-like tolerance and Christ-like tolerance—
[VIDEO] Dr. Bobby Conway and Nel Brace discuss a great tool for helping Christians defend their faith—
“Bios has, to be sure, a certain shadowy or symbolic resemblance to Zoe: but only the sort of resemblance there is between a photo and a place, or a statue and a man. A man who changed from having Bios to having Zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed from being a carved stone to being a real man.” ―C.S. Lewis
“True faith embraces Christ in whatever ways the Scriptures hold Him out to poor sinners.” —Jonathan Edwards
“Yet while a race remembers and relives its sufferings and wrongs, it is often unwittingly transformed, often into the very image of its oppressor. Moreover, bitterness anchors the mind in the past and takes the heart with it. There is no future and no sense of the possible. There is only the incessant churning. Soon it becomes an excuse, a room into which the heart can run to find justification for failure and wrongs of its own. The end comes after the isolation and the rage have run their course. Bitterness is the second sting of the wound, and its fruit is death.” ―Booker T. Washington
“Progress is impossible if you only attempt to do the things you have always done.” —Mike Krzyzewski
[VIDEO] Is there evidence for a literal Adam and Eve? Does it matter?
Watching pornography in the quiet of your home is not a victimless crime.
Whenever you click to watch that video, another woman or child is further enslaved in a nightmarish life. You can set them free by refusing to watch that video!
In Cedar Springs, I invite you to join me on Friday, May 8, as we hear from Fight The New Drug about the dangers of porn, and what we can do to free ourselves, and to free these women and children …
“Based on the vitriol directed towards Indiana, one would never know that 19 states and the federal government already have a Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) virtually identical to the one passed by the Hoosier state. One governor, Malloy of Connecticut, blasted Governor Pence even though Connecticut’s RFRA potentially goes further than Indiana’s in offering protections to people of faith. Companies such as Apple speak of boycotting Indiana while simultaneously opening stores in China and Saudi Arabia, places of real enslavement and discrimination. While most of the rhetoric is designed to intimidate other states from following Indiana’s lead, it is disturbing to see how many Americans places greater importance on sexual freedom and economic prosperity than they do on freedom of conscience.” ―Michigan Family Forum
Seth Godin says, “Being really good is merely the first step. In order to earn word of mouth, you need to make it safe, fun and worthwhile to overcome the social hurdles to spread the word.” Read more in his post The Selfish Truth About Word Of Mouth.
[VIDEO] J. Warner Wallace and Bobby Conway discuss when you should stop looking at other religions…
“We may ignore but can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.” —C.S. Lewis
“It has been the Cross which has revealed to good men that their goodness has not been good enough.” ―Johann Hieronymus Schroeder
“God did not die for man because of some value He perceived in him. The value of each human soul considered simply in itself, out of relation to God, is zero. As St. Paul writes, to have died for valuable men would have been not divine but merely heroic; but God died for sinners. He loved us not because we were lovable, but because He is Love.” ―C.S. Lewis
“Your tribulations will yet yield you music.” —Charles Spurgeon
“Imagine the scene at the Cross. Soldiers huddled in a circle, dice-throwing—casting lots for the possessions of Christ. Common soldiers witnessing the world’s most uncommon event. To them He is just another criminal; the Cross is forgotten. It makes me think of us. The religious. Those who claim heritage at the Cross. All of us. The strict…the loose…the simple…Spirit-filled…evangelical. All of us! We’re not so unlike these soldiers. We too, play games at the foot of the Cross. We compete for members. We scramble for status. Competition. Selfishness. Personal gain. It’s all there. We major in the trivial, we split into little huddles. Another name. Another doctrine. So close to the Cross but so far from the Christ. ‘May they all be one,’ Jesus prayed. One. Not one in groups of two thousand. One church. One faith. One Lord. No hierarchies. No traditions. Just Christ.” —Max Lucado
“If man had his way, the plan of redemption would be an endless and bloody conflict. In reality, salvation was bought not by Jesus’ fist, but by his nail-pierced hands; not by muscle but by love; not by vengeance but by forgiveness; not by force but by sacrifice. Jesus Christ our Lord surrendered in order that He might win; He destroyed His enemies by dying for them and conquered death by allowing death to conquer Him.” —A.W. Tozer
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Some people really know how to find the deals when they’re shopping. They know where to shop, when to shop, where to find the coupons, and how to find the rebates.
Rebates have always amazed me. I wondered how companies could give away money and still make a profit. Then I read that often up to 70 percent of rebates go unclaimed. Some people say it’s too much work to fill out all the correct forms, others say it takes too long to get their rebate, and still others think the amount they get back isn’t worth the effort.
I’m concerned about Christians who slip into a rebate mentality with God. It seems some Christians believe that they need to “fill out the right forms” in order to claim all that God has for them. They seem to think that salvation isn’t enough, and that they have to add church attendance, offerings, good works, Bible reading and other activities to make sure they don’t miss out.
Not that there’s anything wrong with those activities, but there is something wrong with thinking we have to do something to keep our salvation at its full effectiveness.
If we have placed our faith in Christ’s work on an old rugged Cross, then all of our sins have been forgiven (see Psalm 103:1-5, 10-12; Jeremiah 33:8). This is a gift that is available to everyone (Acts 10:43).
As we remember and celebrate what Jesus did on Calvary for us, let’s also remember to stay in the shadow of the Cross. It’s only there we can see ourselves accurately from Heaven’s point of view.
“Never reduce Christianity to a matter of demands and resolutions and willpower. It is a matter of what we love, what we delight in, what tastes good to us.” —John Piper
“The man who has a hope for the next world goes about his work strong, for the joy of the Lord is our strength. He goes against temptation mighty, for the hope of the next world repels the fiery darts of the adversary. He can labor without present reward, for he looks for a reward in the world to come. He can suffer rebuke, and can afford to die a slandered man, because he knows that God will avenge His own elect who cry day and night unto Him. Through the Spirit of God the hope of another world is the most potent force for the product of virtue; it is a fountain of joy; it is the very channel of usefulness.” —Charles Spurgeon
“Fast growth comes from overwhelming the smallest possible audience with a product or service that so delights that they insist that their friends and colleagues use it. And hypergrowth is a version of the same thing, except those friends and colleagues quickly become even bigger fans, and tell even more people. Often, we get sidetracked when we forget about ‘smallest possible.’ If you make the audience you’re initially serving too big, you will dilute the very thing you set out to make, avoid critical mass, and compromise the magic of what you’re building. You’ll make average stuff for average people instead of something powerful for the few. By ‘smallest possible’ I don’t mean, ‘too small.’ I mean the smallest number that eventually leads to the kernel of conversation that enables you to grow.” —Seth Godin
[VIDEO] An interesting discussion: Can postmodernists live a consistent life?…
“If you want a population to adopt your innovation, you have to create a problem that is solved by adoption. And that problem is almost always related to, ’what about the others?’” Check out this insight from Seth Godin on 
Craig T. Owens 