Sometimes it can be tempting to belittle our gifts when we see someone with a gift we consider “bigger or better.” We’ll sigh in envy when we hear someone sing beautifully in church or speak eloquently at a conference or, say, speak in tongues while their head is on fire, as we saw in our…

The story of Pentecost is one of the strangest accounts in the Bible. “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues of fire appeared…

All of us have pet sins – sins that we just can’t seem to get away from. It’s these sins that tend to worry us the most. If we only commit a particular sin once, we feel we can be forgiven and move on. But the sins that we commit over and over are much…

In a recent episode of NCIS, Agent Gibbs and Agent Bishop go to Afghanistan to solve a murder. They figure out where the murderer is hiding, but they need someone to go undercover in order to infiltrate his camp. Bishop is picked to go undercover, and she panics. She tells Gibbs, “Don’t put me in…

Psalm 1 begins, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” Sometimes, it’s hard to picture ourselves…

November 20th used to be just another day, but from now on, I will always remember November 20th as the day that a gunman entered Strozier Library. The evening of November 20th, after a long day of contacting our students to make sure they were all right, Pastor Jay held a prayer service at University…

If your friends talked to you the same way you talk to yourself, would they still be your friends? Think about that for a minute. If your friends came up to you and said, “You’re ugly. You’re stupid. You’re a loser. You’ll never be a success. Nobody loves you,” you would be upset with them…

It’s easy to be negative about our mission. We acknowledge that we are to share the life-saving Word of God with the world, but we don’t anticipate this happening during our lifetimes (if ever). After all, with everything that’s happening around the globe – from the rise of the “nones” to terrorist attacks – how…

When you think of Heaven, what image comes to your head? For me, it’s golden streets, big mansions, and beautiful open fields. Okay, next question. When you think of the people in Heaven, who comes to your head? I automatically picture people who look like me. Not that they all have red hair and glasses,…

We’ve all done it. We look at someone whose sins are different from ours and say, “Well, at least I’m not like them.” We compare ourselves with others without even thinking about it. At least we aren’t homosexuals. At least we aren’t murderers. At least we aren’t adulterers. And the list goes on. It’s our…