A place for you.

Have you ever lost something truly valuable? I remember losing my wallet at Summer camp as a teenager. I felt a pit in my stomach and, to be honest, I was scared. Fortunately, someone found it and returned it to me the next day – with money still inside. I was fortunate indeed! In Luke 15 we read three parables that stress the importance of lost souls. Jesus used these parables to counter-act the self-righteous attitudes of the Pharisees and…

One of the great messages of the Old Testament is that God is in control, and He wants us to trust in Him. Control is an illusion that we tell ourselves that we have. Truthfully, I am in control of only one thing, myself. Even that is limited. Much of my body runs autonomically. I cannot turn off physical pain. My emotions are very hard to control. We are limited in the amount of control we have. Moreover, we often…

I don’t like Jonah. In a book with an evil king, pagan sailors and a giant, man-eating fish, he’s still, hands-down, the most unlikable character. He whines and runs from God — and then refuses to show the mercy to others that God had just shown him. My main problem with this little book is how it ends. The prophet sits on a hill, overlooking the city of Nineveh, angry that God isn’t raining down judgment on its people. He…

The Book of Romans, written around 56 – 58 AD during his 3rd missionary journey, is considered to be Paul’s “Magnum Opus.” It is the apostle’s greatest body of work. If Paul were an artist, Romans would be his masterpiece, because it is his most influential epistle in the Bible. Many of the beloved verses disciples of Christ have memorized over the years are from the book of Romans, such as Romans 8: 28 and Romans 12: 1-2. Let us…