By Greg Laurie My New Year’s resolution is to make no New Year’s resolutions. I’ll tell you why. They get broken quickly. We all have giants we face in life, seemingly insurmountable problems or obstacles. It could be a giant of fear, something that’s frightening you. Whenever you think about it, you’re filled with anxiety and dread. Maybe it isn’t even a rational fear, but it’s a real fear nonetheless. You find yourself asking, “What if this happens? What if that happens?” Maybe you overcame this giant, so to speak, for a week or even a month. You thought you had victory. Then it came back with a vengeance, stronger than ever, and it brought you down. Here’s what you need to know: You can overcome these giants. We need to face them in faith and know that God is bigger than any giant we will meet in the coming year. In the Bible we see what happened in the life of one young man who was able to bring his giant down. His name was David. Here’s what Hebrews 11 tells us about him: “It would take too long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and all the prophets. By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them. They … [Read more...]

By James Dobson In August 1977, my wife and children joined me on a trip to Kansas City, Missouri, for a short visit with my parents.  We enjoyed several days of family togetherness before it was time to leave. As we drove to the airport where we said good-bye, I asked my father to pray for us.  I will never forget his words. He closed with this thought: And Lord, we thank You for the fellowship and the love that we feel for each other today. This has been a special time for us with Jim and Shirley and their children. But Heavenly Father, we are keenly aware that the joy that is ours today is a temporal pleasure. Our lives will not always be this stable and secure. Change is inevitable and it will come to us, too. We will accept it when it comes, of course, but we give You praise for the happiness and warmth that has been ours these past few days. We have had more than our share of the good things, and we thank You for Your love.  Amen. Shortly thereafter, we hugged and said good-bye, and my family boarded the plane. A week later, my father has suddenly grabbed his chest and told my mother to call the paramedics. He left us on December 4 of that year. Shortly after, my mother joined him in heaven. How quickly … [Read more...]

By Joe McKeever “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”  (2 Corinthians 5:1) “We do not want to be unclothed, but to be clothed, in order that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:4) My wife gets attached to cars. I do not.  Recently, I gave my 2015 Camry to my oldest granddaughter.  I’ve done that several times before–starting with the ’96 Camry to my son many years back, later the ’05 to a granddaughter, the ’09 to our twin granddaughters, the ’13 Honda C-RV to my son, and now this one.  I’m happy to pass them along, and as one might expect, they enjoy getting them. To me a car is a thing, an instrument we use.  My oldest granddaughter names them.  The ’05 is Sandy and this ’15 is Pearl (names based on their colors).  Like most cowboys in the old west, I don’t name my mounts.  I take good care of them and have them serviced by the dealer on the recommended schedule, and thus have almost no trouble from the car.  But when it’s time to replace it with a newer version, I’m happy to let it go. Think of that as a parable.  We let things go so they can be replaced by something … [Read more...]

By Steve Horn Psalm 67 As we begin 2018, it seems appropriate to think upon a prayer to guide God’s church in 2018. The prayer that I want to show you today is a Biblical prayer. Rather than a prayer that we would pray for ourselves, this is a corporate prayer. Consider Psalm 67. May God be gracious to us and bless us; may he make his face shine upon us. Selah 2 so that your way may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. 3 Let the peoples praise you, God; let all the peoples praise you. 4 Let the nations rejoice and shout for joy, for you judge the peoples with fairness and lead the nations on earth. Selah 5 Let the peoples praise you, God, let all the peoples praise you. 6 The earth has produced its harvest; God, our God, blesses us. 7 God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear him. Some people see in these seven verses what is called a chiastic structure. That means that the first verse mirrors the last verse, the second verse mirrors the next to last verse, and the third verse mirrors verse 5. What remains (which in this Psalm is verse 4) serves as the most important line. Think of it as a bullseye. I want to put this Psalm, which is a prayer, in one … [Read more...]

By Waylon Bailey I have been blessed to study and preach from the Birth Narrative of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew’s Gospel gives the events of the birth of Jesus from the point of view of Joseph while Luke gives us the point of view of Mary. What we see in Matthew’s Gospel is an emphasis on divine providence and human faithfulness. Matthew shows that Joseph was a man of character who could be counted on in the worst of times. When God called Joseph he called him to stand up to one of the cruelest tyrants in the history of the world. Joseph was found faithful as he listened to God and cared for “the child and his mother” (Matthew 2:19-23). Joseph gives us a great example of both finishing strong and beginning well. Matthew 2:19-23 gives us the end of the birth narrative and the beginning of training “up a child in the way he should go” (Proverbs 22:6). These verses point to an ending and a beginning. We all have the responsibility to finish strong and begin well. Life is filled with endings and beginnings. Today is one of those times. Even if we didn’t finish this year strong, we can certainly begin well. Sometimes we think of giving the next year to God of giving Him the rest of our lives. While we all … [Read more...]

You can have Christmas without Santa and his elves, without Frosty the snowman, without Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, and without Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen. You can have Christmas without Mr. Grinch, Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim. But you cannot have a real Christmas without Jesus. Otherwise, it’s a fake Christmas. Don’t get me wrong. I like Christmas. But the problem is that we have made Christmas almost too beautiful with our horse-drawn carriages, snow, crackling fireplaces and hot cocoa. We have bathed the Nativity story in blue light with music swelling in the background. It’s all wonderful, but sometimes I think we’ve missed the raw power of the story by making it almost sentimental. We’ve romanticized Christmas or even homogenized it, taking the real edge off the story that God Almighty came down from heaven to be born on the floor of a stable. To think that God did all this for us is more powerful than any romanticized version of Christmas. Jesus came at the appointed time, at the perfect time. The Bible tells us, “But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he … [Read more...]

By Charles Stanley When Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” they replied, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” But Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:13-16). What set Jesus apart as the Messiah? His birth:He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born, as prophesied, in Bethlehem to a virgin. Though angels announced His arrival and He reigns over all creation, Jesus entered our world in a lowly manner so He could be identified with the meek and the poor. His wisdom: At age 12, He spent three days with rabbis, asking questions that showed his uncommon understanding. His baptism:Though He didn’t need cleansing, Jesus asked John to baptize Him so He could identify with sinners and demonstrate His love to them. His temptation:Satan tempted Him relentlessly for 40 days, yet He did not sin. His ministry:He challenged man-made religious traditions. And by healing people—regardless of nationality—raising the dead, and forgiving sins, He revealed that God wants to be involved personally in our lives. Leading Pharisees wanted Him dead, but the Father protected His life until the … [Read more...]

By E. Calvin Beisner Because “having one fewer child reduces one’s contribution to the harms of climate change,” Travis Rieder argues, “everyone on Earth ought to consider having fewer children.” Why? Because people use energy, more people use more energy, some 85 percent of energy worldwide comes from fossil fuels, and using them adds carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere. That in turn makes the atmosphere warmer. And that makes severe weather events like hurricanes, floods, droughts, and heat waves more frequent and more intense. The argument seems conclusive. Unless human action isn’t really a major contributor to climate change, or unless climate change isn’t so self-evidently harmful as Rieder and many others think. Rieder and others who argue similarly appeal to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). They consider it the world’s most authoritative scientific body on the subject. Its 2013 Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) famously declared, “It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” Forget that the IPCC is more political than scientific, riddled with bias, conflicts of interest, and beset by serious violations of … [Read more...]