THE PARTS OF OURSELVES WE’RE DENYING Christianity runs deep. It’s not for those who prefer to smile and go about their day suffering in silence. Jesus didn’t tell us to pick up our cross and hide behind it, but to pick it up and follow Him (Matthew 16:24). After all, Christianity isn’t a religion of… Read More Picking Up Our Cross… Denying Ourselves Is Just the Beginning: Part 1
CHALLENGING PASSAGES Sometimes, it’s the most challenging passages of Scripture that are most pertinent for our spiritual growth. Sometimes, we need to read the hard stuff to understand why Psalm 119:130 says that the Word gives understanding even to the child. Some translations read that it gives understanding to the “inexperienced.” If we don’t open… Read More Persecuted, Hated, & Oppressed for His Name’s Sake… Blessed Are You
ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT PERFECT FAITH Christianity isn’t about perfection. Lots of us hold onto the fallacy that faith means we’re supposed to reflect perfection in some way by means of our belief in God. There’s a reason that’s fallacious—spoiler alert: we never achieve perfection here in this life. The goal is to strive to draw nearer… Read More The Fallacy of Perfection: Growing In Faith, Not Self-Deprecation
HORRORS OF A WORLD WITH SIN There is so much suffering in this world. So much suffering. It’s one of the most common reasons unbelievers have put aside considering the existence of a so-called all-loving God. There is so much trauma in life that one wonders how a loving God, with all His wisdom and… Read More When We Suffer: Discipline of the Spirit
AN IMPORTANT PARABLE In Matthew 13, there is a parable of seeds. Very simply, these seeds represent people who hear the Gospel’s Good News, and the parable describes what happens to each seed based on different circumstances. In this article, I’d like to dig into the seed talked about in verse 9: “Other seed fell… Read More Spiritual Abundance in the Face of Adversity
INSPIRATION FOR THIS ARTICLE Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve been a fan of the metal band, WITHIN TEMPTATION. When I first found them, I was a naive atheist, unwilling to see the world any differently than I was seeing it, particularly through the lens that a good God wouldn’t allow suffering. The band’s… Read More Don’t Pray For Me: A Metal Song In Need Of Contemplation
One of the most obvious and prominent theological contentions unbelievers have is why faith in Jesus is so important: why not just believe in being a good person, or just believe in a Higher Power? What does life have to do with Jesus? JESUS’S RELEVANT DIVINITY Following how the Bible teaches that the only way to… Read More Why Does it Have to be Jesus?
