Have you been to the funeral home? Does your car break down? Has anything ever been stolen from you? Do you ever get sick? Have you had the frustration of buying something, and it quit working the day after the warranty expired?

    All of these questions illustrate one truth: this world is a decaying, rotting, disintegrating place in which to live. No matter how hard one tries, things still break, robbers continue stealing, and people still die. This world is, quite literally, going down the drain.

    Amazingly, mankind chooses to ignore the obvious. What many people seek the most,…

The Bride of Christ

Marriage is universal and timeless. The ancient world knew marriage just as modern man does, and even in cultures foreign to us the ceremony may look strange, but marriage itself remains a constant.

It is no wonder, then, that Jesus uses marriage as an example of the relationship between himself and the church. Since marriage is so timeless, all generations can understand how we relate to Christ and how Christ relates to us in a very tangible way.

The Holy Spirit, through Paul, draws a parallel between marriage and the relationship between Christ and the church in Ephesians 5:22-33.

The…

When Comfort Becomes a Master

Sometimes it’s dangerous to find ourselves being too comfortable in our life. May sound strange because most of us spend a great deal of life trying to become more comfortable. We want financial stability, peaceful homes, easier schedules, fewer problems, better health, and less stress. None of those things are wrong by themselves. In fact, many of them are blessings. But blessings can quietly become our masters. Comfort becomes dangerous when it starts deciding what we will obey, what we will sacrifice, what we will avoid, and how far we are willing to follow God. It…

    “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15, ESV).

    Imagine what a comfort that was to Paul. According to 1 Timothy 1:13, he had been a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. According to Romans 7:8, his major downfall was covetousness of every kind. According to Exodus 20:17, the kinds of covetousness include coveting your neighbor’s house, your neighbor’s servants, your neighbor’s goods, even your neighbor’s wife. Despite being a Pharisee and even blameless (Phil. 3:6), Paul knew his own…

    What Jesus is, is what we need. If we need anything at all in our lives, we need someone to lead us. We need a guide, a shepherd to show us where we ought to go and how to get there. Jesus affirmed that He is that guide, when He said, “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11).

    To understand the context wherein Jesus made this statement, we must drop back to the previous chapter, where we are introduced to a blind man. Two notable things happened to the blind man in John 9. First, he received his sight…

    The weather is warming up.  Memorial Day is next Monday.  School is about to be out.  You know what that means?  The Southside Lectures are fast approaching!

    Five weeks away, to be exact.  That’s just hard for me to fathom.  This whole year has been a series of statements beginning with “I can’t believe it’s already ______.”  But it is.  And we can’t let the lectures sneak up on us or we’ll be unprepared for what is sure to be a spiritual feast.

    The dates this year are June 22-25, Monday through Thursday.  We have morning lectures (9:30, 10:30)…

    It’s hard losing your parents. You labor under the strain of not having told them more often that you love them. You remember all the things they did for you, and sit and wonder if you did much for them.

    I was home in Lubbock for the holidays a few years ago. Mom had insisted on making my favorite breakfast—biscuits and sawmill gravy. We had a fine time. As we drove away, she was still standing on the porch, waving. I somehow thought it might be the last time I would see her. She died the next month. She…

    God, after creating man in His own image, wanted to have a relationship with   him. Yet, for man to have a relationship with a holy God, he must first deny himself and come up to the level of God, and not try to bring God down to his level.  Only a holy and sinless God can set the terms of such a relationship. There are no negotiations!  Failing to sanctify God, both in our heart and actions, will always result in God being profaned! 

    The word profane means “Common, not sanctified or set apart.”  If I profane God by disobeying…

    We live in changing times, but that’s always been true. Society changes. Individuals change, sometimes for the better but also for the worse. It isn’t easy to put our trust in man because of this. It’s common to hear of adulterous relationships, leaving a heartbroken spouse and children. People can do horrible things to each other. We could easily list the ugliness perpetrated by individuals, but you get the idea. We’ve also experienced changes in our lives, some for good but some not so good.

    Fortunately, God never changes. Who He is right now is who He has always…

A Dwelling Place for the Mighty One

One of my favorite sections of the Psalms is Psalms 120-134, which are called the Psalms of Ascent. This set of Psalms was often sung by the Jews as they made their pilgrimage to Jerusalem - specifically when they went up, or ascended, the mountain on which Jerusalem rests - thus they were named the Psalms of Ascents. Not only is it fascinating to read the thoughts of the people of God as they journeyed to the holy city, but I believe we, as people of God, can learn from them on our journey…