There’s a whole lotta thinking going on in December during the Christmas season and especially this week during the celebrations announcing the arrival of a new year. That makes this a PERFECT time to conduct our year-end FAITH INVENTORY. To run our own thinking through God’s filter. To find out what he thinks about our thinking.    Our hearts are clearly being overstimulated with an unprecedented...

One of the most DANGEROUS THREATS to Christians committed to walking with Christ is in spotlight as we head into the home stretch of our year-end FAITH INVENTORY. Here it is:    Taming the ferocious fury of FEELINGS and MOODS that knock on our door every day with a reminder to “feel this, feel that, feel life.”    The world’s engine runs on feelings that rain down on all of us...

This just in from our global online tribe: “There are so many things to do in the Christmas season that I am wound up like the toy I just bought my son. HOW CAN I FIND COMFORT IN CHRISTMAS?”    Let’s start with the FOUNDATION of Christmas before we get to COMFORT.    Christmas is about the birth of Christ. The arrival of the prophesied Messiah. The Lord in human flesh. The promise...

I rarely, if ever, use headlines like this one. They come off sounding like “another hack” that I see so much of online today and almost always turn me off. But I’m using this approach here, one time, during our end-of-year FAITH INVENTORY as we build our ramp to 2022. That’s how strongly I feel about the power behind identifying the biggest challenges Christians face in their walk with Jesus, as...

Tired and spent, 2021 is just about to leave town and pave the way for 2022 to appear with its fresh face. That shrill siren is warning us that time for reflecting on the past 12 months is quickly vanishing like a child’s balloon escaping into the hungry sky. That’s why we’re conducting this month-long, year-end review of 2021 and taking our FAITH INVENTORY. For today, it’s another question begging...

We’re in the home stretch of our year-end FAITH INVENTORY in December and the final messages are the “tough ones.” This final stretch on the ramp to 2022 demands that we fully open our “honesty valve” and consider where we are on our faith walk with Christ. The subject today is a question:    “Do you have a ‘fighting faith’ like the Apostle Paul’s ‘good fight’ in the book of Timothy?”    “I...

Today is a VERY HARD part of our year-end FAITH INVENTORY as we get ready for 2022. Here it is: Look back over 2021 and consider how READY our faith was in response to the challenges of life when they crashed our shore.    That’s a tough question because every believer, to one degree or another, could respond to our challenges “more like Christ.” After all, Jesus is Jesus and we’re human.    It...

This question arrived yesterday from our global online tribe: “How Can I Become a Christian?”    I was immediately thankful to get this question and its reminder, especially in December during our end-of-year Faith Inventory and celebration of Christ’s birth. It’s a reminder as we head into 2022 that every believer is commissioned by God to bring people to Jesus.     That...

Regrets are part of life on planet earth. And that begs this piercing question that came to me this morning in my year-end FAITH INVENTORY: “If you had it to do over again, what would you change? Would you ‘undo’ the worst mistake you ever made?”    Every believer has actions in their past they would change. It might be: Our role in a failed relationship. Something we did to alter our...

Jesus is the LIGHT OF THE WORLD. Yes, even during tornadoes, wars, and pandemics. There’s no question about that fact. But there is this question for all believers:    “Are we shining God’s light to extinguish the pockets of darkness that pop up around us every day?”    That’s the question I am pondering right now in this end-of-year Faith Inventory and construction of a spiritual...