An interesting question from our global online tribe came in over the Memorial Day weekend: “Mark: My faith is strong one day and then weak for many days after that. It’s more weak than strong. Why is that?” That comment reveals a torturous challenge and shines a bright light on this reality: Many Christians around the world are living with FAITH INTERMITTENCE where God’s light seems to flicker and...

Our family’s SPIRITUAL ENDURANCE TANK is being drained by the cancer battle raging around us. My daughter’s 2-year-old son—Briar Strong–has clear-cell sarcoma and is halfway through nine week-long sessions of chemotherapy after having a one-pound tumor removed from one of his kidneys. That has us constantly searching for charging stations along this dark road to receive much-needed and sustaining...

Well Done Good and Faithful Servant? One of the most interesting questions in the life of a Christian following Jesus is: “Where do we quench our human desire for affirmation and approval?” It’s a question animated by myriad contradictions—it can be good or great; devastating or dangerous. Failure to understand these approval/affirmation contradictions will trap us in a confusing toggle between truth...

Dominated by my 2-year-old grandson’s cancer, the first quarter of 2023 delivered a slew of challenges for our family. And though perhaps different in circumstance and nature, I am sure you battled your own challenges, too. The afflictions of life on earth pose this critically important question to all believers: ARE YOU SPIRITUALLY RESILIENT? re·sil·ience: Toughness and the capacity to withstand...

It’s tough to look at Good Friday as a celebration with all of the pain and cruelty Jesus endured on a deadly timber atop Golgatha. All of the optics—at least on the surface—scream bleakness, futility, and hopelessness. But we celebrate anyway because God made these three days that changed the world forever to be a victory march to life. Even though it can be tempting to sugar-coat the Easter story,...

“You’re not good enough.” “You’re not like the “good Christians.” “You’re never going to find God’s peace. Ever.” Those are just a few piercingly negative thoughts in the deceptive narrative that tormented me early in my faith walk. It felt like a tape was playing on an endless loop in my mind. A painful story to be sure, but one I want to share with you here because of what God has done with and...

I want to challenge YOU, today, to acknowledge YOUR fear. Have you done that lately? And if you have, did you release it to God? Here’s why I’m asking you these questions: The fear of MAN has become so pervasive that it seems like many believers are not on high alert for signs its razor-sharp talons are getting dangerously close to them. That’s the feeling I sensed hanging in the air over last Sunday’s...

The launch of my new book “Activate Your Faith!” has stirred up much discussion about being BROKEN and needing a BREAKTHROUGH. Christians around the world are crying out through their brokenness and asking God to create a breakthrough that activates their faith. Praise God. I am intimately aware of this BROKEN/BREAKTHROUGH CHALLENGE. I lived it early in my faith walk. Back then I had no idea that...

That’s me and my two-year-old grandson Brian Strong on the right. Briar has cancer. But he also has thousands of people PRAYING for his recovery. And God is answering those prayers. First with the successful removal of a one-pound tumor from his 24-lb frame. And now through the first three weeks of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Just one message of many that have come out of this ghastly ordeal...

It’s time to confront one of the biggest challenges facing Christians everywhere on planet earth: Many of us struggle mightily to ingest God’s Word and then transport its promises and power to our head. Even more believers come up empty when they try to move God’s knowledge and wisdom to their heart. But the third leg of that cycle—activating God’s Word in the way we live our life—is the challenge...