One of my online followers tossed me this complicated question yesterday… “Hey Mark, how am I sure about my salvation and place in heaven beyond this life and through eternity?”    Just asking the question was spiritually deflating for him. So I jumped in fast by stressing to him that his question is VERY POSITIVE. It shows that his heart is searching for the spiritual confidence God...

I was caught off guard yesterday when a man startled me with this question: “Hey, Mark…why do Christians emphasize Jesus so much? I don’t get it. I believe in God. I just don’t understand the Jesus part.” Before he even finished the question, my mind landed on this:    “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6    So that’s...

Have you ever said that about your effort to spend time with God on a daily basis?    Have you ever wondered why it’s so hard to be spiritually consistent?    Have you ever thought being consistent with your connection to God would never happen?    If you have, in one sense, that’s a good thing. Really! It’s a good thing because it demonstrates that you are in touch with,...

That’s exactly what I used to say!    Thank God that changed the day I took the Spiritual Maturity Class 201 at Saddleback Church and learned what God had to say about memorizing Scripture. Twenty years down the road I can see why it is so important.    If we want Christ-likeness to be expressed on the outside, we need Christ on the inside. We need to get back to SPIRITUAL BASICS!...

We know God is living in us when we experience his FREEDOM and realize that we do NOT have to be perfect in order to please him. That we do NOT have to “keep the Law.” That we do NOT need to become a MONK. We are free because of what Christ did for us on the cross.    But we cannot do anything with that freedom that would cause someone else to stumble in their faith walk. Rather, we have...

Early in my faith walk, I thought I knew everything about DISCIPLINE. I played football in college. I built a successful career as a corporate CEO. And I spoke about strategic discipline to marketplace companies around the world. I was disciplined. It’s no surprise that I took that discipline into everything I did—including my faith walk with Jesus.    But it did not take long before I had...

Very early in my faith walk I used to think Christian service was all about adding points to my SPIRITUAL SCORECARD so I would be seen by others as “Godly.” God eventually set me straight…Christian service is not a game and there are no points.    If our heart is not fully surrendered and reliant on God, then our service to his Kingdom will be little more than a transaction. It will be absent...

I’ve been thinking a lot about FREEDOM this month, starting with the always-powerful celebration of America’s independence and then quickly jumping to our FREEDOM in Christ. My focus has been fixed on the difference between being free and being TRULY free in Christ. The goal in that exploration was to identify the difference between the two, but then ponder the deeper question—truly free for what?...

Life is a series of decisions. One influencing another. The aggregate of those decisions compounding over time to animate our life story and unveil God’s plan for our time on earth. Having faith in God’s plan and purpose for our life is NOT easy! In fact, on the surface it looks IMPOSSIBLE.    Forget about FORKS IN THE ROAD. It’s hard enough knowing which road to take in the first place....

That headline at the top sounds silly on the surface, but hold on… According to the “Church of Google,” the online juggernaut is omnipresent and infinite. It remembers everything. And evidence of its existence is everywhere.    Case closed, right?    Of course not. All of that is absurd. But it is easy to see why so many people around the world trust Google more than any entity...