Ask any Christian “What is the gospel?” and you will get a ready answer in some way corresponding to Paul’s definition of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8. There he tells us that the heart of the gospel is that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose again on the third day. To Paul, the death and resurrection of Jesus were physical, historical facts, occurring in and around Jerusalem some 2000 years ago. It was not some metaphysical, philosophical abstraction. It was…

I recently received a letter from a good friend who relayed to me a very inspirational story from an anonymous source: Michael is the kind of guy you love to hate.  He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say.  When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!” He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Michael was there telling the employee…

Last week we saw an example of a middle-aged mom facing a life-threatening  disease, and the fear that plagued her as she was bombarded with these thoughts: “I am so afraid I may never live to see my daughter marry and have children.”  “I am afraid I will never get to see my present grandchildren grow up.” “I am afraid I will have to leave my husband before we have a chance to grow old together.” We saw in this mother’s life the tremendous…

Some years ago I got an email from a close, personal friend, a mother with three grown children, who was facing a severe, life-threatening illness. The email included the following paragraph, quoted here, verbatim: “Oh, wretched man that I am! Every day and all day long I am confronted with my constant distrust of God.  I abandon Him at every turn looking for someone or something else to save me.  I am so eager and willing to put my trust in horses and chariots;…

When the Lord begins to answer the first of our three essential prayers, “Open the eyes of my heart so I can see,” and we begin to get a glimpse of the sin heretofore buried unrecognized deep within us, the result can initially be very shocking. For example, several years ago I was preaching a typical Sunday morning sermon as I had done, practically weekly, for some 20 years. I concluded with a closing prayer, closed my Bible and was immediately aware (for the…

It is amazing how much more eagerly I recognize the sins of others than I do my own. The sins of my children, my wife, my fellow church members, my employer, and my coworkers I can identify with remarkable perception. Mine? Not so much. I had no difficulty discerning with marvelous insight the offenses that had been committed against my daughter and me in the incident related in last week’s newsletter, but I was completely blind to the murder and bitterness that I harbored…

During the first 44 years after I graduated from the University of Oklahoma, I self-consciously did my very best to serve Jesus Christ—first as a campus evangelist with a para church organization, then as a teaching elder in the church and finally as a conference speaker and author of Christian books.   Thirty-four of those years were spent in Seattle, Washington, involved in three different churches, experiencing all the relational difficulties that church life invariably includes. As I shared last week, in the last…

Last week I shared how my unconscious sin, sin of which I was totally unaware, drove a wedge between my daughter and me. My response was typical of all parent’s natural reaction when revelation comes about our own responsibility in a relational difficulty with a family member: we stubbornly resist that revelation. We mount a desperate defense to somehow rationalize our own sin in order to avoid the cross and remain “alive.” As a result, we face a crucial fork in the road. We…

Last week we discussed the first essential prayer that a successful parent prays: “God, open the eyes of my heart so I can know: 1.) what You are really like, and 2.) what I am really like.” This clear heart-understanding is foundational to building a fruitful, functioning, biblical, parent-child relationship. Some time ago, through a series of circumstances, my married, then-38-year-old-mother-of-four daughter became aware, for the first time, of what she could see had been a long-time perception in her heart—I loved and accepted…

Over the 48 years I have been a parent, I have gone through several shifts in my understanding of the parenting process. For example, I began as a parent in 1969 when my first child was born with really little thought of what responsibilities God had given me in caring for this little one who was now dependent on Jill and me for everything. I was so ignorant I didn’t even know enough to be concerned, let alone worried, that I might not know…