If you could custom-order a messiah, it probably wouldn’t be Jesus. In His day, He did not fit the popular idea of a savior — and still doesn’t by many people today. Consider this unlikely Messiah: HE HAD AN UNLIKELY BIRTH He wasn’t born in a palace to wealthy or...

On Good Friday, we hear a lot about the Cross of Jesus, but not a whole lot about our own crosses. Jesus made it explicitly clear that if we were to be His disciples, we would have to take up a cross and follow Him (Matt 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23). If you...

I did not give up anything for Lent this year. My only resolution was to get through a devotional book that’s been collecting dust on my shelf for a while. However, my wife and I inadvertently took up a Lenten discipline after our youngest son moved out a few weeks...

Stephen Hawking, the brilliant theoretical physicist who once advised “to look at the stars and not at your feet,” died at his Cambridge home on Wednesday at the age of 76. Hawking was given a life expectancy of two years after he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS) in...

We have already taken a look at the first two temptations of Christ and how they might apply to us in the present day. In the first temptation, Satan enticed Jesus to feed His belly instead of His soul: “If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into...

Would you find it surprising that Satan knows scripture? In the second temptation of Christ, the devil whisked Jesus to the highest point of ancient Jerusalem, the pinnacle of the temple. There, perhaps snaking an arm around the soiled robe of his adversary, Satan whispered, “So you are the Son...

The first temptation of Christ hinges on a tiny word – “if.” Satan, encountering a famished Jesus in the wilderness, whispered, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread” (Matt. 4:3, italics mine). It may seem a minor thing for Jesus to have pulled off...

“America’s Pastor,” Billy Graham, passed away Wednesday at the age of 99. The news of his death opened a floodgate of tributes from near and far. President Donald Trump tweeted, “The GREAT Billy Graham is dead. There was nobody like him! A very special man.” The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said...

As we move through Lent, it’s a sure bet you’re going to be reminded to “deny yourself.” One of my sons told me that a Facebook friend feels she’s eating too many starchy carbs, so she’s giving up French fries. A lot of people view Lent as a kind of...

In seminary, I was a youth pastor. Every summer during this time, I served as a volunteer at high school church camp. Those were halcyon days spent in small groups, worshipping under the stars, eating junk food with no regret and climbing  “The Mountain,” a cedar-cloaked bluff topped with a...