This blog is Pastor Jay's weekly musings about God's Word, God's world, and God's call to our culture. We hope they encourage, challenge, and inform you. Sign up to recieve them in your email.
C.S. Lewis once said that everybody loves the idea of forgiveness, until someone actually has something to forgive. Unity can be the same way. Unity is easy when everybody agrees, but when there are differences, unity is kicked to the curb. Many churches are reeling right now because there are differences when it comes to wearing masks and other responses to Covid. Argum...
Keep ReadingIt seems that most people will tell you that ignorance is bad and you should do all you can to remedy it. That is, except theological ignorance. Many people are just fine with copious amounts of ignorance in this department. They don't seem to need it to drive a car or pay taxes, and so all is well. But A.W. Tozer sets us straight by saying that what you think when you t...
Keep ReadingIf you have made a habit of being at prayer meetings, you have probably been in the following situation before. As requests are being offered, someone asks prayer for Aunt Tilly's bunion. If the leader has his wits about him, this can be steered into a profitable time of prayer for Aunt Tilly. But sadly, many a saint has been led in prayer for untold numbers of hips, fee...
Keep ReadingThe Black Lives Matter organization has been catapulted to the national spotlight and it is pulling in every form of endorsement. While an organization is more than its name, it certainly is not less. With a name like Black Lives Matter it is hard to speak against it. Yet, because there is more than a name, we need to know what this organization supports and promotes. In...
Keep ReadingI have been reading a helpful book called Gospel-Driven Church by Jared Wilson that addresses one of the prevailing movements concerning how to pursue growth in the church. That movement encourages churches to be an attractional church. Being an attractional church refers to "a way of doing church ministry whose primary purpose is to make church appealing." Therefore, "t...
Keep ReadingIsn't it amazing how quickly crisis's seem to descend upon our nation now. We haven't even gotten through our stockpile of toilet paper and now there is a new issue of protests and riots concerning racial issues. And, by the way, whatever happened to the Murder Hornets? Though the scale of this new issue is hard to measure, it certainly is in the national spotlight. And...
Keep ReadingThe riots are again breaking out across the country. Protesters, angry about racial disparities, are making their voices heard. While many are peacefully gathering, others are not. What is to be done? I heard it again yesterday: Love is the answer. Is it though? Let's try that type of answer to other problems. I have transportation problems. Wheels are the answer. I h...
Keep ReadingLast Sunday we gave some focus to the matter of waiting upon the Lord. The matter of waiting does not seem to be a complicated one. We have waiting rooms in which all we do is sit. Isn't waiting the most brainless, effortless activity of them all? That is not the kind of waiting we are talking about. Life is not like a waiting room; a response like that would be closer a...
Keep ReadingA state-mandated stay-at-home order has afforded us an opportunity we never would have had otherwise. What is that? It is the opportunity to feel what our longing for heaven should be more like. Emotions are tricky things, but they are real and important. You are an emotional being, and emotions reveal the true you. You might be able to hide emotions, but you can't not e...
Keep ReadingThere is only one way that you are going to worship God with real, fervent, soul-pulsing worship. And that is if you see something in God that is so beautiful it takes your breath away. That is what worship is. So how do you see this? Let me tell you the two routes misguided people often take. The first route is the manufactured route. It even comes with a formula: only ...
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