Temptation In Transit

About ten years ago, I was helping put together a student conference in Dallas.  About five days before the event was to take place, I was missing one important item. Two weeks earlier, I had ordered some give-away items with the conference logo and theme imprinted on them. Nervous that they would not arrive in …

Are You Giving Satan Too Much Credit?

We’ve all said something like, “Satan is really working on me right now.” And while this may be a true statement, I’m not sure its always helpful. James 1:14 teaches that “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.” Because we are born sinners (Psalm 51:5, Romans 3:10-18), our …

Did Jesus Battle Depression?

Did Jesus battle depression? Seems like a strange question at first, but consider Isaiah’s prophesy of the coming Messiah: “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). That certainly sounds like someone dealing with the symptoms of depression. So why do we immediately push back at …

Gotta Serve Somebody

You are a slave to anything you can’t (or won’t) stop thinking about. By definition, the person to whom you are enslaved has power over you. Spiritually speaking, we all enter this world as slaves to sin (Romans 3:23), “following the prince of the power of the air,” Satan (Eph. 2:1). Slave masters are very …

Throw Logic Out?

Everyone seems to be outraged by gas prices these days. Most of us are paying over $3 per gallon. That equates to approximately 2 ½ cents per ounce for the final product. Of course, reflected in that price is the cost of pumping oil out of the ground, transporting it to a refinery (where it …