Monthly Archives

February 2022

In Bible Study, Blog, Luke on
February 28, 2022

Jesus Draws Near to the Grieving

“But what is grief, if not love persevering?”

Quoted by Vision in the Disney+ series Wandavision, this question quickly resonated with viewers all over the country and all over the world when episode eight aired. We live in a broken world, and none of us are strangers to grief. We’ve all experienced the deaths of aging parents, close friends, and unborn children. We’ve all dealt with painful break-ups and awful falling-outs with people we loved dearly. We’ve all been betrayed or attacked by someone we once trusted and thought very highly of. And with everything that has happened in our world over the past two years, our levels of grief are higher than they’ve ever been before.

Grief causes us to feel a lot of things. Angry. Confused. Numb. Depressed. Anxious. Devastated. Guilty. Listless. Helpless. Alone. When we’re grieving the loss of someone or something, we may even feel like God is far away from us, ignoring our prayers and pleas. But the truth is that God draws near to us in our grief. And this is made evident to us when we see Jesus encounter a grieving widow in Luke 7.

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In Blog, Book Reviews, Self-Love on
February 21, 2022

Enough About Me

Women in America are increasingly unhappy. And nobody quite seems to know why. After all, women have more rights and more opportunities than they’ve ever had before. Yet, women still feel unsatisfied, unfulfilled, and simply unhappy.

And when women feel this way, our culture tells them that they just to practice a little self-care. You just need to go get your nails done. You just need to go do some yoga. You just need to say no to others. You just need to focus on yourself. While these things may provide a modicum of relief, discontentment sets in soon afterward. What is the problem? Why are women so unhappy? In her book Enough About Me, Jen Oshman suggests that the problem is that women are focusing on themselves too much.

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In Bible Study, Blog, Psalm on
February 14, 2022

My Heart’s Desire

Today is Valentine’s Day. And like many of you, I will be spending it alone.

I mean, I won’t be completely alone today. I’ll go to work and interact with co-workers and clients, and I’ll likely have dinner with my parents tonight. But I won’t have a boyfriend or husband who will send flowers to me, do something special with me, or profess their undying love for me.

Like every other single Christian, I’ve been told that singleness is a gift and, in some cases, better than marriage. But it truly is my heart’s desire to fall in love, get married, and start a family with a faithful and godly man. I would be lying if I said my heart doesn’t sink a little every time I see someone I know getting engaged, married, or pregnant. But there are no possible marriage prospects in my life at the moment, and it appears that my heart’s desire is not on the horizon of my near future.

However, there are some Christians who believe that they can make their hearts’ desires come to fruition. They think that they can manifest, declare, and claim their desires in Jesus’ name, and all their wishes and dreams will come true. This is based on one of the most misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misapplied verses in the Bible: Psalm 37:4.

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In Blog, Salvation, Theology on
February 7, 2022

Real Repentance

“Say you’re sorry!”

We’ve all seen it. A child hits a classmate, says something mean to a friend, or steals a toy from a sibling, and the offended child runs to tell an adult. Then, the parent or teacher goes over to the offending child with, “Say you’re sorry!”

But how many children who mutter a begrudging “I’m sorry” are actually sorry? How many of these children will turn around and do the exact same thing again? These children may say that they’re “sorry,” but they’re often just sorry that they got caught, not that they did a bad thing. Because they are not truly sorry, they will go right back to hitting classmates, saying mean things, and stealing toys.

Adults do this, too. We confess to God and say we’re sorry for doing things like gossiping about a co-worker, putting ourselves first, and being envious of what others have. But then we turn around and do these exact same things the very next day. Why do we do this? Why do we continue to commit the same sins we just apologized for? Because we have not really repented.

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