What it Means to be Aligned with God
Staying aligned with God, being in step with His will, being in unity with the Spirit—what do these terms mean exactly? How do we get aligned with God and if we fall out of alignment with Him, how can we fix it? These are the questions we’ll answer in this post.
Alignment is a very simple concept that has to do with your core attitude about God. At any moment in time, you either sincerely care about pleasing Him or you do not. If you do, you are in alignment with Him. Alignment is not about behavior, nor is it undone by sin. You can be aligned with God in your heart and still be sinning with your body. In these cases, you will not enjoy sin—your flesh might, but inside your soul will be groaning in repulsion. Read more
What hypocrisy looks like and why the Lord hates it with a passion
“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” (Matthew 23:13,14,15,23,25,27,29). “Woe to you, blind guides!” (Matthew 23:16,24,26). “You serpents, you brood of vipers!” (Matthew 23:33).
The Lord has this thing about hypocrites.
He doesn’t care for them much.
You and I have learned something God hasn’t managed to do: to accommodate ourselves to those who say one thing and do another. Read more
Unintended Pharisees: Revealing and Redeeming the Hypocrite Within
The Pharisaical spirit often hides in fields of high expectations.
If you’re like me, you hate Pharisees. Jesus didn’t have much use for them either... and of course, I want to be like Jesus!
Also, let’s be honest, few things are more fulfilling than sending out a tweet about a case of hypocrisy in a Pharisee.
These days Pharisees take to social media and gladly point out the shortcomings of others. It has never been easier for a Pharisee to gain a following. The more argumentative and harsh the tone expressed, the more appealing Pharisees are to the judgmental masses.
Pharisees are an easy target, and I don’t mind drawing a bead because I see the spiritual damage that grows in the culture of legalism.
No pastor or church leader likes to see the spirit of judgmentalism in others. In fact, Pharisees seem to be the only ones who like themselves. But this is a blind spot in our own lives, too. Pharisaical attitudes are often revealed through difficult situations.
Rarely does a disciple of Jesus see a spirit of judgment and legalism in him or herself.
In other words, it is easy to spot a Pharisee, unless, of course, you are looking in the mirror.
So how do we discover and deal with the Pharisee inside us? Read more
The Absence of Prayer
I faced a circle of blank stares. It was a standoff, and I was willing to wait. As a youth pastor, I had grown accustomed to this response from my students. I had asked a simple question: “Would anyone be willing to pray?” But as any youth pastor can tell you, it is not that simple. You would think I had asked the group of teenage boys if they had viewed pornography recently. Eventually, the same student that always broke the awkward silence prayed, if for no other reason than to alleviate the anxiety of his peers.
As a youth pastor, I encountered many difficult and disheartening moments, such as finding out a student lived a completely different lifestyle than I had known. However, as my tenure in youth ministry grew, those moments of cold sweat from my students became the saddest. The sadness only increased when I discovered that prayer was missing from their lives completely. My students simply had no idea what prayer was. For them, prayer was a duty and a ritual. It was not an invitation, but a requirement. It was not a time to be real, but a time to be presentable. Prayer had become a static, lifeless, and boring act. It had been sterilized. It had nothing to do with real life. It certainly wasn’t personal or relational. Beyond the obligatory prayer before meals and possibly at bedtime, most of my students had never been taught or modeled a life of prayer. Sure, it occurred at church, but that was a religious setting. The professional Christian (the pastor) prayed, but that was his thing. Prayer was lofty and “spiritual”; it was something you were supposed to do, but my students didn’t really know why.
Several years later, I find myself ministering in a completely different context, leading people on spiritual retreat. What I have discovered is that the static, depersonalized version of prayer that my youth group students had embraced is not isolated to them. For many Christians prayer is simply another item on a long list of good Christian behavior. Prayer is not a means of being with God at all times and all places. Read more
Six Reasons to Live More Simply—and Give More Generously
Someone has said, “Live simply that others may simply live.” Of course, there is no automatic relationship between my simple living and someone else being rescued from starvation or reached with the gospel. There is only a relationship if I, in fact, use the resources I have freed up to feed the hungry and reach the lost. This itself assumes I will continue to make a decent wage. For if I go off and pursue simple living for simple living’s sake, spending what little I earn on myself, it does no good for anyone else. The point is not merely saying “no” to money and things, but using money and things to say “yes” to God.
How can we live more simply? There are thousands of ways. We can buy used cars rather than new, modest houses rather than expensive ones. We don’t have to replace older furniture just for appearances. We can mend and wear clothes we already have, shop at thrift stores, give up recreational shopping and costly clothes and jewelry, cut down on expensive convenience foods, and choose less costly exercise and recreation. Some of us can carpool, use public transportation, or a bike instead of a car or second car. But these are things few of us will do unless we have clear and compelling reasons. Here are six.... Read more
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