This post was originally posted at Desiring God on August 20, 2014. The original post can be found here. Every summer the same thing happens to my inbox. I open it to find a steady stream of emails from concerned parents, youth pastors, and older siblings, asking me to check in on so and so…
Heath Lambert, who serves as the Executive Director at the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors recently wrote a book called Finally Free: Fighting For Purity With The Power Of Grace that our pastoral interns recently read and discussed. His book was particularly helpful, insightful and full of practical wisdom. One such chapter was on how to use…
Originally posted on September 3, 2014 by Mark Altrogge at The Blazing Center. When the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us he changes our hearts and minds. He gives us the mind of Christ (Php 2:5). And we are to cooperate with him by actively transforming our minds and thinking by the word of God. “Do not be…
Walt Mueller shares in his book The Space Between: A Parent’s Guide to Teenage Development a few suggestions on how to offer stability to teenage emotions when they seem to be out of control that I wanted to pass on. He says… Treat your teenagers’ emotions as important. Don’t be insensitive. Make every effort to ensure that your…
What do you do with a child you have raised in the church and instructed in the things of God but they seem to not believe (or not believe to the degree you think they should) and they continually question the truth of God? Walt Mueller gives several words of advice: Be diligent in teaching…
A confrontation or rebuke is actually a good thing and all of us need to be confronted and rebuked from time to time. Tripp lays out several truths regarding biblical confrontation that are very helpful. Confrontation is rooted in a submission to the First Commandment. “A reliable indicator of our love for God is the quality…
Chester says, “the main reason we don’t change is our proud self-righteousness and our proud self-reliance. Porn and pride go hand in hand. It’s an odd dynamic, because porn brings so much shame. But we’ve seen that porn also puts me at the center, creating a world in which I’m worshiped. So despite the shame…
For those who have fallen into sin, particularly sins of a sexually immoral nature, the guilt is seemingly endless. In fact, any Christian who has struggled with a besetting sin can empathize with any or all of the following statements: I feel like crap about myself. I don’t feel worthy to serve God. And I…
I’ve been perusing through a book that I read several years ago called “Crucial Confrontations: Tools for resolving broken promises, violated expectations, and bad behavior” and I wanted to write a couple words about some statements made in this book, as well as some personal thoughts on the issue. By “crucial confrontations” the author means…
In Kenneth Samples’ book Seven Truths That Changed the World: Discovering Christianity’s Most Dangerous Ideas he makes the following statements that I found helpful regarding sin and its consequences in the life of a non-Christian and wanted to pass along: God may use evil and suffering to get a nonbeliever’s attention and ultimately draw that person…
Theology Along the Way 