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When Knowing Becomes a Substitute for Following

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A companion study inspired by What Are You Seeking? I have continued thinking about Sunday’s message, particularly the idea that we can mistake the growth of our knowledge for the growth of our soul. When I said it, I meant it, but the more I thought about it, the more I wondered why we so easily make this mistake Knowledge gives us visible evidence of progress. There are many passages that I understand today that would have confused me several years ago. There are doctrines I once struggled to articulate, just flow form my lips today. And most importantly I can recognize bad interpretations of Scripture more quickly than I once could. This is proof that growth is taking place, as it should because scripture repeatedly encourages us to grow in knowledge. (2 Peter 3:18) and to study to show yourselves approved (2 Timothy 2:25) But I am beginning to see that knowledge and spiritual maturity are not necessarily the same thing. Paul's warns us about knowledge for the sake of k...
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When God's Answer Looks Like Silence

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How our expectations can keep us from recognizing God's work. We like to think we enter conversations with open minds, ready to hear whatever the other person has to say. But more often than we'd like to admit, we step into those conversations with our conclusions already formed. We aren't simply inviting dialogue—we're expecting the other person to confirm what we've already decided. And that's exactly what happens when we come before God. Before we ever ask Him to answer, we've often decided what His answer should look like. But what happens when God's answer doesn't fit the conclusion we reached before we ever prayed? Most of the time, it catches us off guard because our expectations have become so deeply rooted that we never stop to question them. Instead, we find ourselves saying things like, "God isn't listening," "God didn't answer my prayer," or "God has gone silent. We rarely stop to examine our o...
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Discover the difference between regret and repentance and why true repentance leads us to the mercy of Jesus Christ.

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Opening Reflection Almost everyone knows what regret feels like. We replay conversations late at night, wishing we could pull the words back. We think about choices we wish we had never made, or secrets we desperately hope will never come to light. Regret is a universal human experience. It lies awake with us, replaying the past like a broken record. But there is a dangerous spiritual reality that many people never realize: Regret and repentance are not the same thing. You can spend years drowning in regret and never once experience genuine, life-altering biblical repentance. This distinction changes everything about how we deal with our past, our guilt, and our relationship with God.   Central Truth: The Inward Focus of Regret Regret and repentance may feel similar on the surface because both involve sorrow, but they are driven by profoundly different motives. Regret is fundamentally self-focused. It zeroes in on what our sin has cost us or how it has damaged our ea...
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How God Gives You a New Identity After Your Past

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Series: Restored: When Broken People Meet the Restoring Christ Week 1 Message: Jacob: When Your Past Chases You Have you ever stopped and looked at your own life and wondered, "How did I become this person?" Not because you intended to. Very few people wake up one morning planning to become dishonest, bitter, controlling, distant, or someone they no longer recognize. More often, it happens slowly. One compromise becomes a habit. One lie requires another. One selfish decision becomes a pattern. Before long, what we once excused has quietly become part of who we believe we are. The greatest tragedy is not simply that we have sinned. Is that our sin begins to define us. We start believing that our worst decisions are our identity. We assume our past has already written our future, and that the person we've become is the person we'll always be. But the Bible tells a different story. Throughout Scripture, God meets people whose pasts seem impossible to escape. He doesn...
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Juneteenth: The Masters We Still Serve

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  An update of posts from June 18th, 2018 and June 18th, 2020 Abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, Presbyterian Minister John Rankin and Levi Coffin, worked tirelessly — in many cases even in defiance of the law — to free Black men and women from bondage in the United States. Then on January 1st, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln ratified the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that all enslaved persons in the Confederate States of America in rebellion and not in Union hands were to be freed. It appeared that the institution known as slavery had been defeated. Shockingly, some enslaved African Americans had no idea that President Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which mandated that they be set free. In Texas, more than two-and-a-half years passed before they attained the knowledge of their freedom. For 30 months, African American slaves in Texas were free — but did not know it. They were no longer under the law of slavery, yet th...
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Are You Limping Between Two Opinions? Making Your Mount Carmel Choice

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  Introduction There comes a moment in every believer’s life where "exposure" is no longer enough. We can identify the compromise in our lives, we can weep over our divided loyalties, and we can name the idols we’ve allowed to sit at the table with Jesus—but eventually, a decision must be made. Revelation without response doesn’t heal; it hardens.
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When Jesus Is No Longer Enough: (Navigating the Dangers of Mixed Altars)

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The modern believer rarely wakes up and decides to stop following Jesus. We don’t usually trade the Cross for a white flag of surrender. Instead, we trade the Cross for a crowded table. This is the subtle danger of mixed altars – when our faith becomes diluted by what we add beside Christ, rather than rejecting Him outright. In his letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul issues a staggering warning: "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons." Notice he doesn't say you shouldn't —he says you cannot . It is a spiritual impossibility to maintain a covenant with Christ while inviting "extra guests" to sit at His altar. This isn't a polite suggestion; it's a spiritual law. The greatest threat to our Christian allegiance in the 21st-century church isn't that we are losing our faith; it’s that we are editing it. We have become experts at the "Jesus Plus" gospel, which often serves as a form of modern idolatry : Jesus ...
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