This Easter we celebrate the good news that Jesus’s death and resurrection ensures every believers has a home in God’s kingdom.

When you think about heaven, I hope that what comes to mind is not images of people floating around on clouds and playing harps or an eternity of sitting in hard church pews singing out of a hymnal. The kingdom of heaven will be anything but boring!

One of my very favorite memories is of sitting at a friend’s table with almost a dozen women, all of us complete or near strangers to one another, laughing and talking. This is how I picture the wedding feast in Matthew 22.

The writer of Philippians, Paul, once had desired to gain right standing with God through his own achievements. But when he encountered Jesus, he realized that only Christ was able to achieve salvation on his behalf, and that understanding changed everything for Paul.

Death is a given in life whether or not people choose to think about it. While we would agree that to dwell on one’s death is a bit morbid, to not think about one’s impending death is repressing the inevitable.

Is being content even possible? I can hear the Rolling Stones lyrics in my head: “I can’t get no… satisfaction… and I try, and I try, and I try!” There is so much that our hearts endlessly long for, especially deep down where our desires are to be loved, fulfilled, and happy.

There is a huge difference between having knowledge about something and intimately knowing something. To intimately know Jesus Christ requires opening your heart to him in a way that exposes everything: your hurtful ways, your anxious thoughts, all of it.

Listening, really listening, to someone is such a gift. We live in a world of talkers. It seems clear to me that there are a lot more people talking than listening (to someone other than themselves!).

Suffering is a journey of the heart, and while we want the strong faith, we often don’t want to walk the path to it. And yet, the result of suffering is coming to a place where what we want most is God himself, not so he can change our circumstances or even give us comfort, but simply so we can experience the sweetness of delighting in him.

Do you ever get to the point where you are just tired out? Not the good kind of tired after a workout or the irritable kind after staying up too late. I mean the kind of tired that seems to seep into your soul with a heaviness that doesn’t want to lift. Have you been there? I know I certainly have been. What if your weariness lays heavy because your trust and hope in God is low?

You are a witness. By your life, in your words, and through your actions, you bear witness to the grace and love of God. A witness is what you are. What you do is an extension of what you are, so when you act on your identity as a witness for God, you are “witnessing.”

Prayer is our opportunity to commune with God. Prayer is when we engage with God to share our hearts and hear from him in an intimate conversation. Paul shares in Philippians that prayer is something we should do

We live in an age where we’ve never had so much “knowledge.” Everything we need to know is one Google search or YouTube video away! There’s an app for that! The funny thing is that despite all of this knowledge, I think we all can look around and feel this deep sense that we are seriously lacking something.

During the Lent season, it's tradition to take Sunday as a celebration day.

It is helpful to consider our personalities and the way the Lord wired us, but whatever is revealed about how we interact with others, living in community is vital to our souls. We need human relationships; we need each other in the body of Christ. COVID-19 has shed light on that.

Today’s verse was written to people who understood that the Holy Spirit is to be a daily staple of dependence for living and that he is safe. To be “filled” means God has liberally supplied what is necessary to live life to the fullest as he intended.

Jesus knew that we are a people prone to doubt, prone to worry, and prone to letting the cares of this world drown out the melody of his grace. That is why, as he neared the end of his life, he began to assure his followers that it was better he go in order that the Holy Spirit could be poured out on God’s people.

What would it be like to be adopted by a king and not only be given all the rights and privileges connected to him but also have a close relationship with him as your father? For those in Christ, this is exactly what has happened. You were adopted by the King of Kings, and yet you can call him Father.

Can you imagine what the Christian life would be like if Jesus said to his disciples (and us, by extension), “I’ve shown you how to live. Now get out there and do it!” Do you understand how frustratingly impossible that would be?