You Didn’t Choose Your Trauma, But You Can Choose Your Healing
Nobody wakes up one morning and says, “Today I think I’ll mess up my life and the lives of those…
freedom
Healing, Repentance, and Deliverance in Becoming Whole
Feeling stuck in your Christian life? Repeatedly asking for forgiveness only to keep falling into the same sins? Are the…
Overcome Your Complex Relationship with Sex, Intimacy, and God
Believe it or not, sex and all that comes with it affects you deeply. Your relationship with sex is complicated.…
Stop People-Pleasing: Embracing Authenticity in Relationships and Parenting
Perhaps you’ve recognized that you need to stop people-pleasing. Other people are good at taking up all the mental real…
Three Things to Do With Your Messy Sexual Story
Every single day, no exceptions, I hear from people struggling. Men and women, married and unmarried, young and old, from…
How to Stop Hiding From Your Spouse
You’ve got sexual baggage, and your sexual baggage is impacting your marriage. Your spouse has baggage too, but today we’re…
Why do I Keep Sinning the Same Way?
There’s something you keep doing that you know you shouldn’t be doing. Or perhaps you’re not doing something you know…
Why Not Every Marriage Can be Saved
Yes, God does miracles! He can and does transform the most destructive and hurtful marriages into shining demonstrations of His…
Is It Healing? Or Is It Deliverance?
Give a boy a hammer and the whole world looks like a nail. And Christians can fall into the same…
Dealing with the Roots of Sexual “Stuff”
If you’ve been mowing the weeds of troubling, unwanted, or ungodly sexual thoughts or behaviors and they keep growing back,…
Three Things to Do if you’re Struggling with Sexual Stuff
It’s a problem. And maybe it’s a problem for you. Struggling with sexual stuff is hard. This topic cuts so…
Why Trying to Change Your Behavior Doesn’t Work
What if you received Christ’s forgiveness, and then never committed a sin ever again? Suppose you never killed anyone, looked…
Working Together With God For Your Freedom
Freedom is a metaphor used too often in Scripture for us to ignore. It’s not the only Biblical picture of…
Pornography and your Christian Marriage
If the gospel is good for anything it must have an answer to the worst problems humans face. As believers…
No Fear of Death: Fearlessness as a Spiritual Weapon
Fear of death is perhaps the biggest fear of all. And losing the fear of death brings wonderful freedom and…
How Spirituality and Fear Affect Each Other
You’re afraid. You’re anxious and upset. So you pray. And pray some more. But what about when your fear and…
How you should Vote as a Christian
Yes, I’m going to tell you how to vote as a Christian – without apology! [guestpost]For today only, I am…
A Woman’s Beauty and Strength: Dangerous or Delightful?
Can we talk? Just you and me, girlfriend? A woman’s beauty is one source of her strength. But everything depends…
Is Someone Else In Charge Of Your Health?
Perhaps you’re like many of those I talk with. You feel powerless. Stuck. Sick and tired of being sick and…
How God Deals With the Consequences of Bad Behavior
In this world we all face bad stuff. Sometimes others wound you, and those scars are painful. But what can…
How to Disinfect Your Shame
We are all wounded. Life happens to us. People hurt us. And we hurt ourselves. But when the infection of…
Why Do Some People Beat the Odds?
Why do some people beat the odds and others don’t? Some people remain stuck. Their addictions are just as strong…
What’s GOOD About Shame?
Can there ever be anything good about shame? You may have heard it a lot: “You ought to be ashamed…
The ONE Question That Will Help You Make ANY Decision
Whether you tend to become paralyzed over making significant decisions or often act before you have all the information you…
5 Ways to Deal With Difficult People
Into every life some difficult people must come. These are the people who make you feel small, stupid, and powerless.…
The Gospel Is Not For Wimps!
Sometimes we think the message of the Gospel offers good people a way to become better, get over their hangups…
Free From the Gold, the Girls, and the Glory
With painful regularity yet another preacher gets caught in a scandal. Donated funds have been diverted to personal use. An inappropriate sexual relationship is discovered. The “ministry” has become focused on someone’s personality rather than God’s work.
One more of God’s servants has fallen to the lure of the gold, the girls, or the glory.
10 Ways You Can Worship God
As a human being you were made to worship. Even though most of us get completely self-absorbed too often, you as an individual human being are not big enough to worship.
As incredibly valuable as you are to God, to others, and to the world, God has left Himself indispensable.
But showing God the worship He is worthy of does not happen in an hour or two each week in some church service, as important as that is. Worship is a lifestyle.
What’s Different After Good Friday?
How well I remember the Good Friday when everything changed for me. I had gone to church all my life, but something was terribly wrong. I knew a lot about God, but I didn’t know HIM. That night it all changed. It happened to be on a Good Friday when I met Jesus. Right then my spirit became alive, and everything else followed.
10 Things God Has Put You In Charge Of
Try to take charge of what is in God’s hands, and you will become frustrated and anxious. Neglect to take charge of things God has placed in YOUR hands, and you will become depressed.
I’ve gotten confused over the difference many times, and perhaps you have too. Understanding the difference can change everything about your happiness, peace, and success in this world, and more.
How To Deal With Difficult People
Some people are impossibly difficult. At least for you. You can’t stand being around them. Every time you have to deal with them, you have a bad day.
If you’re a Christian, you may wonder what’s wrong with your spirituality when trying to deal with someone you can’t stand. Aren’t you supposed to love them? Isn’t that what Jesus would do?
“Why Don’t I Feel Like Praying?”
Some part of your heart believes you “should” pray. Prayer is a good thing. But you are struggling to find it in you to actually pray.
Does that mean you’re just not “spiritual enough?”
Not necessarily. God made us as whole, integrated human beings. Something that happens in one part of our lives may impact every other area. And that includes your spiritual energy.
You’re Not Afraid? I Don’t Believe You
You might say, “Nothing scares me.”
But I don’t believe you.
You and I are human. We have feelings. God made us that way.
The question is not, “Are you afraid?” The question is, “What are you afraid of?”
And even more importantly, “What are you going to do about it?”
10 Things to Leave Behind in 2014
A new year provides a wonderful opportunity to leave behind things that aren’t working.
At least briefly review your physical lifestyle, money habits, thoughts and emotions, use of time, personal relationships, and spiritual practices. Ask a few important questions about each area, and it’s likely you will find things that you can do without in 2014.
MEMO: Getting Past Your Past
Have you ever felt really stuck? It feels like something big has its claws in your brain and you just can’t move. No matter how hard you try you can’t get rid of the baggage that is weighing you down and holding you back.
We all come with a past. Some of our baggage is stuff others have done to us. Some of our baggage is stuff we have done to ourselves.
But how do you get past all that? Here’s how:
How to Find the Freedom of Forgiveness
You’ve been wronged. Badly.
There comes a time after every such horrible wrong where you must make a decision. And it’s yours alone to make. You have only two choices. Do you remain hurt and miserable, or do the hard work of forgiveness.
Forgiveness sets you free. It does much more for the one doing the forgiving than the one needing to be forgiven.
Forgiveness is also one of the hardest things for most people to do. There’s a sweet misery in nursing your wounds. Having been hurt is a wonderful excuse for all kinds of bad behavior.
The Exhilarating Freedom NOT To Care
Have you ever come to the point where you don’t care? It’s one of the most powerful places you can be. And it’s exhilarating!
This is about getting rid of the chains that your own fears create in business, personal relationships, and even your spiritual life.
It’s possible to care too much. Becoming too invested in the outcome puts you in a very vulnerable position, clouds your perspective, and removes all your negotiating power.
“God Is Your Father” – Good News or Bad?
If you’ve gone to church or read the Bible you’ve surely heard that God is your Father. You’re supposed to feel safe and secure knowing that. The thought of God as your Father is supposed to make you want to run into His arms with joy, knowing He will handle all your problems.
But does it really make you feel that way?
5 Laws You CANNOT Make
One would think that legislators couldn’t come up with any more laws regulating anything else. Until they do!
Everything we do, every activity we touch, has laws controlling it.
Those laws, rules, and regulations we’ve become accustomed to. But then we get to some laws that are truly pushing the edge of sanity.
5 Times to NOT Care What Anyone Thinks
I might not say it in quite those words, but it’s really true: “I don’t care what you think!” In fact it HAS to be true, or I’m no good to you or anybody else.
For a people-pleasing person like me, that conclusion is a hard one to come to.
Here are some specific situations where it’s important to NOT care others think:
Steps to Forgiveness
Holding on to wrongs done to you will eat away at your soul, and eventually your body and mind. We have heard about forgiveness from preachers, and well we should. But I believe we need to hear more about forgiveness from doctors.
Declare Your Independence
Today we celebrate American Independence Day, the day our Founding Fathers declared their independence from the British Empire. And it…
