What is Jesus doing? He’s telling us that salvation is not something man can accomplish. No matter how much we do, we can never gain heaven. We’re a big, smelly camel trying to fit through the narrow holiness God requires. And we just can’t do it.

We have two options: we can make rules to exclude or remove barriers to include. If God’s church is a house of prayer—a house of worship—then everyone is welcome. Everyone has a chance to meet Jesus.

Looking back now, my decade probably wasn’t too different from yours. Babies were born. People died. Life was lived. Tears and joy mingled to make a portrait of something bigger and more complex than we could ever imagine.

A year ago, we gathered in a cemetery chapel next to a coffin that seemed too small to be real. That beast Cancer had taken another. This time, little Finn.

When your sin puts you in the depths of despair, and you have no way out on your own, there is a God above who rules and reigns and forgives and saves.

A little over a hundred years ago, God broke through in Korea. As the Spirit moved, public confession flowed. Here is one account of the impact.

I recently prepared a talk to my church’s men’s gathering on Psalm 85 and revival. During that time of preparation, I was reminded of a sermon from Ray Ortlund in September 2018. During that sermon, he answered five questions about revival from Psalm 85:6, “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?”

I had a friend who used to answer a common question in an uncommon way. He has since moved to another city, but his response has never left me. For a long time, when I would ask how he was, he gave a three-fold response:

“God is on his throne, everything is going his way, and he loves me.”

I recently read Randy Alcorn’s book Money, Possessions, and Eternity. The entire book is a ball of conviction. His argument is so impactful because it comes from the pages of Scripture. This part particularly got me.

How “covenental” are our prayers? How centered are they on God’s revealed word? How much do they lean on his promises? How many are merely selfish desires robed in Christian language?