rebelling against low expectations
This past year, my two friends and I read through the Psalms. As I read, I noticed many interesting key themes. I learned that the Psalms are very repetitive. The writers are trying to make certain things crystal clear. Today I would like to share five themes I found in the Psalms. Theme #1: God’s Steadfast Love God’s steadfast love is mentioned over 120 times in the Psalms. The phrase “His...
In the world today, sustainability is preached from the rooftops. There’s an urgency for people to take the earth’s health more seriously, even if that means going to extreme measures—like not having children or going months without washing your hair. However, rather than just accept what the world says, let’s look at what God says about the earth and our role in caring for it in His Word...
We’re apt to criticize the Christmas season. It’s true, there’s a lot to criticize in the way our culture defines Christmas. What should be a season of beauty, wonder, and worship becomes several weeks of fighting crowds and harried online shopping. Celebration of our Savior’s birth turns into the stress of too many parties and events. As Christians, of course we should push back against this...
When I was a child, I often recited The Lord’s Prayer without an afterthought as to what I was actually uttering. If you’re anything like me, the art of prayer can be a difficult spiritual principle to grow in. Some churches teach to pray out loud or inside your head, while others remark that you need to say, “Our Father,” or “Jesus,” for it to be blessed and valid. Friends of mine raise their...
Every week, we proclaim glorious truths of Jesus Christ and His substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf through song. We lift our voices among fellow brothers and sisters, sharing a unity of our love for this Christ, who has utterly transformed us and raised us from death to life. Our once hopeless lives have been redeemed. We owe our complete and total allegiance to Jesus Christ, our Savior and...
Rebelutionary, you are a target. As scary as that sounds, it’s a good thing to be aware of. As children of God, Satan is after us. He constantly works to distract us, lead us away from God, keep us from spreading the Gospel of Christ, and attempts to sabotage every good thing we do for the Lord. But even though he has supernatural powers beyond what we alone are capable of, we have something far...
Lately, God has been teaching me about his character, especially his overwhelming faithfulness. I say overwhelming because every time I try to understand it I get…well, overwhelmed. It’s one of the craziest and most amazing things I’ve ever known. He’s also been teaching me about my character—especially my unfaithfulness to him. Distracted Again I have a tendency to get distracted...
I sit down at my computer once again. My fingers touch the keys. My thoughts wander. I have to write yet another paper but feel pulled toward so many other things at this moment. Why am I even in school? What about all the other things I wish to do? Does it really matter how well I complete my schoolwork? Being in college has often landed me in this situation, and I’m sure I’m not alone. What...
Once upon a time, an awkward, homeschooled sixth grader walked into a room that would change her life. That room was the Brightmoor Youth Center. That sixth grader was me. My youth group has changed me as a person. I say this not as an exaggerated, cliched statement. I say this as an unadulterated truth—I am a different person now than I was four years ago because of my youth group. When eleven...
“You need to celebrate!” my mentor told me. I’d just told her something I’d been praying for and working toward for months had happened. I laughed, feeling like a hypocrite. I’d just told my mentee that morning to celebrate what God was doing in her life. In our culture, we don’t celebrate a whole lot. Yet celebration is a spiritual discipline. The Israelites, following God’s law, made...
rebelling against low expectations
