God's Will for Us

What About Salvation?

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. (2 Cor. 5:17)

There are a number of aspects to salvation. Salvation isn’t just getting out of hell and into heaven. There are many different things which make up what we refer to broadly as salvation — things which themselves are great and marvelous, and which together make up a mighty work which only God could conceive and carry out, and which, like all His works, depends only and entirely on His purpose and power and not on anything in the work or its result.

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What’s in a name?

But now thus says the LORD that created you…”Fear not: for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name; you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1

What’s in a name?

We cannot get around that question. From the start, we are named. As life continues, we bestow more names to children, pets, toys, places, projects, et cetera.

This naming business is far from insignificant. Consequently, it can often subject to negative, extremely personal and abusive behavior. It can challenge the recovery from our individual hurts, histories and obstacles.

I’ve personally encountered this toxicity. I have had people call me derogatory names; profanity and misogyny have often been at the center of those names.

It’s startling, infuriating and potentially harmful to my health and recovery. Often reeling from these encounters, my only recourse is to

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Clueless or Purposeful Recovery?

As we bump along in life, we often misunderstand things, especially concerning our recovery. I recently caught a cartoon which captures that reality.

In it, we see Jesus and His disciples on a fishing boat. One disciple is in a festive mood, complete with some castanet shaking. This prompts another disciple’s response…

“You idiot. He said cast the nets.”

Does this spotlight, once again, our human cluelessness?

Perhaps, rather, it taps into the purposeful recovery-from-addiction meaning in our lives, should we choose to embrace it.

Let’s take a gander at the fishy verses…

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What Was I Thinking?

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child… 1 Corinthians 13:11


Many of us, looking back on childhood photos, stare in horror at our various hairstyle and clothing choices. Sometimes, they were made by our family members; sometimes, they were made by us.

Regardless, with hindsight, we reach the conclusion, “what was I thinking?”

Complicating that question further, is the reconciliation/forgiveness/better choices we embark on as we proceed with our lives.

It starts by acknowledging and applying the wrap-around scriptures, encasing 1 Corinthians 13:11…

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Success Is… Grace

And of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace.” John 1:16

As someone recovering from disordered image, food and weight issues, I’ve long wrestled with the perfection issue. There was a mandate, both self-imposed and emanating from others, to be perfect in behavior, achievement and appearance.

However, this last goal was the most frustrating and demoralizing.

As a child, I was overweight, inheriting my mother’s own negative body image perceptions. Later, throughout adolescence, I was bullied, teased and rejected.

And then, adding insult to injury, I felt I could never win when it came to my dad and his expectations.

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Finding It Hard to Forgive?

And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors. Matthew 6:12

How many times do we pray this portion of what is commonly called “The Lord’s Prayer” and yet fail to consider what we’re asking? It is a petition, a request of God to forgive us – in the same manner and proportion in which we forgive others. Are you okay with that? Are you comfortable with receiving God’s forgiveness to the same extent that you give it to others?

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Optical Illusion: Liar?

Recently, on social media, I saw a brain teaser trending. It was an image that, at first glance, looked like a face. It stated, “Share when you see a word,” asking us to look beyond this face value.

And, upon doing so, at a certain angle, one can see a dotted “I” where the nose/nostril is, along with an “a” for the mouth and an “r” creating the chin and neck. And starting the entire face, there is an elaborate “L,” making up the two eyes.

So, when we spell the face, what word do we get?

Answer: liar.

The face of addiction, right there, ladies and gentlemen.

The old joke asks:
How do you tell if an addict is lying?
Answer: His/her lips are moving.

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“I don’t want to do this.”

Gethsemane: Code For… “I don’t want to do this.”

We’ve uttered that statement frequently in our lives.

This time of year, there’s a great deal of emphasis on Jesus. As we prepare for Resurrection Sunday, we read and remind ourselves just how this whole thing came to be: hope, salvation and reunion with God. It didn’t just happen.

And a large part of it depends on Gethsemane.

Yes, Jesus is amazing and loving. But He still had a night of decision. Hours away from being crucified, there was a real moment; He didn’t want to do it.

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Internalizing the Wrong Messages?

I’m a huge fan of classic cartoons. The Roadrunner, in particular, always makes me smile.

Recently, I stumbled across an image, featuring Wile. E. Coyote’s “calling card,” which read “Genius.” And it immediately reminded me of a famous Albert Einstein quote:

Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

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Tribulation and Faith

Even when we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest,
but we were afflicted on every side:
conflicts without, fears within. (2 Cor. 7:5 ESV)


Sometimes Christians get the wrong idea about faith. Knowing that only believers enter the celestial city, we put a great deal of importance on faith, and if it wavers, we become fearful. If we experience doubt, we wonder if our faith is failing – if, after all, we’re not Christians at all, or if we are, if we haven’t departed from the Lord and ceased to be such. I myself have been there – I won’t go into the details, but there was a time in the 80s when I seriously did wonder whether I’d ever been saved in the first place. My faith was under attack, and I grew afraid.

To some extent at least this grows out of a wrong idea of what faith is. Even the most knowledgeable Christians can sometimes make this mistake, believing that Biblical faith has something to do with our emotion state, or that it’s something we have to muster up from within ourselves. Let’s be sure of what faith is, and then attacks against our faith arise along this line, we’ll be better able to resist. There are two related Greek words we need to consider, one a noun and one a verb – pistiz and pisteuw (pistis, pisteuo). The noun means, “reliance upon, trust in, dependence on,” and of course the verb means “to rely on, to depend on, to trust.” Thus, when we have faith, or when we believe, we have that trust and dependence on Christ, we’re trusting Him and depending on Him. And it is important that we have the proper object of our faith. We must trust Jesus, Jesus entirely, and Jesus only. If we trust anyone or anything other than the Lord Christ, our faith is in the wrong object, and we’ll never see God. If we trust Jesus partly and something or someone else partly, we’re again not believing as the Bible demands, and we’ll come short of the heavenly city. Biblical faith has as its object Jesus alone and Jesus to the uttermost.

And it is here that some professing Christians miss the point.

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