Whenever my kids wake up in the morning, I ask them “How was your sleep?” I often get a generic “Good” and nothing more. Sometimes they have a crappy sleep. Maybe they are sick, had a bad dream or just didn’t sleep long enough and were woken up by a sibling. A bad sleep should never ruin your...
Judgement: Healthy o...
posted by Ryan
Some people are good at seeing the best in people. My wife was always good at this, but that was not me. Though it wasn’t usually an outward thing, I was always judging people based on what I thought their motives were. I had high standards of religious duty and I held everyone else who...
How Do You Know Your Repentance Worked?
posted by Ryan
I used to “repent” and feel so bad when I messed up, asking God to forgive me. I used to think that He would end up coming back the moment that I just sinned and without enough time to repent and ask for forgiveness, I would go to hell. I had very little knowledge of the scripture. When I came to understand repentance, things changed. I used to feel bad, beat myself up, cry, use emotion and promise that I would never do it again lest I fall into “false repentance”. All these ideas I believed were far from the Truth. My ideas were mostly derived from Old Covenant history, rather than New Covenant reality. The word...
Does God Want Holine...
posted by Ryan
It was the most powerful time I can remember in Bible college. We started the morning with worship and prayer as any other normal day, but today was different. As we worshipped and focussed on God, the teacher began to speak prophetic words over each of the students. As he made his way, one...
What if Fred Phelps ...
posted by Ryan
I just heard about the passing of Fred Phelps, the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, a church that promotes hate of gays, lesbians, etc. Being the curious person that I am, I wanted to know more about the cause of his death. In the top few search results there are articles about people...
Waking Up Pissed Off
posted by Ryan
Eyes wide open and your heart starts racing. YOU SLEPT IN!! ARGH!! What happened?? You swear that eight short hours ago you set the alarm… right when little Jimmy came to your room because he had a bad dream. Oh no!! You got side tracked and forgot to set your alarm! Today is one of the...
Jesus Didn’t F...
posted by Ryan
I used to believe that Jesus was this upright, disciplined, motivated individual who had all His ducks lined up. I used to believe that He was so focused and determined and that is why He lived a sin-free life… that was until He revealed a glimpse of His love to me. Jesus was human. He...
10 Tips to Defeat Si...
posted by Ryan
OH, THE POWER OF SIN!! Its strength, authority and control. A vast mountain to overcome, a disease that spreads, a vortex that sucks you in and a chain around your neck that restricts the ability to breathe… at least that is how I used to view it. When I would go through a tough time,...
The Bible Can Stop Y...
posted by Ryan
In the past, I used the scriptures to determine whether I was hearing from Christ or not, but that only bound me to what God spoke to others in history. I have found this to be backwards. The scriptures are great, BUT without the Holy Spirit, they are a burden, and though they point to life,...
My Humanistic Theolo...
posted by Ryan
Christ has been ripping my theology apart in the last few years and continually showing me the depths of His love. He has dissolved my self-inspired theology that was developed through years of being led by my eyes and ears, rather than the Spirit of God. I would hear what I thought was a...