Consider this

                Anger is easy.   It is often our default emotion when things go wrong. Though most would not admit it, we like being angry!   It feels good to put people in their place.   If I had a dollar for every story I have heard where someone bragged about telling another person off, I would be rich.   Anger makes us feel strong!                 There is only one problem:   most anger has nothing to do with strength.   While there is a case to be made for righteous anger where we are upset about same things that upset God, most of our anger is fear based and comes from feelings of weakness, selfishness, or loss of control.   Self-control is the quality of the strong (Proverbs 16:32).               The tricky part is that we keep using anger because it appears to be effective. For example, you can control people by yelling and screa

                  If I told you that I wanted to highlight one word from 1 Corinthians 13, you would probably guess that the word is “love”.   However, I want to focus on a different word.   “It (love) always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (verse 7).   I want you to think about the word “always”.                 Always is a huge a word!   Always is not “part of the time”, or “when I feel like it”.   Always means every time, in every situation, with everyone.                   Always applies to a bunch of other qualities too.   A partial list indicates that that Christians are to always “abound in the work of the Lord” (I Corinthians 15:58), rejoice (2 Corinthians 6:10), give thanks (Ephesians 5:20), glorify and honour Christ (Philippians 1:20), obey the teachings of God (Philippians 2:12), speak kindly (Colossians 4:6), do good

                When I was younger, life just seemed to roll along.   Lately, though, it seems that every week brings another situation that I do not want to face.                   What do you do when you find yourself in troubling circumstances?   Where do you find the courage to not only keep going, but to do so with strength and hope?                   In Acts 3, Peter and John are arrested for preaching about Jesus and for healing people.   After being imprisoned overnight, threatened and commanded to stop teaching, they are released.   When the church hears what has happened, they pray a prayer that not only helps them, but instructs us on how to deal with any problem that comes our way.                 They begin by remembering who is in charge and that nothing is out of control.   “Sovereign Lord, you made the heavens and the earth and

                Charting a child’s yearly growth by putting marks on the wall is interesting.   It is fun to see progress.   On the other hand, that same exercise is less exciting with a twenty-five-year old.   To chart their current development, different qualities must be considered.                 When churches want to measure how they are doing, they most often turn to the ABCs:   Attendance, Buildings and Cash.   Interestingly, the New Testament never comments on any of those categories.   How big was the church in Corinth?   Where did they meet?   How much was their budget?   We have no idea!                   A more Biblical model would be to think about church health.   To do that, here are three indicators to measure ourselves against.                 First, healthy churches do not just exist, they respond.   In 2 Corinthians