Consider this

  When my kids were young, we would drive by the exhibition grounds at night during the fair. It was spectacular! The lights from the Ferris Wheel, the Zipper, the Ring of Fire, and many other rides flashed and swirled across the dark sky. As a bonus, the smell of popcorn wafted through the air, and you could hear people laughing, screaming and having a great time.   It is one thing to sit outside the fence and watch the fair. It is a completely different experience to pay your money, go through the gate and ride the rides.   The only way to really experience the fair is to try it. Watching is not enough. One must act!   The same is true in spiritual matters: Action is required! One cannot study their way into a spiritual life. Thinking is not enough. One cannot memorize enough scripture to be holy. Beliefs are not enough. One cannot listen their way to a new life. Lessons are not enough. While those things are important, the only way to experience the n...

 Being immature is a great place to start, but it is a terrible place to stay. Here are three concepts that will help.  https://youtu.be/ECO9vF6rX3Q  

I officiate a couple of weddings per year.  Even though they take a lot of time, effort and organization, I really enjoy them.  Weddings are the exact opposite of the grouchy, negative, complaining world that we live in most of the time. Weddings are full of joy, hope and fun. Out of all the comparisons God could have used to describe his relationship with us, he chose a wedding analogy.  Jesus is depicted as a groom waiting for his bride (See Matthew 9 and 25, as well as Luke 2 and 5).  When John sees a vision of heaven, he describes the celebration as a wedding feast (Revelation 19). The marriage analogy gives us several understandings about our connection to Christ.  Here are a few. First, this relationship is a choice!  In my family, we celebrate birthdays, but anniversaries are the really big deal.  You were a passive participant in your birth, but an anniversary celebrates a decision you made.  Whether it is a wedding anniversary, a celebrat...

 It is great to have an unusual story to tell, but your best story is your everyday one.  https://youtu.be/UbECto9_FI4  

    Consider This:  The Need for Open Eyes “Give us open eyes to our blessings”.  I accidentally prayed that phrase many years ago.  I had not planned it, nor had I thought about it ahead of time.  It just happened.  Since then, I have repeated it a lot.  I almost always include it in any public prayer.  I have come to believe that having open eyes is of supreme importance.  Too often, we are drowning in blessings, yet we are discontent.  We could do so much good for others, but we think only of ourselves.  We have been gifted a million wonderful pleasures, yet focus on our few small problems.  Open eyes would change that situation.  Seeing what we actually have would cause us to be grateful, generous and kind.   Not only that, seeing how God has blessed us would help us trust him.  The future would be less scary if I remembered what God had done for me in the past.  Faith must look back occasional...

How Christians go through the Judgment Day and why it matters. https://youtu.be/IQ8yZoEfAA4   

   Consider This: The Danger of Drifting Most people will not blow up their life in one big, messy moment. It can happen, and when it does, the damage is obvious and instantaneous. Like a car wreck at an intersection, people make a bad decision, and chaos ensues. Parts and pieces scatter all over. People get hurt. Situations like this are unexpected, loud, shocking and scary. Most of us will not wreck our lives in one big, terrible moment. The real danger is that we will lose what is valuable in small, almost imperceptible steps. It happens all the time. You can leave your marriage without ever leaving your house. You can leave your faith while still attending church. You can leave your life while you are still living it. Many people lose what they love, not by making one big, out-of-character decision, but by coasting, disengaging, neglecting and missing what matters. Almost every Biblical list of Christian characteristics mentions “Self-control”, yet I have not g...

    Consider This:  The Shocking Truth At the beginning of his first letter, Peter talks about what Jesus did for us on the cross.  He then writes, “Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow.  It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things” (1 Peter 1:10-12).   Did you see what he said?  The prophets had no idea what would happen.  All they knew was that God was going to do something sometime.  They searched, thought and wondered, but never in a million years wou...

 Three responses to the new life God has given us.  https://youtu.be/FmqX5-3jOKc  

      If you have never stopped to see the Swinging Bridge in Souris, Manitoba, you should add it to your list of things to do. I like it. Others do not. It feels wobbly. It bounces up and down. I have seen people in the middle of the bridge holding on and screaming because it feels too unstable. Of course, there is nothing to fear. The bridge has huge anchors at each end and is secured by steel cables, but sometimes, our feelings make us forget the facts. Peter knows that his readers are about to face some scary situations. He does not want their feelings to obscure everything else, so he outlines three truths they need to remember. First, their hope is greater than their troubles. “For a little while, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold… may be proved genuine and result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:6-7). Not...

 Sometimes familiarity is the problem.  https://youtu.be/v0XE4ZK52xo    

  Why does God need our worship? The events of Matthew 14 provide at least one answer.   This chapter starts with the beheading of John the Baptist (verses 1-12). This is the first in a series of events that indicate things are about to become much more difficult for the believers. Next, the scene shifts to a crowd gathered on a hillside in Galilee. After listening to Jesus teach all day, the apostles realized that these people had nothing to eat. They brought the problem to Jesus. He took a child’s lunch and fed the entire group of five thousand men plus women and children. Afterwards, they picked up twelve baskets of leftovers (verses 13-21).   Then Jesus told them to get in a boat and cross the Sea of Galilee. As they went, a storm arose, and the apostles were scared. They struggled along until Jesus came to them walking on the water. Peter tried walking on the water too and sank. After Jesus rescued Peter, they got into the boat, and the storm immediately s...

 The real advantage of real faith.  https://youtu.be/gTPQpggj89M  

  Why does God need your worship? The answer might not be what you think it is!  https://youtu.be/GSMxZt8a-B0  

 We will never be content until this happens.  https://youtu.be/_44oi0YGVQo    

 You do not need to be more grateful. You need more of this.  https://youtu.be/EqB3_6P4ses  

    Granted, that is not the nicest article title ever, but it is excellent advice for helping a friend who is going through a difficult time.     Often, our first instinct is to stay away.  We do not want to get involved.  We want to avoid the mess.  We convince ourselves that our friend has enough going on and we would only be in the way.       None of that is true!     Avoiding your friend only isolates them and makes them feel even more alone.  What they need is your presence.  Period!  You do not need to have answers or give advice.  That is where the shut-up part comes.     When things go wrong, we ask “Why did this happen?”  We want to solve the puzzle.  “Cause and effect” makes sense to us.  Sometimes there is a direct cause that needs to be addressed, but often the issues are much more complicated than that.  More to the point, placing blame does not help....

 There are no easy answers, but this may help. Forget these two common beliefs!  https://youtu.be/LPNu47ztYSI    

 God’s ways are not our ways…. And that is a good thing!  https://youtu.be/0wEdhLw-B-E    

  If you were choosing people to work with during New Testament times, and the two picks were Peter and Stephen, you would choose Stephen every time. We first meet Stephen in Acts 6 when the leaders needed some men to serve the people. He was an obvious choice as he was “A man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (verse 5). Stephen is strong, wise, spiritual and dependable. On the other hand, Peter’s life was marked by a series of ups and downs. He was chosen by Jesus (Luke 5) and was the first to understand that Jesus was God’s Son (Matthew 16:16). He walked on the water, but then got scared and sank like a rock (Matthew 14). Peter was ready to fight to the death when Jesus was arrested (John 18:19), but a few hours later, he denied knowing Jesus at all (all four gospels record this low point). Interestingly, these two men preached two of the first recorded sermons and received completely different reactions. When Peter finishe...

 When we understand how God sees his people, it gives us hope and invites others in.  https://youtu.be/78DOpV69Vgs  

    Quick, name the most famous painting in the world.   If you said “The Mona Lisa,” you agree with everyone who was at church this past Sunday, the art insurers who declared it the most famous and valuable painting of all time, as well as the Guinness Book of World Records.   But it was not always that way.   Painted by Leonardo da Vinci between 1503 and 1506, the Mona Lisa has been on display at the Louvre in Paris since 1797. While the art world always appreciated the painting, one act gave it the iconic status and worldwide fame that it enjoys today. In 1911, it was stolen.   The theft generated unprecedented publicity as every newspaper in the world carried stories about the painting, possible suspects, offers of rewards, speculation regarding who took it and where it was hidden.  The painting was recovered in 1914 after it was discovered that a man named Vincenzo Peruggia had taken it believing that the Italian masterpiece belonged in Italy. ...

 We all want to see and celebrate results.... But in Spiritual things, results are really none of your business.  https://youtu.be/r8fThRVA9Ro  

  Over the years, I have heard people say that the biggest threat to the church these days is a specific preacher, a government policy, the culture around us, watered-down Christian teaching, and a thousand other things. While some of those are legitimate concerns, I do not think any of them are the biggest threat. Here is my nomination for that title.   “For this very reason [because God has given us the gift of salvation], make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:5-8).   To be clear: We are not saved because we are good, smart, or right. We are saved by God’s grace alone. Ephesians 2:8-9 says that w...

 Jesus offers more than just salvation and a chance to go to heaven. Much more.  https://youtu.be/4HCM1jn1BO8  

 We have been given both a gift and a privilege.   https://youtu.be/AVolpOcw2a4  

  Twenty-five years ago, the board of Clearview Christian Camp at Kenosee Lake decided to build new cabins. As part of the construction process, we rented a skid steer to clear some ground for the new concrete pads. One Saturday, a buddy of mine and I decided we ought to drive the skid steer down to the beach and use it to push the dock out. That was a bad decision!   We sank that piece of equipment so deep in the mud that even my truck could not pull it out. We had to call a farmer friend of ours and get him to come down with his tractor. To make matters worse, our friend was seeding at the time, so not only had we done something dumb, we had cost our friend valuable hours he could have been out in the field.   When I went to the camp the next weekend, the first person I saw was the farmer’s wife, Margaret. I braced myself for an unpleasant conversation. In fact, I decided to go first, so I said, “Hi Margaret! I am so sorry for what happened last weekend. We we...

 God could have chosen any analogy for our relationship with him. He picked this one!  https://youtu.be/iya8xlUbXDI  

  It should have been one of the best days of his life. After years of hard work, sacrifice, and training, Norwegian skier Sturla Holm Laegreid won a bronze medal in the Men’s biathlon at the 2026 Olympic Games. However, the reporters who gathered to ask him about this great accomplishment did not get the interview they expected.   Laegreid broke down crying. Unlike many of his fellow athletes, though, his tears were not tears of joy. Instead, he blurted out, “Six months ago, I met the love of my life. The world’s most beautiful, sweetest person. And three months ago, I made the biggest mistake of my life and cheated on her… I am not quite sure what I am trying to say by saying this now, but sport has taken a back seat in recent days. I wish I could share this with her”. Then he cried some more.   Integrity matters! You can fulfill your life’s ambition, but if you are not who you really want to be, you will not be able to enjoy it.   We tend to think of the p...

 On Father's Day, one quality of God that you will not find in any Father's Day card, but one that should be there.  https://youtu.be/UmbGpxDlXfk  

  Sometimes people say things like, “If I win the lottery, I am going to be really generous”, or “When I retire, I will make time for what is really important. I will look after others and take care of them”. When I hear these statements, I often think, “Ok, but what are you doing now?”   It is easy to have good intentions. It is great to dream about what might be someday. However, the real test is not “What might you do?”, but “What are you doing right now?” If you are not being generous with the time or money you have now, you are unlikely to start later.    Jesus said, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20). When this verse is taught, often the focus is on the “moving mountain” part. We want to be part of something big, notable and impressive. However, that is not the starting point. The starting point is the small, mustar...

    When I was young, it seemed that everything was getting better. I graduated from high school, went to Bible college and felt more independent and grown up. I started making my own money and had some financial freedom. I got married, bought a house, and had kids. Life was not perfect, but it was moving in a good direction. Lately, that has changed. Now, things feel like they are going the other direction. My kids have grown up, and the house is a little emptier. Friends I enjoyed hanging out with have moved away. People I looked up to and respected have passed on. My health, something I never gave a second thought to when I was younger, takes up more of my attention these days. People I care about are facing the prospect of selling their home and downsizing, or moving to an assisted living facility. Instead of gaining, it feels like life is going backwards. One aid to navigate these transitions is the Book of Ecclesiastes. In it, elde...

 Dreams are fine. Good intentions are great. However, nothing happens if we never start.  https://youtu.be/VC_z58zeycQ  

  “You must learn to enjoy life without needing an audience to see that you are enjoying life” – Unknown Source.   One of the lost arts is knowing who you are and how you are doing without outside approval. Of course, social media does not help this problem. It seems we cannot do anything without telling everyone how talented we are or showing how much fun we are having.   Honestly, I get it! Celebrating achievements with friends and family is important. We all want to be seen, and the desire for external validation is real. However, there is a thin line between healthy sharing and competition that makes each person better, to comparing ourselves with those around us in a way that undermines our relationships.   In 1 Corinthians 13, we find a list of what love does and does not do. Consider this part, “(Love) does not envy, it does not boast” (verse 4). Envy focuses my attention on what others have that I do not. Often, this produces feelings of shame and emb...

Things change. Always. The question isn't "How do we stop that?", but rather, "What are we supposed to learn from it?"  https://youtu.be/ECxnQwRFyXI  

  The Bible did not come with chapters and verses. They were added later to help people find specific sections more quickly. One unintended consequence, though, is that sometimes those chapters and verses break up portions of scripture that were meant to be taken together. The end of Mark 6 and the start of Mark 7 is a good example.   First, we get a description of Jesus at the height of his popularity. “Wherever he went – into the villages, towns, or country – they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed” (Mark 6:56).   Next, because the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, wanted to investigate what Jesus was doing, they too went to the marketplace. However, their reaction to being with the common people was very different than Jesus’. “The Pharisees… do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing… When they come from the marketplac...

 We honour mothers on Mother’s Day, not because they are perfect, but because they do this over and over.  https://youtu.be/UBKWh02y8fI  

  “A major cheat code in life: Master the pause. Before responding to that text. Before saying that nasty reply. The pause is where the wisdom lives. Most mistakes happen when we rush. Most regrets come from quick decisions. Remember, response time does not equal response quality” (Paraphrasing a quote by Scott Clary)   I have been thinking about this quote a lot lately. The worst purchases I have made have been the ones when I bought something on impulse. Rather than thinking it through and weighing the pros and cons, I just stormed ahead and regretted it later.   The worst arguments I have been in over the years have come from reacting rather than waiting. Someone says something that I perceive as mean or unfair, and I fire back in an attempt to hurt them in return. Then it takes hours and hours to undo the mess. Had I just paused, taken a breath and thought about it, I likely would not have said what I said.   One time, a buddy of mine sent an email ab...

 Jesus and the Pharisees approached people in very different ways. As with all things, we'd better follow Jesus' example.  https://youtu.be/wN5XDuEBmcQ    

The first event of Jesus’ public ministry did not take place in public, but it influenced everything he did from that point on.   After Jesus was baptized (Matthew 3:13-17), he was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness for a time of testing. For forty days, Jesus was alone and without food. Then Satan came and suggested that Jesus feed himself by turning the stones into bread. Jesus recoiled from this idea as if doing so would be the worst thing in the world. Then Satan challenges him to prove that he is God’s Son by throwing himself off the temple and seeing if God would protect him. Jesus treats this suggestion with similar contempt. Lastly, Satan tries to convince Jesus to become the ruler of the world. That was his end goal anyway, so why not start there? Again, Jesus does not choose that option (Matthew 4:1-11).   The question is, “What was the test here?” Feeding oneself after forty days seems reasonable. Proving his Sonship at the start of his ministry w...

 Things may seem dark and scary right now, but there is more to the story than what we see.  https://youtu.be/gq5cJwVejqQ    

   Consider This:  Can You Get on the Mat?   In Mark 2, four friends bring a paralyzed man to Jesus to be healed.  The house where Jesus is teaching is full of people.  There is no way they can get close to him, so they use the stairs on the side of the house, go up to the flat roof and then start digging through the mud and thatch covering.  Once the hole is large enough, they take the mat the man is lying on and lower it down through the hole.  In this way, they get their friend to Jesus.  This impresses Jesus so much that he forgives the man’s sin and heals him as well (Mark 2:1-12).  This incident can be taught from several different angles.  I have heard it focused on Jesus (He is the powerful Son of God), the four friends (Have faith, bring people to Jesus and do not let anything stop you), and I have even heard a lesson about the doubters in the room (if you do not believe, you will not receive God’s blessings).  Each of...

 Jesus passed one crucial test at the start of his ministry, and it shaped everything else he did. How are you doing with this test?   https://youtu.be/-Z1b48If0eY  

  Thirty years after Peter looked into the empty tomb, he thought about the blessings that the resurrection brings to us. Inspired by the Spirit, here is what he wrote.   “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:3-4)   The resurrection deals with our past by giving us “new birth” into a new life. In other words, we can start again. We can bury our past sins, mistakes, and regrets and be born again. That pattern is what baptism represents. “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans...