February 2017 Blog Posts (36)

Do you pray before you begin writing? I suspect most of you do. I do not see anything wrong with brief prayers. Some of you have prayed, "Lord, help me write." Or you may have prayed something like, "Father, guide my thinking." I pray prayers like that. Just acknowledging God has a positive effect on your thinking. And of course, God answers prayer.

But I would like to suggest that you at least try something a little more difficult. Could you spend extended time in prayer as you sit…

I don't write a great deal about success. I fear our hearts read something glitzy rather than substantial. But I need to show you something about success from the word of God. The characteristic most connected with genuine success in the Bible is humility.

Jesus repeatedly told us we would be exalted if we humble ourselves. James said we would be exalted if we humbled ourselves in the sight of the Lord. Peter told us to humble ourselves under the…

               What I am about to tell you is one of the reasons most churches don't have much spiritual power. Church today have generally abandoned this practice. You would Catch the intensity and conviction in my tone: The greatest working of God come by corporate prayer, and we will not see the power of God in sufficient measure to transform the world around us until we pray together. As a leader you must…

Do you get tired of praying the same prayers for your grandchildren and their parents? Do you feel like your prayers have become humdrum, repetitive, or pointless?

A number of years ago, I felt that my prayers were general and superficial. I prayed that my grandchildren would be safe and have a good day, but those prayers felt rote--and were probably powerless.   

However, that all changed after I asked God to give me wisdom and insight…

I want to address Prayer Warriors and those of you who long very much to become prayer Warriors. In the Old Testament book of Esther Mordecai spoke to his niece the queen, saying “Who knows perhaps you have been raised up for such a time as this.”

You have been raised up for this very day. I am not qualified to determine exactly what kind of era we are living in. The beginning of A Tale of Two Cities may well apply to our age. It is the best of times and the worst of times. We are…

When I was a teenager, my father was Pastor of a church in Houston, Texas and my mother was President of a city-wide Pastor Wives organization.  On a cold-December night I lay in an Emergency Room with a broken second vertebra of the neck, hearing doctors saying it was a miracle I was alive, and not paralyzed. That’s when my mother sprang into action.  On the social media of the day, my mother placed phone calls to several Pastor wives, who in turn called several others, and the prayer chain…

Up to now I have only written in this blog about my own experiences and disciplines. But I have to admit I don’t think I have ever prayed at all about what I should be reading. I recognize reading voraciously is essential to being a writer. And it is beneficial to my character and the enjoyment of life. A number of books have greatly impacted my thinking and writing. And I have prayed about the content of those that struck my spirit and drew me closer to God. But it has…

One of the most wonderful truths of the Christian life is the fellowship of the Spirit. Paul puts it forth so vividly in his salutation in the final verse of 2 Corinthians.

“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

In the discussion on friendship love in his book The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis talked about three close…

The simplest way to do this is to ask God to give You ideas, and lead you to what you should write. But most of us will see this as more complex.

LISTENING TO GOD

One of the most common Scriptural principles is that God speaks. He seldom speaks twice in the same way. God can even speak to us in His silence. 1 Corinthians 9:24 says the things of God are spiritually discerned. If you understand something in Scripture the Holy Spirit is speaking to you. There are Many times I did…