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6 Reasons why sexual purity matters

Sexual purity is a big deal. Something that scares me is that many Christians seem to have slipped into believing that sexual purity is not very realistic, and in many cases hardly achievable. Just look at the porn statistics. And some seem to settle with thinking “It’s the norm”. “It’s the norm, that most men struggle with pornography, so you may as well not make a big deal out of it.” For many, living a sexually pure life seems so insurmountable, that just leaving the skeletons in the closet seems to be a fairly feasible option. 

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4 reasons to record your dreams

And 5 tools to help you steward them

“Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow and when I woke up the pillow was gone.” Tommy Cooper

Most of the benefits you could get from dreams, slip through your fingers like sand if you don’t record them.
Here are 4 reasons why you should record them.

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What on earth is treasure in heaven

And how to invest in it

The other day I stumbled across some letters some friends once wrote to me to share how I impacted their life.  Tears started running down my tense cheeks.  Hearing people share things like that makes it all worth it.  It really snapped me out of the little puddle of gloom I happened to be sitting in.  I realized ‘perhaps I’ve done more than I tend to realize when I’m feeling down.’

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A crucial component of walking in signs and wonders

The long lost doctrine the church has neglected for far too long!

All of us have a special drawer we use for storing spiritual things that we don’t really see any use for. Kind of like the junk drawer in the house, where you keep all the stuff you don’t want to throw away, but you’re not sure if you’ll ever use it. For many years impartation was one of those things I would just take with a complimentary smile, only to later stuff it into the drawer of “not sure if it works, and not sure if it’s real”. Starting out as a pastor’s kid, and living as a missionary kid from the age of 11, I can’t remember how many times I would head up to the front of church to get prayed for by a minister for some kind of impartation of anointing. Sometimes I would be touched powerfully by the Holy Spirit, but sometimes I would not feel anything. It’s not that I was in doubt or bitter or anything, but I just had a hard time seeing any measurable results from this spiritual ritual, we spirit-filled Christians love to practice.

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Why we stopped giving our kids allowance

Our new plan for teaching them to win with money

I still remember it like it was last week. My older sister and I were sharing my dads lap.  The inquisitiveness of a dog about to be fed was all over my face as my dad explained the meaning of a bizarre word. The word ALLOWANCE. The business savvy I had been able to accumulate over the seemingly long seven years of my life was still a bit underdeveloped, but it was sufficient for me to ascertain from my dad’s explanation that this “allowance” thing was a really good deal!  Free money!  And there was no fine print.  Well, after a few years of doing my part in keeping 7-Eleven in business, and then fast forward another twenty years or so, my wife and I had been naturally granting our two older kids allowance for a couple years; at least until I read a book called Smart Money Smart Kids: Raising the Next Generation to Win with Money. It was written by Dave Ramsey and his daughter Rachael Cruz. This is when we changed things around a bit and decided to no longer give our kids money as allowance.  Here are a few nuggets of wisdom we learned from the book and have applied in our family.

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Stop dabbling and get in the water

Many people who have experienced swimming in the Dead Sea, or the Great Salt Lake talk about how easy it is to float.  The salty water is 20% more dense than fresh water, so you can literally lay in the water effortlessly and read a book without sinking.  Imagine if I came to the Dead Sea, went in up to my ankles and when I came back home I told my friends “It’s not any different from the ocean or any other body of water. I didn’t float.”  It’s an absurd illustration, yet figuratively speaking, we tend to act like that in many areas of life.

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The text only my wife was supposed to read

Vulnerability… It’s easy to talk about, however few of us have the guts to actually do it. Letting someone else have a glimpse into some of the rickety parts of my being has never been something I look forward to. My wife and I were attending a marriage workshop where we were part of a core group of couples for the course of the workshop that lasted several months. By joining this workshop, we were all metaphorically pushed off the cliff of vulnerability. Sharing things we perhaps never shared with anyone in our lives, including our spouses. You just fall. And you keep falling. And there’s nothing to grab onto. All you can do is hope. Hope that your spouse, and the people in your group will catch you graciously.  After a while getting together with the same group, I can’t say it was easy for me to open up even though that was a huge part of the workshop. What happened next perhaps pushed me along in this process, but… I pray this never happens to you.

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4 Examples of how unlocked identity reveals your destiny

The revelation of your true identity leads to the revelation of God’s true identity.  This leads to the revelation of your true destiny.  Whether you are a follower of Jesus or not, you’re probably like me and have spent most of your life trying to answer this million dollar question. “Who in the world am I?”  When we find out that someone has not been born again, our first reaction is to tell them about Jesus.  Perhaps in some cases the first step should not be to tell them about who Jesus is.  Perhaps we would be more effective in sharing our faith if we followed Jesus’ example and made our first step to tell them about who they really are.  I am fully aware that this might come off as some sort of humanistic false idea.  Easy… Allow me to explain.

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Tips for releasing healing power: Part 1

“This is crazy! This is crazy! This is crazy! There’s no pain at all!” Those were the exact words of an excited young man in a juvenile detention center in Utah, after he and four other guys prayed for each other for healing for the first time in their lives. And every one of them was 100% healed from back pain instantly. Seeing someone instantly healed by the power of the blood of Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit is probably the most exciting thing I’ve ever done on this planet. Over the last three years of being part of the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Redding, California I’ve seen more healing than perhaps the rest of my life put together. Here I want to share a few points I’ve discovered along the way. They are kind of like the floor planks nailed to the joists, to create a a sturdy platform for this dance with the Holy Spirit we call supernatural healing.