life. faithful.

I was listening to a message given by Nabeel Qureshi, a man who was raised a devout Muslim and later came to know Jesus not as a distant, promised Messiah in Islam but as the personal, crucified, and resurrected Messiah of Christianity. He was talking about the heart-wrenching moment when he told his parents he had converted to Christianity and watched it break their hearts. He spoke of how he fell to his knees after they left, crying out to God, asking why he hadn't just been allowed to die when he first believed because it would have saved him and his parents so much pain. He said that he then heard a Voice say, "Because this is not about you." Those words struck me. Not because I have a testimony like Nabeel's... but because I don't. It's something I've struggled with for a long time, and something a lot of us who were brought up in the church have struggled with. We hear dramatic testimonies--people who were in dark, dangerous places who experience Go...

  I've just spent a weekend serving on the Higher Ground Experience , where so many have seen first-hand the power described in this song. If you're facing heartbreaking, mind numbing struggles in your life, know that "There’s power in the presence Power in the blood, powеr in the name of Jesus And Hе has more in the hem of His garment Than the camp of the enemy There is a life changing Grave shaking, dead raising power in the room Heart-healing, hell-stealing No ceiling power, so tear off the roof"

  There's a small country church in our community that makes it a point to love on people through loving on the school. They show up in support all the time, but one of the main things they do each year (usually more than once) is by taking over the concession stand for a home basketball game night. They run the stand for every game that night, and they don't charge anyone for anything. When I was teaching, kids would be talking about the "free concessions" all day for those games. They would talk about everything they would get since it was free. I tried to make it a point to remind them that the concessions weren't free--they were just being paid for by somebody else. Because during those games, that church keeps track of everything they give people--and at the end of the night, they pay for everything. Those nights are far from free. If you've ever had dinner at a basketball game, you know how much it costs to even get a simple, basic meal: typically $2 fo...