I’ve heard it said that “God made man in His image, and man returned the favor” (I’ve seen that quote attributed to a few people, but Voltaire seems to be the first to have said it).  There is a lot of truth to that sentiment, and I think it’s worth reflecting upon.  We can all be too guilty of assuming that God is like us in the way He thinks, the values and issues that are paramount to him, and the people he likes and dislikes.  For example, far too many American Christians seem to believe that “God is love” means that God accepts everyone as they are and would never dare tell anyone that they need to repent of the way they are living, when in reality His love is a holy love that can not stand sin.  And just look at Christians and politics – some people are convinced that Jesus would vote Republican; others that He would vote Democrat; and still others that He would stay as far away as he could from politics.  I think it’s safe to say that too often we can be guilty of assuming that God is just like us.

But He’s not like you. 
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I recently completed a sermon series on the Song of Solomon, a beautiful collection of love poems in the Old Testament that have a lot to encourage us about in the areas of love, sex, and romance. My first interaction with this book was back in 2000, when I went through a study on the Song of Solomon that had been done by a Texas pastor named Tommy Nelson with three teenage boys that I was discipling. That study was an excellent and unforgettable time of teaching these teens what it means to love someone Biblically, and is especially meaningful as one of those teens just had his first baby and one of the others is getting married this May.

The impact that study had made on those teens was one of the reasons I wanted to do a sermon series with the whole church. However, as I studied the book, read commentaries, and listened to other sermons on the Song of Solomon, I found myself moving away from the Tommy Nelson-style of preaching, which in many ways treated the book as a how-to manual for Biblical love, dating, and marriage. Read more »

Near the end of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian church comes this sobering line:  “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you– unless, of course, you fail the test?” (2 Corinthians 13:5).  I have two reactions as I read that verse:  the first is that it is a great idea to test ourselves.  After all, is our faith really genuine saving faith?  Are we sure we really know God?  Are we convinced that we will go to heaven when we die?  I can think of no more important test than to be sure that we are “in the faith,” as Paul puts it. 

The second reaction, however, is just as important:  how do we test ourselves?  Read more »

When I was a junior in college, I studied in London for a semester.  During my time over there, I remember watching a three-episode BBC series on who Jesus really was, and watched as historian after historian dismissed Jesus as just another Jew, as nothing special.  They talked about how there were other first-century people who were thought to be the Messiah, other miracle-workers in the time of Jesus, and how there are other myths throughout history of god-men who rise from the dead. 

I will never forget the narrator’s conclusion as he wrapped up the series.  Read more »

“I want to seek the company of those who are looking for the truth, but run away from those who say they have found it.”

So said the philosopher Deepak Chopra on Nightline the other night, to rousing applause from the audience.  Chopra was one of four panelists in a discussion on the question “Does Satan exist?” and his words echo a sentiment that is attractive to many today in America, that to be a seeker of the truth is a noble thing, and to believe that there are many paths to God or heaven or enlightenment is to be commended, but to stand up and say that there is only one way to God is an arrogant, narrow-minded, and very unenlightened thing to do.
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