Comparison is something that is all around us. We are in a society that celebrates and endorses comparing one another. Honestly, comparison can be a hard thing to escape. For most of my life, I have struggled more with insecurity than pride, but both will cause you to compare. Neither is good, and both take the focus off of God and put it on ourselves.

Deep down, we know we are nothing without God. Indeed, every part of us is held together by Him down to the very fabric of our being, yet, we hunger to feel like we keep ourselves together. Even the saying “pull yourself together” implies that we can.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we are blessed with vibrant season changes. Each one is a unique expression of God’s beauty and design. However, some wisdom is needed for how to navigate these seasons properly. What works in the Summer with regular 100°F peaks won’t work with the cold, rainy, gray late fall.

Do not let past hurts keep you from obeying God to gather together weekly at a local church. Like it or not, it is a Biblical command, and not attending church is disobedience. However, if you are struggling with that, ask the Holy Spirit to help you forgive, heal, and move on. Ask Him to lead you to a church. The reality is that if you were hurt in a church, you will only heal in a church. Disconnecting and deconstructing is not the answer.

All the enemy does is steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10.) We too often allow him to steal what God has given us or placed in front of us. Even if he hasn’t entirely stolen what God has given us, maybe he has a firm grip upon something he has no place touching.

Recently I chose to transplant my strawberry plants after they only produced two strawberries in their current partially shaded garden bed over the past three months. I did not realize how challenging this would be for my plants to survive. My strawberry plants looked great, with lots of vines, lush and green but no fruit before I transplanted them.

This Five-Step Prayer model is adapted from Randy Clark’s “Ministry Team Training Manual.” This is not the only way to heal the sick, but instead is one of many. I have found this method very effective in biblically ministering to the sick. This is not meant to be dogmatic or legalistic. Instead, this is intended to be a biblical guide on how to heal the sick!

Here is my new life question that I'm asking everywhere I go:

What does love look like?

The enemy wanted nothing more than to silence me. He used people I looked up to accomplish his plans. But God continued to pursue me and pour His love on me. He told me who I was and what He created me to do. Once I believed His word over my life and let His words define me, I found freedom for the first time.

The gospels record a rather exciting story about a man named Malchus and his encounter with Jesus’ disciple, Peter. The story climaxes with Peter cutting off Malchus’ ear.

To be a laid down lover for Jesus. What does this mean? To submit our wants, desires, and dreams willingly, even joyfully, at His feet. In this surrender, trusting that He is always good and wants the best for us, knowing that He would never ask us to do something without giving us everything we need to accomplish it in Him. Will it be easy? Not usually, but is it possible? YES, in Him, it is possible.

Self-awareness is the ability to know what is going on inside of you at all times.

Self-awareness opens your eyes to the spiritual realities around you. You become empowered to reject and undo the work of the enemy to steal, kill, and destroy you.

God has been speaking to me about His love for me and what He has done for me. The fact that he was beaten, mocked, spit on, whipped, nailed to a cross, took on my sin, etc. He did all this and more when He took my sin on the cross and paid the price I owed.

We should never compromise when it comes to God and our relationship with Him. Compromise means to “accept standards that are lower than is desirable.” We should never settle or accept standards that contradict His word.

I know many people who struggle with this verse because it says that the Lord sent diseases to the Egyptians. An incorrect assumption is made from this verse that disease and sickness are from the Lord. A careful study of the whole counsel of God’s Word will show that is not true.

In Genesis 18 Abraham is promised a son by the Lord. Abraham and Sarah had no children at the time, and in their own words, Sarah was an “old woman well past childbearing years.” However, it is in this context that God promises them a son. Sometimes God will make a healing promise to you that seems absurd and impossible given all the natural information at hand.

I had a vivid dream the other night that I believe unfortunately stemmed from fears of not being enough for a new job I am about to start, my dream job in my career. After sitting and processing it, I think many of us can relate to the struggles revealed in this vivid illustration.

We come from Him and are meant to be an extension of our Creator to this world. He declares we are His branches, reaching out to those around us, extending His love, forgiveness, hope, truth, conviction, mercy, justice, and passion. As we put Him on display, we point back to our Vine, Jesus Christ.

A great spiritual darkness has been covering the world, and all of mankind has been but sojourners hopelessly wandering without a sense of purpose and direction. In this darkness there is no way that man himself can illuminate his path. The intense language used here shows that it is as if we were but a few steps away from death itself.

Immanuel - God with us. What a beautiful name and an even more beautiful promise. God Himself is promising to come to our rescue!

The events surrounding Jesus’ first coming were to be of the greatest level of Divine intervention. God the Father was looking to interrupt history by sending His own Son for a broken and lost world.