In your struggle for sexual purity, you may have a "friend" who is actually tripping up your progress and keeping you captive to your cravings.
Why Does God Allow Temptation?
Why does God allow temptation? Could it be you're tempted because this is what God wants for you? Or could it be he has something much better for you?
Rats and Beauty
We all have places in our lives we know aren’t beautiful, including at least a few places that are just down right ugly. When we come face to face with one of these parts, we have a choice in how we respond. Many respond by following a logic like this: If you see a rat in your house, you get out a broom and take a whack at it. (Or something, anything, to get rid of it, and fast.) So you see...
Interpreting Shapes
Before all time, God hovered over the abyss, brooding. We don’t know for how long. In a world of time, it may have been eons. Like an artist before a blank canvas, with eyes closed, breathing deeply, imagining every detail before even dipping his brush. And then he begins. For five and a half days, God’s creation takes shape. Then, day six, the creation of man and woman. There are two ways to...
Come Clean
It’s in our stories, movies, and legends. In Shakespeare’s MacBeth, Edgar Allan Poe’s Telltale Heart, Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. We feel it in our bones. It’s in our DNA. When we’re guilty, we desperately want to come clean. Can you relate? Maybe you have a loved one who is struggling against being honest with her sin. Maybe you’re carrying something from your past that you’ve never told...
A Simple Practice for Those in Need of Mercy
Sometimes those of us who need God’s mercy most impede its flow. So instead of an outpour, we receive just a few drops. This is sad, but sadder still is when we then believe a trickle of mercy is all God wants to give us. Years ago, after telling a spiritual mentor about how I’d viewed pornography again, he recommended we go to God together so I could confess my sin directly to Him...