12/23/2013 6:00:00 PM — Were Ashton Parsley not my first-born child and only daughter, I’d still have great admiration for her. At an age when many of her contemporaries are still trying, but not too hard, to figure out what they want to do with their lives, Ashton has assumed major responsibilities at our ministry. And she has done very well, earning the respect of the students she shepherds at Valor Christian College as well as the senior members of our staff, who have come to see her as a peer. Yes, I’m biased. But she’s amazing!

And yet, not all that long ago, she was in her mid-teens, and I shuddered at the thought of letting her borrow the car. I believed she had incredible potential to be whatever she wanted to be in the future. It was the present, and her safety, I was concerned about.

Yet God placed His Son in the womb of a peasant girl who was the age of my daughter not so long ago, and assigned her and a boy not much older than that the task of raising Him to adulthood. I tell people all the time to have faith in God – but this was an example of God having faith in man, and two teenagers who proved themselves worthy of that faith.Read More

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12/16/2013 1:00:00 PM — The linguists/publishers of Oxford Dictionaries annually choose a word of the year – and for 2013, they chose “selfie.” For the uninitiated, a “selfie” is an electronic picture taken of oneself, by oneself, sometimes with others, often with the camera feature of the subject’s own mobile phone. It can be taken while pointing the camera at a mirror or at arm’s length. Recently, President Barack Obama stirred up a bit of controversy at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service when news photographers captured him shooting a selfie with other world leaders.

It’s hard for me to muster up much outrage, or even interest, in what the president did in what was clearly a collegial atmosphere with men and women who are his peers. It’s his business, and it’s not nearly as important as what he believes about public policy. But the prominent example of our “selfie” culture interests me, because I believe it says much about our attitude toward the things of God in general and the cross in particular.

Certainly many of us are fearfully and wonderfully made. But is there any better metaphor than the “selfie” for a people who have become convinced that this life is all about them?Read More

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12/9/2013 8:00:00 AM — As I would imagine most churches have done, World Harvest Church has decorated for Christmas. It’s been quite an operation, with volunteers working to set up trees and other seasonal displays over the course of the week to add to what’s already in our foyers, in our tabernacle and other public areas of the church. It was impressive!

Probably many of you have done the same thing on a smaller scale in your homes. Then, sometime after Christmas, the artificial trees, lights, and other supplies will get put away and stored until next year. I don’t mind this at all – in fact, Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. But I’ve been thinking lately about how adding new items to already crowded places might be an apt metaphor for our lives this time of year.Read More

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