Christian mediation seeks to biblically resolve personal conflicts, business disputes, church and ministry divisions and lawsuits. I’m currently attending the Peacemaker Ministries annual conference in Orlando, Florida. Peacemaker Ministries assists Christians in learning and applying conflict resolution principles that God has given
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Often times we tend to see difficulties or trials in life as punishment, discipline, or the Lord teaching us specific lessons. It’s not that the Lord doesn’t teach in these manners but in my observation Christians generally view them as punishment or lesson teaching. This reality, I believe, manifests itself in the questions or comments we counsel ourselves with when trying times come, “What am I supposed to learn through this?” or “This trial is a result of my sin” or perhaps, “The Lord is teaching me a lesson.” I would argue if these are our primary perspectives on trials then we spend much of
Many of our experiences in life confirm that our perception of reality is, at best, skewed. In fact, if we trust the truth of God’s word and become honest about our condition, we are in many ways totally blind. We are, without effort, naturally oblivious to ultimate spiritual reality, that is, to the glorious nature of the person of God and His marvelous works. Furthermore, we are oblivious to the very presence of this blindness in moments in which it is most profound.
Cherie Hill, a modern author, wrote that we love God's grace, but we don't like his watch. Her statement convicts me as I know how I respond to what I consider is God's slowness. 2 Peter 3:9 states, "The Lord is not slow
One of the great joys and freedoms of working at TS is the ability to have more time to counsel people. In the past, I counseled families for an hour to an hour and a half per session. With an arbitrary time frame like that, many decisions have to be made by the counselor based on how much time is available. Proverbs 25:11 says, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.”
In my last post we looked at how Proverbs 18 gives invaluable instruction regarding the importance of being a good listener in counseling. In this post we look at a case study of biblical listening in action. Here is an example from Solomon’s own life as recorded in I Kings 3. This is a concrete, practical example of what Proverbs 18:15 means by having active ears. Here is the text of the case study: 1 Kings 3:16-28 16 Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him.
In this two part series we want to talk about equipping the ground troops to care for the hurting people in our midst. This first blog will focus more on the twenty thousand foot view of things. Part two will focus more on the specifics of how we equip people here at Harvest.
There is no question that the actions of Adolf Hilter during World War II stained the history books with the chilling reminder of how destructive an unregenerate heart can be. Albert Speer was a German architect who was, for a part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office. He was credited with keeping Nazi factories humming throughout World War II. He was the only one of twenty-four war criminals tried in Nuremburg who admitted his guilt. Speer spent twenty years in Spandau prison. Here is what he said in an ABC interview after twenty years:
A Common Scenario Pastor Bill and his wife Lisa had a growing church and a good marriage, but something was wrong. For over six months Bill felt tired much of the time. He found himself snapping at his kids and growing more distant from his loving wife. His sermon
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(79, 79, 79); line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> When I think about foolishness and all that the word entails, the three primary things that I think of are 1)<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">lack of foresight</em>, 2) <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">a general</em> <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">disregard for consequences</em>, and 3) <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">an inordinate desire for what I want</em>. The book of Proverbs reminds us of things like “a fool is reckless and careless” (14:16), “fools die for lack of sense” (10:21), and “the way of the fool is right in his own eyes” (12:15). While the consequences to our actions aren’t always death or physical pain, we know that foolishness causes a world of hurt.</p>