I believe joy many times gets confused with happiness. Happiness is that feeling we get when we buy a new awesome tee-shirt. Happiness is the feeling we get when we see our food coming at a restaurant. Happiness is the feeling we get when we get “likes” on social media. Happiness is fleeting. Happiness is contingent upon circumstances and events.

JOY is stable and sound. JOY does not waiver no matter the hard time. Joy lasts and outlasts happiness. Long after...

Everyone is preaching the gospel this time of year. Everyone. People of all creeds robustly belt out Christmas carols when they come on the radio at work, or while driving alone in the car. Whether absent-mindlessly or simply doing so for nostalgia’s sake, everybody is testifying about Jesus.

I’ve come to see how desperately we need these Christmas carols. I am not talking about kitschy tunes we know and love (here’s looking at you, Bing Crosby). No jingling bells,...

The two stood among many. A strange voice had called them to the wilderness. These men had wandered from their fishing boats and the chaos of the city in search of the Baptizer. Nets folded. Ropes secure. Let’s go.

And they found him.

Imagine with me this strange scene – a large, motley group of people gathered to listen and the two stand among them, bodies pressed in, the smell of their own sweaty bodies mingling with the masses.

Thirsty.

The Baptizer bellows his...

This dog is excited about waiting during Advent.

We are about midway through Advent.

Advent = coming.

Advent = expectant waiting.

Advent is the season of anticipating the coming of the birth of Jesus and His second coming back.  And it is the season of waiting.

Jesus waited.  We don’t hear a lot about his childhood or early adulthood, do we?  We hear about him as a baby.  Then when he’s a “pre-teen” in the Temple when Mary and Joseph leave Him behind. Parents, have you ever done that? And then...

Think of a time in your life when you felt painfully small or forgotten. Think of a time when you felt far from loveable. Think of a time when you dwelled in darkness—when you felt more lost, broken, or irredeemable than you ever had before.

It was in that very moment—in your deepest darkness, in your furthest wandering—that your Savior, your Good Shepherd, came after you.

“What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has...