Towards the end of his life, John Wesley published an essay entitled Thoughts Upon Methodism in which he expressed one of his main fears regarding the movement he had founded. The fear was straightforward:  Wesley maintained that there is an inverse relationship between wealth and faith: in any culture when riches increase, the “essence of religion” decreases proportionately. And he defined “essence of religion” as “the mind that was in Christ” (Phil. 2:5). There is Scriptural backing for this: “Has God not chosen the poor to be rich in faith?”- James 2:5 Wesley explained: “Therefore do I not see how…

A few weeks ago I wrote about how amazed I was that green bean and marigold seeds could grow in nothing but sand and water. Although they were stunted by the lack of soil, they grew much bigger than I could have imagined using the material in the seed plus sand and water. It seemed to me that something supernatural was going on! (If you didn’t see it, you can read it HERE.)  Well, today I came across a short video by Mark Rober online and he pulled the veil away. So I want to set the record straight. (If you’ve…

The Bible features some downright evil people, but also some garden-variety, low-level jerks.  The man Jesus healed at the Pool of Bethesda is one of those jerks. His story appears in John 5. All we are told explicitly about him is that he couldn’t walk and had been an invalid for 38 years. He would lie beside the pool, hoping to be the first one in whenever the angel came to stir the water. When Jesus approached him to ask if he wanted to be well, this man only complained that nobody ever helped him into the pool in time…

Not much focus or energy to write tonight. I left Columbus this morning later than I had intended and arrived in Jackson, Mississippi about 12 hours later. The trip was supposed to take about 9 and a half.  So I had plenty of time to think and pray. I listened to Scripture so that I could give some thought to an upcoming sermon. I listened to some training videos about writing. And I listened to some of my favorite songs on Spotify. A week of intensive classes starts tomorrow morning on the campus of Wesley Biblical Seminary. 8:00 am sharp.…

Why do we tend to think of prayer as mono-directional?  We talk and God listens. “Lord, please do this, that, and the other thing. Amen.” But isn’t prayer meant to flow in two directions? Might God have something to say to each of us as well? The advice to “pray as though everything depends on God” does not acknowledge this second possible direction of genuine prayer.  If we listen in prayer, He might say, “Here’s the part you need to do …” Are we in the habit of passing along our requests to God and then logging out? Or do…

 If we “work as if everything depends on us”, our work becomes drudgery … when it’s not stressful. And stressful when it’s not drudgery. At one point when Jesus was hassled by the Jewish leaders for healing an invalid on the Sabbath, he told them all, “My Father is always at his work to this very day.” “And I too am working.” (John 5:17) We are not called to work for God. We are called to work alongside God. How can you play off God’s activity if you are running yourself ragged, working “as if everything depends on you”? If…

The internet attributes the following quote to C.S. Lewis, John Wesley, Irenaeus, and St. Augustine:   “Pray as if everything depends on God. Work as if everything depends on you.”  Whoever originated it, it has been around for years. And it has come out of the mouths of countless preachers, I suppose. And whenever I hear it, it bothers me. The message seems well-intentioned: “Pray hard and work hard.” Still, it bugs me. Something is off. And here’s how I know that it’s flawed … I can’t imagine Jesus saying it.

In Samaria, at the well, Jesus said to the woman who came to draw water:  “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is quite true.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”   …

In Matthew 6:5, Jesus teaches, “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.”  Years ago, I knew a pastor’s wife who bragged – more than once – “Sometimes I am walking downtown, and I get so overwhelmed by God’s goodness that I just drop down on my knees right there on the sidewalk and start praying to Jesus. I just wave my arms and pray, and people are…