Earlier today, I came across this quote from Leonard Ravenhill: “Jesus did not come into the world to make bad men good. He came into the world to make dead men live!” I don’t know what to make of it. Can’t both be true? What exactly is wrong with the idea that God is interested in making bad people into good people? Especially when we consider that Jesus implied that one can only be truly good by being like God. Is it not God’s goal that we become good? That we become like Him? It seems to me that a…

In typical American Christianity, a person’s forgiveness by God is seen as a means to an end. And the end is his or her eternity in heaven.  It’s simple.  Now, I would agree that God’s forgiveness should be understood as a means, but time and again, the Scriptures make it clear that the end He has in mind is our righteousness. We were created to function as God’s image here on earth and I don’t see anything in Scripture to indicate that He scrapped that original plan when humans through the sin wrench into he works. It only meant that…

I continue to debate with my friend about Free Grace Theology – the extreme version of “once saved, always saved” which maintains that faith is mere mental assent to the proposition that Jesus died for your sins. And once that is established, you have a salvation that can never be taken away from you. Even if you spend the rest of your earthly life living like the devil, heaven is guaranteed by your single profession of faith.  From what I can gather, one of the central tenets of Free Grace is a firm, clearcut distinction between justification and sanctification. Justification,…

I continue to debate with my friend about Free Grace Theology – the extreme version of “once saved, always saved” which maintains that faith is mere mental assent to the proposition that Jesus died for your sins. And once that is established, you have a salvation that can never be taken away from you. Even if you spend the rest of your earthly life living like the devil, heaven is guaranteed by your single profession of faith.  From what I can gather, one of the central tenets of Free Grace is a firm, clearcut distinction between justification and sanctification. Justification,…

It’s Saturday, June 6, 2026. I didn’t write my sardine wrap up yesterday because I went to pick up Melissa at the airport at 11:30 pm instead. Can’t do it all! Here’s the recap of my weight loss over 5 days of eating only sardines: Beginning weight: 200 After 1 Day: 197 After 2 Days: 192.4 After 3 Days: 192 After 4 Days: 191.8 After 5 Days: 191.6 Obviously, my weight loss plateaued after a few days. And I’m honestly not sure what this means.  I was definitely in a calorie deficit every day. A can of sardines has about…

Maybe I’m weird, but this week’s sardine diet hasn’t been all that tough.  Here’s what it’s done to my weight so far: Monday morning, before my first sardine: 200 lbs Tuesday morning, after 1 full day: 197 Wednesday morning, after 2 days: 192.4 Thursday morning, after 3 days: 192 If this trajectory holds, that’s a crazy amount of weight loss in a few days, even accounting for the fact that some portion of it is water – which will return when I go back to a normal diet on Saturday. The truly amazing thing is that it’s rapid weight loss…

 Nothing much to report after the third day of sardines, but for the sake of continuity, I will write something. The most surprising thing was this morning’s weigh-in. After beginning at 200, dropping to 197 after the first day, I dropped this morning to 192.4! But I was definitely dehydrated.  But even if the more realistic number should have been, say, 194, that would still be pretty surprising.  I should also note that I couldn’t avoid briefly breaking my fast today. I had a lunch appointment already scheduled with a friend at a restaurant and I was not going to…

Nothing too profound to relate about the sardine fast.  Today I had two cans for lunch and two for dinner. With hot sauce.  Sunday morning, I weighed in at 201 pounds – after overeating at several graduation open houses. Recently I have been bouncing between 196 and 199 most mornings.  After my first full day of nothing but sardines yesterday, this morning the scale said 197.  Obviously, most of that has to be water weight. But that does indicate to me that the amount of sweets I put into my body is likely trapping a lot of water in inflammation. …

Yesterday afternoon, after worship and a couple of graduation parties, Melissa and Sarah started the long trip to Myrtle Beach. Melissa is helping drive Sarah’s car there and then she will be flying back on Friday night. Samuel, all of a sudden, has decided to move to go ahead and move to Bloomington. He leaves tomorrow. It will just be me and the dog for the next few days. And anytime I am alone, I take the opportunity to do some fasting. It cuts down on me fussing about what to cook for myself, and fasting tends to be easier…

Pentecost doesn’t get even the tiniest fraction of the attention which the incarnation gets. Every year Christians spend an entire month (at least) in recognition of the moment in time when God took on human flesh and entered into human history.  There are movies, songs, parties, food, decorations, and special traditions – all over the world! But when it comes to recognizing the moment 33 years after that Babe was born, when the Holy Spirit entered into human history and ignited the ongoing Body of Christ, there’s hardly a passing mention in most churches.  Why is that? How does the…