The Shack has been referred to both as one of the greatest Christian books of all time, and as the “greatest deception foisted on the church in the last 200 years.” At first, that profound disagreement may not make sense. But, in an increasingly polarized society and Church, this sharp division and disconnect actually makes perfect sense. Let's examine why this is, and what we can and should do about it. There have been many helpful reviews and critiques of The Shack (see links at the end). Continue Reading
False Teachers And Sin
Clear And Present Danger But if they had stood in My counsel, and had caused My people to hear My words, then they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings. -Jeremiah 23:21-22 Of all the dangers facing believers and non-believers alike, false teachers are near the top. Some would even say false teachers are the number one threat when it comes to harming and destroying others. So how can we discern if someone qualifies as a “false teacher”? Along Continue Reading
Top 10 Marks of Enablers
ARE YOU AN ENABLER? First of all, let me just say this: we've probably all enabled someone at some point in our lives. If you care about others, if you like to help out when you see a need, if you tend to be "nice,"-- basically, if you are human--then it's likely you have “enabled” one or more people in your lifetime (in big or small ways). We all have our biases, especially when it comes to relationships and personal responsibility. And we will all get things wrong from time to time when Continue Reading
A Shattered Marriage
Personal + Story Before we came to Hope for Life, our marriage, along with our personal and spiritual lives, was set on auto-pilot. We were just going through the motions of attending church, going to work, and living as though everything was fine. Our lives revolved around work and hanging out with friends. We spent hardly any time together, and almost always needed some sort of buffer between the two of us to mask what was really going in our hearts, and to draw the attention away from the Continue Reading