Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands

We forget that God’s Word is our primary tool of change. Instead, we come up with a little personal wisdom and personal experience and let the words fly.

If we want our words to be instruments of change in confrontation, we need a sense of direction. These four steps provide a road map. 1. Consideration. What does God want the person to see? 2. Confession. What does God want the person to admit and confess? 3. Commitment. To what new ways of living is God calling this person? 4. Change. How should t

Living a representative lifestyle can be summarized by three points of focus. As an ambassador, I will represent: 1. The message of the King. An ambassador is always asking, “What does my Lord want to communicate to this person in this situation? What truths should shape my response? What goals should motivate me?” 2. The methods of the King. Here

Sin not only causes me to respond sinfully to suffering, it causes me to respond sinfully to blessing.

People need to look at their families, neighbors, friends, cities, jobs, history, and churches, and see the kingdom. They need imagination—the ability to see what is real but unseen. This is what Paul fixed his gaze on (2 Cor. 4). They need to look at a city and see the glorious company of the redeemed being gathered, amidst a brutal spiritual batt

Five questions can help people see what God wants them to see. The order is important because it teaches us to think biblically about why we do the things we do and how God changes us. The questions are appropriate for young children and mature adults and for informal and formal ministry.

What is James’s solution? The turnaround in this passage is very interesting. You would think that his first counsel would be to go the people we have sinned against and confess it. But James’s turnaround is first vertical (with respect to God) and then horizontal (with respect to people). James’s first call is for us to “humble ourselves before Go

The incarnation gets right to the heart of this struggle because it confronts people with the one thing that can make a lasting difference, the glory of God. The revelation of God in his awesome glory is the only thing that exposes the utter emptiness of all the other glories we crave. If you understand the incarnation this way, you have already le

This means at least three things: 1. He has a higher goal for our relationships than our personal happiness. 2. He wants our relationships to be the context for the change he works in and through us. 3. We need to build relationships that encourage this work of change. We can understand this by considering the way Christ works in our own lives. Scr