Stephen's House Peru

I’m a bit of a radical. You probably know that by now. I think differently than a lot of people. It’s just the way my brain works. Radicals can be good as long as they are controlled by Jesus. If not, you end up with little Hitlers. (Let’s just pause and pray now I don’t ever go that direction!) Radicals can be good for a few things. For one, we can shake up the current way of thinking and help produce new patterns of behavior. This is good because people like to settle into

Do you ever long for the days of the apostles and the happenings found in the book of Acts? Any group of believers who have walked with Jesus for any length of time can say in all honesty that there has been a period in their lives when they experienced this longing. It’s not unusual. Here’s where it comes from: we grow weary of the slow pace and few happenings in the church here. We get tired of fussing and arguing. We want to see times of refreshing from the Lord and we pra

Silence kills. We all remember hearing of stories of people in danger who remained in danger because those who knew their plight never opened their mouths. There are movies made about such things. My statement is not based on a movie, but real life. The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel wrote that he was a watchman on the wall for the house of Israel. The job of the watchman was to sit in a place of observance on the wall and shout anytime danger approached the city. The gist goe

Do you remember the story of Hannah in the Old Testament? It is the story of a foster mother. Most people hear the words “foster child” and the first thing that comes to mind is a story they’ve heard in the movies. The reality is for many children fostering is a way of life. Check out these stats: “In the U.S. 397,122 children are living without permanent families in the foster care system. Of these 101,666 are eligible for adoption, but nearly 32% of these children will wait

Do you ever think about compassion? It’s not really one of those things people sit around and dwell on. We think about exercise, but we don’t necessarily think about the oxygen intake we need to accomplish the work. We think about eating, but we don’t think about the processes our bodies go through to digest the food we enjoy. We think about church attendance, bible reading, and prayer, but we rarely consider compassion. Why compassion? Why not instruction or theology or some

When is the last time you checked out Isaiah 58, or anything in the book of Isaiah for that matter? It’s not like the Psalms. It doesn’t have the warm, fuzzy feeling like the words “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want” have. It doesn’t tell a story like Exodus, Joshua, or Ruth. Often it is put in the dusty box labeled “Prophets” and tucked away for a winter Bible study. Let me blow the dust off of it for a moment and remind you at least one of the reasons God incl