God's forgiveness is total. Because God knows everything, it has to be total. He can't partially forgive. He totally forgives. Think about what that means. That means that God knows the worst thing you've ever done or ever will do. And he's decided, in Christ, to forgive you of that already. You and I might be surprised at our sins sometimes. God is never surprised. Never...

We usually think of failure as being a negative experience, but wise people know how to take advantage of failure. They learn from it. They make the most of it. They use it as an education. One of the primary tools that God uses in your life to make you what He wants you to be is failure. What possible good is failure in your life? Three reasons: 1. God uses failure to ...

Why are we afraid of the future? One reason is we don't know what it's going to bring. It's an unknown. Even our best forecasts are educated guesses. Nobody really knows what's going to happen in the future. You may know a lot, have an incredible IQ, you may have a PhD, but you don't know what's going to happen in the future. I don't care how smart you are it's just an edu...

How would you complete this sentence? "My number one goal in life is _____" Think about that for a minute. What word, what phrase would you use? Would you say, "My number one goal in life is to be happy?" Or "My number one goal in life is to be loved?" Or "My number one goal in life is to succeed at my career?" How would you answer that question? It's very important. If ...

What are our values? Our values are our core beliefs that shape everything we do in life. There are a lot of people today who say, "It really doesn't matter what you believe," but that's just not true. It does matter what you believe. Our beliefs determine our behavior and our behavior determines what we become. So the kind of person we are, if we look at the foundation...

In Thursday's blog, we talked about the reasons for truth decay in America, and how it affects your life. The question, as we go into today's blog is not, "How can we change society?" but "How can we live a life of values in a world that can't even decide what's right and wrong?" Psalm 11:3 The foundations of law and order have collapsed. What can the righteous do?" Wha...

Nobody likes conflict. Well, no healthy person that is. Many of us are genuinely afraid of conflict. The fear of conflict is as old as Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve messed up, and their relationship with God was broken. After they sinned, they end up hiding because they don't want to face the reality of the conflict. Adam, in Genesis 3:10, says to God "I heard you in the ga...

One of the most important skills we have to learn is how to resolve conflict. It is essential to our happiness. You can be wealthy, you can be attractive, you can be successful, you can be talented, but if your relationships are in turmoil, you're a mess. God recognizes that we're going to have conflict in our lives, because the world is broken. Romans 12:17-18 (NIV) "D...

Reconciliation means reestablishing the relationship. Resolution means resolving every issue. That second one isn't going to happen because there is nobody on this planet who agrees with you about everything. The fact is we're all different. We have different personalities. Have you noticed this? Can you have a loving relationship without agreeing on everything? Of course...

If you've got a well and the well has bad water, fixing the pump is not going to help what's in the well. That's the problem with a lot of self-help books. They tell you how to fix the pump, but they don't know how to tell you how to fix the water that's in the well. Until you fix that, things aren't going to get better for you. Psalm 141:3, "Take control of what I say, O...