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11 Jun

Posted at 19:10h in Southern Baptist Convention, Uncategorized
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Tomorrow evening I will fly out of Greenville to attend the 2011 annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Phoenix. I'm not really sure how many of these meetings I've attended in my lifetime, but it's probably safe to say that it's been more than a few.  As I have thought about this year's convention, I have been overwhelmed with mixed emotions.  While I deeply love and am committed to being a Southern Baptist, I am increasingly concerned about many of the things that I see transpiring in our denomination.

01 Jun

Posted at 09:22h in Devotionals, Uncategorized
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"For as the body without the spirit is dead..." James 2:26 Can anybody give a definition of death? Does the Bible tell us exactly what it is? Yes. In fact, in the words before us we have what is surely the simplest, shortest, most straight forward definition of death to be found anywhere.  James tells us that death is the body without the spirit. What a wonderful explanation. James doesn't say that death means that the life of the body is extinguished, not at all.  It is simply that the life is absent - it's away. The body is without the spirit. This verse doesn't tell us that to die means that the spirit is without a body.  Or, to put it another way, that the spirit without the body is dead. Absolutely not.  The spirit can not die. It doesn't matter if it is on the inside or the outside of the body.

16 May

Posted at 10:19h in Devotionals, Uncategorized
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"This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him, Who seek Your face. Selah" Psalm 24:6 It was a time of great spiritual awakening. A genuine time of revival and renewal.  The Psalmist says that men were seeking the face of God, and they were seeking His face in a very special, specific way.  They were searching for the face that illuminated Jacob's face when He had his great encounter with God.  Where exactly was that? At Peniel - the place where he had his third vision of God.  Remember? Jacob had seen the Lord in His power at Bethel and in His providence at Mahanaim, but it was at Peniel that He saw the Lord in His personal presence.  Jacob came face to face with the Living God and the light of the Lord's face fell on Jacob's.

04 Apr

Posted at 13:02h in Uncategorized
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When Young, Southern Baptist…And Irrelevant? was first published in the Baptist Courier in late February, I didn’t anticipate the response and conversation that it has generated across the Southern Baptist Convention.  In fact, I have been amazed at how the simple, personal reflection that was first drafted in October of 2010 out of concern for our vision and mission as a denomination has struck such a deep chord with so many Southern Baptists.