In America we love our wildernesses,perhaps because we don’t have to live in them. To us, wilderness is a place we can go when we want with our hiking or camping gear, or our RV’s, taking with us as few or as many of the comforts of home as we please. Wilderness in the Bible is utterly different.

A reasonable question with solid answers. Did some guy make it all up? Or was it God talking to us through real people?

I like a charming nineteenth century novel as well as the next person. But for serious escapist reading, give me a near-future post-apocalyptic dystopia every time. I want to see life stripped down to the bare bones, in scenarios where people’s character, and beliefs determine their every move.

Where is God? Is he sitting on a cloud, peering down at our little planet once in a while, shaking his head in impotent regret? No, it's far worse and far better than that...

Joy is the sweetest, most piercing emotion. The existence of joy puts everything in perspective. It explains many things about truth, reality, life and death, love and loss and heaven and everlasting life and the goodness of God and just about any other mysterious thing you can name.

Can we know that God exists? The skeptic doubts God’s existence because it can’t be proven by science. The agnostic says it’s impossible to know whether God exists. But the atheist firmly declares, “There is no God.”

If you haven’t noticed the stench of death permeating our planet, you haven’t been paying attention. That stench is the odor of rebellion and its consequences. Everyone has rebelled against God, the consequence is death, and the remedy is trusting Jesus Christ to rescue you.

My son buys more knives than anyone I know. Last year he bought me a knife, and even though I didn't think I needed another knife, it has become my tool of choice for any and all vegetable chopping. It's a good knife, quite useful, like Spirit-filled Christians are supposed to be.

What if Jeroboam’s wife had believed God? She made a choice no mother would make, and the only explanation is profound unbelief. But what if she had believed...?

Don’t you ever wonder? What is that one thing you could do that God will not or cannot forgive? Is there such a sin?