Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. (John 14:1)

Discouragement is a temptation “common to man” (1 Corinthians 10:13). And in dealing with it sometimes we need tenderness and other times we need toughness. But either way discouragement is not to be tolerated or wallowed in. It’s to be fought.

If we linger in discouragement it can be costly. Its sense of defeat and hopelessness saps us of energy and vision. It can consume a lot of time. It can keep us from doing what we need to do because we don’t want to face it. And it can even be contagious, weakening others’ faith.

When we feel discouraged we want comfort, which is right to feel. But the comforts…

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At the root of insecurity — the anxiety over how others think of us — is pride. This pride is an excessive desire for others to see us as impressive and admirable. Insecurity is the fear that they won’t, but instead they will see us as deficient. As King Saul¹ shows us, it’s a dangerous fear because insecurity can lead to great disobedience.

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Samuel’s heart was broken and heavy as he neared Saul’s camp at Gilgal. Israel’s first king had failed so soon and so seriously.

And Samuel was tired. He’d been up all night prayerfully mourning the Lord’s words, “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.”

And he was…

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I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord (Philippians 3:8).

One thing is for sure: Christianity is not for stoics. The Bible is the most wild, romantic book ever written. The New Testament is no cool, reasoned analysis of Jesus's system of thought. It is a passionate book written by people who were ravished by Jesus, who felt and said ardent things like Philippians 3:8.

You know what the world calls statements like Paul's? Religious extremism. Fanaticism. You "count everything as loss"? Sounds dangerous. Have you thought about seeing a therapist?

But the world is full of such talk when it comes to romantic love. We expect lovers' l…

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We impoverish ourselves by not lingering more. Whipping from one thing to the next does not make for a rich, memorable life. Understanding and wonder and worship don’t typically result from doing or reading as many things as possible. It comes from focus and contemplation and rumination. For most of us the wise choice is to go deep, not broad.

When you stop to examine, to search through, to figure out, to study, you begin to see things. You begin to realize how substantial and profound seemingly simple things really are. Understanding emerges and you begin to make connections with other things. An appreciation of beauty you never noticed before grows. The scope of how little you really kno…

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Oh, that my people would listen to me. (Psalm 81:13)

“Attention is focused mental engagement on a particular item of information.”¹ I’ll bet you’re finding that difficult to do, aren’t you — paying attention? As you read this are other flies of information buzzing around your head?

Ever since sin clouded the human mind with disparate impulses and voices, paying attention, particularly to the right things, has been hard. But it’s never been harder than it is now.

Humans “create as much information in two days now as we did from the dawn of man through 2003.”² The average adult in the West wades through the equivalent of 174 newspapers worth of information per day.³

The sheer amou…

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“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

If you have been born again, the greatest miracle that you can ever experience in this life has happened to you. No healing, no deliverance, no prophecy, no Philip-like translation in the spirit (Acts 8:39-40), no George Müller-like financial provision arriving at the exact moment you need it comes close. It’s greater than what Lazarus experienced. What happened to Lazarus was a pointer, a parable for what happened to you.

That’s why when the seventy-two disciples returned from their tours of ministry and excitedly recounted the signs and wonders that occurred, including the commandi…

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Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:13).

Your rest is coming. Sooner than you know you will receive your “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading inheritance” (1 Peter 1:4). And when it comes you will understand why your faith was more precious than gold (1 Peter 1:7). This is where Peter wants your hope to fully rest.

But today is a time for war, not peace. It’s a time for faith, not sight. It’s a time of grievous trials that test the genuineness of your faith (1 Peter 1:6–7). So it’s a time to prepare for the action of battle, to keep sober.

Your ba…

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If you mainly breathe the world’s air—the atmosphere controlled by the “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2)—it’s like breathing pot smoke. It alters your mind and mood. It produces everything from a false sense of well being to paranoia, or even hallucinations. It’s seductive, addicting, and distorting.

You know you’re breathing too much of it when God and his priorities feel trivial or uninteresting or unreal to you.

So here’s a drug test. First, read the following paragraph:

Everything in redemptive history has been God acting for his glory, therefore everything in your life is to join him in that purpose. The reason you’re on the planet is to join God in making mu

…

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“Spatial disorientation” is what a pilot experiences when he’s flying in weather conditions that prevent him from being able to see the horizon or the ground. Points of reference that guide his senses disappear. His perceptions become unreliable. He can no longer be sure which way is up or down. It can be deadly — it killed John Kennedy, Jr.¹

The only way a pilot can overcome spatial disorientation is to trust his cockpit instruments more than his intuitive senses to tell him what is real. That’s why flight instructors force student pilots to learn to fly planes by the instruments alone.

There is a spiritual parallel. I’ve experienced it. On a spring day in May 1997, I flew into a spirit…

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“…let us also lay aside every weight…and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).

Do you want to be productive? Don’t get organized. Get enthralled. Get smitten. Get on fire. Really want to do something. Want to do it bad enough that you are willing to say no to good things that will inhibit your doing what you really want to do.

Then work on organizing. Productivity systems will only help you when you know what you want to be productive about. Otherwise you’ll always have more books to read, projects to complete, emails to answer, people to meet than you can possibly organize. You’ll just shuffle stuff.

If you’re passionate, you will prioritize …

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