There is nothing I feel more passionate about than knowing God. It is the greatest privilege of my life. The deepest joy. The thing that gives me purpose and meaning. To know Him is by far greater than all the treasures this world has to offer.

Titus 2 makes it clear that we need older women teaching and discipling younger women. But sometimes that can seem so intimidating to walk out. I hope this message will encourage you and give you some practical tools to build these kinds of relationships in your local church.

Last November I had the privilege of speaking in Jamaica on the topic of biblical womanhood. I wanted to share a link to this message in hopes that it will be an encouragement to you. We can learn all the Bible's views of womanhood, but without the Gospel we are powerless to implement any of it.

There is no one “right” way to do Christmas. But whatever you do, be intentional. Don’t just do what the world does or what your family did growing up. Ask yourself, how can I give gifts to the glory of God?

I have really fond memories of solitude. Being quiet on purpose to hear from God has become a spiritual discipline I cannot live without. But, I also understand that sitting still may be the last thing you want to do. There are many things that prevent us from quieting ourselves before the Lord. It is for that reason that I wrote this solitude guide.

Maybe we assume that by studying Revelation they will need to come to some final conclusion about where they stand on this big, confusing thing called eschatology (the study of end times). And since many of us are just trying to make it to the end of the day with a somewhat clean house and half our to-do list checked, we figure we just don’t have time for that.

I found out I was pregnant again. At this point, those two lines were more ominous than hopeful. Pregnancy had brought mostly disappointment. But, it was another chance at starting a family, nonetheless. I survived the first week. The second. The third. And suddenly something dangerous began to happen. I began to hope.

If you place all your longings on a future marriage, it will crush it. Only God himself can carry the weight of our deepest hopes and dreams.

Taking up our cross to follow Jesus is often a painful experience—but we desperately need it. The invitation to die—to take up our cross and lose our lives for Jesus—is truly an invitation to newness of life, to union with Christ, and to ultimate freedom from sin.

The longer you walk with God, the more dangerous the path. It’s dangerous not because of hardship and suffering (though they may be present) but because of the temptation to rely on your ever-growing experience instead of on Christ alone.

For the Christian, the college years are often marked by grand desires to change the world in the name of Jesus. It is a time filled with ministry opportunities and therefore marked by busyness for many young people who don't want to waste any ministry opportunity in their path. But doing things for Jesus cannot and should not be your primary goal. If it is, you have sidelined the only work that truly matters: knowing God through Jesus, His Son.

We all need friends who stick closer than a brother, who will be there for us in good and bad times, but to treat a friendship with the weight, exclusivity, and ownership of a marriage brings serious dangers. In just a moment, things can go from seemingly safe and good to horribly bad and harmful.

How can a desire to pour into someone else's life for the sake of the gospel go wrong? The desire certainly isn't wrong. But our prone-to-wander hearts and our crafty, disguised-as-an-angel-of-light enemy can distort God's good design if we aren't sober-minded and watchful. Here's how you can tell if a mentoring relationship is beginning to veer off into the ditch of neediness.

Jesus is our Bread of Life, our Living Water, our Pearl of Great Price, our Light, our Resurrection, our very Life. The greatest danger to our souls is that we might abandon abiding in him, following him, and finding our joy in him. Therefore, the best gift a friend can give is a commitment to fight for our joy in and communion with Christ. Conversely, the worst distortion of friendship arises when a friend encourages us, consciously or unconsciously, to place our affections elsewhere.

The things we covet and crave are often good things. But even so, to covet is to become enamored with something other than God. And craving God's gifts when you already have God Himself is preferring the gifts above the Giver.

Though we have more access to the Bible than any generation before us, most Christians still have never read it all. The abundance of biblical access, on smartphones and bookshelves, generally hasn't resulted in an increased personal knowledge of the Word. And yet our generation speaks very authoritatively about God and the Bible.

Lack of knowledge plus authoritative opinions: This is a dangerous combination.

An orphan comes into a world of sorrow before he is able to comprehend what he has lost. But in the tragedy there is an invitation: Who will volunteer to make the orphan’s grief their own? Who will step in to parent the parentless? And within our hearts we have found an unrelenting and determined answer: “Send us! We will go!

A new temptation often arises in the subtle shift from learner to teacher, one we often don't foresee. It creeps in as we begin to delight in our own expertise about God, rather than God Himself.

Are you familiar with the story of Athaliah and Jehosheba? Here's why you should know about these two women from the book of 2 Kings.