There are some really exciting events and moments in the life of a Christian. Especially in the lives of young Christians, camp or vacation Bible school can bring so much joy into our times of learning and worshiping God. Bible-related activities, building new relationships, creative teaching techniques, excited singing, bonding experiences, and a general increase of spiritual thinking all come together to renew our sense of dedication and excitement about spiritual things. We walk away from events like those on a spiritual high, thinking things like, “I had forgotten how good we have it as Christians!” Or, “I wish we could have things like this more often! They do so much good for my Christian walk!”

These peaks of spirituality are a healthy thing, and we should thank God for them when they come. While there may be an impulse among some believers to equalize (or suppress) our levels of emotion in all spiritual things, I don’t see any Biblical reason to do so. If camp or VBS or some other spiritual experience is done righteously and it’s exciting, let it be so. In fact, I hope that’s what happens for all of you who are going to camp this week—I hope that it rejuvenates you!

Let’s also remember to wise about those emotional moments in life. And here’s just one consideration in that regard:
Often, when we experience a spiritual high, we think “This is how Christianity is supposed to feel.” And so for that reason, we double our efforts in spiritual pursuits like Bible study and prayer and we expect to keep experiencing the same highs because it’s supposed to feel a certain way.

We need to be careful of striving for how Christianity is supposed to feel. God talks surprisingly little about that. Instead, he talks much more about who we should be and what we should do as Christians (see Eph. 2:10). Doing spiritual things with the goal of experiencing a feeling is what we would usually call emotionalism, and that’s not God’s intention for us.

Consider Jeremiah’s example: he may not have experienced a single day of these emotional highs, and yet he pleased God. We need not fall into thinking that we need those emotional highs in order to keep our efforts as Christians up to their full potential. We should be serving God at full capacity no matter what. And we need to not allow ourselves to become discouraged because somehow our Christian experience doesn’t feel just right. The goal of spirituality is not emotions; it’s faithfulness. So let’s enjoy the mountaintop experiences when God gives us to them, and let’s also be committed to living a life that pleases God in all places and times.

- Dan Lankford, minister

“Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”

That bit of wisdom, attributed to Sir Francis Bacon, is engraved in the marble on the walls in the Library of Congress. It’s a reminder of the wholeness of someone who wants to live life skillfully. It’s good wisdom for anyone, and especially for Christians, who want to live life skillfully according to God’s wisdom for all cultures and times.

Reading is an important spiritual discipline for the child of God. When we allow it, God’s word will saturate our minds with divine truth, love, and wisdom. It gives us the vision to see the world, ourselves, and others as we truly are. It lets us hear from God himself.

Conversation—what Bacon calls “conference”—is also an important spiritual discipline. It’s in conversations that we practice articulating the truths of The Faith so that we become more prepared to “make a defense to anyone who asks” about the hope that gives us purpose (1 Pt. 3:15).

And when it comes to communicating doctrine correctly, I find that writing helps me achieve clarity more than anything else. Writing encourages us to choose words that are just right for the occasion, for the audience, and for the subject matter. With a subject matter as important as the Gospel, shouldn’t we want to communicate it with accuracy and care?

The skill with which we walk thru life will be greatly enhanced by these three disciplines. These are elements of how many of God’s faithful ones have lived with wisdom for millennia. Let’s learn from their wisdom and from God’s to do the same things today.

- Dan Lankford, minister

In this week’s daily Bible reading through 1st Thessalonians, we’ve seen an apostle’s description of what conversion really looks like. It shows us the remarkable power that plain Gospel teaching has—that through it, Christ will completely transform people’s lives and lead them out of darkness and into the light of a life lived for God.

Here’s what God saw from our brothers in Thessalonica as the process of their becoming our brothers.

• “We know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction.”
• “…you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.”
• “…you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia (northern Greece) and Achaia (southern Greece). The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere!”
• “…you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven…”
• “You know, brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not without results.”
• “…when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is — the word of God! — which is indeed at work in you who believe.”

The change that they went through wasn’t small, and it couldn’t have been easy, especially since they were all essentially first-generation Christians. And yet, it was this group that Paul, Silas, and Timothy wrote to with such affectionate and admiring words. Were they the perfected picture of mature, long-term Christianity and deep knowledge? No. But their faith was real, and that is what really matters to God.

Whether we’re new Christians or we’ve been around the faith for our whole lives, we must live, talk, and think in such a way that the same things could be said to commend us: that we too live out an example of active, life-changing, joyful, humble, Biblical, real faith.

- Dan Lankford, minister

The first commandment in God’s top ten was: “I am the Lord the your God. You shall have no other gods before me.” (Ex. 20:2-3) It told the people that God comes first. Period. Obviously, that means that we must never choose that which is evil over God’s things. It also means that we must not allow even the morally good things in our lives to become gods that our hearts are devoted to more than they are to God.

Sometimes, we give far more of our hearts’ energy to the things that God has given us than we do to God himself. Like the Israelites of old, we need to occasionally be reminded not to let all the blessings that he has given us cause our hearts to be lifted up so that we “forget the LORD your God, who brought out of slavery” (see Deut. 8).

I recently heard a preacher and his wife describe the beautiful love that they share by saying, “It’s because we aren’t the most important people to each other. Her love isn’t the thing that fulfills me, and my love isn’t the thing that fulfills her. We love God most, and we’re each totally filled with his love. So it’s like when you go to a buffet and you’re completely full, then you can enjoy something sweet without the pressure of needing it.”

Would that we could think of all of our blessings that way. Would that our hearts were wholly devoted to God, so that whether we have blessings or not, we still feel that we have all we need. Would that we would never need anything more than we need God himself. Would that we would never seek anything other than him to fill our hearts and bring us true happiness.

- Dan Lankford, minister

Of all the themes in the Bible, one that points most directly to the story of Jesus is the theme of losing in order for God to give us a win. Bible narratives in which a person serves their own best interest usually end in disaster (Abram & Sarai’s abusing Hagar, Naomi’s leaving God’s land during a famine to find food elsewhere, King David’s census of his soldiers rather than trust that God would win their battles). On the other hand, when they willingly give up their own self interests and let God work things out his way, he brings things around to a winning outcome for them.

• When Moses and all Israel stood on the banks of the Red Sea, they had to decide if they would risk losing their lives by walking into it. They did, and God gave them a great victory over Egypt.
• When under siege, King Hezekiah toward God rather than calling for help from another nation’s military. It might have looked like he was doing nothing, but God sent an angel that killed enemy soldiers and gave the victory.
• Stephen preached the hard truth about the Jews’ rejection of Christ and was killed for it. Yet the Lord himself stood to acknowledge Stephen’s actions, and Stephen was received into glory for his faithfulness. Indeed, he appeared to have lost, but God gave Stephen the greatest victory that day.
• And there's no better example than the cross and the resurrection. Jesus was willing to lose to everyone—the chief priests, Pilate, Herod, and ultimately to death itself. But three days, God gave him the first and final victory over death. "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Cor. 15:56-57)

Christ said, “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt. 16:25). Those familiar words from Matthew sixteen summarize the age-old theme in the Bible, and they show us the importance of letting God rule our own lives entirely, because he—not we—will bring about our perfect victory in glory.

- Dan Lankford, minister

When a couple is expecting a baby, they live their lives with a different outlook as the delivery gets closer and closer. They still go about their normal lives—going to work, class, the grocery store the gym. They still spend time with their friends. They still go to church and participate in church life. They maintain most of the same routines as usual. But in all of that, there’s a constant awareness that their whole modus operandi may be dropped at a moment’s notice when it’s time for the baby to come. They spend their waking and working hours knowing that it all might be interrupted soon for them to meet someone they’ve been looking forward to meeting for awhile.

In that outlook, we find a healthy example for how Christians ought to think about the Lord’s return at the judgment day. It helps to understand the continuation of daily life (Jesus prayed: “I do not ask that you take them out of the world” [Jn 17:15]), and it helps us think rightly about that final day, when God’s people—even those who are asleep—will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air (1 Ths. 4:17). Just like a couple anxiously looks forward to the day when they happily drop everything and go be meet the person they have desired to meet for so long, Christians anxiously look forward to dropping everything and meeting our Lord, whom we and our fellow saints have looked forward to seeing face-to-face for these many centuries.

Does that mean we are living in limbo? Yes, to some extent. And we are doing so deliberately. Our feet are firmly planted on the soil of the earth, but our hope is anchored in Heaven, from which we await the return of our Savior and King, Jesus of Nazareth. May God give us the wisdom to live well here while we long to be there.

- Dan Lankford, minister

Growing up, I called three of my grandparents by fairly normal titles—Grandma, Grandpa, and Granddad. But I called one grandmother Nanny, and to this day, when I say it out loud, people give me quizzical looks and I have to explain why I had that special name for her.

And others have had much more out-of-the-ordinary ones than that. For example: Gigi, DeeDee, Memaw, Gramps, Big Mama, Doc, and Mocha.

If you’ve been in a relationship where you use a familial nickname like that, you know that saying it out loud brings curiosity and potential for ridicule. And yet, you find yourself doing it anyway. Even though there is the potential for some social awkwardness when you have to explain it, you use that name nonchalantly because it’s a name that you know well, because the relationship matters so much to you.

As a Christian, I want to be the same way with Jesus’ name. I want to be ready to speak it freely, even if it sounds funny to the ears of other people. Even if it garners curiosity and the potential for ridicule or some social awkwardness, I want to find myself doing it anyway. I want to use his name in a confident and nonchalant way because the relationship between him and me matters so much!

It was in the city of Antioch that Jesus’ disciples were first called “CHRISTians,” a name that they probably received from outsiders who heard them talk so much about a man they called The Christ. Let’s imitate them in freely speaking the name of Christ, the man whom we love with all of our being. Let’s speak of him and our relationship with him—our admiration and our apparent closeness with him. Let’s just own up to the quizzical looks and openly proclaim that he is our master.

- Dan Lankford, minister

I once heard a man tell about an early experience he’d had in construction work. He was cutting rafters for a house, so he measured the first rafter by a tape measure, and then proceeded to measure the next one by the one that he had just cut—not using his tape measure again. Of course, that practice didn’t make much difference on the first handful of cuts. A careful check would have showed a difference of only small fractions of an inch. But after 100 rafters each cut in comparison to the one before, the difference from the first to the hundredth was over a foot. They weren’t even close to the original.

Don’t we often do the same thing spiritually?

In church life, we compare ourselves with a previous generation and see that we’re just a little different from them. But then, when two thousand years of church history have gone by, we may find that we’re a great distance from Christ’s original intent for his people.

In our personal lives, we sometimes compare ourselves with a previous generation and are satisfied that we measure close enough to them. But then, after generations, we may realize that our standards of right and wrong are far from God’s original intent for his people.

What’s the solution to this problem? Do we find a better generation to compare to? Do we try to just do better than them by comparison?

The solution is to stop comparing ourselves to other people, and just compare who we are to the standard of God’s word and Jesus’ way.

“When they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.” (2 Cor. 10:12)

- Dan Lankford, minister

People have said for a long time that the news is only bad news; only telling us about the bad things that happen in the world. But modern news is much more than information. For better or worse, it’s rife with commentary, ideologies, philosophies, and worldview. Some news outlets do their best to dial back most of that, preferring to just focus on information. But others are blatant and open about it, treating what used to be called editorial content as the core of their business model.

So how can Christians have a spiritually healthy relationship with the news? Whether you tend toward conservative or moderate or liberal outlets, whether you watch it on TV or social media or wherever… How can we keep our minds and spirits from being dominated by the constant flow of bad news? How can we keep ourselves centered rather than letting an outsider ideology encroach?

Ultimately, it comes down to which voices we listen to the most. Jesus said that his sheep hear his voice and follow it. They do not listen to the other voices that call them out of his fold (John 10:4-5). Even if we hear a voice that we think would agree with Jesus, the key is that we turn and listen to Jesus as the supreme guiding voice. That takes commitment and constant practice (cf. Hb. 5:14). And it’s essential that Christians do this, because while the world is full of voices, only one voice speaks the words of eternal life (John 6:68).

So for some of us, the healthiest relationship with modern news is a completely distant one. Some of us need to practice more moderation in the relationship; spending less time hearing and thinking about news. Some of us need to change the outlets that we listen to in order to decrease our exposure to bad ideas and bad behavior. And all of us need to make sure that how we think about the world is entirely learned from God, with the news media taking second place (at best) in our consideration of ourselves and reality.

- Dan Lankford, minister

What do you most like to watch, listen to, or read? Does it fit with your being a sincere Christian?

Christians need to be intentional with the entertainment choices that we make. Streaming shows, books, movies, and social media videos that promote ungodly attitudes and sinful behaviors aren’t the kind of things that ought to characterize our habits. The things that we fill our minds and hearts with—the stories and thoughts to which we ascent—have a profound impact on us. Likable characters warm us up to their way of life, which is really problematic when that way of life is ungodly.

So let’s ask ourselves: Are we choosing to be entertained by senseless or careless violence? Is the loss of human life downplayed in our favorite stories, as though it were unimportant? Are we being led to laugh off certain sins? Is foul, sinful, cursing language used as though it were harmless? Are the things that we find entertaining attempting to make it unclear whether someone doing evil is a good guy or a bad guy, eroding our discernment about what’s right and wrong? Is sexuality portrayed in unholy ways that go beyond the proper love of husband and wife? Are things which God has declared sinful being portrayed as happy, freeing, pleasant, and good?

I recently heard a preacher note that when we allow ourselves to be entertained by something, we’re aligning our hearts with that thing, if only a little bit. There’s a small amount of conforming with its ideals that happens. And thinking about the danger of that reminded me of these words from Proverbs: “My son, if sinners entice you... my son, do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths…” (Prv. 1:10-16) It’s a good reminder not to align ourselves with the world and their ways. Like the Spirit said through Paul, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rm. 12:1)

The reality of living in a fallen world means that we won’t be able to put a full stop to the immorality that we see and hear about. The day-to-day world is full of it, and it finds its way into our lives in so many ways. But there’s a big difference between seeing immorality and seeking it. There’s a big difference between hearing of sins committed and honoring them as entertaining. There’s a big difference between knowing that sin is sinful and wondering if it’s sensible. The problem is not only what we see; it’s what we choose. Let’s make sure that we’re honestly trying to glorify God in everything that we do.

- Dan Lankford, minister