What sorts of things do you find tempting? Now, to be sure, there’s nothing wrong with pleasure in itself – after all, God invented it! But when we let our desire for any sort of pleasurable sensations override our understanding of right and wrong, that’s when we’ve allowed temptation to…

Have you ever wondered about God’s timing? Maybe you’ve been praying for years for release from an addiction or from a chronic health condition. Maybe you’ve been praying even longer for a loved one to come to know Christ as Savior and Lord. And we’re all praying for peace in…

When Jesus admitted that He was the King of the Jews (Mark 15:2), it made absolutely no sense to Pilate. After all, the Ancient Romans relied on their military power to maintain control and to preserve order in the way they wanted it. That’s why the soldiers mocked Jesus the…

“Prove your faith by sending in a big donation and God will do a miracle for you!” That’s the sort of thing we hear “prosperity gospel” preachers say. And of course we know it’s wrong for Christians to express their faith in such a transactional way, treating the Lord as…

“Name it and claim it. God wants you to be happy.” That’s what the prosperity gospel says. And many preachers today have gained both fame and fortune from peddling the idea that material blessings are always a sign of God’s favor. Even the disciples in Mark 10:26 were astonished that…

It isn’t just backwoods fire-and-brimstone preachers who talk about Hell, you know. Isaiah’s vision of the new heavens and the new earth includes the eternal torment of those who have sinned against God, with the closing verse of His prophecy insisting that “their worm does not die and their fire…

What do you need for successful ministry? We usually think in terms of buildings and budgets, but Jesus didn’t mention either of these things to His disciples as they set out on their first mission trip. Instead we find three items of much greater importance. In Mark 6:7, we notice…

When we hear the parable of the Sower and the Soils, most of the time we jump immediately to self-diagnosis, wondering which kind of soil we might be. And it is a good thing to be aware of how Satan works in people’s lives. His most powerful tool, as 4:15…

What is the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ? If you want a one verse summary, look no further than Mark 1:15. “The time is fulfilled.” This means of course that all the long years of waiting for God to keep His Old Testament promises are over, as they…

Why did Judas betray Jesus? We might think it was just for the money he received, but then why would he give it back? Or perhaps he had wanted to provoke Jesus into a confrontation with the Pharisees, confident that Jesus would in fact lead a rebellion against the Jewish…