So much of our lives and relationships depend on how accurately we understand forgiveness and trust—and how they relate to each other. Many people make the mistake of immediately trusting those they forgive, which often leads to a great deal of pain and confusion about forgiveness, love, and Christianity in general. Just because you forgive someone does not mean trust should be immediately restored. On the other hand, many people mistakenly refuse to forgive when they realize they cannot Continue Reading
False Accusations
False accusations are as old as sin itself. In fact, the devil—who is defined as the "false accuser” and “slanderer”—falsely accused God right before the original sin occurred (cp Gen 3:1ff). Nevertheless, this has not stopped humans from frequently imitating Satan in this well-practiced scheme of our evil enemy. Furthermore, not only do these harmful sins continue to happen, they seem to be on the rise. Yet, for our purposes here, we must understand that false allegations not only Continue Reading
Overcorrection Syndrome
When my heart was embittered And I was pierced within, Then I was senseless and ignorant; I was like a beast before You.Psalm 73:21-22 [NASB] We can all be in error. We have all been taught things that are wrong. We have all been mistreated, and many of us have been egregiously hurt by false teachings and by people. While some of these problems are certainly worse than others, we all have a need to correct these errors and heal from our wounds. And to do this we need discernment, objectivity, Continue Reading
Problems In The Church
We are witnessing a somewhat recent—yet long overdue—movement within the Church, a movement that seeks to address and expose the egregious problem of abuse. More specifically, this abuse is often understood to mean the taking advantage of and harming of individuals who are generally more vulnerable (usually women and children, although abuse can happen to anyone). This focus on the primary problem (the actual abuse) has also shed light on the problems associated with it: namely, how the sin and Continue Reading