Category: Truth

Where do you think God lives? What comes to mind as you consider the location of His dwelling place?

This past Sunday, the call to worship in our service came from Psalm 84:1-4. The opening verses read: “How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord…” (verses 1-2a, ESV)

Do you remember what January 9 was like? If you set a New Year’s resolution, January 9 would be about the time when you might have encountered some resistance to your resolutions. It may have even been the day you realized you had already abandoned them.

This phenomenon is real enough that the second Friday of January, which this year was the ninth, has earned the moniker “Quitters Day.”

We live in a world that drives us to think of our value in terms of our behavior, our productivity, our merits. The grace of the gospel overturns such ideas. Knowing how God sees His children is critical to our mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

Today I'm sharing a excerpt from my latest book, which focuses on the astounding identity available to us in Christ. One of those identities is that we are blameless before Him.

“This I declare about the LORD: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; He is my God, and I trust Him.” Psalm 91:2 (NLT)

This morning, I decided this needs to become my daily declaration. I have recently been in a season of such challenge and demand that I have forgotten the truth declared here. Specifically, I have forgotten the phrase immediately following the colon.

He alone is my refuge…

Oh how 2026 didn’t open the way I thought it would.

The call came through about 8:30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. I excused myself from the group of friends I was with to take the call from my Dad. An unfamiliar voice greeted me. An EMT was calling on his phone to let me know they were taking my 85-year-old dad to the ER with concerning O2 sats and extremely elevated heart rate.

Accepting the invitation extended in the gospel of Christ allows a person to receive a new identity: that of God’s beloved child (John 1:12). After accepting God’s invitation to salvation, however, we must respond to His continual invitation to intimacy, to return, and to rest. 

This invitation to experience more of Him is true for a new Christian or one who has walked with Him for decades.