I am not an accident. No matter how my birth came about, even if it was a mistake in human terms, it was not a surprise to God. He had planned for it long before I was born. Not only did he know I was going to be born but he also knew where I would be born, how I would be born and even how long I would live. My life was perfectly planned and brought to perfect execution. …

“It’s not about you.” So begins my journey with Rick Warren as he seeks to help me understand my life’s purpose through The Purpose Driven Life. Because God is the Creator, we, the created beings, can never hope to discover our meaning and our purpose outside of Him. The world teaches that so-called self-discovery begins with me, whereas the Bible teaches that it begins with God. Warren uses the first chapter to explain a bit more about the purpose of …

Rick Warren is courageous. I don’t think I would have the courage to write a book, knowing full well it would be read by millions, which sought to answer life’s greatest question. Yet Warren claims that The Purpose Driven Life will do just that. It will answer the question of “What on earth am I here for?” The introduction claims “This is more than a book; it is a guide to a 40-day spiritual journey that will enable you to …

I have started reading The Purpose Driven Life several times. So far I have not managed to finish it. I got to thinking that perhaps if I blogged my way through the 40 days of the book I could find motivation to keep reading it. So starting tomorrow I will attempt to blog my way through the book. I have some preconceptions that it is only fair I lay down from the beginning. I have read The Purpose Driven Church. …

There is a misconception about Christianity whereby non-Christians seem to think that Christians live their lives burdened by myriads of unfair and outdated rules. Though some of these rules are perceived to be admirable and praiseworthy, many others, they think, are simply burdensome and unnecessary. Few would argue that the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” is a bad one. But when it comes to the commandments regarding adultery and sexual relations people no longer consider them praiseworthy. Many people look …

I have been thinking a lot lately about The Regulatory Principle, especially as it relates to the worship service. If you are not familiar with the term, it essentially means: The only acceptable worship is that which is explicitly taught in the Bible. By extension then, anything that is not explicitly taught in the Bible is implicitly forbidden. The Regulatory Principle is most often applied to music in the worship service, but can also apply to the use of drama, …

Mother Teresa (known also as Mother Teresa of Calcutta) was born in what is now called the Republic of Macedonia in 1910. Born to Albanian parents she was at that time known as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. The labor for which she became renowned began on January 6, 1929 when she arrived in Calcutta, India to work with the poor and needy. When she died in September of 1997 she was the director of a worldwide missions organization known as the …

Dr. W.A. Criswell (1909-2002), long-time pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, was once traveling by airplane on a trip across the country to attend a speaking engagement and was thrilled to recognize the man in the seat beside him as a well-known Christian theologian. Criswell admired this man and wanted to strike up a conversation with him. After the plane left the ground and settled into cruising altitude he introduced himself and the two began to speak. The theologian …

Baptism means different things to different people within the Christian world. There are disagreements in the meaning, the methodology and the importance of baptism. In this four part message series, John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, seeks to interpret the Biblical meaning of baptism. To understand Piper’s analysis of baptism, it helps to know a bit of his background. He is pastor of a Baptist church and thus believes in believer’s baptism by immersion. However, he spent much of …