Here are some basic questions about life: What do you have? How did you get it? What have you done with it? What will you end up with? The answer to these questions are determined by the substance of our lives -- and the good news is, we get to determine that!

Every human being has one thing in common -- there will come a time when his life on earth ends. Sounds heavy -- even somber -- but it is true. So the question is, what then? And does anything that we do now affect what happens then? Jesus gave us the answer in a story.

Are you an owner or manager? It's a trick question! But the answer lies in understanding the parables about bad management in Luke 16.

You know how important something (or someone) is to you when you lose it. So, if you lose it, what you do sheds light on how important it really is! What has Jesus done, and what does that say about how he thinks of you? Knowing the answer can change your life.

Kingdom is an almost meaningless word to Americans. So, the “Kingdom of Heaven” is doubly troublesome — not only do we have to figure out what “heaven” is, we have to then figure out how a word like “kingdom” relates to heaven. Of course the existing thing is, there IS a Kingdom of Heaven — and if we pay attention we can understand what that means!

It is easy to make assumptions based on our own experiences — particular assumptions about our personal lives. But we all know assumptions can get us in trouble, and it is dangerous to assume without checking it out.

It is easy to make assumptions based on our own experiences — particular assumptions about our personal lives. But we all know assumptions can get us in trouble, and it is dangerous to assume without checking it out.

Broken things are rarely strong. Strength comes from not being broken, but brokenness can come individually and in community. In the U.S. right now, there is a lot of division — sometimes so strong that people who say they love one another are inviting the other to leave and never come back. But real strength comes in unity before the Lord, and there are specific steps we can take to limit the disunity and build on the unity God has given us.

Broken things are rarely strong. Strength comes from not being broken, but brokenness can come individually and in community. In the U.S. right now, there is a lot of division — sometimes so strong that people who say they love one another are inviting the other to leave and never come back. But real strength comes in unity before the Lord, and there are specific steps we can take to limit the disunity and build on the unity God has given us.

Sometimes the easy thing is to just stop — stop trying, stop talking to God, stop asking for help. But for some reason God wants us to persist, and Jesus teaches us that the very persistence we want to avoid might be exactly what we are needing.