gospel

Rest and Renewal in Christ

MARIA CURREY | CONTRIBUTOR Summer is upon us and with it comes vacations and times to get away. What speaks rest and renewal to you? Soothing surf-sounds and sand in your toes? Cruising to your dream destination with vacation days sprawling ahead? Manis and pedis at the spa? While rest and renewal may imply luxurious escape, there is a much deeper, eternally lavish rest and renewal offered in Christ. God offers lasting treasures. He gives us physical, spiritual, and emotional rejuvenation, perfectly portioned time which we are encouraged and exhorted to set apart. Rest and renewal are given within God’s pace of grace, gifts wisely given and guarded, when and IF we choose to receive them. Creator Rest Where do we first see rest and by Whom is it reflected? God Himself models rest in Genesis 2:2-3, "And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” If God rested after creating, should we not also rest after we work? Do you have a sanctified day of rest? A day set apart to be holy, for sacred purposes...

Rest and Renewal in ChristChristina Fox2025-05-24T16:41:12+00:00

Facing Temptation with Scripture and Community

KATELYN ROSS|GUEST What would happen to my kids if I wasn’t here? I resent my husband for letting me be the default parent (even though he’s a good husband and dad). I secretly feel like I’m more spiritually mature than my husband. Staying home with my kids is killing me inside. Isn’t there more to my life than this? I can’t forgive myself for what I did before I was a Christian. Am I even saved now? I hear these sentiments multiple times each week in my biblical counseling sessions. Women are often embarrassed for thinking and feeling these ways because they assume they’re the only ones experiencing their own particular kind of suffering. I’m here to tell you they absolutely are not alone, and neither are you. Motherhood and marriage are difficult in a fallen world in which we daily encounter our own sins, the sins of others, and the realities of life lived in a broken world where even the creation groans for release. Not to mention, Satan’s temptations! The Lord in His kindness has provided means for us to thwart Satan’s attacks, including knowing Scripture, knowing our identity as a child of God, and being known by others in our church community. Knowing God’s Word We often forget that our Savior faced temptation Himself. The author to the Hebrews tells us: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (4:15). Although He did not sin, and He never struggled with the thoughts that many of my clients and I have, Jesus Christ lived in this fallen world just like we do. He understands the temptations we face. Even more, He faced those temptations for us and defeated them. In Matthew 4, we read of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Immediately, we see that Satan caught Him at the end of His time in the wilderness and used Jesus’ humanity against Him, not unlike the way Satan uses our physical limitations against us. Jesus was hungry after forty days of fasting in the wilderness and Satan tempted Him to turn stones into bread to eat. What did Jesus do? He quoted Scripture, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (v.4). Then, Satan questioned Jesus’ identity as the Son of God. What did Jesus do? He again turned to God’s Word. Lastly, Satan offered Jesus the whole world if He would just bow down and worship him. What did Jesus do? He quoted Scripture, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve” (v.10)...

Facing Temptation with Scripture and CommunityChristina Fox2025-04-21T19:44:11+00:00

The Article You Don’t Want to Read

LAURA PATTERSON | GUEST For the third time in five months, I found myself at the bedside of a dying family member. Yet again, I watched the regimented push of morphine and changing respiratory patterns that led to the death rattle. Apneas increased and lengthened, extra morphine was pushed, and that final breath—ready or not, it came. She went to her Father’s house on Father’s Day. My precious Granny was 86. Spoon-feeding her those final bites on earth felt so inadequate when I thought of all the ways she had fed me in my lifetime. Holding her cold, clammy hand on her deathbed could never match all the ways her hands had tenderly held me and my children. I felt helpless to provide the comfort and peace I longed to give her. She had lived a long life, but death still felt like an armed intruder. Death will always be an enemy in this life. But, to the one who will listen, death is perhaps the best teacher there is. The author of Ecclesiastes tells us this when he says, ”the day of death is better than the day of birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind and the living will lay it to heart” (7:1-2). What can we learn from death and how can we pursue its instruction?...

The Article You Don’t Want to ReadChristina Fox2025-04-12T18:16:45+00:00

Content in Suffering

KC JONES|GUEST My children and I were recently reading the children’s classic story, Pollyanna, when I was struck by the many themes and motifs that run parallel to Scripture. I finished the tale with an epiphany I had never considered before. The story of Pollyanna revolves around a little girl who beams with joy and wholesome goodness. After she is orphaned initially by her mother and then by her father’s passing, Pollyanna moves in with her Aunt Polly who lives by a strict code of legalism which she refers to as “her duty.” Life is as you would imagine it would be for a young child moving in with a spinster who has never dreamed of, let alone entertained precocious, young children she has been tasked to raise alone. Holding on to Joy Pollyanna sets about revolutionizing the small town of Beldingsville by spreading the innate joy she feels with each individual. It is not long before it becomes evident how she impacts each resident, one at a time. Pollyanna’s secret is a little game her father taught her to play called the “glad game,” a personal challenge to come up with something she is thankful for despite the hardship she feels, no matter how small or insignificant. As Pollyanna lives out this model, members of the community, who at first had remained reticent, begin to grow curious, then find themselves playing the game as well. A measure of grace soon pervades the residents who were once broken and embittered by the trials of life—which end up being the very catalysts for moving them to a deeper place of joy. Pollyanna’s genuine good nature compared with the resident’s hardened hearts, reminds me of the Apostle Paul who knew firsthand what it meant to remain content during suffering. Consider what Paul tells the Corinthians regarding suffering, “For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:17-18). Paul not only understood the depths of human misery, but also maintained joy through such suffering because he knew God was using it to strengthen his faith. Like Paul, Pollyanna tenaciously holds onto joy despite the various difficulties she faces, both large and small. She refuses to lose the game...

Content in SufferingChristina Fox2025-04-12T18:13:08+00:00

The Lamb of God

SHARON ROCKWELL | CONTRIBUTOR Every year for Easter dessert my mother would use a special mold to create a cake shaped like a lamb lying down. The cake would be frosted with white icing and covered in coconut to resemble the lamb’s soft wool. This cake was eagerly anticipated by all of us kids, especially with hopes that one of us would get the head – it had the most frosting! The tradition that came from my father’s family was that the youngest child would be asked why we had a lamb cake for Easter dessert. One by one, each of us learned the proper answer, because “Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” I admit that early on, I did not make the connection between the lamb cake and Jesus. I knew the story from Exodus. God orchestrated the Jews’ escape from the Egyptians by sending plagues to change Pharaoh’s heart. The last plague was the death of all of the Egyptians’, and only the Egyptians’, first-born. The Jews marked their door posts with lamb’s blood so that Death would “pass over” their homes. The plague convinced Pharoah to free the Israelites. Later I came to understand that God did not let the destroyer kill any of His people who believed (Ex 12:23), foreshadowing a time when Christ would protect His own who believed in Him. Much detail was provided to the Israelites regarding the preparation of the lamb to be sacrificed. Exodus 12:1-6 explains that families were to get a lamb on the tenth day of a certain month, examine it, and sacrifice it on the fourteenth. The lamb was to be without blemish. The Jewish families were to assure their lamb was perfect, a picture of what God demanded of their sacrifice in grateful thanksgiving for their deliverance from Egypt and a foretaste of the sacrifice of His sinless son for believer’s deliverance from sin and death...

The Lamb of GodChristina Fox2025-04-03T15:54:01+00:00

Taking our Stress to the Lord

MEGAN JUNG|GUEST Take breaks…Be present…You can’t be all things to all people. Meet others where they are. Eliminate hurry. Don’t delay. Know your limits. Start exercising. Strength, not cardio. Stress makes you sick. Drink more water. Strive for connection. Make time for yourself. Get enough sleep to prevent “X.” Wake up early to do “X.” Good enough is good enough. Do your best. Take media breaks. Stay up to date. Say “no.” Do more. How did you feel as you read that list? I don’t know about you, but I felt stressed! A Stress-filled World The world invites us into its fear and its solutions to that fear constantly. We live in a particularly tense and defensive time. Fried nervous systems and dialed up threat responses crowd our communities, near and far. Well-meaning tips about stress management often invite more stress with additional tasks to incorporate into our packed lives. And if we’re honest, unhelpful messages about stress are not exclusively external. Most of us could single-handedly fill a small pond (or larger) with our own internal narratives, to-do lists, and strategies. We don’t need help from outside sources to react to stress with stress. It’s in us. Stress is a product of brokenness, many parts of it will remain until Jesus returns, and we all have it in common. And we all want relief, peace, and help. It's National Stress Awareness month, and I want to encourage you, not with psychoeducation about causes and symptoms of stress (which are beneficial!), but with what we can do with the reality of stress. Like our brother Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, we have thorns in our flesh...

Taking our Stress to the LordChristina Fox2025-03-26T14:20:02+00:00

Silencing the Inner Critic

KRISTINE SUNG As I stare at the computer screen, writing this blog, I hear the thoughts scroll through my brain. “What are you doing? You’re not a writer. Do you really have anything worthwhile to say? Wouldn’t it be better just to play on your phone?” This, my friends, is a glimpse of my inner critic. It can be so bossy. Critical. Impatient. It’s like a toddler. Perhaps you can relate. Scientists estimate humans have 6,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Many thoughts go unnoticed. Yet others we hyperfocus on. When we stop to listen to our thoughts, we don’t tend to hear a ton of ‘atta girl’ thoughts, nor do they naturally conform to truth of the gospel. Sadly, more often than we realize, our behavior marches to the beat of their drum. A Look at Psalm 103 Thankfully, this is not a modern problem. In the Psalms, David often reveals how he deals with his own inner critic. Take a look at Psalm 103. As you begin to read the psalm, you see right away David giving instruction to his own inner critic, which he refers to as “his soul.” He tells himself to “Bless the Lord, O my soul” and “not to forget all his benefits.” We don’t know what David was struggling with when he wrote these words. But when he tells himself not to forget, it is likely he is doing just that, forgetting. I know my toddler-like inner critic is often forgetful. While I know that I am not and will never be perfect, nor is there any hope in me to save myself, my inner thoughts easily forget that. And it doesn’t want to think about God and His benefits; rather, it often focuses on unrealistic expectations of myself. And it is quick to point out how often I don’t meet those expectations...

Silencing the Inner CriticChristina Fox2025-03-26T14:15:22+00:00

What I Learned From Sharing the Gospel with a Mormon

JANE STORY |GUEST I was two years post-college and alarmed to learn how hard it was to make nonbelieving friends. I struggled to find people to share the gospel with because my primary social outlet was church. I began asking God to bring non-Christians into my life. I could not have predicted the mission field that was about to open to me. Plopping into the gray cushioned chair at my new doctor’s office, my eyes fell on a Bible and a Book of Mormon. My heart began to race as I struggled to interpret what I was seeing. Either he was a Mormon, or he was religiously open, allowing people leave literature in his waiting room. Could this be an answer to my prayers? I tried casually bringing up faith at the end of the appointment: “Hey I noticed a Bible and a Book of Mormon in your waiting room. Can you tell me more about that?” His flustered response surprised me: “I… uh… well… I’m a Mormon!” he blurted, like a child caught with a hand in the cookie jar. He then revealed that he was the local bishop, which is the top Latter Day Saints (LDS) authority in a given area. I was intimidated, yet undeterred. That simple question spawned a friendship that lasted for years. Here are a few key lessons I learned about reaching Mormons:...

What I Learned From Sharing the Gospel with a MormonChristina Fox2025-02-17T19:56:57+00:00

Wrestling With God in Our Suffering

JULIANNE ATKINSON |GUEST As soon as I saw the area code of the phone call my husband was receiving, I knew something was off. I was pregnant with our first child and set to move for his job to Nashville, TN at the beginning of my third trimester. This was a city I had friends in, I knew there were good churches there, and it was a city we both liked. After a short conversation, my husband conveyed the news that there was a post they hadn’t accounted for in rural, northern New York state and he was now at the top of the list to take it. I was disappointed, but it wasn’t my first move and I hoped that God would have a good church and community there waiting when we arrived. Instead, I found a desolate place I never grew to love. I had left a large church in San Antonio where I was on staff and knew and loved each family and their kids by name. In New York, there were a handful of families hoping for a PCA pastor to come and pastor them. Church members brought meals when I had my son, but it felt more like they were checking off a box than done so out of friendship. I gathered the women of the church and started a Bible study in hopes of fostering fellowship as we studied God’s Word together. I ended up spending the study time preventing my son from climbing sky high, getting into people’s desks, and drinking bathroom chemicals. My husband worked long hours, weekends, and sometimes over an hour away. I was more lonely than I was during the Covid lockdown. It seemed like every hope I had for our move was dashed. The depths of disappointment I felt contrasted with the hope of change and led me to wrestle with God through it. Here my head-knowledge intersected with my very real and difficult circumstances. Were my toes digging into a sandy beach as the storm swirled around me or were they resting on the solid rock of the foundation of God’s promises? If everything around me fell down, I knew He would not. As believers, sometimes we suffer pain and loss so deep that we come to a crossroads in our relationship with God and who he is. Some might respond to that pain as though with a finger in his face saying, “How could GOD do this to ME?” Our hearts are hardened. We feel bitter. We struggle to forgive God. And we turn and run FROM him. Others might ask the same question, but with trust in God’s faithfulness to his promises—that he really is who he says he is. “How COULD God do this to me?” In that moment, we run TO Him and His Word. As we wrestle with his Word, we will find rest in the midst of our pain and rock under our feet...

Wrestling With God in Our SufferingChristina Fox2025-01-08T18:35:45+00:00

Don’t Hoard Peace

SUSAN BENNETT|GUEST "You can't keep this" are the last words someone who struggles with hoarding ever wants to hear. If you ever watched one of those reality shows about hoarding, you know that hoarders surround themselves with items, so much so, that they can’t maneuver around their homes. I once knew someone who tried to take control of their life with this activity to her own demise. It caused great ruin to both her physical home and her familial relationships. When God blesses us with material or spiritual gifts, it is always for the benefit of sharing them with others. God never intends for His children to hoard the blessings they receive, especially the gift of His peace. Biblical Peace Peace in Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, carries several ideas. Most importantly, completeness and wholeness are related to love and loyalty to God and others, which are at the core of the Gospel of Peace. The Hebrew word for Peace is shalom, which holds this same beautiful idea. This gift of peace comes to us per God's counsel from before the foundation of the world. (Eph. 1:11-12) As with all the good gifts God gives His children (James 1:17), they are as unchanging as He is. His peace is perfect and, therefore, constant and reliable even when our lives are anything but. We can trust God's peace when war rages out in the world or even at our front door! Perfect Peace "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee because he trusts in You" (Is. 26:3). Can you hear the hope in this verse? Notice the two actions of God in exchange for the two by man. First, God keeps him, and second, He provides for his peace. And not just any peace but "perfect peace." I like the ring of perfect peace, don't you? In this instance, to keep means to guard as with a garrison. God's keeping of us is serious business. God's perfect peace is His provision of protection, like a defensive weapon. Wow, a peace that guards like an army of soldiers!...

Don’t Hoard PeaceChristina Fox2024-12-26T19:38:33+00:00