Where do you draw the boundaries for your relationships? Whom do you let in, and whom do you keep out? Sometimes, we draw the lines too loosely. Solomon observed: “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24). In Hebrew the phrase […]

What is the true purpose of your relationships? We often leverage connections with our friends, business associates, spouses, and children for our benefit only. John offered a different way, one that would allow the flow of the Holy Spirit into our relationships: “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ […]

Have you compartmentalized God? We often limit God to a particular worship style, in a specific building, during one hour, on a certain day of the week, or even a quiet time, a Bible study, or a small group. Then we take control of the other 167 hours of the week. Mankind has been doing […]

What dominates your thoughts? The apostle Paul wrote: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). The problem is pretense that we can be god in our own lives. Through the prophet Jeremiah, […]

What is your outlet? At first, you might describe a hobby or a hideaway, if anything at all, but God designed us to have outlets for His restoration to flow to others. Everything in the Dead Sea dies because it has no outlet. Contrasted, the Sea of Galilee brings life because its outlet allows it […]

Have you forgotten God? Read carefully what God said to His people through Moses: “Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God…You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives […]

God said, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13). A social cistern contains friends, business associates, spouses, and children to be leveraged for our benefit only. John offered a different way, one that […]

Do you limit God to a particular worship style, in a specific building, during one hour, on a certain day of the week, or even a quiet time, a Bible study, or a small group, while you take control of the other 167 hours of the week? If so, you’ve created a spiritual cistern. God […]

God said, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13). A mental cistern compartmentalizes God from our minds. We seek knowledge for knowledge’s sake apart from God, so we can make decisions apart from […]

God said, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13). A financial cistern represents the damming of the will. This hardening of the will stops the flow of the Holy Spirit in our financial […]