Gospel.com Blog

Fasting is willfully giving up something for a length of time. For Christians, we fast in order to put ourselves in a spiritually vulnerable state. When we go without, we must find something to fulfill us, and when done in a correct spirit that something we find fulfillment in is God.

People traditionally fast from food and drink, but sometimes people fast from speech, media or certain activities. Personally speaking, I’ve fasted from not only food, but everything to television to hot showers (the latter a good deal more difficult to give up than the former).

What about you? Have you ever fasted?

Whether they call it a play, a pageant or a drama, many churches dramatize the Easter story in a creative way to help people see the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection in a new light.

Is your church doing an Easter pageant this year?

Share your thoughts!

Easter is fast approaching, which means church services will soon be filled with songs about the cross and the resurrection. This is one of my favorite times of the year for worship, when the church around the world cracks open its hymnals to sing classics like “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today”, “Hallelujah, What a Savior” and “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”

What’s your favorite Easter Hymn or Song?

Share your thoughts!

If you’re a parent, how do you pray with your young children?

The last few months have been an eye-opening experience for me, as my wife and I have been teaching our 2-year-old daughter to pray. If you’re a parent or otherwise work with young children, I’d love to hear about how you approach the task of teaching a toddler to speak to his or her Creator.

I’ll throw a few questions out there, along with some of my thoughts. Please chime in if you have anything to share!

When did you introduce the act of prayer into your child’s life? We started leading our daughter in prayer before bed around age 2; but by then she had witnessed many other people praying during church services, at dinnertime, and at other times. Once she could start communicating in more or less coherent sentences, it seemed time to introduce the concept. What about you?

When you started praying with your child, did they understand what they were doing? In our case, I don’t think our daughter has much of an idea of what she’s doing during prayer. On the one hand, I don’t like leading her through a religious ritual that she doesn’t understand; but on the other hand, my hope is that she’ll grow to appreciate the practice at her own pace, once it’s more of a habit.

What does your child pray about? In my own prayers, I try to incorporate repentance, thanksgiving, and specific requests. Thus far in my daughter’s prayers, we focus on just thanking God for the basic blessings that define her life: family, food, friends. What about you—how and when do you help your child incorporate more advanced concepts like forgiveness and repentance into prayer?

One thing is certain: praying with a young child is a beautiful and humbling experience, one that sheds new light on the familiar phrase “childlike faith.” Have you ever helped a child learn to pray, and if so, what advice can you share? Did it impact your own faith or prayer life in any way?

[Image by S. Hnizdovsky, from an original print by Jacques Hnizdovsky; used under a CC license.]

A few weeks ago at my church, one of our missionaries came to speak. She told us about the current state of missions and about her work with the underground Church in China. After she was done, our pastor took the stage and, before praying for her, mentioned that she had finally acquired an unfurnished apartment in China and needed some extra funds to furnish it.

In China, “unfurnished” means that there’s absolutely nothing in the apartment: no furniture, no appliances, no bathtub; just the walls and pipes. Needless to say, the church took an offering to cover some of her furnishing expenses so that she could actually live in her new home.

It was an excellent opportunity for the church to respond to a missionary in need. She ended up with 10-20% more than she had asked for.

These days, not every missionary is sent by a single church or denomination. Some just go out on their own, while others go with the support of a non-profit sending organization. But one thing hasn’t changed, regardless of the manner in which they reach the mission field: they all need monetary support. Even if the missionary has a home church, it might not be enough to fully fund their work. And the funding they do receive doesn’t always cover emergencies or special opportunities that come up unexpectedly.

Do you financially support any missionaries?

If you give to your church, chances are you’re at least supporting a missionary indirectly (if not, that raises other questions about your church’s commitment to missions). But do you also give directly to missionaries without the mediation of a church? Can you share any stories about the impact of that giving on the lives and ministry of those missionaries?

Share your thoughts!

The Bible lists many different names and titles for God, each illustrating something different about God’s nature. Among them are Yahweh Yireh (“the Lord will provide”), El Shaddai (“God Almighty”), Yahweh Sabbaoth (“Lord of hosts”) and many more.

If you’re not familiar with the different names for God used in the Bible, you’ll be amazed at their depth and variety. How Excellent Are Thy Names at Christianity Today is a good primer on the subject, and there’s a good list of Biblical names for God at GotQuestions.

Do you have a favorite name of God—a title or name that holds special significance for you?

Share your thoughts!

Even though the Winter Olympics wrapped up a few days ago, sports are still definitely on people’s minds. I’d imagine that over the next few weeks every ice rink and ski slope will be full of people finding out for themselves just how strong all those athletes really are!

Whenever the culture at large turns its eyes to sports, it’s a good time to reflect on the good and bad inherent in sporting events. The Olympics are well-known for fostering a spirit of goodwill and camaraderie, but at the heart of every athlete is a fierce competitiveness that can sometimes manifest in ugly ways.

So, a few questions: do you think that Christians should compete in sporting events? Do you think there’s a spiritually good and/or evil side to competition?

If you’re an evangelical churchgoer, chances are you’re familiar with the Sunday morning “mini-Greek-lesson”—the part of a sermon where the preacher refers back to a Bible passage’s original language in order to better explain its meaning.

Reading a Bible passage in its original language doesn’t unlock any hidden secrets that are missing from modern English translations, but it can be helpful in interpreting challenging passages. For this reason, I’ve long felt that even a basic, introductory knowledge of Greek or Hebrew (just enough to look something up in a Greek or Hebrew dictionary and understand the information there) is a very worthwhile goal for Christians to pursue, given the chance.

Have you ever read part of the Bible in the original language in which it was written? How did it affect your Bible study in general? If you don’t currently know Greek or Hebrew, do you plan to study one or both of them in the future?

Share your thoughts!

When you serve, do you do so without reservations?

In this devotional from My Utmost for his Highest, Oswald Chambers describes Jesus as a man who “‘outsocialized’ the socialists.” Jesus’ vision of servant-hood has no regard for personal and financial concerns. To be a servant of all means committing to serve God and His children without consideration for how it will affect you personally:

The institutional church’s idea of a servant of God is not at all like Jesus Christ’s idea. His idea is that we serve Him by being the servants of others. Jesus Christ actually “out-socialized” the socialists. He said that in His kingdom the greatest one would be the servant of all (see Matthew 23:11). The real test of a saint is not one’s willingness to preach the gospel, but one’s willingness to do something like washing the disciples’ feet— that is, being willing to do those things that seem unimportant in human estimation but count as everything to God. It was Paul’s delight to spend his life for God’s interests in other people, and he did not care what it cost. But before we will serve, we stop to ponder our personal and financial concerns— “What if God wants me to go over there? And what about my salary? What is the climate like there? Who will take care of me? A person must consider all these things.” All that is an indication that we have reservations about serving God. But the apostle Paul had no conditions or reservations. Paul focused his life on Jesus Christ’s idea of a New Testament saint; that is, not one who merely proclaims the gospel, but one who becomes broken bread and poured-out wine in the hands of Jesus Christ for the sake of others.

Read the entire devotional at RBC.org.

Have you ever served freely, without reservation or condition? What would it take for you to be able to serve as freely as Paul?

Share your thoughts!

I’ve been thinking recently about what my relationship to the Bible would have been if I had been born in a different time period. For example, if I had been born in Europe in A.D. 900, chances are I wouldn’t have been able to read or write. Nor would I have had access to anything to read, since the printing press was still a good 500 years in the future. Everything I would have known about the Bible would have been passed to me via someone connected with the Church.

It would have been impossible for me to read the Bible on my own. The concept of a personal quiet time with my Bible and my journal would have seemed ludicrous. In fact, I’d likely have been a Christian without having ever read the Bible myself.

Today, we have ready access to the Bible through the internet and mass-produced physical copies. The illiteracy rate in the United States is well below 10 percent. We have the ability to read the Bible and the education to understand it. We have 24/7 access to it in a huge variety of formats and languages. I’ve heard a sermon every year of my life about the importance of personal Bible study. While I happen to agree that reading the Bible is a spiritually rewarding experience, I keep coming back to the Christian of 900. Were they any less of a Christian than I because of their illiteracy?

Share your thoughts!