Category: Romans (Page 1 of 28)

Against Boring Church

May 26, 2026 / Allan / 0 Comments

The Rangers were no-hit last night by a trio of Astros pitchers you’ve never heard of in a disheartening 9-0 shutout loss that extends their losing streak to four games and has Texas one loss away from falling into fourth place in the AL West. The Rangers are just impossible to watch right now; they’re not even competitive. Multiple fielding and base-running errors, strikeouts with runners in scoring position, weak pop ups, double-digit runners left on base–it’s putrid. And tons of injuries. Seager, Josh Smith, and Wyatt are still out; none of the Rangers who started last night’s game were starters on Opening Day. It’s hard to argue that this is not a bad team. Like really bad. I think it’s going to be a long summer.

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It’s time for you to take a principled stand against boring church! There’s no excuse for boring church! We shouldn’t allow it and you shouldn’t put up with it!

Why is church boring? It’s our fault. We did it. Somehow, over the decades, we allowed church to become a spectator event. We turned church into a show. So, the members of the church walk away from the church service judging it. Talking about whether they were “fed” or whether the songs were “moving” or whether the preacher was “relevant” or whether they “felt” anything.

Hey! You’re not a spectator in church! You are a Holy Spirit-filled participant! You should take that God-ordained role back!

The Bible tells us that every single member of God’s Church is blessed with Holy Spirit gifts intended to build up the Body of Christ. When we come together in Lord’s Day assembly, God means for us to bless one another with the gifts he’s given us. God intends for us to love somebody. He wants us to encourage somebody. He wants us to build somebody up.

So, this Sunday, go to church with that expectation. You know what your gift is. Your know what your gifts are. You know what you’re good at. And you know God gave that to you in order to bless somebody else. So, use it this Sunday. Go to church with your gift to build somebody up. Say something unexpected and super nice to somebody who’s not going to see it coming. Compliment somebody on their clothes or their smile. Tell somebody how much they inspire you. Tell somebody “Thank you” for something they did for you a long time ago. Offer to hold a fidgety baby. Hold the door open for like twelve people in a row. Go to church with a commitment to be a blessing and an encouragement to people. Every Sunday. Forget about what you might or might not be “getting” and embrace the role God intends for you during church and start “giving” and “blessing” and “building up.”

What might happen?

I’m not sure.

But it won’t be boring.

Peace,
Allan

New Life

May 19, 2026 / Allan / 0 Comments

“Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” ~Romans 6:3-4

Dear Kyle, Brinlee, Harrison, Cody, and Manny:

What a tremendous blessing and a great privilege from our God to be in the room when you were baptized into Christ on Sunday. Your baptism, your open heart, and your confessing spirit were an inspiration to me and to all of us who witnessed your new birth.

You are now a beloved and eternal child of our heavenly Father. Paul told the church in Galatia, “You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ has clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:26-27).

Be reminded that when you were baptized, you put to death your old person of sin. You buried that person. You killed him. You killed her. And when you came up out of that water, you were a brand new creature. God has created in you a brand new person, full of his Holy Spirit, to experience everything in a brand new way.

You now share in the resurrection of Jesus. Death has nothing on you now. And neither does sin.

May our Lord bless you richly. May you look back often on your baptism and remember what God has created in you. And may you walk with our God always, faithful to the end.

Peace,

Allan

Family: By Jesus

March 10, 2026 / Allan / 0 Comments

“I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law–a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household. Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” ~Matthew 10:35-37

Why does our Lord Jesus talk this way about family? Jesus had no problem splitting up family businesses, separating sons from their dads with a (snap) “Follow me.” He told a disciple who had just lost his dad to let the dead bury their own dead and get about the urgent business of the Kingdom.

When Jesus was teaching inside someone’s house, he was informed that his mother and brothers were outside looking for him. “Who are my mother and my brothers,” he asked? Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother!” (Mark 3:31-35)

Why does Jesus talk like this about family? Jesus treats family like he treats money and possessions. He talks about family like he talks about the government and the traditions of men. Why? Because to Jesus, every single thing we hold dear must be submitted to him and his Kingdom. Nothing comes between us and following Christ Jesus. Not even family.

You know, Jesus has this weird knack for harpooning the things we treasure the most. He devalues what we overvalue and calls us to something bigger and better. He points us to something holy and eternal. Like with our families.

We probably put too much emphasis on our biological families. I mean, our natural families are notoriously undependable. Unstable. Unreliable. Our families are divided by ambition and selfishness. Our families are separated by geography and greed. Our families are destroyed by divorce and death. You can’t count on your biological family. Yet, if we’re not careful, we can get drawn into idolizing the family. We get sucked in to prioritizing family over God.

We put our kids in sports camps and sign them up for traveling teams at alarmingly younger ages and at increasingly frantic paces like they’re going to be playing baseball and volleyball their whole lives. Their spiritual formation takes a backseat to their athletic formation. We’re more concerned about our kids being popular and successful than we are about them being like Christ. We’re investing more time and money and energy and emotion into our children and grandchildren than we are into the Kingdom and mission of God.

When we do that, we send the wrong message. We distort the Gospel. We communicate the wrong things inside our families and to everyone who’s watching.

Because not everybody has a family.

There are more and more men, women, and children in this fractured world who grow up without moms and dads. Fewer and fewer people are getting married and having kids. You know lots of people who are single–some because they choose to be and some against their will. Some people have tried to make family work, they’ve tried to keep it all together, but it just doesn’t. They don’t have a family. And we hold up biological family as some kind of spiritual ideal, as something to attain to as one of God’s top priorities, and it’s just not! We wind up excluding more and more people from the Gospel.

“Here are my mother and my brothers!”

Jesus devalues what we overvalue and calls us to something bigger and better. He points us to something holy and eternal.

“As God has said, ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they will be my people.’ The Lord Almighty says, ‘I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters.'” ~1 Corinthians 6:16, 18

Jesus is showing us a forever family conceived in God’s love and grace and birthed by his precious blood. God’s eternal family is not based on genetics or DNA or last names, but on his compassion and Christ’s sacrifice. Romans 9 says it’s not the natural children who are God’s children, but the children of the promise. The promise is that God will create an eternal family, where everybody belongs together and everybody’s related–no barriers, no restrictions, no distinctions–where everybody belongs and everybody’s equally loved and nurtured and cared for. That’s the promise. That’s the mission of our God.

When you become a Christian, when you give your whole life over to Jesus, you are joined into God’s family. An eternal people born of water and Spirit, a family bigger and better than your biological family, a worldwide barrier-breaking family where we eat and drink together and share and accept and carry each other’s burdens. Together. Where we rejoice and mourn together. Where we support and encourage and grow and work and bless and love. Together.

“He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he adopted us as his children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.” ~Ephesians 1:4-5

If you say “Yes” to being adopted, if you’ll give yourself to it and really embrace the Church as the family of God, it’ll be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.

“I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the Gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields) and in the age to come, eternal life.” ~Mark 10:29-30

Peace,

Allan

Time to Wake Up

February 13, 2026 / Allan / 0 Comments

“Do this [love your neighbor as yourself], understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” ~Romans 13:11-14

In the undeniable darkness of this present age, most people are ordering their lives according to the world’s rules and the world’s attitudes and values and styles. Even though the old world is passing away! The new world is already breaking in! The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus has already inaugurated the new age of the eternal Kingdom of God, and his followers live according to the culture of that new age.

Most people are asleep; but the new day is dawning and it’s time for all children of God and disciples of Jesus to wake up!

We know what God has done in Christ Jesus. We know what God is doing and what he has promised to do. So, we live accordingly. That’s what governs our conducts and our attitudes. We understand the times. The Bible says the Day of the Lord may not have come just yet, but it’s so close, it’s so inevitable and unstoppable, we should live as though it is already here. Our human impulses, our flesh, the sinful nature–that’s not what dictates our behavior. We live in the presence and power of our Lord whose rescue is closer than we think. We need to be aware of that.

In the darkness of right now–the political polarities and the economic uncertainties and the racial injustice and the ramped-up rhetoric and the ugly behavior; you know how dark it is. We’re seeing so much division and selfishness and anger and violence and isolation. We’re seeing it all. And if you’re not awake, if you’re sleepwalking through this stuff, you can get caught up in all that mess and get yourself into some real trouble. You can trade the love and grace and peace and sacrifice and forgiveness of Christ for the power and might and tribalism and hate and strife of the world. The hour has come to wake up. We belong to the Day, and it’s just around the corner.

“You are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So, then, let us not be like others who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled… Since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” ~1 Thessalonians 5:4-9

We do not compromise our faith or our behaviors just because we’re enduring some darkness. We respond to the darkness by walking in the light. We never allow our current circumstances to compromise our commitment to Christ. His new creation is closer than we think. So we meet the present difficulties with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

The Transforming Church

January 14, 2026 / Allan / 0 Comments

“The closer we draw to the Church, the closer Christ draws to us.” ~ Kenneth B

I’m still posting some excerpts from this past Sunday’s sermon on how we are transformed more into the image of Jesus in and through the local church. I am also sharing some lines from the excellent article I found Monday–a few days too late!–written by Kenneth B on Substack about the same topic. You can read his outstanding piece here.

The main point of Sunday’s sermon is that the differences we have with one another in our churches are precisely the areas where our Father shapes us into his image. It’s in those differences and disappointments that the Spirit changes us to more consistently think like God and more regularly and predictably act like Jesus. We have different ideas, different preferences, different buttons and triggers–there’s never going to be anything we all agree on together within our churches.

And that’s okay.

If we had to agree with everybody in our churches on everything, Carrie-Anne and I would be at two different churches.

If unity means uniformity, a bunch of us are going to have stop thinking. Nobody wants that.

God’s people are messy in community. But I think that’s the point.

“You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people, and members of God’s household… In him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” ~ Ephesians 2:19-22

“In fact, God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.” ~ 1 Corinthians 12:18

I believe that every man, woman, and child in your church is there because God placed them there. You are a part of your congregation for a reason: God’s reason. We need each other if God’s going to work in us and through us the way he intends. Our mindset must be: We are together in this church because of what God is doing in Christ. If that’s the mindset, then we commit to one another. We vow to make it work.

We were watching a TV show a couple of weeks ago in which two of the characters work together, and they’re dating. They’re in a relationship. He did something at work she didn’t like, something that messed up what she was trying to accomplish, and it made her angry. So she broke up with him. It’s over. And he said, “So, that’s how it is? You don’t get your way and you sever the relationship? You’re going to be a sad and lonely woman.”

Some people leave their church when they don’t get their way. They just leave because something’s not going the way they want.

No! That misses the whole point of Christian community! It’s a family, it’s like a marriage. You work it out. You don’t leave. You work through it. And it’s hard and it’s painful and sometimes it’s disappointing and sometimes it hurts. But this is precisely what leads to spiritual growth. This is what facilitates increased Christ-likeness. You don’t treat your church like you treat your car or your shampoo. Your mindset is: I am all in with these people in this place because God has put me here and he’s doing something.

“In Christ, we, who are many, form one body. And each member belongs to all the others.” ~ Romans 12:5

We belong together in our church communities. And it’s in your church community where God’s grace transforms you. Being together all the time with people you don’t necessarily agree with, worshiping and serving together, living and dying together with people you didn’t choose, forces us to grow in Christ-likeness.

Love one another. Build one another up. Encourage one another. Honor one another. Be in harmony with one another. Pray for one another. Be devoted to one another. Instruct one another. Greet one another. Accept one another. Serve one another. Be patient with one another. Be kind and compassionate to one another. Submit to one another. Forgive one another. These biblical commands can only be obeyed in community. We can only follow our Lord’s instructions if we’re together, if we really belong to each other. And when we do these things, by God’s grace, when we commit to this way of being together in Christian community, we’ll find that we are more consistently thinking like God and more regularly and predictably acting like Jesus.

This is how God works. And where.

I’ll end today with this paragraph from the Kenneth B article. Again, I urge you to read the whole thing here.

“A personal relationship with Jesus Christ is real, but it is not solitary. It is lived through the Church. You do not discover Christ by escaping the community, but by joining it. You do not grow closer to God by seeking exceptional moments, but by entering the ordinary pattern of worship, repentance, fasting, and love that has formed saints for two thousand years… We meet him as members of his Body. We are saved together, healed together, shaped together, and restored together. Even our most personal experiences of grace arise from the shared life of the Church, it’s sacraments, its Scriptures, its prayers, its elders, its martyrs, and its saints… In the ancient world, to speak of knowing Christ personally was to speak of being united to his Body, standing shoulder to shoulder with the community he founded, and learning from the people who had already learned to pray, to repent, to love, and to die with hope.”

Peace,
Allan

We Who Are Strong

November 20, 2025 / Allan / 0 Comments

I told you I was behind on posting pictures of our new grandsons. This is the official four-month-old picture on top of the giraffe thing that was taken on the 8th, and another one of the boys propped up in the recliner before we went out to run some errands. It’s been almost two weeks since they hit four months. Elliott rolled over this week for the first time and is now doing it constantly. One morning soon, Valerie is going to walk in and they’re going to be standing up in their cribs, holding on to the top rails, and laughing.

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There’s a question that’s been burning in my bones the past few weeks, and I can’t shake it. As we approach this Sunday’s annual “4 Midland” pulpit swap and Thanksgiving Service, I’m deeply bothered by the twin realities in my own congregation.

We do not expect the Presbyterians to change their minds about predestination. We do not insist that the Baptists alter their views on the salvation efficacy of baptism. We don’t demand that the Methodists start sharing the communion meal every week. Yet we easily and joyfully set those doctrinal issues aside for the sake of our Christian unity, for the sake of worshiping and serving together, and the powerful Gospel witness it is to our city. At the same time, some of us are arguing and even dividing with our brothers and sisters within our own congregation over much lesser things.

Why would we ever expect everybody at GCR to agree on everything? If you don’t agree with everybody at GCR, do you leave? You decide you can’t worship and serve with people in your own church family because a few of them don’t see a couple of things the same way you do? Does Romans 14-15 have anything to say about this?

“We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For even Christ did not please himself.” ~Romans 15:1-3

As children of God and followers of Christ, we take our example from Jesus. The holy Son of God is the one who calls us and inspires us and empowers us to worship and serve and live together the way we do. We know that our Lord Jesus never did anything to please himself. Instead, he gave up everything, he sacrificed everything, to benefit and build up others. And by choosing to serve others instead of pleasing himself, Jesus sets the pattern that we have to make our own. Putting others first. Considering the needs of others more important than our own.

And the Bible puts this on the strong Christians. It’s up to the strong, not the weak, to make sure this happens. It’s up to the strong to make the sacrifices and concessions to our weaker brothers and sisters. That’s not easy. It’s much easier to be the weaker Christian, drawing the lines and insisting that other Christians cater to me.

Strong Christians–that should be Christians who’ve been following Jesus a long time; it’s not always, but it should be–with strong faith realize that the more you sacrifice and the more you give up for others, the more like Christ you are. The more you insist on your own way and the more you assert yourself for your own interests, the less like Christ you are.

So, if all of us decided today, to a person, that would put ourselves at the back of the line, that we would all bend over backwards to make everybody else happy and sacrifice our own feelings and opinions in order to build up others–if we all did that? Wow!

If we all accepted one another, just like Christ. If we all bore the failings of the weak, just like Christ. If we all pleased our neighbor for his good, just like Christ. It still won’t result in a perfect church. It won’t eliminate our differences of opinion. It won’t do away with the arguments and debates. But it would mean figuring out how to worship and serve and live together.

We know for sure that the Christ who unites us is greater by far than the differences that may divide us. And our grace-filled conversations and our mercy-full interactions with each other and our shared commitment to our Christian unity will reflect and bear witness to that conviction. It’ll prove it.

Peace,

Allan

Category: Romans (Page 1 of 28)

Against Boring Church

New Life

Family: By Jesus

Time to Wake Up

The Transforming Church

We Who Are Strong

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