spreading the fame

This article was written by my friend Jeremy Oliver. Jeremy is an Assistant Pastor at Battle Ground Bible Church since August 2011. Previously he taught Bible and ran the Spiritual Life at a Christian academy in Phoenix, Arizona, where he also served in the biblical counseling program and led a small group at Harvest Bible […]

Conversion is the child produced by the marriage of faith and repentance (43). In order to fully appreciate the necessity of conversion, we need to understand the depth of man’s sinfulness and the nature of the human heart to live in rebellion against God’s authority and to resist or replace His demand for singular worship. […]

Clean. Clean. How beautiful. How free. Jesus Christ dying on a tree. Lonely. Lowly. Clean. Red blood dripping. Purity. Soldiers spitting mockingly. Black sky darkening soberly. Death of purity. Blood. Water. Clean. Hear the women crying. Thunder – paralyzing. Death purifying. Washing me clean. Poem by my wife Sarah

This week I swept my wife away for a romantic getaway in the woods of Milton, Ontario. We left our daughter in the delightful care of her grandparents. We ate dinner at a beautiful bistro, talked until twilight, and slept in a cozy B&B. My most favorite memory of out time together was snuggling close […]

What is grace? Grace is not unconditional acceptance, but it is undeserved. That is a very difficult balance to strike! God’s grace comes to us without prerequisites, finding us as we are. God;s grace does not come to the “deserving” (there is no such person), and it does not discriminate. Rather, initially it comes to […]

I love being a spectator. Some might consider me a professional spectator. In the fall there is nothing better than being a spectator in a football stadium cheering on your favorite team. Do you spectate? Maybe you’re a spectator of a good movie or concert, playing video games or surfing the Internet. Whether it is […]

Fanatics aren’t hard to find. Each weekend around the country fanatics pack stadiums proudly displaying the colors and logos of their favorite team and passionately cheer and shout for hits, sacks and complete annihilations. Football fanatics have been known to wear pirate eye patches, pig snouts, and large wedges of cheese. Honestly, I do not […]

The cross work of Christ is not just a payment for the wages of sin, but it is man’s means for cleansing from and victory over sin and death. In essence, that is the doctrine of penal substitution. The doctrine of penal substitution is one of the glorious truth’s of the Bible. First, the doctrine […]

I love stories of people who finish the race with fortitude. Who doesn’t gain inspiration from stories that beat the odds? I think of Team Hoyt [father with his paraplegic son] who completed the iron man, or Kerri Strug who finish the Olympics hurt on the hurdles, or Lance Armstrong who won seven Tour De […]

Jesus lived to die. Jesus was a man on a mission. I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, who took on flesh so that He would become the complete and perfect God-man. His death is incredibly important. Without the death of Christ man cannot live (Galatians 2:20-21; […]

What do these names have in common? Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, Babe Ruth, J.R.R. Tolkien, Beethoven, Mozart, Elizabeth Taylor, and Michael Jackson. The only thing in common among all the names is that they are all dead. Now if I were to add the name “Jesus” to this list would […]

Doesn’t it feel great to finish a big test? Or come to the end of a long school year? Or arrive at the weekend from a drudging week on the job? Or come to the close of a long hard trial in the family or with friends? You get home sit down with a sign […]

All praise to the name of the savior who reigns. He’s taken our blame, embraced all our shame, He’s raised from the grave so his fame we proclaim. Salvation by grace through faith in his name. Jesus, the beautiful and blessed Son, Immutable, majestic one Who was resurrected from the grave for the depraved. He […]

I am the product of the normal dysfunctional American home, which means my parents divorced before I was able to speak, I was in and out of special education classes in school, needed specialized counseling, and struggled with parental authority until after college. I am grateful today for my family situation and how God used […]

If you were to ask any person on the street, in the office cubicle next to you, or lunch buddy across the table if they know who Jesus is they would probably give you a satisfactory answer. However, if you were to probe around a little deeper and see if they really know Jesus, you […]