Sterling Griggs

One of the things that amazes me the most about my kids is the way that they love me. As imperfect as I am, my kids love me in spite of all of my many faults. They completely trust me, look to me for guidance, seek my approval, and come to me for forgiveness when they make mistakes. Given the choice, my kids would rather sit in my lap and read a book than go outside to play with their friends. I am humbled by the way they love me. What an example of the way that I should love God. Jesus taught that we are to come to Him like children, and I see the example of the way a child loves his or her parents as a great example of that approach. If we can learn to love God in the pure way that children love, then imagine just how rich and joyous our relationship with Him can be.

I've been feeling that uneasy feeling again lately. You know the feeling I'm talking about - it's that feeling that you aren't doing everything that you know you should be doing. What am I talking about? I'm referring to how I serve and live for Jesus. My entire life I've attended churches where God's truth has faithfully been proclaimed by godly men. I've also been taught that there are other congregations across our land that water down the Word of God and therefore don't address the serious issues of sin and the need for repentance and forgiveness. But it seems like those "other" churches, while weak on theology, are doing a much better job at loving their fellow man than the ones who stand steadfastly on God's truth. I've learned that just because you stand on God's truth doesn't mean you will actually move yourself off of it to obey what it commands. That's why I'm so uneasy. I feel as if I'm not doin...

I read an article about Sudan (click to read it) yesterday that bothered me. Obviously, one would think that this article was about the injustices that are occurring in Sudan's western Darfur region but it wasn't about that. This article was about a man named Hassan al-Turabi, a Muslim theologian and leader who in the past has been known for his radical views and is credited with inviting Osama bin Laden to live in Sudan in the early 1990's. al-Turabi has been very outspoken in the past about his radical views on Islam and has helped to shape Sudan's overtly Islamic regime that is closed to any form of Christian evangelism or religious freedom. While these facts alone could be considered disturbing, it's what has happened to al-Turabi recently that has me bothered. Earlier this month, during a conference in Khartoum, Sudan's capitol city, al-Turabi announced that he thought the Quran was "backward" when it came to womens' rights. Historically...

Have you ever started a book and been unable to finish it? Or have you ever made a commitment to do something on a regular basis only to flounder miserably and fizzle out? I think I must be the king of inconsistency! I have several books lying around loaded with bookmarks and folded pages that are screaming for me to finish them. I know that probably drives some people nuts, especially when they are close to finishing a book, but I do it all too often. I have found that this lack of consistency is all to common in my relationship with God. There's no way to count all of times that I have started a daily Bible reading plan or prayer time, only to wuss out and fall into inconsistency. When the lack of consistency knocks on my door, what I need is discipline to fend it off. I hate being wishy-washy with God, and I find that when I am inconsistent I am about as wishy-washy as I can get. But the times when I do remain consistent in my walk with Him, life is just so much sweeter....

My wife and I are going to the David Crowder Band and Third Day concert tonight in Greensboro. We are both really excited to go if for nothing else than the worship experience that we know we will have. I know that there are all sorts of different definitions and opinions of what worship is or isn't, but to me worship is giving back to God all of the glory and honor that is due Him. And the way that I enjoy doing that the most is through music. Yesterday I was returning from the grocery store with both of my girls when a song from Caedmon's Call by the name of "Be Merciful to Me" came on the radio. As I was listening to the words of this song and contemplating their meaning, I heard two sweet little voices singing along in the backseat. I was floored, not just because they knew the words of the song or even what they meant but because of the meaning of the words that my girls were singing: "From the garden to the cross / Thy mercy did endure / My soul pu...

I was reading in a book the other day about an interesting pheonomenon that occurs amongst many Christians. It is the way that we encourage each other to absolutely avoid the world and the sinful people in it because we don't want them to "taint" our spirituality. True, as a follower of Christ I need to be "in the world and not of it" and I need to avoid the obvious areas where such things as pornography and drug abuse are occurring. Yet it puzzles me as to why we encourage one another to avoid the very people who we are interested in leading to Christ. As I was thinking about this, it came to me that we are taught to avoid sinful people not because their influence is so great on us, but because we have allowed Jesus' influence to be so ineffective in our own lives. What I mean is, we avoid associating with sinful people because we aren't convinced that our belief in the hope of Christ is stonger than the pull of the world. We doubt God's promis...

Lately, there are some things that have been troubling me, so much so that I can't really get them off of my mind. These areas that trouble me surround the teachings of Jesus and how I succeed or fail in following His commands. It seems to me that as a Christian I spend a lot of time agreeing with other Christians that Jesus' teachings are true and worthy to be followed, but instead of obeying His commands I prefer to sit and just glory in the salvation that Jesus won for me on the cross. How selfish! In the "Sermon on the Mount" in the New Testament book of Matthew chapters 5-7, Jesus reveals to us the heart and soul of the doctrine that He came to deliver. These words were delivered to His followers, so they were intended for the believer so that he/she could apply them in the real world. Jesus tells us in this sermon that we are to avoid murderous and lustful thoughts, prevent divorce, love our enemies and turn to nonviolence to solve our problems, give to th...

By now most of you have heard of this mysterious "Gospel of Judas" that has recently surfaced. This document was discovered in the 1970's but it wasn't until recently that it wound up in the hands of experts who could restore it and translate it. The National Geographic Channel recently aired a documentary on the "Gospel of Judas" and I just had to watch it in order to see what their perspective would be. It turns out that many scholars are very excited about this "lost gospel." They say that it adds insight to the true nature of Judas Iscariot and that, after reading this "gospel" account, they no longer see Judas as such a bad guy. Basically, the "Gospel of Judas" credits Judas Iscariot with collaborating with Jesus in order to fulfill God's will. Jesus saw that Judas was much more spiritually astute than the other 11 disciples and He asked Judas to betray Him, promising that he would be blessed more than all the othe...

I've recently joined in on some discussions regarding the essence of God, not just His existence. In other words, the people who I have been discussing with believe that God probably exists but His work and availability is left in doubt. They have mentioned such hot topics as Noah and the flood, evolutionary theory, and prayer and His ability/inability to answer them as the kinds of things that fuel their skepticism. While I am always eager to entertain this kind of debate, I must admit I am far from knowing the answers. Then, I being to ask myself, "If I can't answer these questions then how can I defend God?" Peter wrote in I Peter 3:15 in the New Testament that followers of Christ should be ready to give a defense for the hope that is in them. That being said, there are some things, especially in the Bible, that just don't seem all that "provable." Norman Geisler has written extensively on many perceieved problems with the Bible and in his book ...

I was returning home from a Mute Math and Switchfoot concert last night when I noticed lightning in the distance. Growing up, we used to call this "heat lightning" and I always thought this was lightning that was caused by warm weather. It wasn't until I took an astronomy class in college that I realized there was no such thing as heat lightning; rather, what I was seeing was simply the lightning from a thunderstorm in the distance. There are lots of things in this world that I don't understand. Being the kind of person that I am, this doesn't sit well with me. Just when I think I have the right kind of knowledge about something, then just like heat lightning I realize that I don't know all that I thought that I did. One area of life that causes me to scratch my head the most is about God. I have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and I am in awe of His creation, power, and presence, yet there are times when I realize that I'm ju...