I don't know how to answer the problem of deep pain without a deep hope in eternity.

I know what I'll be preaching in the spring, what I'll be preaching in the summer, and what I'll be preaching next fall.

I have a lot of special memories with my parents but my toughest one is, I had, as a teenager, a pretty insatiable appetite for beer. The first time I got drunk my father found me throwing up in the bathroom. I was 15, maybe 16, and the disappointment in his voice, I can hear it to this day, and the sorrow that that brought to him. He just felt like a failure as a father, and Id give anything to take that day back because that was so hard on him. In time, my life got better, and his did too, but that was really memorable, one of those memories Id like to forget.

Sometimes I wonder if we don't see Christ's love as much in the people he tolerated as in the pain he endured.

There is not a hint of one person who was afraid to draw near him [Jesus]. There were those who mocked him. There were those who were envious of him. There were those who misunderstood him. There were those who revered him. But there was not one person who considered him too holy, too divine, or too celestial to touch. There was not one person who was reluctant to approach him for fear of being rejected.

Jesus was not just godly, godlike, God hungry, God focused, or God worshipping. He was God. Not merely a servant of God, instrument of God, or friend of God, but Jesus was God.

Stay strong! Your test will become your test-imony, your mess will become your mess-age.