Dr Paul Allen

Trevin Wax Most of us know the feeling at some point. We reach a level of familiarity with the Bible, or we grow so accustomed to our church routine or sing the same song so many times that we get bored. We lose our interest in the things of God. We go to church, open the Bible, and send a few words to God in the morning, but we no longer feel any real passion or excitement at contemplating the realities of the Christian faith. Our senses grow dull. Our vision is dim. Our tastebuds don’t work anymore. In a fallen world, we can count on feeling bored at some point, even in our walk with God. Ironically, the solutions to boredom provided by our phones and technology (where, at any moment, we can find a morsel of entertainment) can be the source of spiritual boredom, keeping us perpetually distracted from truth and substance. Boredom often coincides with feeling jaded. Sometimes, that jadedness arises from being disappointed in others. The more experience you have in church, the more like...

  "God has made us what we are, and in our union, with Christ Jesus, he has created us for a life of good deeds, which he has already prepared for us to do” (Eph 2:10). The age of youth, especially the teenage years, is like setting sail out of a safe, small harbor (your home and family). Once the ship is at sea, it can turn many different ways and set its course for many different destinations. Soon, you will be making decisions that will affect the rest of your life: college, friends, marriage, career. You may be feeling insecure, unsure, and afraid, like a small boat sailing out into a great, dark, stormy sea. There is One greater than the sea, One who stilled the storms. Read Luke 8:22–25. If you “put your hand in the hand of the Man who stilled the waters”, he will lead you. He promised, “I will be with you always” (Mt 28:20, the very last verse in that Gospel). If you trust him to lead you, then your path through life will be the right one because it will be his path. I cann...

How do I live? There are 1800 commands in the Gospel - do I have to live them daily?  “I know Jesus said in this world we will have trouble and he has overcome the world (John 16:33), but it just seems like there are so many things I need to do. Do I focus on certain things over others? Or try to focus a little bit on everything? At the end of the day, all I want to hear is: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’ (Matthew 25:23).” That’s a pretty impressive list of things to do that he gives: Kill sin. Grow in the fruits of the Spirit. Be the best worker I can be. Pour yourself out for your church. Pursue people to disciple. Live a healthy lifestyle. Sabbath properly. Endure suffering. Oh my. But I think it will be helpful — even though at first it won’t seem helpful — to make sure that this young man sees that the situation is way more burdensome than he thinks it is, if he keeps approaching the Christian life a certain way. New Testament To-Do List F...

English: An anxious person (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Since you’re already reading this on some electronic device, I don’t need to elaborate. Lots of experts are talking about the negative effects this is having on us. Many of us feel it: the buzzing brain, the attention atrophy, the diminishing tolerance for reading, especially reading books. We’re becoming conditioned to distraction, and it’s harming our ability to listen and think carefully, to be still, to pray, and to meditate. Which means it is a spiritual danger, an evil from which we need God ’s deliverance (Matthew  6:13 ). The Causes of Distraction Distraction, at least the dangerous kind I’m referring to, is shifting our attention from something of greater importance to something of lesser importance. Our fundamental and most dangerous problem in distraction is in being distracted from God — our tendency to shift our attention orientation from the greatest Object in existence to countless lesser ones. T...