Devotions (Page 35)

Salt and Light 13 “You are the salt of the earth. … 14 “You are the light of the world. Matthew 5:13-15 God calls us to be salt and light in society.  This is especially difficult when the values of society go against what God’s word in the Bible.  Jesus teaches in the Be-Attitudes that when we speak to people in  society:                We come recognizing our poverty of spirit.                We come with tears                We come in humility                We…

This morning I woke up from the strangest dream… I was visiting my good friends Kelsi and Caleb Fullmer (who are actually a family I follow on Instagram and have never, ever met in real life). I had been eating white cheddar popcorn while Kelsi gave me a tour of their home. Her and I were laughing in the kitchen when Caleb came home and the very first thing he said was, “Why is there popcorn on the stairs??” For…

Dear LifeSpring Family, I have been trying to keep up with the young ones on the pastoral team in the area of scripture memory. It has not been an easy task. Dorothy has been my biggest and sadly, only cheerleader. She does not use Google calendar or for that matter, any written or electronic calendar. She remembers every appointment mentally in her head. So when I commented that I will be a good team player and memorize scripture along with…

Today I want to appreciate all you moms out there. Physical mama, spiritual mama, soon to be mama, one day mama – I actually want to appreciate every female in this house. If I ask you today why we appreciate the females in our lives – we could probably list 1000 things! We want to appreciate all the things you do – but not only do we want to appreciate the things our females do – more importantly we want…

In my couples discipleship one of the things that stood out to me was the power of learning and memorizing scripture. It is Step 4 of 10 in the ten steps to Grow Godly Character. To give you some context, the character trait I was working on was pride (not necessarily by choice but as things transpired throughout the week, pride seemed to be the culprit of my transgressions). During the process of dealing with my pride, I found that…

About ten years ago, a good friend of mine gave me one of those daily flip calendars that had a memory verse for each day. I won’t lie, in the moment I thought it was a little cheesy and wasn’t thrilled by the gift because, “I’m not that kind of person”… turns out I actually kind of am. It’s like an all-year-round Advent calendar… with less chocolate. But also with more reminders of who God is and who I am…

Dear LifeSpring Family, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” 1 Corinthians 11:26 We thank our Lord Jesus Christ that while we wait expectantly for His return, we are reminded that He is our propitiator and actively interceding and advocating for us. While there is an overlap between an intercessor and an advocate, there is also a difference. In general terms, intercession means that a third party…

As many of you have heard, from May to August I’ll be taking a leave of absence from my staff position at Lifespring to finish my PhD program (watch the announcement here: https://youtu.be/PhduQxbe9bw?t=2503). I’m glad for the leadership team being willing to let me take this time off to finish what God had put on my heart years ago, and I’m encouraged by the support of people in the Lifespring family who are praying for me and even taking some…

Have you ever wondered what love and hate look like? Over the past decade, love and hate have modified its descriptions in keeping with the times causing it to take many different forms and variations but one thing I noticed is that no matter what it looks like it follows the same process. I heard this analogy about love and hate through a metaphor of cutting and watering trees that gave me a little insight on the process of love…

What a priviledge it was to have our Deacon of Technology, Nick Chua, speak and share with the church family. As Nick shared his life journey he kept going back to a question deep within, Am I Worthy to be Loved? In the midst of youth and making bad decisions like being with friends who stole cars – am I worthy to be loved? In the days of growth, graduating from University, getting a job, having a salary – am…

In my first year of Psychology at YorkU, I remember writing a paper on whether I believed if one person can make a difference in this world. Based on my experiences with the relationships I had with people, it was easy to see that one person could make a difference in the world because multiple people made a difference in my life. When it came to people, the difference makers were very tangible to me. Interacting with humans will always…

This week the Lord has been convicting me of sins of commission (acts) and omission (not doing what I am supposed to do). To be entirely honest with the church family, it got me kind of down. I was disappointed in myself, I was wrestling with guilt, and all in all I felt what the Scripture describes as “downtrodden”. Yet God, in His loving mercy, brought me to this Scripture: 2 Corinthians 7:8-10Even if I caused you sorrow by my…