Devotions (Page 44)

Have you ever felt like you’re not quite good enough? Like, just about anyone on this big old planet is better qualified or confident or whatever-it-may-be, than you? Earlier this week I was feeling especially discouraged. I felt out of sorts and not like myself at all. There were moments when the problem wasn’t even that I “wasn’t myself” …it was more like I didn’t even know who “myself” was; like something was missing. And it was! Somewhere along the…

I remember the first time I ever heard the voice of God. It was a Friday night and Overflow (youth group) met in the church basement to do something called intercession. Ryan was singing and we simply sat asking the Lord what to pray for or sang along in worship. I had no idea how or what to pray for – but I enjoyed worship, I enjoyed His presence, and I enjoyed the friends around me. In the midst of…

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 1. A New Covenant – Hebrews 8:6,13 – an upside-down value system.2. A New Love of Grace and Truth – Ephesians 2:8-10; John 1:14,173. A New Life with Eternity in Sight – John 14:1-7 Taken from the book Irresistible by Andy Stanley (page 229) “Full of grace and truth. John shared a meal with and listened to the teaching of a man described as full of grace and truth. Not the balance between grace and…

For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. isaiah 41:13 Over the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about Pastor Alvin’s message about moving forward in challenging times. One line that Pastor Alvin shared in his devotion especially stuck out to me. He said, “God’s word is always instructing us to move forward and not stay stuck and worse still, look back.” I…

After reading the book Holy Sexuality and The Gospel by Christopher Yuan as a pastoral team, one of the takeaways I got from the book was that empathy is our greatest tool to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the World. No matter your race, gender, sexuality, or anything you place your identity in, Jesus wants to take that place. But having any conversation about such things without the holy spirit can be rather futile. I believe that empathy…

Yesterday, we had the privilege of hearing our Elder, Jonathan Koh, speak about the challenges of being in the world, but not of the world.  There is truly a struggle in the world today figuring out “who am I”? As Jon transparently shared yesterday, one of his greatest struggles was figuring out if he identified as Singaporean or Canadian. Since he spent part of his life in Singapore and part of his life in Canada, he felt like he didn’t fit it…

A number of year ago the Lord used my cell phone to give me a valuable object lesson. Nothing seemed to be working properly and there were bizarre glitches taking place that I couldn’t seem to clear? (Does one clear a glitch…?) Anyway, after trying to delete pictures and old text messages, I realized that my phone needed to go through a series of updates. I had seen – and ignored – the notifications. Reminders were a nuisance until there…

Dear LifeSpring Family, Ever since the vaccine for Covid-19 became available, there has been much said, written, and posted about whether one should vaccinate or not. In the past several weeks up to today, I have had several discussions about the merits of one or the other. Today I had lunch with a colleague of mine from FamilyLife Canada, who has decided not to be vaccinated. And around dinnertime, I made a call to our dear friends in Kelowna out…

We are living in unprecedented times. Many of us have never experienced a pandemic before that lasted so long, and affecting every country in the world. My grandmother who is turning 102 have said she has never lived through a time like this. We are also experiencing multiple challenges like climate change resulting in horrible forest fires, devastating flooding, and the challenges that are very unfamiliar to us. Political instability in many parts of the world. Tragic human suffering is…

“Jesus traveled among all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, announcing the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness. Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were troubled and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The size of the harvest is bigger than you can imagine, but there are few workers. Therefore, plead with the Lord of the harvest to send…

Today I want to share with you a word that God spoke to me, that I believe might help some people out on the way to making every effort to grow in maturity. Over the past couple months I’ve been trying to up my cardio by jogging at the high school track near my house. Every time I would go, it seems like I would always gas out at 2 and a ½ laps. Sometimes I could push it to…

As the people of God we know that we have been called to be a blessing to those around us. At LifeSpring especially we continue to return to this Kingdom reality: We are blessed to be a blessing! While we often refer back to God’s initial call to Abraham (Genesis 12) and the covenant they formed together – the same promises that continue to bind us to the Lord – Jesus also taught about what it means to be blessed.…