Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 4184. Most believers, if they walk with God long enough, come to know what I call the dry places, and the ministry of the Spirit in wilderness seasons is one of the least understood and most needed truths in the Christian life. By a wilderness season I mean those stretches when God feels distant,…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 4183. When we talk about the Spirit in suffering, we are touching one of the most tender places in the Christian life, because suffering is where our theology either becomes real or falls apart. It is one thing to confess that the Holy Spirit indwells the believer when life is calm. It is another…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 4182. Almost every Christian I have ever pastored has had at least one sin that seems to cling closer than the rest, and the longing to overcome a besetting sin is one of the most painful and persistent struggles of the believing life. It may be a temper that flares before you can stop…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 4181. The difference between being Spirit-led and impulse-led is one of the most practical things a Christian can learn, and one of the most commonly muddled. A sudden strong feeling rises up, an urge to speak, to give, to act, to walk away, and we baptise it with the language of guidance. We say…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 4180. When people ask me how the Spirit and marriage decisions relate, they usually want one of two things. Either they are single and longing to know whether a particular person is the one God has for them, or they are already courting and want assurance that they are not making a terrible mistake….
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 4179. Few questions touch daily Christian living as closely as the relationship between the Spirit and the conscience, because both of them speak to us from within and we do not always find it easy to tell their voices apart. You feel a check before you say something unkind. You feel a weight after…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 11111. Christian journalling is the practice of writing down what God is teaching us, what we are praying, and how we are responding to His Word, and it raises a fair question. Is keeping a journal a genuinely biblical practice, or is it just a modern self-help habit dressed in Christian clothes? I want…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 04042. Paul tells us not to grieve the Spirit, and I have noticed over the years that most believers nod at that instruction without ever asking what it actually looks like on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. The command sits in Ephesians 4:30, tucked into a passage about how we speak to one another and…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 00049. It is entirely possible to be doctrinally correct and spiritually dead at the very same time, and the Bible says so without flinching for a moment. A person can hold the right positions on the Trinity, the cross, and the resurrection, can argue them ably against all comers, and can still carry a…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 0034 When people ask me what resources will help their doctrinal growth, I always start in the same place, because the answer matters more than any book list. The single most important resource for doctrinal growth is the Bible itself, read carefully, prayerfully and often. Every other tool is a servant of that one,…