Ask Pastor John

Satan will try to put us to sleep in prayer. And he does so, most commonly, by tricking us into staying up too late the night before.

Is God present in hell, as John seems to say in Revelation 14:10 — or is he absent, as Paul seems to say in 2 Thessalonians 1:9?

Scripture describes the process of sanctification in many different ways. How can we weave the various strands together into one coherent picture?

Because Jesus loved Lazarus, the Gospel of John tells us, he did not come to him right away, but lingered and let him die. How is that love?

When temptation strikes, we need more than a vague sense of God’s goodness — we need specific promises. Pastor John shares his favorite passages for fighting sin.

If God aims to be glorified in this world, why is human history and the daily news filled with so much that dishonors him?

The love of money often lives where others least suspect, like in the hearts of Pharisees, miracle workers, and those who seem most moral.

Paul speaks of wrestling in prayer, and many of us use his phrase. But what might our prayer lives actually feel like if we wrestled like the apostle?

“Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them,” Paul writes. But what can a wife do if she finds herself with a harsh man?

How does God bring us from the grace of new birth to the glory of heaven? Pastor John explains eight essentials for Christian living from 2 Thessalonians 1:11–12.

Jesus tells us to give to those who ask, but Paul warns the church against giving to the lazy. How might we apply these teachings when we meet a panhandler?

If there is no forgiveness without shed blood, how could Jesus forgive sins apart from the sacrificial system and prior to his own death?

In an age of hate, Christians testify to God’s grace by praying for all kinds of people: high and low, white and black, Democrat and Republican, friend and enemy.

When God grants us a ministry, does his leading come to us through internal impulses, external affirmation, or some combination of the two?

Does Scripture ever command us to pray for unbelievers, or does it only command us to pray for the evangelists who speak to them?

Prayer is the easiest step of love, and it is also the most powerful. God can do far more for others in response to our prayers than we could ever do on our own.

God is honored when we do our jobs with technical excellence, and he is also honored when we give ourselves to the kinds of excellence that cannot be measured.

How can we require obedience of our children without provoking and discouraging them? Pastor John offers eight pitfalls for fathers.

Throughout Scripture, God warns that he will not hear the prayers of the disobedient. So do answered prayers depend on our holiness?

We will never plumb the depths of sin and grace merely from past experience. Only God’s word can tell us how lost and dead we were, and how found and alive we are.

In the early twentieth century, many Christian leaders lent their approval to the cause of Prohibition. Would Pastor John have done the same if he lived back then?

In Christ, God has chosen us from eternity, and called us in time, so that we would boast no longer in ourselves, but only in him and his great love.

Some teachers influence us so deeply that we find ourselves imitating them without trying. So how can we move past imitation to make biblical truth our own?

Paul says we all were dead apart from Christ, but he also says we died when we were united to Christ. In what sense, then, do dead men die?

Nothing but God can forever satisfy hearts that are made for God. And so, in great mercy, God loves us in a way that makes much of himself.