Practical Faith

I truly surrendered my life to Jesus at age 17.  In the year that followed, I faced many frustrations in my new walk with the Lord, and the most tremendous change came when I met a young man who introduced me to the power of Scripture memory...

We frequently talk about “our Lord-and-Savior, Jesus Christ”.  Well, for me, the truth is, when I was 9, I did ask Jesus to be my “Savior”.  But I didn’t really ask Him to be “Lord” over my life until I was 17. When I did, the tone and direction of my life drastically shifted...

Today on Practical Faith, I want to share a few tips with you that has helped our devotions to be more engaging and effective for our family.  At our house, we do this about 3-4 days a week, and our devotions last for about 15-20 minutes each day.  We typically do it over dinner or lunch, depending on the day of the week and what activities we have going on that day...

Today on Practical Faith, we’ll wrap up a series on Family Devotions at Mealtime.  So far, we’ve talked about singing a short song of worship; reciting a classic Prayer, Creed, or Scripture passage together; reading & talking through a few verses from the Old & New Testaments; and reviewing a few simple questions-&-answers on the Christian faith known as a catechism.  Today, we will fo...

In today’s episode of Practical Faith, we continue talking through the Family Devotions routine we use at our house over mealtime.  My intention is not that you would copy these instructions exactly, but use them as a way to begin thinking about how you could integrate spiritual nourishment into your family mealtime routines.

Over the next three of episodes of Practical Faith, I want to provide deeper explanations of each of the simple elements of Family Devotions at Mealtime.  I am hopeful that these explanations will answer any questions and calm any fears that you may have about beginning family devotions with your family around the dinner table.

When Dianna and I created our Family Discipleship Plan together, our kids were 7, 6, and 2, and we decided to have a major part of our plan revolve around our daily family mealtime together.  We made a decision to reserve dinner as a sacred hour for our family, as often as we could, to gather around the table with the expressed purpose of connecting with each other and with God (and, for eating fo...

What’s your plan for praying with your kids?  How and when do you actually do it?  Moms and Dads want to pray with their kids, but can struggle to pinpoint exactly how & when to do it each day...  I struggled myself as a younger parent – I would do it several times a month, but it was just scattered & sporadic – I didn’t have a real solid plan like I would’ve liked, and I heard similar sen...

When I was a younger man with very young children, I loved God & I loved my family, but I knew little about being the spiritual leader of my home.  If you had asked me to describe the specific role God had given me as head of my household, I probably would have stammered through a nonspecific response that offered little in the way of practical application...  I needed a plan to help my discip...

What’s your next step?  When we entrust our lives to Jesus and submit ourselves to His will, we set out on an exciting, lifelong journey of walking with and growing with God!  But we rarely stop to identify a strategic path for our own growth...

If we will take the time to ask God to help us select specific targets to shoot for – for the next month, or year – your next step in your journey with Jesus – then you will know where to aim, you can measure your progress, AND you can celebrate the steps you take forward toward that goal with God!

Picture in your mind an archer’s bow and a quiver of arrows.  Now, in the sport of archery, what you aim at is obviously quite important!  But in our journey of faith with Jesus, we often just  shoot our “spiritual growth” arrows quite aimlessly.  Instead, let's determine our targets before we fire our spiritual growth “arrows” from the bow.  In our spiritual lives, it is important to talk wi...

Trusting God completely means having faith that He knows what’s best for your life.  Why doesn’t the tree in Jeremiah 17 worry in times of drought, while the bush can’t even SEE the blessings when they come?  Because the tree has sent its roots down deep, to where a more eternal source of nourishment is located...

Trusting God is an act of worship.  Psalm 147 tells us that even though God created everything - and He certainly takes pleasure in all of His creation - His greatest joy comes when we place our complete trust in Him.  After wrestling with this for a season, I felt like God was saying to me, “Nick, stop trying to figure Me out.  Just walk with Me in obedience and get to know Me.  And I will give y...

Hebrews 11 is like the Hall of Fame for Biblical heroes.  Some have even called it the "Hall of Faith."  These people trusted in God, not because their lives were perfect and pain-free.  Quite the opposite!  They chose to trust in God in & through & because of & in spite of the challenging circumstances in their lives...

Jeremiah 17:7-8 says,  “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord and whose confidence is in God.  He will be like a tree planted by the living streams of water, which sends down its roots beneath the stream.  He will not fear when the heat comes, nor despair in the year of drought.  His leaves will always be green, and he will never fail to produce fruit in season.”

The phrase “Like Trees Planted” has been significant in my life with Jesus.  It summarizes my goal in raising my own children in the Lord, and in serving other Christians as a pastor.  It is also what I chose to name my web site of free discipleship resources online: LikeTreesPlanted.com.  The foundational Scripture for this phrase is Jeremiah 17:5-8.  This Scripture demonstrates the desired outco...

Fasting and prayer remind our physical bodies that there is another more important appetite – a hunger and a thirst for God.  To fast is to give up something in your life to make more room for God.  Fasting is about starving the flesh and feeding the spirit.  When you fast and pray, you starve out the sinful desires within you, and you indulge the spiritual hunger for God within you.

Have you ever experienced a failure in life that you thought disqualified you from being loved by God, accepted by God, used by God?  What do you do?  When my own son makes a mistake, when he sins, what do I want him to do?  As his father, what do I desire from my son after he makes a mistake?  1-be honest – talk to me about it, 2-take responsibility to make it right, and then 3-move on, confident...

In previous episodes, I’ve highlighted 7 essential Scriptures related to failure and falling INTO God’s loving, restorative grace.  In today’s edition of Practical Faith, I’d like to continue discussing the concept of falling forward by focusing in on one of the Bible’s most amazing stories of redemption: Jesus’ beach-side breakfast with Peter in John 21:1-17.

The reality is, we all fall.  So, what is most important is how we respond to falling: Do you fall away from God’s love?  Do you fall away from your faith in Him?  Or do you fall into Him, into His grace, into His redemptive abilities?  Do you fall back upon your faith in His transforming power?  Today, we will talk about what to do, and how to respond, when you fall or fail as a follower of Jesus...

When my kids were learning to walk, one of the very first things I taught them was how to fall.  Knowing how to fall is crucial for good, confident walking – for walking without fear of falling.  Like children learning to walk, we are going to fall.  How does our heavenly Father want us to respond to and deal with falling?  In today’s episode, I want to talk about how to fall in such a way that gi...

We learn from Job 1:6 and Zechariah 3:1 that the name “Satan” actually means “accuser”.  Shame comes from “the father of lies...who was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44).  Jesus reminds us that “there is no truth in [Satan]” and that he “comes only to steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10).  The accuser of our souls achieves his murderous purposes for us when we accept his condemnation of...

The feelings of guilt and shame do NOT come from your loving, heavenly Father!  Neither do condemnation or accusation!  Sadly, these are common feelings in the life of a disciple striving to live and love like Jesus.  But they are not from God.  I disappoint myself constantly, and I project my own feelings of disappointment, disdain, and disgust onto God, as if that must be how He feels about me -...

Through the thousands of years that have gone by, the millions of stories that have been told in Christendom, and the billions of people that have walked the earth; from the Garden of Eden to the present, God has been the same God, and His Words have remained through it all.  Isaiah 40:8 – “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.”  The God we sing about and pra...