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WATCH VIDEOThere is only a couple of ways people manipulate. The one that we all recognize quickly, and the most common way is: if you don’t do this for me, I won’t do this for you; and if you don’t give me what I want, these will be the consequences. But I think the worst kind of manipulation is a love-based manipulation. It is not really love, but it pretends to be. It is very soft-spoken. It is very patient. It is very kind. It pretends to be truthful and pretends to be protecting you. But n …

WATCH VIDEOThis is a question I get a lot. The Bible is not actually in chapters, it’s in books. There are several different books divided into chapters and verses. But hands down, if you ask me, there is no question that you should start with the book of John. Or, as it is called—the Gospel of John. God’s Word is our instruction manual for how we should live this life. Jesus is our example. Jesus is like the picture. You look at the picture first. John paints a picture of who Jesus is …

WATCH VIDEO …is that I mislead you; that I wake up one day and realize that I misled thousands of people on social media; that I misled thousands of people by writing a book; and--even worse--that I misled my own family because I didn’t believe the truth. What concerns me the most is that I have a hard time finding any major social media influencers I agree with, or even any modern authors, who I agree with. So, if you think I am wrong, please let me know. I embrace criticism. I want cr …

WATCH VIDEO This may change the way you see everything. It did for me. The world says that unless you love yourself, you can’t love anyone else. And the world’s example used most often is this: You are on an airplane and the oxygen goes away. The masks drop down… Unless you put your mask on first, you can’t help anyone else put their mask on. So, unless you love yourself first, how are you ever going to love anyone else. Sounds like a pretty good point. But here is where it breaks do …

Did you know that if we allow someone to keep hurting us it's never because we love them? If we really love them, we only desire what is truly best for them. And we all know it is not best for them to be hurting people. If we really love them, we’ll make sure they know they are hurting us. Then we will ask them why they are hurting us. Then we will do anything in our power to stop them from hurting us or anyone else.  I understand we don’t control what other people do but we do control whet …

Well, you can do what I used to do. You can demand that you our loved. You can have very specific boundaries that tell people how to love you. Unfortunately, what you are going to realize over time is that if you fight to be loved, you actually kill love in your own life. You see, if I fight for you to love me, I kill love in our relationship. It’s not even our responsibility to make sure we are loved. It’s our responsibility to love.  The Good News is that we are already loved. But so …

Hi friend, One thing every big decision has in common is that it’s always a series of decisions, and we almost always have to change our minds. We make a decision based on what we know, what we see, and what we understand from where we are right now. That’s the best decision we can make. But as we move along, things change. We know more. We see more. We understand more, so we can make a better decision. The worst decision we can make is to set our course in a direction and weld the rudder in pla …

The world is not telling you this. Someone loving you or not loving you has nothing to do with anything you do or don’t do. It has nothing to do with you. But the lie we believe that leads to pride that can also lead to boastfulness is that we need to earn or become worthy of love. When the truth is that if you are truly loved or truly not loved, it’s never because of what you do or don’t do. It’s never because of what you have accomplished or failed to accomplish. The person that loves you has …

How to Deal with Your Past Your past isn’t the problem. The problem is we refuse to move on so we end up walking through life backwards. What happened to us may have been good or it may have been bad. But if we stay stuck on that, we walk through life backwards. Then our past becomes our problem. That is always rooted in selfishness. In other words, I hurt someone and I am not selfless enough to repent. So my past stays in my future and I keep walking through life backwards. Maybe someone hurt m …

Love is always kind, but it’s not always nice. Love is all of me for you. Love does what’s best for others without regard for itself. If I know someone who is consistently living a selfish life, or is consistently hurting other people--it may not seem nice to tell them they need to change, but telling them sure is kind. With our own children, whenever they do selfish things or are developing a selfish behavior, it may not seem nice to put them in time-out or give them repercussions for their sel …