One of two things happens over time. Either your theology will conform to your reality, and your expectations will get smaller and smaller until you can hardly believe God for anything. Or your reality will conform to your theology, and your expectations will get bigger and bigger until you can believe God for absolutely everything!

We don't see the world as it is; we see the world as we are.

Here's the bottom line: where you are geographically affects where you are spiritually. A few years ago I came up with a simple formula: change of place + change of pace = change of perspective.

Most of us spend more time with advertisements than with Scripture.

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." Colossians 3:2

A healthy church is a congregation that increasingly reflects God's character as his character has been revealed in his Word.

As in every other topic, our regular practice as Christians should be to seek God's will in his Word, either by explicit command or by reasoning from principles in the Word. We want to see that the answer is in the Bible.

What about for your church? What boundaries has the gospel overrun that society fiercely respects?

The truly changed, truly converted, truly Christian heart can say with John Newton, "I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I wish to be. I am not what I hope to be. Yet I can truly say, I am not what I once was. By the grace of God, I am what I am.

May John Newton's prayer for himself be our prayer to God for our churches: "I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I wish to be. I am not what I hope to be. Yet I can truly say, I am not what I once was. By the grace of God I am what I am.

Are you letting culture, not scripture, determine your sexuality, how you date, how you present yourself, how you engage in certain relationships with members of the opposite sex? We need to be very clear that the way we do life is different than the rest of the world.

You aren't what's been done to you but what Jesus has done for you. You aren't what you do but what Jesus has done. What you do doesn't determine who you are. Rather, who you are in Christ determines what you do.